book.dreamblog’s Book Reviews!

  The Secret History by Donna Tartt *This review contains spoilers* Content Warning:  This review mentions incest.  Introduction  Before I bought this novel, I was given two very specific instructions from one of my literature professors in college.  Read The Secret History. Only read it during a snow storm.  So I waited until the first major snowstorm of the winter, and then I dove into this amazing book.  At first I didn’t understand why I was supposed to read this book in winter, because a large majority of the beginning takes place during summer. Once I got to Richard’s near freeze-to-death experience and Bunny’s murder, I completely understood.  And I fell in love with this book. The references to Greek mythology, the dark academia vibes, the reverse murder mystery, the small town college aesthetic, the way that Donna Tartt made me empathize with characters who are literal murderers? It’s all so well done.  Summary and Review At first, t...

This ended up being a “part one” of a series of articles about this topic that I have planned, as there are many more female characters to come that I think should have ended single at their story’s conclusion, and I’m sure there will be more to come in the future! I decided that instead of cramming them all in one article, I’d break it up into a series so each character gets the amount of time she deserves in relation to this discussion.  Most people, especially women readers, will know that all too often, female characters get defined by their romances and their (typically) male love interests much more frequently than the reverse is true. There seems to be such a trend in fiction that a woman protagonist  has  to have a love interest in her story. And if there’s a love triangle, she  has  to choose one of the other. I’ve never seen a F/M/M love triangle end with the woman deciding she’s better off without them both.  Now that’s not to say that a great fe...

A Song of Ice and Fire Book 5: A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin  *Spoiler Warning* This review contains spoilers for both the novel and the HBO television adaptation Game of Thrones.  Introduction  It’s a bit sad to say that A Dance with Dragons will remain my last book review for A Song of Ice and Fire , and hopefully won’t be my last ever! But George Martin has yet to complete The Winds of Winter , so alas. Typically, when I reach a review for the last book in a series, I like to give a small review for the series as a whole at the end. For the purposes of A Song of Ice and Fire , I will not be doing that because the series is unfinished. I can’t completely accurately give the series a rating on a 5 star scale because I don’t know how it’s going to end or if I’ll enjoy the last 2 books. I probably will, but that’s only optimism and conjecture.  In my previous review for book four, A Feast for Crows , I discussed how Feast gained all the story’s major t...

A Song of Ice and Fire Book 4: A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin  *Spoiler Warning* This review contains spoilers for both the novel and the HBO television adaptation Game of Thrones.  Introduction  Often considered the quote-unquote worst book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, a Feast for Crows had a lot to live up to immediately following the masterpiece that A Storm of Swords truly was. The stylistic choice that George R.R. Martin made for this novel was also divisive among Ice and Fire fans. For those who don’t know, books 4 and 5 ( A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragon s) were originally meant to be one installment. Upon realizing that this would not he possible based on the behemoth length of the novel, it was decided that it would be published as two separate books. The problem came about when Martin decided that it didn’t do the plot and thematic concerns of the novel justice to simply cut it in half at the midway point. So instead, he decide...