September 2019 books

Renegades by Marissa Meyer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My daughters have been begging me to read this for months and I finally did and ended up only skimming it after the first fourth or so. I just couldn't muster up the energy to absorb these characters' myriad and complicated origin stories. I'm glad the girls found a book series they love so much but it's not for me.

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The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Fourth reading September 2019. Clearly this book just gets better every time you read it. I kept being like "Mr. Grey, YES!!!!" and "oh yeah, the Noah kiss!" as I read and remembered my favorite parts.
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Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Third reading September 2019. I don't disagree with anything I've written in previous reviews but also I somehow liked it more this time around.
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The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Bumped up to four stars on a second reading. I still think this series takes a weirdly sharp left turn after The Dream Thieves but it turns out that The Raven King being "not quite as good as my favorite book in this series, which is also one of my favorite books ever" means it's...still pretty dang good? I embraced the supernatural stuff a little more this time around and so that was fun. I think I just want more continuity. I want Henry in book one and mint leaves in book four, you know?

And to address my specific spoilery complaints: 1. it kinda is, still, only in a different way than we thought; 2. true, and that's ok; 3. yes but I'm here for it.

First reading May 2016:

Oh yes I did just give this only three stars! I'm reminded of my initial waffling between zero and five stars for book one of this series: as far as what it IS, it's amazing. But for what it ISN'T...I have some major (spoilery) complaints:

(view spoiler)[
1. This book is not really about the search for Glendower. Nope.
2. This book is not really about Blue and Gansey finding true love.
3. This book is not really about non-psychicy psychics. Its psychics get really psychicy.
(hide spoiler)]

My hope is that this book will improve on a second reading. I mean, I loved Mockingjay the first time around, but on every reading since, I've liked it less. Maybe the reverse will happen with this one. I trust Maggie Stiefvater and so I have to believe this book is better than I think it is at this moment. Now that I know the ending, maybe I'll be able to start at the beginning again someday and focus on the "is" of this series, not the "isn't."

(But yeah, for now, three stars.)

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The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Maybe I am dead inside because I just couldn't get into this perfectly frothy and rompy novel. It just felt like, these two really wonderful people met and fell in love and treated each other so conscientiously and modeled good relationship habits while surrounded by supportive friends and family so...yay? I would re-read it for the food descriptions though. TACOS.

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