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Adequate Review of Heartless by Gail Carriger

Heartless is my first Gail Carriger book review that is not 100% percent positive.

The Book:

Heartless by Gail Carriger Cover, Gray building in the background in a gothic architecture way, A woman with a small top hat and a pink dress looks into the camera, Heartless and Gail Carriger are written in pink and purple, — Heartless cover pulled from Goodreads

Title: Heartless

Author: Gail Carriger

Series: Parasol Protectorate

Published July 1st, 2011 by Orbit

Genre: Steampunk, Fantasy, Romance

Pages: 400

Synopsis: “Lady Alexia Maccon, soulless, is at it again, only this time the trouble is not her fault. When a mad ghost threatens the queen, Alexia is on the case, following a trail that leads her deep into her husband’s past. Top that off with a sister who has joined the suffragette movement (shocking!), Madame Lefoux’s latest mechanical invention, and a plague of zombie porcupines and Alexia barely has time to remember she happens to be eight months pregnant.

Will Alexia manage to determine who is trying to kill Queen Victoria before it is too late? Is it the vampires again or is there a traitor lurking about in wolf’s clothing? And what, exactly, has taken up residence in Lord Akeldama’s second best closet?” –Goodreads

My Heartless Review:

I hate to say it, but this is probably my least favorite Gail Carriger novel I have read. I love her still so dearly, but Heartless felt like a filler novel, something to pass the time between the next two novels.

Also, I am trying a new book review blog format. Let me know what you think about this in the comments below. I have been needing to change up how I do reviews since they are all getting a little hard to manage.

Heartless Plot: I hate to say anything necessarily negative in a review about Carriger, but the plots are all kind of blending together. Nothing substantial really came out of the plot of Heartless. Everything blurred together until the end. The ending was good, but it wasn’t phenomenal.

Heartless Characters: As usual, Alexia is witty and talented, but she is becoming quite a bit predictable. Does that mean I don’t love her? No. I still love the character, I just wish we got a bit more from her sometimes.

I wish Lord Maccon had a bigger role in the books. Sometimes he is there and sometimes he isn’t. I wish there was more of my favorite Scotsman.

All the other background characters make me laugh and they are oh-so-charming. I love them all. Madame Lefoux plays an interesting role in this book. We don’t see much of her, again I wish we had seen more.

Book’s Setting: I don’t think we leave London at all in this book. We don’t get introduced to many new places, so I do not have much to say about this.

Review of Romance: As I said in my review of Blameless, the romance is really dying out in this series. I think this one has less than Blameless. I don’t even want to label this as romance anymore.

Carriger’s Quality of Writing: Gail Carriger always writes well. Her writing style is so unique! She makes me laugh. She finds the best names, the best puns, and the best phrases.

What I Liked:

The Wit
The Unwavering Love between Alexia and Lord Maccon

What I Didn’t:

That this plot is pretty much indistinguishable from the rest
We never left London
No real questions were answered about the stuff we learned from the last book

Rating:

Plot: 2

Characters: 4

Setting: 3

Quality of Writing: 5

Ease of Reading: 5

I hoped you like this review of Heartless by Gail Carriger. Let me know what you think of the format.

Read This If You Love/Need:

Steampunk
Werewolves/Vampires
Victorian age
Ridiculously easy-to-follow humor
Something easy to follow along to
Gail Carriger

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Star Rating: 3

All My Love to This Book: All My Rage

The Book:

Tan background with purple and red writing saying All my rage and Sabaa Tahir
To filled in semi-circles overlap each other — All My Rage Cover pulled from Goodreads.com

Title: All My Rage

Author: Sabaa Tahir

Published March 1st 2022 by Razorbill

Genre: YA, Contemporary

Pages: 384

“Lahore, Pakistan. Then.
Misbah is a dreamer and storyteller, newly married to Toufiq in an arranged match. After their young life is shaken by tragedy, they come to the United States and open the Cloud’s Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start.

Juniper, California. Now.
Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they are family. Growing up as outcasts in the small desert town of Juniper, California, they understand each other the way no one else does. Until The Fight, which destroys their bond with the swift fury of a star exploding.

Now, Sal scrambles to run the family motel as his mother Misbah’s health fails and his grieving father loses himself to alcoholism. Noor, meanwhile, walks a harrowing tightrope: working at her wrathful uncle’s liquor store while hiding the fact that she’s applying to college so she can escape him—and Juniper—forever.

When Sal’s attempts to save the motel spiral out of control, he and Noor must ask themselves what friendship is worth—and what it takes to defeat the monsters in their pasts and the ones in their midst.

From one of today’s most cherished and bestselling young adult authors comes a breathtaking novel of young love, old regrets, and forgiveness—one that’s both tragic and poignant in its tender ferocity.” –Goodreads

My Review:

I am loving the books that are showing incarceration as sometimes just a mistake. I like seeing “criminals” through a more positive lens. With books like Reminders of Him and Heart Bones, All My Rage joins these books showing sympathetic characters who made a bad decision and got arrested. It is positive for incarcerated people. It helps spread that perspective around.

Meeting these characters was an emotional ride. Noor had this mystique while being introduced as someone scorned by her best friend and her circumstances. Sal gave us little bits of his soul as we followed his journey after his mother’s death.

Each of these characters was flawed in the best way. Seeing these characters grow and change was awesome.

The story was mostly character-driven so there wasn’t a lot of plot points to cover. Usually, I see character-driven stories as kind of dull and boring, but maybe I haven’t been reading the right ones. This one was so good.

Tahir wove this intricate story about three people. I love the multiple POVs, especially one POV from Misbah who is not in the present timeline. Her story blended well with the story about her son and Noor.

I got love, loss, grief, pain, and most of all hope. It was amazing! It definitely was not Top Ten books other, but I still loved it.

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Star Rating: 4

For more from me check out my newest posts:

What Am I Reading This Week?

“Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived here on Taking on a World of Words. Just answer the three questions below and leave a link to your post in the comments for others to look at. No blog? No problem! Just leave a comment with your responses. Please, take some time to visit the other participants and see what others are reading. So, let’s get to it!”

The Three Ws are:

What:

Are you currently reading?
Did you recently finish reading?
Do you think you’ll read next?

I have not been doing this tag recently. I have been scheduling out my posts far in advance, but I am hoping to start doing it more as I come back from my New York trip.

What are you currently reading?

Too Late by Colleen Hoover

I love Colleen Hoover. I hear it is a lot darker than her other books, so I am excited to see the turn this book takes. Is anyone else reading a Colleen Hoover book right now?

I am reading Too Late by Colleen hoover which has big bold black text with her name. and Too Late is big and bold reading with a gradient — Too Late Cover pulled from Goodreads

What did you recently finish?

The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose

Honestly, I was not impressed with this book. I loved One Of Us Is Dead, but this book did not live up to her masterpiece.

Reading The Perfect Marriage with a strikethrough of Perfect, Jeneva Rose is written along the bottom, and two rings with a splatter of blood on the center — The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose

What do you think you’ll read next?

Glow by Raven Kennedy

Will I 100% get to this book next, I am not sure. Since I flew through the entire series last week it would be great to read this next book. I would love to finish it but then I will have to wait a long time for the 5th book.

Reading Glow with a bright embossed gold lettering and raven kennedy's name at the bottom and a gold leaf and stem on a white background — Glow by Raven Kennedy cover from Goodreads

Make sure to add a link to your post below!

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

A Not-so Interesting Book called I Wish You All the Best

The Book:

I Wish You All the Best cover pulled from Goodreads.com

Title: I Wish You All the Best

Author: Mason Deaver

Published May 14th, 2019 by Push

Genre: LGBTQIA+, YA, Romance, Contemporary

Pages: 329

“When Ben De Backer comes out to their parents as nonbinary, they’re thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister, Hannah, and her husband, Thomas, whom Ben has never even met. Struggling with an anxiety disorder compounded by their parents’ rejection, they come out only to Hannah, Thomas, and their therapist and try to keep a low profile in a new school.

But Ben’s attempts to survive the last half of senior year unnoticed are thwarted when Nathan Allan, a funny and charismatic student, decides to take Ben under his wing. As Ben and Nathan’s friendship grows, their feelings for each other begin to change, and what started as a disastrous turn of events looks like it might just be a chance to start a happier new life.” –Goodreads

My Review:

Eh…

I don’t have much about this book to say.

There was LGBTQIA+ representation, and I love to read books by LGBTQIA+ authors. This was the first book written in the POV of a non-binary person. I loved that aspect of the book. I just wish it had been executed better.

Nothing happened. Literally, nothing happened. There was no conflict, no plot, no development. I was utterly bored.

The romance was eh. I thought that would be the entire story but it was barely enough of the book to even call this book a romance.

The writing wasn’t spectacular. I have this new hatred for YA writing because it seems like they want to over-explain everything. Middle schoolers and high schooler’s-the target audience-are not stupid. I am sure they can understand the most basic sentence. You don’t have to repeat things over multiple sentences.

I attended a talk with Deaver for this book. They explained how they have gotten comments like that and said it is an invalid argument because that is YA. I have to disagree because books that shaped the YA genre like Hunger Games, Twilight, The Mortal Instruments, and The Fault in Our Stars don’t read like this. They read so well, albeit a little cringy (but it was early 2010’s).

I read this book for class, so I had to finish by a certain time. But the book felt like I was swimming in a vat of caramel to finish. There was really no growth and no anything to make this story astounding. I don’t know, I hate to not give anything positive about a book, but I honestly cannot think of anything.

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Star Rating: 1

Books Releasing In the Second Half of 2022

“Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.” -That Artsy Reader Girl

This week’s theme:

Most Anticipated Books Releasing In the Second Half of 2022

We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds
Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood
The Ballad of Never After by Stephanie Garber
Demon in the Wood by Leigh Bardugo
Woman Without Shame by Sandra Cisneros
It Starts With Us by Colleen Hoover
The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake
Wherever the Wind Takes Us by Kelly Harms
Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell
Whiteout by Dhonielle Clayton

Some of these sound so good! I have also already read We Deserve Monuments, so I hope everyone checks that out and checks out my blog that will come out on July 28th about that book.

I am excited to get some of my preorders like The Ballad of Never After by Stephanie Garber. I will probably preorder/pick up these other books as soon as I can.

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Loveless: A Book Review

The Book:

Title: Loveless

Author: Alice Oseman

Series: Osemanverse #10

Published July 9th 2020 by HarperCollins Children’s Books

Genre: Contemporary, YA, LGBTQIA+

Pages: 433

“It was all sinking in. I’d never had a crush on anyone. No boys, no girls, not a single person I had ever met. What did that mean?

Georgia has never been in love, never kissed anyone, never even had a crush – but as a fanfic-obsessed romantic she’s sure she’ll find her person one day.

As she starts university with her best friends, Pip and Jason, in a whole new town far from home, Georgia’s ready to find romance, and with her outgoing roommate on her side and a place in the Shakespeare Society, her ‘teenage dream’ is in sight.

But when her romance plan wreaks havoc amongst her friends, Georgia ends up in her own comedy of errors, and she starts to question why love seems so easy for other people but not for her. With new terms thrown at her – asexual, aromantic – Georgia is more uncertain about her feelings than ever.

Is she destined to remain loveless? Or has she been looking for the wrong thing all along?

This wise, warm and witty story of identity and self-acceptance sees Alice Oseman on towering form as Georgia and her friends discover that true love isn’t limited to romance” –Goodreads

My Review:

This is going to be the shortest review ever!! I am trying to avoid saying anything wrong and there is seemingly a lot of controversy about this book these days.

The story was cute. I liked the self-discovery we went on with Georgia. I liked seeing her friends’ lives through her eyes. I felt like I also learned about asexual/aromantic sexualities. I did not understand completely understand, but now I fully comprehend and respect the author for creating that understanding.

Oseman has a nice YA style writing. I definitely don’t think this is my favorite by them, (Heartstopper has my heart).

The main character of the book was so-so. I thought that the story was great, but sometimes the character just didn’t do anything. It seemed like we were exploring their sexuality, but that was it. We weren’t doing anything else with the main character. I don’t think that is wrong but I love it when characters have more. What I mean is Georgia had no interests that really drove her. Does that make sense?

I don’t think the book was bad, but I do not feel qualified to talk too much about it. It was mainly about sexuality, and I have seen mixed reviews about the representation in this book. Since it is the only thing this story really has (meaning there is no real plot), I don’t feel like I can say too much due to my lack of authority on this topic. Let me know what you think if you have read this book.

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Star Rating: 3.5

Vespertine: A Book Review

The Book:

Title: Vespertine

Author: Margaret Rogerson

Published October 5th 2021 by Margaret K. McElderry Books

Genre: Fantasy, YA

Pages: 400

“The dead of Loraille do not rest.

Artemisia is training to be a Gray Sister, a nun who cleanses the bodies of the deceased so that their souls can pass on; otherwise, they will rise as spirits with a ravenous hunger for the living. She would rather deal with the dead than the living, who trade whispers about her scarred hands and troubled past.

When her convent is attacked by possessed soldiers, Artemisia defends it by awakening an ancient spirit bound to a saint’s relic. It is a revenant, a malevolent being that threatens to possess her the moment she drops her guard. Wielding its extraordinary power almost consumes her—but death has come to Loraille, and only a vespertine, a priestess trained to wield a high relic, has any chance of stopping it. With all knowledge of vespertines lost to time, Artemisia turns to the last remaining expert for help: the revenant itself.

As she unravels a sinister mystery of saints, secrets, and dark magic, her bond with the revenant grows. And when a hidden evil begins to surface, she discovers that facing this enemy might require her to betray everything she has been taught to believe—if the revenant doesn’t betray her first.” -Goodreads

My Review:

Sadly, this book was not as great as Rogerson’s other books I have read. I want to say that it was my fault because I paused in between reading it for like two months. So hopefully that is all my fault.

The beginning was a little confusing. There was not enough exposition. I also think throughout the book points of the plot were not explained well enough so I was confused about the overall plot.

Ugh, I feel so bad. Rogerson is one of my favorite authors, and I hate to put her down.

I still love the book, mostly because of her, but it just was not the best.

The premise was great. I loved how unique it was, but I didn’t get half of the background. The magic/religious stuff was not explained well.

I loved the main character and the revenant that occupies her body. They are great characters. They work well together, if not a little reluctantly.

I think the side character should have been more developed and less static. I think the main character had no real growth. I also have been loving the romance in Rogerson’s books. This did not have any.

I know this review is short, but honestly, I don’t have anything to say. I don’t think it was that great. And I am so sad about that. But, I still am rating it more than I normally would, because I love the author.

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Star Rating: 3.5

Waistcoats & Weaponry Review

My Book:

Title: Waistcoats and Weaponry

Author: Gail Carriger

Series: Finishing School #3

Published November 4th 2014 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Genre: Steampunk, YA, Fantasy, Romance

Pages: 298

“Sophronia continues her second year at finishing school in style—with a steel-bladed fan secreted in the folds of her ball gown, of course. Such a fashionable choice of weapon comes in handy when Sophronia, her best friend Dimity, sweet sootie Soap, and the charming Lord Felix Mersey stowaway on a train to return their classmate Sidheag to her werewolf pack in Scotland.

No one suspected what—or who—they would find aboard that suspiciously empty train. Sophronia uncovers a plot that threatens to throw all of London into chaos and she must decide where her loyalties lie, once and for all.” –Goodreads

My Review:

Like I said last post, this is going to be short. Most of these books are similar but still so good!

Literally amazing. While the plot and the endings end up being near the same, this one was probably my favorite in terms of plot. I think we got to see a lot more of the side characters in action. We also got a super dramatic end. I loved it.

The series at this point gets very repetitive. There is one overarching theme and they all follow the same structure.

This one does have a bigger focus on the romance and how Sophronia negotiates a love triangle. I loved seeing her fall more in love with my top choice (I won’t spoil anything).

I love love love this series so much. This book was probably my favorite out of all four. I highly recommend this series and this book!

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Star Rating: 4.5

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Quotes

“Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.” -That Artsy Reader Girl

This week’s theme:

Book Quote Freebie – choose the theme with which you want the quote to be around

I am choosing self-love/empowerment quotes!

“Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man.” – The Love Hypothesis
“There is a time for stillness, but who hasn’t also wanted to scream with delight at being outdoors? To simply announce themselves and say, I’m here, I exist?” -World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks and Other Astonishments
“You do not yield” -Kingdom of Ash
“Roses have both petals and thorns, my dark flower. You needn’t believe something weak because it appears delicate. Show the world your bravery.” -Stalking Jack the Ripper
“Come at me, world. You can’t damage the impermeable.” -Heart Bones
“Feelings were not stagnant. Neither were opinions or beliefs and if we stopped believing people were capable of change, then the world might as well be left to burn.” -A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
“There is always more than one way to see the world. Those who claim otherwise would have you dwell forever in the dark.” -Sorcery of Thorns
“Happiness isn’t some permanent thing we’re all trying to achieve in life, it’s merely a thing that shows up every now and then, sometimes in tiny doses that are just substantial enough to keep us going.” -Reminders of Him
“There was nothing more dangerous than a woman who knew her own worth.” -The Atlas Six
“You aren’t a flower, you’re every blossom in the wood blooming at once. You are a tidal wave. You’re a stampede. You are overwhelming.” -Crooked Kingdom

Dont forget to link your posts down below!

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Curtsies & Conspiracies: A Review

The Book:

Title: Curtsies & Conspiracies

Author: Gail Carriger

Series: Finishing School #2

Genre: Steampunk, YA, Fantasy

Pages: 310

“Does one need four fully grown foxgloves for decorating a dinner table for six guests? Or is it six foxgloves to kill four fully grown guests?

Sophronia’s first year at Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality has certainly been rousing! For one thing, finishing school is training her to be a spy–won’t Mumsy be surprised? Furthermore, Sophronia got mixed up in an intrigue over a stolen device and had a cheese pie thrown at her in a most horrid display of poor manners.

Now, as she sneaks around the dirigible school, eavesdropping on the teachers’ quarters and making clandestine climbs to the ship’s boiler room, she learns that there may be more to a field trip to London than is apparent at first. A conspiracy is afoot–one with dire implications for both supernaturals and humans. Sophronia must rely on her training to discover who is behind the dangerous plot-and survive the London Season with a full dance card.

In this sequel to New York Times bestselling Etiquette & Espionage, class is back in session with more petticoats and poison, tea trays and treason. Gail’s distinctive voice, signature humor, and lush steampunk setting are sure to be the height of fashion this season.” –Goodreads

My Review:

This review is going to be pretty short because a lot of the things I said in the review about the first book still hold true for this book.

I loved it. I do think it gets a little repetitive, but each little adventure they have is different. This time they go to London.

This time we get a little bit more of the romance between Sophronia and Soap. It makes me so happy whenever I heard them interacting. He literally was so charming.

Felix, the other love interest, was also really charming. I think it could go either way and I would be happy with the outcome. But, I definitely would prefer Soap since he is such a kind person.

I love how Sophronia is not concerned with the romance that was budding up between the two men. She is not bothered but is developing feelings. She is more concerned with learning how to be good at espionage and about her friends thethan she is about the men in her life.

The names get even more ridiculous and its just so fun. This book series is just so fun!

It says YA but I honestly think this is for anyone. I think everyone should check these out.

As always, thanks for reading,

A Bookie

Star Rating: 4