What I Think About What I Read
5 Stars. I have no idea why I missed so many childhood classics. I loved this one. Especially Mary’s constant declaration of “I’ve gotten fatter!” The best addition to any book, every text should have this phrase at least once. I loved the perfect combination of intense detail but the withholding of it at the same time makes the secret shared between three children and a super old dude that much more magical. Everyone should read this book and love it.
A Darker Shade of Magic
3 Stars. An interesting new fantastical read! However, the word choice just rubbed me the wrong way. For example, when you use the word “divest” in its various forms more than ten times in 400 pages you need to start using a thesaurus.
I liked the characters though, but I also felt as if they’d been cheated by such a limited glossary to portray their dispositions, desires, and actions.
This is the point when I say: an original concept, but with a sad mediocre execution. I’ll probably read the others some day.
A Gathering of Shadows
3 Stars. Semi-original plot (akin to a cross of Hunger Games, an Olympic documentary, and Harry Potter) executed with a predictable writing style, riddled with cliches. It was an easy read, but not in the enjoyment-leads-you-through-it way, but in the it’s-absolutely-uncomplicated-and-simple way while simultaneously being confusing with what is holey development and a rushed, sporadic plotline. It was creativity barred by the lack of creativity.
Some of the characters were drawn in such a simplistic light that their interesting traits from the first book were over-shadowed by things that weren’t actually traits. Like “i LovE KNivEs” is not a character trait to base an entire novel off of, but ok.
I mean, I guess its good enough that I might read the third one in a couple months when I forget how unimpressed I was with this installment.
A Conjuring of Light
3.5 Stars. I don’t know. So much happened. I think the writing was better than the previous installments. Thats why I gave it 4-ish stars. I just didn’t want to read it. Maybe it wasn’t boring, I was just over the whole high-fantasy genre. I do appreciate the minor character development, but not so much another undefeatable evil with some sort of deus ex machina type ending.
But whatever.
5 Stars. Emma is a perfect encapsulation of wealthy pettiness and obliviousness. Austen captures the breadth of interests among gentility and the futile efforts of silly youth with such beauty of prose it makes me simultaneously want to be a writer while at the same time shunning it completely because if resurrected Jane Austen (c’mon you know its gonna happen, science is advancing every day) ever comes across my work I might be thoroughly embarrassed by my inadequacies.
But really, why can’t people write well like this anymore? Or were there the same rates of terrible literature being published and I’m just romanticizing the past.
3.5 Stars. I don’t know why I initially chose to read this book. I despise erotica and I do not appreciate pornography, which generally have ridiculous plot lines like those indicated in this book.
I did actually appreciate the justice seeking for honor slayings in this book, it’s often something we forget about or don’t think happens all over the world and in our very own neighborhoods. I wish this theme were more prevalent.
The book was written decently enough and was easy to follow. Most of the time, though, I felt like I was in with my friends in high school and browsing in the romance section of a bookstore while opening to random passages and giggling about the absurdity and poor prose of it all.
I think I might like other things written by this author more than this book.
2.9 Stars. This book is a New York Times Best Seller for a reason, people just love a rant. That’s why we all pretend not to read the comment section on reddit or youtube, but in reality the voyeurism really gets us going. And to those people this must be insightfully, earth-shattering, even awesome–like I said it’s a NYT Best Seller for a reason– but it doesn’t mean it’s actually good. TSAoNGaF is basically what would have happened had I stumbled across a blog that was mildly entertaining and decided to binge read it for two weeks straight. And, honestly, this extended blog post was not worth 200 pages of conveying the same thing on repeat.
I wish he had footnotes, or at least an index, to direct you to his sources. The constant “as this one dude once said” followed by a quote with no indication of where it came from was not my favorite. I think it’s because I have read all this stuff in school in the form of scientific reports and journals (which unlike comment sections and blog rants, are unexciting unless you’re a nerd). But if I had happened to find a concept I liked, I wanna know to which of the hundreds of works that particular person published I should refer. I imagine this book changed the lives of thousands, perhaps even millions, but I don’t get the hype.
There were few grammatical mistakes, and I’d say it was well-written but there were terrible metaphors for dumbing things down and sometimes he would forget that his main premise was centered around the f-word and then all of a sudden remember. BOOM, closing paragraph of each section = f*ck x 30. It was exhausting, really.
Mel Reviews Books 
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