FantasyHoard commented on a post
Andy Weir's second novel but soon to be a motion picture, Artemis is very different from his massive success stories of The Martian and our last BotM Project Hail Mary. Those scifi books focused on hope and success, while this one was more of a..."thriller"?
This was a very difficult read/listen. Not because of its content, but because of its quality. This book is definitely the outlier of Weir's other works, focusing on a noir-style thriller told on a lunar city. Our MC Jazz is honestly insufferable of how independent she wanted to be but could not actually accomplish anything real on her own besides her sabotage mission. I really don't like how everyone calls this book a "heist" since Jazz stumbles upon the thing she steals, it never made sense to me.
I hope when this book gets adapted Weir and the screenwriter work on how to make sense of this plot. Overall great concept but it did not land.
FantasyHoard commented on a post
I laugh everytime we get the italics whining from the teens when Magnus talks lol
FantasyHoard wrote a review...
Though this was a cozy fantasy I never felt that warm hug feeling that I usually get from this genre. None of the stakes ever felt like they mattered, and just because it's cozy fantasy which is low stakes typically doesn't mean there should be zero stakes. Yes the ERCA was a threat ever looming but they felt like an after thought as villains. I felt the same with the other threat facing the main characters as well. It just never felt developed enough to be a real problem and it was wrapped up so easily in both cases.
I was excited to read a story of an old home being reimagined by a mother daughter duo, and instead felt like it was Evie plus her accessory Ruby. I wish we had more focus on their relationship instead of focusing on Evie's romantic relationship.
The magic in the book just didn't feel like it followed its own rules, or maybe there just weren't rules to begin with. We get shown that using too much magic in a day can be dangerous and drain a person, but at every turn there was some reason for a character to use more than they should be able to. No consequences besides needing a day of rest as the worst case scenario on one occasion.
What worked for me was the sentient house. Every aspect of how that works, the house's personality, and how it interacts with other characters was the highlight of this book. It was charming and quirky, it was a breath of fresh air in a mostly stagnant story.
In the end this book suffers from too many ideas and not enough depth. It's a cute read and the idea is a truly unique and good one, but sadly for me the execution just didn't land for me.
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Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)
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Songs of the Dead
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