Short reviews from quarantine: young adult

• 

• 

• 

I’m just going to be doing these laid back short reviews for a while I think, because I’ve got time, but not nearly enough energy hahha. Hope everyone is doing well, feel free to just chat with me in comments or on twitter regardless if we’ve talked before! I promise I won’t be quick to answer, but I would love to.

These short reviews in particular are books I read a while back, but only had collected a couple sentences about.

The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #3) by Holly Black

I truly loved The Cruel Prince. I kind of enjoyed/tolerated The Wicked King. I really didn’t care for The Queen of Nothing. My feelings reading this book; I love Jude Duarte so much, but this is just filled with expected turns and lacking plot. I really wanted to like it, but I just feel like Jude’s character is going constantly one step forward and two backwards in terms of how bold she is or how much of a villain/hero she is supposed to be. Make her darker or give her some good reasons, I don’t know. 2/5 stars.

I wasn’t planning on reading this book anytime soon, but at the beginning of the year, this book was on a free-for-all bookshelf in my hostel in Edinburgh, calling to me.

The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2) by Maureen Johnson

I loved Truly Devious as well. It’s a good enough sequel, following the same type of mystery boarding-school vibe as the first one. You certainly get further in the story, especially about the old mystery at the school the main character is trying to solve. But it was also lacking the freshness and felt a bit repetitive. I’m still excited to read the third book, but a bit less hopeful I guess. 4/5 stars!

Funfact: reading the first book I definitely appreciated how all the different characters was the best at their skill. Especially Janelle’s character and how creative and stereotypical engineer-mind she had. But since then I’ve met and currently live with someone who’s the guy’s version of her and I definitely realized so while reading this. I can never say my wild plans out loud anymore, because suddenly they go from theoretical to “ahh actually, if we do it this way” … and me facepalming.

Call Down the Hawk (Dreamer #1) by Maggie Stiefvater

I was going to write a longer review, but my copy is far far away from me and then also my notes in it. Yes, I do write in my books, especially if they are pocket books.

There were lots of small things I loved in this book, but it was very much the interactions between characters I already loved from The Raven Cycle. Stiefvater has said that you could read this series as a stand-alone, but I’m not sure I agree. Call Down the Hawk didn’t feel as coherent as a book, and for me it floated on knowing the history of these characters. Like Ronan interacting with Adam’s new college friends and their too-complex card game, especially as Adam is trying to urge him to remain calm. Knowing more about how dreaming magic worked was really cool. And another upside is that I find it hard to imagine someone not falling in love with Ronan or Adam at first sight. In general I’m glad this book exist, and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the Dreamer trilogy! 4/5 stars.

“Do you understand? For you, reality is not an external condition. For you, reality is a decision.”

Call down the hawk by Maggie Stiefvater