Reviews

Weird. That’s the first word that comes to my mind when thinking about this novel. Technically, it had all the elements of my favourite chick lit novels: family mysteries, history, and foreign cultures. And yet, the pieces were oddly intertwined, the parts not evenly distributed over the course of the novel instead appearing as lengthy chunks one after the other. Furthermore, as much as I’m inclined to believe in some kind of the supernatural, as much as I love fantasy and madness borderlining each other, this story was something I just couldn’t fathom …

Sometimes, it’s best to let the hype die down before reading a book. When We Were Liars was published in 2014, everyone was talking about it even. Unfortunately, spoilers were flying around so I lost interest. Now, five years later and not remembering all of that, I was able to read this with an almost clean slate. And what can I say: without that kind of baggage, I really enjoyed this book – much more than I would have, had I read it back then …

The Book of Three is delightful, fast-paced middle grade high fantasy with adorable characters, funny banter, difficult journeys, a multitude of wicked situations, and the realisation that being a hero is not as simple as it sounds …

This one’s for the dreamers, for the ones loving getting lost in winter woods, for the ones enjoying delicate and thoughtful fairy tales. McKillip once again spins words into a beautiful, tranquil story about magic, curses, faerie realms, and love with only a handful of characters and a limited setting that reminded me a little of Naomi Novik’s more recent novel Uprooted …

I wasn’t a fan of the first book in this series but since I already owned the sequels, I decided to give The Sleeping Prince a chance – and was pleasantly surprised although not blown away. All it took to get me on board was a more likable protagonist, a more engaging plot without love triangles, and a deep dive into the wonderful lore of this high fantasy world!

Ooof, that one’s a wild ride! I have no idea what to make of this book. There were aspects I liked, aspects I loathed, and aspects I found superfluous. It’s also a book of opposites: it was a lot and not enough, too distant and too near, too weird and not weird enough. It’s like three different books mashed into one, a collection of weird fragments …

I was hooked by a mysterious title, a stunning cover, and an intriguing idea. Unfortunately, it was all a ruse. The title belongs to a different book, the cover only fits the first third and the idea was abandoned in favour of a generic romance-y fantasy plot. This is one of the ‘great idea, poor execution’ cases and therefore fell flat for me …