I don't really know how to rate this. This is no Catcher in the Rye for the digital age, despite the Times quote on the cover. 2.5 stars?
It was writteI don't really know how to rate this. This is no Catcher in the Rye for the digital age, despite the Times quote on the cover. 2.5 stars?
It was written by Alice Oseman when she was 17 and published at 19.
She then went on to write the addictive binge-read Radio Silence, which I adored.
Radio Silence employs a LOT of the same plotlines as Solitaire, but the execution is far superior. If you are looking to read either one of these, ALWAYS PICK RADIO SILENCE.
The writing is pretty darn good for 17. I didn't have a problem with the quirky characters (Michael Holden is great). The beginning is super slow, however by the end I felt some emotional lift-off and was satisfied that I had read it. But I did have a problem with Solitaire itself. Other books employ this "high school terrorized by mystery blog" to much better effect (e.g. Gossip Girl, One of us is Lying). Solitaire just didn't quite make sense here; it was weird and lame and based on a premise that was missing more than a few screws.
All in all, I'm a fan of Alice Oseman, and Solitaire really is the start of her universe. If you're a fan, you have to read it. But if you have not yet read a book by Alice Oseman, don't start here because it might cause you to miss out on the wonderful Radio Silence, which she wrote at the ripe old age of 20 rather than 17. But what a difference those years make. ...more
A magnificent continuation of the series that builds on the intricacies of the Six Duchies' political web while deepening our understanding o4.5 stars
A magnificent continuation of the series that builds on the intricacies of the Six Duchies' political web while deepening our understanding of its main players.
Fitz's relationship with Molly feels like nothing more significant than teenage obsession, but this is obviously leading somewhere and there is no doubt Molly still has a role to play. However, Nighteyes was an excellent new character and Hobb's further exploration of both the Skill and the Wit - and those who wield these gifts - was intriguing.
Skillful plotting and Hobb's willingness to take on the high stakes that have been gambled by the main players (rather than continue to milk them for more books) makes the end superbly thrilling and masterfully executed - it's a spectacular finale to a very satisfying installment in the series....more
I previously read and enjoyed her book The Dinner List, which had its fair share of flaws, but ended up beRebecca Serle does not write perfect books.
I previously read and enjoyed her book The Dinner List, which had its fair share of flaws, but ended up being a fairly emotional and thought-provoking read. It's based on a simple premise - if you could invite any five people to dinner, who would they be? - and then takes off from there into a mix of reality and fantasy.
Similarly, In Five Years has the appearance of being a light read, but digs in much deeper, touching on heavy topics that might have you tearing up. This book, too, starts with a simple premise - where do you think you'll be in five years? - and then proceeds to blow the roof off of what protagonist Dannie Kohan is so certain her future contains.
However.
The execution of this book had me grinding my teeth in frustration. While I admit that I flew through it, helped along by incredibly short chapters (often just 3 pages in an already short book - Serle moves through five years of plot in 250 pages), I found this book to be pretty glaringly upper-middle-class privileged white people of New York material. This doesn't often bother me, and I don't particularly seek out diverse books, but in this book, it did. There is a LOT of materialism in this book, and a lot of it is around food. There is food mentioned on every page. All these people do is eat out and order in, and we hear about every single meal, every item ordered, and all the previous times these characters met and ate in the same place. For God's sake, when her fiance is meeting her in Bryant Park for lunch, we even hear from Dannie about the proximity of two restaurants to the park and why it makes sense that they order from them. There are also ridiculous lines about spending $700 on dinners ("oh well") and buying $3000 wedding dresses within 10 minutes of being in the store (and then fantasizing about ordering a custom Oscar de la Renta wedding dress, no matter the cost). This kind of talk bores me to death. I really don't care where they ate, how much they spent, and how much they earn, how much it cost to renovate their apartment, that their suit was Theory and their boss wore custom Armani, and that they have been sneaking Botox injections behind their fiance's back since the age of 29 (I'm not making any of this up - it's all in the story) - this is all seriously irritating padding. And that padding was a good 15% of the words in this book - that is not an exaggeration.
The food/spending comments are just an indication of the type of people we are talking about. The ones who fly to Paris for a weekend on a whim, and buy apartments in Manhattan while in their 20s. I'm not saying that they do not have substance, because - even if they are a bit cliched - the characters are fine. I just hate that their lives revolve around these cliche New Yorker activities. But then again, maybe they are just that shallow.
I really loved the premise of the book, but unfortunately it didn't live up to its promise. I'm a sucker for Sliding Doors-type stories about alternative paths in life, and this one had a great moment when Dannie wakes up, five years into the future, in a place and with a man she doesn't recognize at all. This part was really well done. It was getting to that point in time, five years down the road, that was full of Hamptons summers and endless lunches/dinners that drained the excitement from the story. Dannie is dreading this December 15th date so much that she'll tell you all about the tip they left at the Greek diner on West 29th Street rather than actually put her feet forward and get there.
Once she does get there, the ending wasn't what I was expecting. I don't think Serle got it wrong, but it was much less romantic than I thought it would be. ...more
I realize from reading the Author's Note that this is a very personal book for Helen Hoang, and my critique is purely about thWhat a disappointment...
I realize from reading the Author's Note that this is a very personal book for Helen Hoang, and my critique is purely about the book itself and not about the experience of caregiving or of autism burnout.
How did I find this book? Unbearable to read for at least 50% of its length, long-winded and frustrating, and actually unbelievable. I find it very hard to believe that a character like Anna is so deeply delusional about herself and everything in her life that she behaves this way. She smiles at a man she is no longer in love with as he announces to her entire family that they are getting married? After her self-awareness epiphany? Because she doesn't want to make things awkward for his mom???? I'm sorry... this was the biggest WTF moment of all. Because as hard it is to believe that a grown woman would drop everything to care for her sick father (and I'm talking about the changing adult diapers and force feeding type of care), would continue to play the role designated to her by her family from birth, and would miserably, willingly trudge through months of suffering, maybe... somehow... in a very deeply traditional Chinese family, or out of an extreme sense of guilt, that could happen. But it sure as heck isn't fun to read about. I still find it difficult to believe that a 20-something-year-old woman would allow herself to be trampled on that way by family, whether she's on the autism spectrum or not. What does that have to do with anything? It just doesn't fit at all. This is the behavior of either a much older person, or someone who is much more cowed than Anna (e.g. owes her family a massive debt, is guilt-ridden by a crime she committed, not someone who lives on her own, has a bright future, and pays her own rent).
And poor, poor Quan. This was supposed to be his book, but instead it's hijacked by Anna, a character it was very hard for me to like. I continue to be baffled by what Quan sees in Anna besides physical attraction. And I find it completely ridiculous that someone in Anna's position would jump into a new relationship - it was actually completely inappropriate given the state of her life, her heart and her head. Watching Quan flounder, trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, was frustrating and degrading for him.
If we're talking about caregiving, an annoying aside - Anna finds herself having a mental breakdown while caring for her father (totally understandable, by the way - that's why there are professionals trained to do this). But yet she expects Quan to move in with her and nurse her through, in her own words, nearly a year of repeated Humpty Dumpty falling-off-the-wall cycles as she broaches each one of her many issues, including seeking out psychiatric help. So in a very ironic move, he becomes her full-time caretaker - and while it wasn't OK for Anna, we're supposed to be OK with Quan doing it... why? Because Helen Hoang is writing a Knight in Shining Armor? It's absolutely ridiculous.
Overall, and upon further thought, I really hated this book. However, I'm giving it 2 stars because it did have moments (mostly during the first half) that I enjoyed. This makes Hoang's last two books complete misses with me, which is such a shame because I adored The Kiss Quotient....more
I listened to the audiobook and admit that it was easy to tune out some of the more technical and repetitive parts of this novella. I found m2.5 stars
I listened to the audiobook and admit that it was easy to tune out some of the more technical and repetitive parts of this novella. I found my ears glazing over more than I would have liked - the narrative didn't properly hold my attention. It was a little bit... boring. And when it had the chance to be really clever and exciting, like in the showdown when Murderbot is executing his plot, it fizzles. I like the whole concept, and I generally like the space adventures I have read, but this one fell a little flat for me. It was neither thought-provoking, nor completely innovative and inventive, nor high-stakes in terms of the adventure/mystery. I never fully invested myself into the characters. I'm going to have to say I'm rounding it down. There wasn't anything bad about it - it was just OK....more
Casey gets anxious. Really, cripplingly anxious. She is holding it all in ("this is not nothing"), literally clenching every muscle over and over in hCasey gets anxious. Really, cripplingly anxious. She is holding it all in ("this is not nothing"), literally clenching every muscle over and over in her body. And then things finally start to move. There is this release, like when the faucet is turned on and the pipes have been turned off and finally the water starts running. The water that comes out is brown and rusty, and she is angry and she is lonely and she has been clenching for so long that's it is so hard to take a step forward that is good, but the water starts running clear again. At 31, it starts running clear again.
"I hate male cowardice and the way they always have each other's backs. They have no control. They justify everything their dicks make them do. And they get away with it. Nearly every time. My father peered through a hole at girls, possibly at me, in our locker room. And when he got caught, he got a party and a cake."
I liked this book a lot. It wasn't perfect, but Lily King is a great writer....more
This did improve in the second half... but it was very difficult to get through the first half.
The first third was ridiculous. Piper comes off as the This did improve in the second half... but it was very difficult to get through the first half.
The first third was ridiculous. Piper comes off as the most annoying protagonist in romance - it's impossible to root for her. And Brendan is another Luke from Gilmore Girls wannabe (sorry, but the beanie-wearing, stuck-in-his-ways grump persona is SO not sexy to me).
I did almost call it quits on this one. Now that I've finished, I'm still not sure that the end justified the book.
The two romantic leads - Piper and Brendan - didn't really evolve and their arcs (and therefore their dialogue, actions, and instincts) are incredibly unsurprising and obvious. That really sucks because part of the joy of reading romantic comedies is the sparkle, the awkwardness, the dialogue that makes you swoon... and this book just didn't have it. Brendan still takes every opportunity to grunt instead of speak, and Piper still wears inappropriate sparkly designer clothes to dive bars in the fishing town of Westport, WA. The two side characters - Piper's sister, Hannah, and Brendan's BF, Fox - are clearly being set up for their own spin-off, but - spoiler alert - they're more boring and even more poorly matched than Piper and Brendan. So that's not even in the stars for me.
The arc of this book was highly predictable. Here's the concept in a nutshell, which you've seen in a thousand films and books: spoiled rich girl makes a big mistake (fill in the blank: crashes her car, hurts herself/someone else, gets arrested...) and gets sent by her rich daddy to learn some "valuable lessons" by (gasp) actually working in a (gasp) normal town and immediately attracts the eye of the local (fill in the blank: mechanic, policeman, fishing boat captain...) and ends up realizing that, hey, it's kind of nice being normal (especially when worshipped by the sexual favor-bestowing local/s). The end.
So it's as simple as that. Not the kind of book you feel from your head to your toes. Not the kind of book you want to throw in the fireplace and gleefully watch burn - just your run-of-the-mill romance. 2.5 stars....more
First of all I knew the perpetrator early on and that was a bit disappointing. As soon as Buckley hid the laptop, she became What the f?
SPOILERS AHEAD
First of all I knew the perpetrator early on and that was a bit disappointing. As soon as Buckley hid the laptop, she became Suspect #1. The little scene with Olivia and the photos in her dad's closet was another hint. But I still wasn't sure exactly how or why she did this. Because why pin all of this on her father, the only family member she has left?
I still don't buy this and Alafair Burke frustratingly does little but speculate in one paragraph Buckley's motives in the last pages of the book. How the heck did she get the gun? Why did she stash it in her father's picnic basket, pointing all fingers back to both Jack and herself? Even if I could understand why she shot Malcolm Neely, why shoot and kill Tracy and the homeless guy as well? Tracy honestly wasn't that big a threat - she was a 20 year old girl, not a blackmailing mastermind. Couldn't they have dealt with her some other way than public mass murder? Geez.
It honestly didn't seem like Buckley hated her father so much as to create this elaborate plot to murder people in public and set him up as the fall guy. Even if she was dead-set on murdering Neely, why drag her father all the way to the football field at the exact hour unless to completely pin the blame on him? Buckley's a freaking criminal genius. So if she plotted and executed all this, then she definitely intended to hug her father and transfer the gun residue to him. But throughout the book, you just don't even get a glimpse into this maniacal hatred she bears for Jack. So is she a total and complete sociopath?
Another thing is the obvious parallel to Todd Neely. Todd and Buckley are essentially the same: 15 year olds who carried guns into public places in NY and opened fire. After all of the book's ranting about Neely's bad parenting, Jack's daughter ends up being even more of a psycho and Jack takes the fall for her? For God's sake, the whole book was about how Malcolm Neely was to blame for not seeing the warning signs and preventing his son from opening fire at Penn Station. That's what the whole lawsuit is about. But Jack lets Buckley walk off scot-free from her own public triple homicide? Hypocritical up the wazoo!
No. It's very, very convoluted and there are too many unexplained loose ends for me to rate this higher. I did enjoy the book, but, again, I have to ask... WHAT THE F?...more
There is way too much going on plot-wise and it's by far too much in the hands170 pages in and I'm calling this.
This is an absolutely ridiculous book.
There is way too much going on plot-wise and it's by far too much in the hands of this author who offers up clumsily-executed cliffhangers in choppy prose. The main character, supposedly a detective, has the permanent look of a deer caught in the headlights.
It's the dead of winter and a massive storm is hitting the Alps. A body is found in the outdoor pool, wearing a full set of winter gear, creepy, old-fashioned breathing apparatus fixated involuntarily to her face, wrists bound, and three fingers cut off at the knuckles. None of these clues rang alarm bells for our super-capable detective. It's only when she sees the sandbag at the bottom of the pool does she think, "Oh... this. It isn't an accident... She's been killed." That is a literal quote from our enchanting leading lady's thoughts following this scene. HELLO! Literally every other human being on site had already figured that out. Her incompetency and wincing anxiety are too much for me to endure.
A wet blanket would have made a better narrator and a more convincing detective.
I didn't go into this expecting it to be profound. A murder on an isolated, exclusive wedding set off of Ireland's rugged coast? This was jus3.5 stars
I didn't go into this expecting it to be profound. A murder on an isolated, exclusive wedding set off of Ireland's rugged coast? This was just as soapy and entertaining as the blurb promised.
The identity of the victim was left a mystery until the end (a plot device I liked), but the victim was too hated to have really been anyone else. The perfect storm of potential murderers all with motives both obvious and murky lent this narrative a chaotic, frenetic feel, especially as the characters start being devastated by reveals that are all somehow related to this hurricane of bad news. Many of the bad guys don't get their comeuppence in this story, but Foley has drawn a myriad of sneering, nasty characters (especially men) who have done some pretty horrific, but all too realistic, bad deeds. These side stories shown a steady, interesting spotlight on men behaving badly.
As Lucy Foley steered me from cake cutting to body gutting, I found myself gleefully enjoying being a fly on the wall at her wedding murder mystery shebang....more
The story behind Pixar is pretty incredible (I did not know of Steve Jobs's involvement in the company!), and while this book's focus was on managemenThe story behind Pixar is pretty incredible (I did not know of Steve Jobs's involvement in the company!), and while this book's focus was on management strategies in a creative workplace, there were a delightful number of anecdotes about the launch of Pixar and what went into the making of its roster of hit films. Read it for the management advice, read it if you're a creative person looking for more effective ways to work within a company or corporation, and read it if you're a fan of moviemaking. Obviously I've never met the guy, but Ed Catmull comes across as probably the best boss on the planet. The guy is obviously extraordinarily gifted, but he also sounds genuinely warm, caring, and super invested in the people who make Pixar what it is....more
I listened to the BBC radio production of this book, which was very enjoyable.
But I had a number of issues with this plot. Spoilers ahead!
At3.5 stars
I listened to the BBC radio production of this book, which was very enjoyable.
But I had a number of issues with this plot. Spoilers ahead!
At the start of this book, Nick has had four attempts on her life made, including one right in front of Hercule Poirot when she is shot at in the hotel garden in which he's staying. What is Nick's actual motive in setting herself up as the victim of a would-be murderer? If she is after her cousin Maggie's secret fortune, inherited from pilot Michael Seton who does on a round-the-world trip, then why can't she just invite Maggie - who is already planning to come down to visit Nick that Tuesday - to visit a day early? I'm sure that Nick could have found a way to kill Maggie without arousing suspicion about herself. Why did she need to invent this very complex plot that someone is trying to kill her (Nick), draw attention to herself, involve Poirot and Hastings and the police, and take all these risks in order to have an excuse that the murderer killed Maggie by mistake thinking Maggie was Nick? It seems much easier to come up with a clever way to kill Maggie in a way that regular English detectives would never suspect (especially as Nick is Maggie's loving cousin and has no motive)?
A couple of Nick's "near misses" at the beginning were also never satisfactorily explained at the end. How did she get shot at in the garden if she's the would-be murderer? Or did she just shoot her own hat at home and drop the bullet in the garden where she knew Poirot would find it? And also - her car brakes being tampered with. Jim Lazarus said they weren't, but the auto mechanic swore they were. Was he paid off by Nick? This was never explained (at least not in the radio play).
At the end during Poirot's "little comedy", when the plot is being revealed in a number of clever tricks, there are a number of strange things that happen that throw some added confusion on what is already a pretty complicated case, e.g. Freddie Rice's drug addict husband showing up at Poirot's seance to try to shoot Freddie? Huh? This guy is not part of the book at all and just comes out of the blue at the novel's critical moment and tries without any provocation to kill his wife? This was just too weird and too random; also - the Crofts - their role in this was so odd. They were holding onto the will of a young, vivacious, and healthy young woman in the hopes that... she might die? They could have been waiting another sixty years. I really didn't quite get their role. (Then again, it could have been the radio play that didn't clearly explain this).
While the truth behind this complicated story is very interesting, there really wasn't any way to guess why the criminal did what they did. And there are a few too many convoluted plot points for me to really love this one....more
This was a good one! Set in the lush tropical climate of Tahiti, with fantastic bits of local flavor, fauna and flora, this book was action-packed. ItThis was a good one! Set in the lush tropical climate of Tahiti, with fantastic bits of local flavor, fauna and flora, this book was action-packed. It read like a female-led teenage James Bond movie, complete with gambling, smuggling, scuba diving, shark attacks, and - of course - murder. Nancy is without her trusty friends, but there are plenty of characters and suspects who keep the scenes populated with interesting characters. This one has a lot of twists and a really interesting backstory about the mysterious boating accident and death of a famous Hollywood film actress. It was great!...more
This book held all the promise to be wonderful, based on the premise and the excellent first chapter, but fell flat in the execution.
For the first 70This book held all the promise to be wonderful, based on the premise and the excellent first chapter, but fell flat in the execution.
For the first 70% of the book, nothing happens.
Literally, years pass during the first 70% (three to be exact) ... and nothing happens. While reading, you think you are building towards some kind of insane climax, but there are so many false starts and fits and stops along the way that I can easily understand why so many readers DNF'd this book. I nearly did, too.
This book was just severely underwhelming for me. It was strange and gross and slow and repetitive, and absolutely infuriating. Just a very unpleasant reading experience. It felt like it was set in the 60s, not the 90s. The way the women were written and the way their husbands treated them was very unrealistic (and Patricia's husband Carter was the most vile of all) - sorry. There's no way that this man was living right next door to Patricia, that rats ate her mother-in-law alive, and all these other things happened (like the van in the woods), and nobody believed her.
(Yet people in this book are named Horse, Kitty, Pony, Honey, Blue, and Slick, among about a dozen other ridiculous names. Because that's believable.)
The end delivered, but honestly this book made me feel queasy and bored throughout, like a long airplane ride. You know where you're headed - there's no other possible destination, given the title - but it takes forever to get there and waves of nausea accompany you the entire way. The premise is obviously gimmicky, but nowhere in this book was I having fun as a reader, or enjoying myself. And Grady Hendrix couldn't flip this gimmick into a story to love, admire or engage with - it just feels hollow. Like an airplane ride. Like a reality TV show. Like eating a tasteless, high-calorie snack.
There's a lot of buzzy marketing but not a lot of substance here. Not recommended....more
What a wonderful story and what wonderful writing. Take a look at this paragraph:
Winnie had grown up with order. She was used to it. Under the pitileWhat a wonderful story and what wonderful writing. Take a look at this paragraph:
Winnie had grown up with order. She was used to it. Under the pitiless double assaults of her mother and grandmother, the cottage where she lived was always squeaking clean, mopped and swept and scoured into limp submission. There was no room for carelessness, no putting things off until later. The Foster women had made a fortress out of duty. Within it, they were indomitable. And Winnie was in training.
I read Tuck Everlasting as a child, and listened to the audiobook as an adult. What a magical concept, and what a smart way to introduce to children the concepts of life, death, growth and change. The book is a little on the slow and ponderous side, but it's a beautiful story filled with absolutely perfect sentences....more
Leilani has a great writing style that I'm going to call pointy. It's sharp and often uncomfortable; it jabs and it also takes fast turns as 2.5 stars
Leilani has a great writing style that I'm going to call pointy. It's sharp and often uncomfortable; it jabs and it also takes fast turns as she veers from one excellent sentence to another. However - I did not enjoy this book and that's due entirely to the plot itself (1 star for the plot). About a third of the way through, when lead Edie loses her job and moves into the suburban home of her married lover, together with his wife and adopted daughter, things get weird (and not in a good way). Overall, this is a very disjointed work.
So what've we got here? - A narrator, Edie, who's 23 years old and pretty difficult to stomach. She's lost her job because she violated every HR rule in the book (for no apparent reason and it's never explained). Rather than head to the nearest Duane Reade or Gap to make ends meet, she wallows in self-pity and moves into the suburban home of her married lover (because that is preferable to working a cash register?). She spends hours smoking joints, killing cockroaches, playing video games, scrolling social media, taking trains, and also handouts from her lover's wife, Rebecca, and spends months in this limbo being used by everyone in the household. And if that wasn't enough of a turnoff, there's also an incredibly long, boring and bizarre stint at the New York Comicon at the end of this yellow brick road.
- Her adultering lover, Eric, is absolutely unappealing in every sense, including looks and personality. He's an archivist in his late 40s who's looking for a thrill with a 23-year old. Boring enough for you? This relationship is just bizarre. It doesn't seem like either Edie or Eric particularly like one another, and when there is voluntary choking and abrasive smacking across the face, this union becomes even more baffling to explain, and Leilani does not do a good job of helping us understand why they're together. This is dark, loveless and kind of sick.
- His wife, Rebecca, who's a doctor who performs autopsies. She also gardens and occasionally strips down and moshes at death metal concerts.
Need I go on?
No amount of great writing could have saved this disaster of a plot, which - after the first third - becomes completely repetitive and boring. The end is predictable. The perspective of the 23-year-old narrator is unsurprising and I don't think it's very enjoyable for adults to read about (I'm not even 15 years older than this narrator, and I still read the occasional YA book, but her neediness and self-destruction were unbearable to read).
I might read Leilani's next book, but if the plot stinks of weird power sex plays between completely vanilla men and insecure 20-somethings, and a lot of artful language around killing cockroaches and playing video games, then I'll pass, thanks....more
While I must applaud Yuval Noah Harari for his clarity of thought, his curious mind, and his deep thinking about Big Issues, personally I found this tWhile I must applaud Yuval Noah Harari for his clarity of thought, his curious mind, and his deep thinking about Big Issues, personally I found this to be a little boring. The parts on Power, Justice and particularly Immigration were excellent. Some of the other chapters fell short for me, specifically the last chapter - Meaning - during which Harari uses The Lion King film as the example upon which to base much of the message. I found there to be a lot of repetition throughout, and not in a good way. The same ideas and language continued to echo through many of the chapters....more
I didn't fall in love with this one. It felt very, very formulaic. While I really liked Vanessa's character and her Youtuber lifestyle, I didn't fall I didn't fall in love with this one. It felt very, very formulaic. While I really liked Vanessa's character and her Youtuber lifestyle, I didn't fall for Adrian at all. I couldn't get into him as a lead and not as a romantic partner for Vanessa, either.
Though it had its fair share of problems, The Friend Zone was funnier and sexier by far....more
The first 500 pages of this book were teeth-grittingly unbearable. I'm not a fan of Nesta. I can't honestly understand the people who claim t2.5 stars
The first 500 pages of this book were teeth-grittingly unbearable. I'm not a fan of Nesta. I can't honestly understand the people who claim to be fans of her. She's a hateful, haughty, spoiled, imperious horror in Feyre's life and I don't really care that her ballgowns and pearls were taken away from her. That didn't give her a right to become what she was, to treat Feyre as she did, and it's really not explained in a way that makes Nesta more human or forgivable in this book. It's like SJM just said, "OK, I know I created a monster, now let's set her on a journey towards redemption". And Nesta needs to earn a HELL of a lot of redemption. She's burned every single bridge in her life, shunned every outstretched hand, snarled at every smile, and bitten any hand that's even had the thought of feeding her. She is a nightmare.
But earn redemption she does.
(You still have to ask yourself, though, if this redemption - which is only through being Made with the power of the Cauldron - is really and truly earned. But that's an argument for the end of the book and it depends a lot on whether you end up won over by Nesta - or not.)
So how does her journey begin?(Some spoilers ahead)
Nesta's been Made by the Cauldron, but it hasn't changed her absolutely terrific personality, unfortunately. She's still the same nightmare she was in Books 1-3. So the Night Court decides to give her a good kick in the butt, banishing her to the House of Wind without access to booze or boys - except, of course, Cassian. Yes, the General of Rhysand's Night Court Army has been assigned to babysitting duty. Part of this duty includes training Nesta in squats and lunges. He's been reduced to a personal trainer for 3 hours a day. Yes, the General of Rhysand's Army - which is, by the way, on the verge of impending war - is spending 3 hours a day training Nesta Archeron. Because it's absolutely the best way for an Army General on the brink of war to be spending his precious time.
It gets even better when Nesta decides to turn the House of Wind into an all-female Boot Camp, led by none other than General Cassian and Spymaster Azriel. Because the best use of Azriel's time is also to spend his mornings training Nesta, 4 nuns, and an Illyrian female, who needs to be winnowed to the House of Wind for the Boot Camp. A duty which is performed by a lowly grunt in General Cassian's Army, you ask? Nope. This job of winnowing a female to Boot Camp each morning has been assigned to none other than Rhysand, the High Lord of the Night Court. Because that's the best use of his time. SJM writes this all - for 500 pages - with a completely straight face and asks us to swallow it without too much eye-rolling. Obviously, I couldn't do that.
OK, now that I've got that off my chest, let's get to my second-biggest no-no in this book: the romance.
"Watching Nesta climax was as close to a religious experience as Cassian had ever had." Did SJM write that line with a straight face? Really? Really? It's just so cheesy.
I'm not sure if Cassian and Nesta really work for me. They definitely don't work for me in the way that Feyre and Rhysand are written-in-the-stars fated. And so how did SJM force this key to fit into the lock? Sex. Lots and lots of sex. Look, I don't mind hot-and-heavy sex scenes if I'm expecting hot-and-heavy sex scenes. In a Sarah J Maas book, I'm not expecting them, I'm not looking for them, and I'm creeped out to read them. This was GRAPHIC in a way that I didn't think it needed to be. There are three or four scenes that are 7-10 pages in length and they are way. too. much. Later in the book things balance out, and the sex scenes are cut down to half a page or one page and that's just fine with me.
The end result of this book?
I liked Nesta a little bit more (maybe, "I accepted Nesta as a part of this world" is a better way to phrase it), and I liked Cassian a little less. Even though he was a central character in this book, his day in the sun was short-lived. Nesta is the beating heart of this story, and the thawing of that ice-cold heart is the narrative arc. But though Nesta's heart melts supposedly because of Cassian's love, I didn't really feel like he did that for her. She learned how to do it herself, with his support. And once again, Cassian is in a supporting role here. He's definitely not the star of the show. His star is pretty dull, actually. He's a lame-duck General running a gym class; he's a frustrated, newly-inducted "courtier" who needs Rhysand and Nesta to really be effective in the role; and he's Nesta's booty call, literally the post against which she scratches her itch. And that's pretty much it. So even the parts of the book told from his perspective don't do much for him - his character development is directly tied to Nesta's growing confidence in herself.
And Rhys and Feyre?
Well, SJM went back to her trusty source - Twilight. It wasn't enough that she ripped a big page from Stephenie Meyer when she brought the "mate" concept into A Court of Mist and Fury (which is certainly a rip-off of Edward and Bella's "imprinting"), but she ripped yet another page from Ms. Meyer when she set Feyre to give birth to... Renesmee. No, not literally. Instead of vampire fangs, little baby Night Court has wings. Wings that are going to rip Feyre's body to shreds and certainly kill her. There is a nice little twist in here that I won't mention, to do with Rhys and Feyre in a related pact, that made this matter even more serious.
Overall?
I'm not sure I'm in love with this world anymore. When SJM wrote Crescent City, she cracked the mold in half over her keyboard and penned something BRILLIANT. I'm sated by Prythian, Valeris and the Night Court. I'll have more of Crescent City, please....more
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