Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Thursday, May 18, 2017

Review: Empire of Storms

Empire of Storms Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I originally gave this 4 stars, but I'm bumping it down after sleeping on it (literally). I used to love this series so much, but this book just grated on me too much. Don't get me wrong, there are still a lot of moments and characters I loved, but I think I have slowed down enough to realize how bad the writing really is. Not only the sentence constructions and all that (see my review of ACOWAR, lol), but I feel like the plot has just gotten SO convoluted. I think I was fine with it right up until the ending, where it just felt like so many things were haphazardly thrown together, there were miraculous saves and revelations right til the end (I'm counting Aelin's machinations here, even though she technically wasn't saved), couples were split up until they were set up to conveniently be together for book 6, etc. I might have to start turning off my brain for the rest of this series like I did for The Selection -_-

Of course, I will continue to #hateread this series...because for some reason I am still excited about every new SJM book??

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Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Review: A Court of Wings and Ruin

A Court of Wings and Ruin A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What do I hate about SJM's writing...let me list the ways:
- overuse of single-line sentences, dashes...and ellipses
- question sentences do not work the way she thinks they do
- so many sentences that are literally meaningless or not appropriate for where they are placed
- sometimes characters' reactions are just super confusing?? (Feyre, putting yourself in mortal harm is not comparable to relationship issues...)
- there are more but I shall stop here so I don't convince myself I actually hated this book (I didn't!!)

Okay let's put all that aside; for some reason, I still love her books? So many things annoy me, but I really enjoy her worlds, characters (mostly the side ones, to be honest), and overall plots (even when they're super obvious and cliche). I think I liked ACOMAF slightly more than ACOWAR (it was more focused with less side-questing), but there was still enough there that I could enjoy, even while hate-reading the writing style and glossing over inane sentences. I actually had a few surprises in this one, which I appreciated - even though most of the big things were heavily foreshadowed. I also loved all the new characters - mostly the high lords and their SOs, as well as seeing a couple new locations in the world. SJM does do a decent job of worldbuilding, at least.

Another thing I hate to love? Shipping literally everyone because you know they're all going to be paired off. (There were also a couple surprises there for me, which I hope come up more later!)

There were a lot of very obvious loose ends in this book, and I'm looking forward to seeing those resolved in the next books, because apparently I will keep reading whatever SJM puts out.

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