Reviews and Comments

A quick and fun enemy to lovers trope, but with engineers!

This was probably my favorite book of the series, with a satisfactory ending. I love the writing style of these books, there a lightness to it that makes me smile all the time. This one has dirigibles, a boat trip, balloon trips, a cute metanatural baby (Prudence), children traveling with their parents, Egypt ancient mysteries, and adorable supernatural beings. (vampires and werewolves). It's witty, and sensible and classy. It was a true feel-good read. And I felt compelled to continue reading the next series (The Custard Protocol) that focuses on Prudence as an grown-up lady.

It was an interesting premise overall, with post humanism discussions and creepy religions. Lots going on here: complex worldbuilding. creative and unusual hard sci-fi concepts and bio-engineering of specialized human sub-species. There are different post-human beings that were heavily genetically modified, like Homo Quantus, who are able to make astounding leaps of intellectual analysis by stepping away from their individuality, Homo eridanus (The Mongrels): engineered people adapted to live in the deep sea floor and the creepiest of all, Homo pupa (The Puppets): a type of slave species who were genetically modified to experience awe under pheromonal cues of their masters. I gotta say some of the quantum philosophical passages about faith, existence and quantum calculations were boring to me. The part about Homo pupa and their blind worshipping was super disturbing, exploring the worst part of blind faith fanaticism.

Delightful!

I've had Jon Kabat-Zinn's work on my to-read plans for a while now. I'm in need of some mindfulness inspiration right now.

I liked the diet approach of this book. I've had acid reflux for years and have adopted lifestyle changes and tweaks to my diet to counteract it. It never worked 100%, and this book was eye-opening in terms of suggesting additional changes to my diet and eating habits that are truly beneficial. I'm still in the first 28-day healing phase (the most restrictive diet) and I'm seeing improvement in my symptoms. The book is very accessible, there are recipes, a comprehensive meal plan suggestions, and lists of foods that are recommended so we can come up with our meal plan as well. The recipes are easy to follow and they matched my diet preferences. It has very good advice not only for acid reflux but for lifelong health.

This series is so much fun, I'm glad I got back to it. Delightful language, lots of action and tea drinking, a giant mechanical octopus, zombie porcupines mixed with vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and a mystery. Also, a pregnant protagonist is not really common in steampunk/paranormal novels. It's classy and fun! I will read the next one in the series.

This was a long book, I have to say the first half dragged a little. It's a plot-heavy book, with high stakes, several characters die because of the war. There were some powerful scenes related to war decisions that seemed uncomfortably to reality. I was more interested in what was going on in the forest with Che and Seda, the major mystery of this whole series. It ends in a cliffhanger to the last book of the series.

I enjoyed this Sherlock Holmes fantasy twist. I loved when the narrator breaks the fourth wall to apologize and tries to conceal the offending language spoken by some characters. It's a crazy world, different dimensions exist, time travel is possible, there are transgender and pansexual characters, humor, and hints of Lovecraftian/Gothic/Vampire-ish atmospheres.

I enjoyed this more than the previous one. I will read the last one in this series, had lots of fun.

It was nice to read thoughts on the topic from people of various ages and sexual preferences, males and females. I find it’s hard to have an open conversation about this topic nowadays. The essays are very personal and honest bringing diverse perspectives. I'm glad these voices are out there debunking the prejudice that childless people (especially women) are selfish or that there is something wrong with them. Being a woman who decided at an early age to not pursue motherhood, this was a refreshing read for me.

I wasn't interested in the topics. I was getting bored.

I've heard a lot about this series over the years, but I never actually read it. I gave it a try, and it didn't really catch me. It's probably too dark for my taste as it clearly has horror elements. I didn't like seeing people suffering because of the cruelty of deities, it's not really my thing. The art is beautiful, though. 

Have I mentioned that I love the titles of this book series? This one has necromancers who want to put their hands on an old lost book that contains forbidden magic powers, so, lots of zombies. Also, vampires because, why not? Harry Dresden finally gets a job with the White Council and starts getting regular income. So, I hope he is not broke all the time anymore, he deserves it, he's a good guy. Oh, and did I mention zombie dinosaurs? 

A fun quick read, I liked the idea of a Victorian Bed and Breakfast being a cosmic outpost with its own powers. It's a good urban fantasy mixing up with space vampires, werewolves, and a badass protagonist who is the Innkeeper.