thefussyreader's reviews
494 reviews

I bought this thinking I'd like it, having no idea how much I'd love it. I didn't have too many expectations for it and bought it mostly on a whim (isn't that just the most wonderful way to find new favourites, completely by accident?)
I knew after reading only one chapter how much I was going to enjoy this. It's official, R.F. Jackaby is one of my new favourite male characters.

Setting
New England, 1892. Ritter's descriptive style is subtle. No info-dumps here. It's like brushstrokes, slowly painting an image of New Fiddleham in my head as and when it needs to. I don't need too much information, my imagination can fill in the blanks. From the very first chapter, I could visualise the town, the weather, Abigail, all of it from only a few brief, but very well written lines.

Characters
I loved Jackaby!!
But not only that, I loved Abigail Rook, and I loved Jenny and I even loved Douglas the duck. This is one of those rare occasions where I don't just get attached to the main characters, but the minor characters too.
They are all loveable, quirky, individual, speak in a very easy and casual way with each other. They're developed but not so much as to reveal all their character to us too soon- It's only the first date, after all.
And I care about them. I CARE!! I found myself thinking about these characters whenever I wasn't reading, desperate to get back to them, to know how they were going to solve the mystery, how they were going to get out of trouble. I really fell in love with this detective duo from the very first chapter.

Abigail is a pleasant blend of intelligent, defiant badassery, and realistic, nineteenth-century lady aware of social propriety.

Jackaby is weird and quirky but also very human. Ritter doesn't make him appear like some hyper-intelligent, socially inept loner with no real concept of human emotion, but a genuine kind of guy with a special talent, who's incredibly casual and honest about the whole bizarre thing. He's also very aware that everyone thinks he's a weirdo. And though he's a little awkward and blunt at times, it's all endearing to his character. He's never pictured as the love interest, which I kind of like, not every book needs to be an intense love affair.

Plot
The plot is simple enough. A 'Whodunit' murder mystery with a splash of the supernatural. People are getting murdered. The police are looking for a man, Jackaby is looking for a monster. Abigail is immediately introduced as an adventure loving, thrill-seeker and it doesn't take her long to discover the local eccentric detective.
The mystery itself isn't so difficult to figure out and if you're looking for a complex plot with endless twists and turns and finger-pointing at many different suspects, you may not find this complicated enough for your tastes. It's very character driven, but personally, I loved that.

Writing Style
This book is written so well. Beautiful, descriptive. It was subtle yet I could picture everything happening at every moment. It flowed so well that I ended up racing through it much quicker than I expected. It never once felt awkward and clunky to read. My favourite style of writing, fluid, easy and moreishly entertaining. It was the perfect blend of humour, mystery, action, suspense, adventure.

Final Impression
I loved this book so much, I ordered the sequel when I was only half way through. This book and these characters will stick with me long after I've finished reading and this is what I love most about reading; A strange sort of feeling that I've made friends, rather than read a book, and I can't wait to see them again.
I didn't want the adventure to end so soon and I only wish the book was longer. All-round a compelling and lovely read. I really can't praise this enough.
Fantastic start to the series.

I can't believe it's over! I feel so sad yet so satisfied. I'm so confused!

I absolutely loved this entire trilogy. From start to finish it's been a fast paced, excited, nail-biting adventure. I'm not sure if any review could do this book justice. It had my heart pounding, had me laughing, crying. It was just amazing and I'm so full of conflicting emotions as I write this. I can't accurately describe how much I love this trilogy.

Setting
Mostly Red London with little bits of White and Grey. I was wondering if we'd ever see Black London, and though we don't actually go to Black London, Black is brought to us. Following the chain of events of the first two books, Red London has been swamped by the dark magic of Osaron, twisting Red London into scary and evil.
I enjoyed the little glimpses of White and Grey London too. Was interesting to see how the events of Red affected Grey.

Characters
I'm in love with every one of them. Kell and Lila, Rhy and Alucard, they're just a pleasure to read. We witness them grow over the course of three books, but ACoL is where I feel we really see who they really are, when all seems lost, we see what they are willing to do and willing give in order to save their city and the one's they love. Alucard is just a dear, and I loved how Kell and Lila's relationship progressed as well. They need each other, they give each other strength they can't find in anyone else. Schwab is always so on point with her developed characters.

Shout out to Holland. His character development throughout the three books has been incredible. To first be a character I hated passionately to becoming the character I possibly have the deepest feels towards is some pretty outstanding writing on V.E. Schwab's part.

Holland's character journey can be summed up quite simply:
ADSoM - Villain
AGoS - Victim
ACoL - Hero

He has well and truly redeemed himself in my eyes and I feel like I've been with him through every step of his journey. Love you long time, Holland.

Plot
It picks up exactly where the last one left off, with Lila racing to find and save Kell (and in turn, save Rhy). From the first page there's action, adventure and intense storytelling. There's a real feeling of desperation and need, of dread, because how can they possibly defeat this new evil in Red London?
But our heroes soon devise a plan to destroy Osaron before he can destroy the city. It's literally a race against time full of fights, unknown threats and unlikely partnerships.

That scene on page 53

Spoiler

where Kell returns and you expect the king and queen to be cold and distant with him like they were through pretty much the entire second book, but actually all they do is hug him hard enough to burst because they're so relieved to see him home safe

was such a touching and needed scene. I didn't even realise how much I wanted that scene to happen until I read it and I got the warm-fuzzies. It was almost like it was a weight off my own shoulders reading it. Within that moment, all the built-up tension from the second book vanished, and it was one of the many stand-out moments for me in this book.

And the ending. What a great ending. As much heart-warming as it was heart-breaking. A satisfying end but open for future adventures, should they ever occur.

Writing Style
I adore Schwab's writing style, as I've stated time and time again. She's just skilled, that's all I can say without repeating everything I say every time I read one of her books. She's one of those few authors who has my complete loyalty. Whatever she writes, whether it be fantasy or not, I would read it, because I know her writing to be consistently good, her characters full of depth, and her worlds and stories to be detailed and fascinating.

Shout out to this awesome piece of dialogue that made me smile:

"What are we drinking to?"
"The living," said Rhy.
"The dead," said Alucard and Lila at the same time.
"We're being thorough," added Rhy.

Damn, I love these characters.

Final Impression
V.E. Schwab deserves a standing ovation for this trilogy. I'm standing, I'm applauding. Well done. You managed to keep me interested through every second of every book. I was emotional when finishing it. I love these characters, and this world, I don't want to let them go. I've been on this amazing, scary, incredible journey with these people and now I feel like I've been left in Grey London, alone, and knowing I won't see them again.

V.E. Schwab, I beseech you, please take us back to Red London one day.
I know it will likely never happen, but I shall live in hope. And until then,
Anoshe, my Red London friends. Anoshe.

So this is a weird one for me. I enjoyed Godblind, and on reflection, there's very little to find fault with on the whole, but for some reason, I struggled to get into it. And it's not cause it's a bad book, actually, it's really pretty good. I love fantasy and Grimdark, epic and vast worlds with maps and multiple character perspectives. This should have been everything I wanted in a fantasy debut, but the whole time I was reading something felt off to me.

Figuring I simply wasn't in the mood for this story, I put it down for two weeks, read something else, and revisited it. I persevered because it's one of the few books I've bought during its first week of release, and if I pay full retail price, I read every god-damned word whether I like it or not.

Characters
I think the main reason it struggled to get into this book was the sheer amount of characters. Don't get me wrong, I love third person multiple perspective stories, it's actually my favourite writing style, but this book is maybe a little overkill. Throughout the course of the book, we don't see two perspectives, or three, or even four, there is a total of TEN. Yes, ten POV's.

Rillirin, Corvus, Crys, Durdil, Dom, The Blessed One, Galtas, Mace, Tara, Gilda.

This would have been fine, were we given enough time to invest in any of these characters early enough. With an average chapter length of about 3 pages (sometimes less, sometimes more) I never felt like I had enough time with any given character at any given point. They were difficult to become fond of or grow with in the beginning because I just didn't know enough about them

It took me to near on the 300-page mark to finally decide that the only characters I truly liked and cared about were Crys, Tara and Ash. I would have been happy with a story with just them. They were really likeable in the end and made an amusing trio at times. Crys and Tara felt the most developed, the ones that had actually grown and changed throughout the story, adjusting to their situations.

I'm all about characters driven stories, and although this book is, I never felt like I knew the characters, I just never had time to get close to them and I think the reason I ended up liking the three mentioned above was because to me they had the most distinctive voices.

It's interesting that the synopsis mentions Dom by name, as though he's the main characters, but I never got the impression of any one character being more important than the other. I had no idea Dom was the MC.

Plot
Oh boy, this is an intense plot to describe in a paragraph.

Two armies from two different kingdoms. We have the Mireces who worship the Red Gods and the Rilporians who worship the Gods of Light. The Mireces want to invade Rilpor and take control of the kingdom in a bloody and glorious war that will split the veil and allow their gods to re-enter the realm of reality.

So that's pretty much the basics, but there's way more going on than just that of course, naturally, there would be with ten main character's story arc to establish. Majority of those characters are Rilporian, the 'good guys', but like any religious war ever, that depends entirely on where your faith lies. Many of the characters storyline overlap and interweave, and some of them don't meet at all, but they are all working towards the same goal: to win the war.

This is a great idea. I can't fault the plot at all. It's truly fascinating. There's so much happening, betrayal and subterfuge and deceit, bravery, good intentions and true colours. Plot-wise, this is everything it needs to be for a fantasy grimdark.

Setting
I enjoyed the setting. I love anything set in an entirely different world, especially one well fleshed out. Sometimes authors create a world but then set the story in a small corner of it never expanding out. This isn't the case with Godblind. I really felt like the author made good use of the interesting world she'd created. The story literally stretched from one side of the map to the other. And the map in the front of the book is also very useful and I referred to it a lot.

So much of this world is mentioned and described, so it really does feel like it's alive, like the world continues to live around the characters, and despite the characters.
Another thing I can't fault.

Writing Style
Written very much in Third Person Multiple. I feel this story has been written with the sole intent of marketing it for TV. Each chapter is short, choppy and straight to the point, like a minute long scene in a TV show, cutting away abruptly to other characters before returning to the previous one to conclude that 'scene'. To an extent, I understand and appreciate what the author is going with this, and this medium works perfectly in TV, but to me, the style is too disjointed for a book. Because of this, I couldn't get into the pacing.

The dialogue was fantastic though. Not a single line was cliche, and I one o the reasons why I love Grimdarks is the colourful use of language. I know profanity isn't everyone's cup of tea, but to me, it's just more realistic and adds to the grit.
The descriptions and writing quality, in general, was really very good, it's simply a number of characters and their lack of development that makes the whole thing feel rushed.

Final Impression
A great book that could have been outstanding. This has many raving reviews and I'm glad that it hit the mark for so many.
I may continue this series, as my main issue was not knowing the characters, but hopefully, I won't feel that way with the second book and the characters will feel more familiar to me. I really do want to like this series, s perhaps I'll give it a second chance.

A really enjoyable and silly play. I'm starting my Shakespeare quest with Midsummer Night's Dream as I'll be watching a performance of it this coming Saturday, and wanted to familiarise myself with the story.

I was worried I would struggle with the language as I haven't read any Shakespeare since my school years, where everything aspect is explained to death draining all the fun and feeling from it. I definitely had a more fun time at it reading it under my own steam, and I was surprised at how easy it was to read. There were parts, like Demetrius' over the top attitude and Lysander's insults that had me laughing out loud.

The idea of mistakenly loving the wrong person gave me real The Importance of Being Ernest vibes, which I loved. If Oscar Wilde had been inspired by this play, I would completely understand that.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this, and think it was the best possible play to kick off my quest to read all of Shakespeare's plays.