Mini Reviews #6: Leah on the Offbeat, Annihilation, & More

It’s been a hot minute since I wrapped up books in a Mini Review, but I’ve read a whole bunch of things latetly and wanted to share my spoiler-free thoughts on them! Here in my Mini Reviews I don’t give a full synopsis on the book- just my basic thoughts and feelings. If you want more info just click the books title to be taken to the Goodreads page. Alright- let’s get into these:

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli

Like many other YA readers I was pretty excited for this sequel to Simon VS the Homo Sapiens Agenda. Becky Albertalli has a very quirky, contemporary way of writing that really worked here. Her teenagers feel very realistic (aside from sometimes forced-feeling cussing) and I enjoyed all the modern pop culture references. For me, one of the shining parts of this novel was seeing this lovable friend group grow and adapt to the oncoming changes of graduation, college, and life beyond high school. But there were some pretty big hiccups, the major one being the discussion Leah has with someone (pages 257-263) about their sexuality and that conversation was a problem for me. I almost wholly disagree with what Leah said and felt like it was very out of character. Leah was incredibly quick to dismiss the other persons take on what is or is not a “real label”. Also, I don’t know why the whole Martin issue (from book 1) is still hanging around awkwardly in the air. I think that needed to be wrapped up a looooong time ago. All in all, this was kinda fun to read, but I feel disappointed- this book could have been so much more!

My Rating: 3/5 stars ★★★☆

Diary of a Bad Year by J.M. Coetzee

I’m not going to mince words here- this was one of the worst books I have ever read. It’s awful. The writing style is drab, the formatting gets annoying and difficult to follow, the characters are all very unlikeable, and all-in-all it’s a very boring story. While I admire Coetzee for breaking out of the standard structure for novels and setting up three simultaneous lines of dialogue/thought all on the same page, it made for a exhausting reading experience. And I’m not one to get tired of difficult reading- I binge read The Name of the Wind and its sequel back-to-back last year and adored my time doing so. But I wouldn’t recommend reading Diary of a Bad Year unless you want to have a bad year. It’s utterly tiresome and pretentious. I won’t be picking anything else up by this author.

My Rating: 1/5 stars ★☆☆☆☆

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

This trilogy has been looming on my TBR since last summer when a bookstore customer recommended it to me. I really enjoyed the overall premise of it: an expedition of 4 women are sent into Area X, a strange chunk of land where an unknown anomaly took place a few years ago. None of the past expeditions that went in have come back out. Vandermeer has a very distinct and spookily sparse writing style that easily builds up moments of horror without seeming cheesy. Also, the atmosphere in Annihilation is solid- I could practically feel the damp, eerie chill of Area X and its creatures pressing down on me while I read. That being said, my main problem with “Annihilation” was the last fourth or so of the story. The narrative kind of spirals off and feels a tad directionless, like Vandermeer didn’t quite know how to wrap things up. Finally, the lack of answers was so frustrating! I feel like so many mysteries were presented but almost none were resolved. I’m hooked enough to keep reading the series; however, I’m hoping for more solid answers and narratives in book 2.

My Rating: 3/5 stars ★★★☆☆

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

My expectations for Adeyemi’s debut fantasy novel were incredibly high- this was one of the most hyped releases of 2018 and the author has been called “the next JK Rowling”. While the premise is very intriguing, on the whole the execution just fell flat.  The writing style is quite basic and often repetitive, and Adeyemi lacks lyricism in both description and dialogue. While I thought the magic system sounded cool it also lacked structure and rules. I felt like anything was possible with Zelie’s magic, and when anything is possible then nothing is (that’s a Holly Black writing rule right there, folks). By the end of the story magic felt like a prize on an episode of Oprah: “YOU get magic powers, and YOU get magic powers- you ALL get magic powers!” All in all, Children of Blood and Bone wasn’t a horrible  book, but there also isn’t much that was good, either. It’s a creative premise but the writing style needs development and heavier editing for the story to really have that zing to it. I’m not even slightly interested in the sequel.

My Rating: 2/5 stars ★★☆

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

By far this was one of my favorite books I’ve read so far in 2018! Ireland delivers a unique twist on a zombie story by setting her tale during Civil War-era America and adding ass-kicking heroines. If it wasn’t for the fact that my bookclub voted to read this then I definitely wouldn’t have read it as soon as I did, and that would have been a major mistake. Ireland writes full-bodied, funny, and flawed characters that I couldn’t help but root for throughout the course of the novel. Jane and Kate are two of my new favorite protagonists and I loved their developing friendship! They are so much fun to read about and follow their adventure. I thought the pacing was particularly noteworthy; Ireland keeps things moving and interesting without rushing the plot. Each moment of action and revelation seemed perfectly placed within the story as a whole and I feel like a lot of planning went into this story. I’m not one to usually reach for zombie books but ended up devouring this (zombie pun intended) via audiobook and it was a fantastic read- can’t wait for book 2!

My Rating: 5/5 stars ★★★★★

Thanks for reading my latest Mini Reviews! If you have read any of these books or want to, I’d love to hear your thoughts on them down below so leave a comment. 😀

Until next time,

Deborah xx