Anya's Books

Blech

Unlikable heroine, boring hero. As with the first book of the series - so much potential for an exciting story and pretty much all of it wasted!

Love this series!

Pure Unadulterated JOY. Having a bad day? Feeling a tad down? The world looking like a dreary place? Read this book and watch your day improve, feel a smile spread over your face and the the world shine in all its glory.

This book had me LOLing all over the place :)

Actual Rating 3.5

I enjoyed this read. The world was well developed and fun to explore. There were some weaknesses though. First, the author was working in the world of fairy tales which she was grounding in a type of reality but it was inconsistently done. Secondly, characters would appear stay a while and then disappear either to metamorphose into something very different or never to be heard from again ... there were plenty of interesting ways to incorporate their stories into the "grounded" fairy tale but sadly that didn't happen and hence the lower rating.

There was plenty of story potential here and the writing quality had the strength to carry that off, too bad it didn't happen. I enjoyed it for the world building, the quality of writing and the stories potential so give this one a go if you're into fairy tale re-tellings :)

I don't know if it's because how lousy my life is right now but this warm, light-hearted, feel good book was just what the doctor ordered. I absolutely loved it.

As always nice and steamy as well as well executed.

Just as fun as "I feel bad about my neck" :)

Dear Ms. Fadiman

I love your essays. They make me laugh and they make me cry. They remind me to take my time and love the things I love, be fascinated by things that fascinate and be grateful for the things I'm grateful.

I love that you quoted "Persuasion" - my favorite Jane Austen novel- in your essay about Moving.

I love that after years of hoping to serendipitously run across "The Essays of Elia" your essay about Charles Lamb finally pushed me to order a copy by the sheer power of your praise and prose.

I love how by the end of "Under Water" I sat nodding my head in agreement while tears accumulated and threatened to spill.

I love how I want more.

Please do write more! I promise I won't wait to get them second hand :)

This was a surprisingly enjoyable ya read. I really enjoyed the writing, the characters and the story. This is the opening of a trilogy (I think) so a lot of time is spent in world discovery. I'm hoping the second book which I suspect will have more depth to its story will maintain the fantastic pacing of this volume.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this ya dystopian read. Lately the YA stuff has been more irritating than diverting or exciting. This one however was wonderfully fast paced with an interesting kick-ass heroine that kept me aching to see what happens next.

A lot was layed out in this first of a series but a lot is still left to discover so I'm definitely going to keep reading.

Seeing all the 4-5 star ratings for this book makes me think only one thing I'm getting too old for this shite

It's all heightened emotions and "why doesn't he like me" and mean girls and best friend betrayals and ... *sigh* I did like the writing and the characters but the plot had me rolling my eyes so much I had to hit the side of my head a couple of times to stop the spinning.

Actual Rating: 4.5 stars

This is a very fun read and highly recommended for lovers of Urban Fantasy.

The main character of Peter Grant is probably one of my favorite personalities in fantastical literature. He stands out by being average - there's nothing terribly special about him. He's not too smart, not too gifted, not too stupid and not too pure of heart. In the world of the fantastical he's so pleasantly normal that it makes him incredibly relatable and a satisfying portal into that world.

The writing is sarcastic and slightly DouglasAdamsanian but in small doses which makes the book fun, occasionally funny and well balanced given some of the nasty and darkish elements in the story.

The only thing that takes .5 stars off the overall score is that there are several passages that are too long winded and cause the pacing to falter rather drastically. Other than that I highly recommend this as a thoroughly entertaining read.

This was a fun and funny read but it didn't strike the right balance of adventure, mystery and wisecracking heroes for me. I won't continue with the series but if you like the book description I'd recommend you give it a go.

Good writing and an interesting world but a horrible Persuasion retelling and since I was in this for the retelling this book really didn't do it for me!

A must read for any Pratchett fan though you don't have to be to enjoy this masterly comedic work on the subjects of crooked finance; nerd-dom; outdated businesses and of course pins!

Oversimplified, generalized and cynical self-described BS. I spent the entire time reading this book vacillating between red-eyed fury and intellectually stimulated amusement.