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Goddess in the Stacks (553 KP) rated Empress of All Seasons in Books
Mar 20, 2019
Characters (2 more)
World-building
Japanese mythology
I am so torn on this book. I'm really tired of the trope of "batch of girls competing to win a dude" that seems to be so popular lately. But this is an Asian take on the trope, so I don't want to come down too hard on it for that. I attended a panel at the last Baltimore Book Festival about old tropes being resurrected by minority authors, and I agree that just because a trope might seem old and played out, putting a new spin on it with minority characters and themes deserves its own time. That is definitely valid. But they were talking about tropes like vampires and zombies and retold classics like Pride and Prejudice and Alice in Wonderland. I'm not sure the trope of "girls competing to win a dude" deserves more time in any form. (To be fair, I kind of equally hate guys competing to win the hand of the princess. No one should be obligated to marry someone just because they won an arbitrary competition. There are all kinds of consent issues there.)
Despite that, I really enjoyed this book. I loved the characters, the variety of yõkai, the bits of myth interspersed throughout the book. I do question Akira being trained to be a master of shuriken in a matter of days - like, really? And I wish instead of summarizing a ton in the epilogue, she'd just written a sequel, because I think there's enough material to do it. You'd think, with so much I didn't like about the book, that my overall opinion would be negative - but it's not. Even with all of those bad points, this book was enthralling and kept me reading right to the end.
Empress of all Seasons is a great Japanese-inspired fantasy that relies a little too much on old tropes. Set your inner critic to the side and just enjoy the ride, because the story is fantastic.
You can find all my reviews at http://goddessinthestacks.com
Despite that, I really enjoyed this book. I loved the characters, the variety of yõkai, the bits of myth interspersed throughout the book. I do question Akira being trained to be a master of shuriken in a matter of days - like, really? And I wish instead of summarizing a ton in the epilogue, she'd just written a sequel, because I think there's enough material to do it. You'd think, with so much I didn't like about the book, that my overall opinion would be negative - but it's not. Even with all of those bad points, this book was enthralling and kept me reading right to the end.
Empress of all Seasons is a great Japanese-inspired fantasy that relies a little too much on old tropes. Set your inner critic to the side and just enjoy the ride, because the story is fantastic.
You can find all my reviews at http://goddessinthestacks.com
Sam (74 KP) rated The School For Good and Evil in Books
Mar 27, 2019
I started off really confused as to what the genre was supposed to be. The cover seemed YA, but the plot was more MG. It seemed to be trying to be both at the same time which was a bit confusing.
I liked that it was a new take on fairytales that I hadn’t read before and it definitely made it stand out to me – five years on and I still haven’t read anything quite like it, which is quite an achievement.
It’s full of action from the beginning, but I feel like it may have taken it too far and there was actually too much plot. Sophie and Agatha had to escape a few too many times and in places it just felt like the plot was going around in circles to bulk out what was already quite a heavy plot.
I’m not sure that I would read this one again, and I never actually read any of the other books in the series because I just didn’t get myself invested enough in the story.
I liked that it was a new take on fairytales that I hadn’t read before and it definitely made it stand out to me – five years on and I still haven’t read anything quite like it, which is quite an achievement.
It’s full of action from the beginning, but I feel like it may have taken it too far and there was actually too much plot. Sophie and Agatha had to escape a few too many times and in places it just felt like the plot was going around in circles to bulk out what was already quite a heavy plot.
I’m not sure that I would read this one again, and I never actually read any of the other books in the series because I just didn’t get myself invested enough in the story.
Dean (6927 KP) rated Blue Story (2019) in Movies
Sep 4, 2020
Good but could be better
So a film that caused some controversy when it was released, with gangs turning up to cinemas with knives resulting in it being pulled from most cinemas. The irony in that the film tries to highlight some causes of it and how stupid it is to get mixed up in. It does feel a lot like the recent Top Boy series, although not as good. Also featuring some of the main actors from that. Also a lot like @Kidulthood (2006) Some of the characters do just come across as very dumb and easily manipulated. Sadly some guys in gangs get caught up with some misguided idea of loyalty. It really didn't need the rap cameos from Rapman though, they just feel out of place. Overall the story is interesting and makes for a good film, but it will feel like you've seen it all before. It's not up to the quality of similar films.
Ande Thomas (69 KP) rated Ma (2019) in Movies
Jun 10, 2019
There are a lot of instances where someone will complain about the whole movie being shown in the trailer and I just roll my eyes and move on. In general, I feel like it's more about how we get to the end of a story than it is about specific plot points or any twists there may be. In the case of Ma, however, I totally agree. It's not that there were any twists ruined or secrets revealed in the trailers, it's that the parts that weren't revealed were just filler. Literally nothing happened to expand on the presumptions we made about Ma. Every shocking part that would make us cringe as viewers was revealed before we even set foot in the theater. There's a good idea in here somewhere, it was just never allowed to bloom. Octavia Spencer is excellent, and I genuinely hope she takes more sinister roles from here on out. Truthfully, I can't fault any of the actors for their part. There just didn't turn out to be a whole lot to work with.
I think I might have first read this in the mid to late 90s. Anyway, there or thereabouts. Definitely before the resurgence of 'classic' fantasy brought about by the Lord of the Rings (and The Hobbit) movies of the early 21st century.
I recently decided to give it a re-read (in 2020). What is now clear(er) to me than to the just-becoming-a-teenager I was on my first read is just how heavily indebted this is to JRR Tolkien, and just how much it reads like someone-decided-to-play-a-game-of-D&D-and-write-down-what-their-characters-did.
That latter probably shouldn't come as a surprise, given that one of the authors of this actually helped design that game.
Here, in the first of the 'core' Dragonlance novels, we have your standard archetypes: Halfling (Kender), Warrior, Knight, Elf, Half-Elf, Wizard, Barbarian all going off on what becomes various quests that (surprise surprise!) involve delving in dungeons and various sundry other enclosed spaces ...
I'll probably re-read the sequels, just because.
I recently decided to give it a re-read (in 2020). What is now clear(er) to me than to the just-becoming-a-teenager I was on my first read is just how heavily indebted this is to JRR Tolkien, and just how much it reads like someone-decided-to-play-a-game-of-D&D-and-write-down-what-their-characters-did.
That latter probably shouldn't come as a surprise, given that one of the authors of this actually helped design that game.
Here, in the first of the 'core' Dragonlance novels, we have your standard archetypes: Halfling (Kender), Warrior, Knight, Elf, Half-Elf, Wizard, Barbarian all going off on what becomes various quests that (surprise surprise!) involve delving in dungeons and various sundry other enclosed spaces ...
I'll probably re-read the sequels, just because.
Cee-Lo Green recommended In Effect Mode by Al B Sure in Music (curated)
Moses Boyd recommended May This Be Love by Jimi Hendrix in Music (curated)
There no book like this. I can not even describe what it all about except that it maybe about ET or what we call Energy. Is it possible that we live in a multi universes that can alter our life or are we just atoms that look like a body. We live in a plant that we see that can alter our lives.
The earth have a big bang or did we get seed here from other plant like Mars and now we live on Earth. We could be from the old Mars that is now dead. Our world may be really just be our illusions of what we call home. We may be complete atom that can detain to access 10 dimensions that we see as light. Could we really save our species or are we going to destroy our planet and need to find a new world to survive.
Could our world really be an Illusion of our minds that we see blue skies and green grasses. We may be able to be in our dimensions that we only see what we see. We could be a seed or was it our creator that put us on planet Earth. What do you think about our Earth history? Did we really come from Charon which is Mars now that it a dead planet. Here my favorite of the book, "Life on Earth and Death on Mars". We could have be spawned and planted on Earth or was it the Big Bang. You may want to read the book and decide for yourself what you want to believe. We may be living in world that we now the truth that has to do with our survival.
The earth have a big bang or did we get seed here from other plant like Mars and now we live on Earth. We could be from the old Mars that is now dead. Our world may be really just be our illusions of what we call home. We may be complete atom that can detain to access 10 dimensions that we see as light. Could we really save our species or are we going to destroy our planet and need to find a new world to survive.
Could our world really be an Illusion of our minds that we see blue skies and green grasses. We may be able to be in our dimensions that we only see what we see. We could be a seed or was it our creator that put us on planet Earth. What do you think about our Earth history? Did we really come from Charon which is Mars now that it a dead planet. Here my favorite of the book, "Life on Earth and Death on Mars". We could have be spawned and planted on Earth or was it the Big Bang. You may want to read the book and decide for yourself what you want to believe. We may be living in world that we now the truth that has to do with our survival.
Kate Mara recommended Lady Jane (1986) in Movies (curated)
