Mini Reviews ft. Black Ice, Throne of Glass and 172 Hours on the Moon

★★★☆☆ Appreciated the Attempted Message

Black Ice by Becca Fitzpatrick It's no secret that I enjoyed the Hush Hush series by the same author.  Maybe it's because I hadn't read much else in the YA genre.  Either way, I've become attached to the series.  Black Ice was a different story.  First off, I didn't like any of the characters.  In fact, most of them annoyed the heck out of me.  Especially the best friend - who is actually a really terrible friend - Korbie.  I could tell that the MC, Britt, was supposed to grow throughout the story, but I wasn't feeling it.  It was almost like she was just telling the reader that she had changed.  She was also fairly dumb.  I don't know about you, but I don't think it's smart to take supplies before you leave a cabin to hike through the snow.  I think it's common sense.  I think I could have dealt with this if the book hadn't been written from Britt's perspective. There was a lot more of an emphasis on romance in this than I was expecting, but that's my fault, not the book's (with the tagline of "Danger is Hard to Resist", I should have been more prepared).  Because of this though, I found large chunks of the story to be boring. There was a lot of talk about relying on yourself but I'm not sure that the message was executed entirely well.  There's plenty of angry reviews about this on the books Goodreads page, if you want to see more on this topic. I guessed the main "big secret" almost straight away, but Black Ice kept me reading to find out how all the details fit together, and was overall mildly entertaining.

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas There's not much more I can say on this fantastic book that hasn't already been said a thousand times, but here's a list of them: - After rereading this after finished The Assassin's Blade (a bind up of the series novellas) I definitely found that I appreciated and connected with Celaena's character more. - I feel like I am the only one who actually thinks Dorian and Celaena would make a better pair than Chaol and Celaena (however I do feel bad for Chaol in saying this, and I also have not yet read Crown of Midnight which I have a feeling may change things). - I really wanted to hear more about the Tests.  There was enough action throughout for me not to mind too much, but I feel like more of them could have been included.

★★★★☆ ☺︎☺︎☺︎

★★★☆☆ Scary... ...in the Last Quarter

172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad I'm going to be blunt:  The first half of this book was too boring for me.  I mean, they didn't even get to the moon until this point.  The only reason I kept going until this point was that I'd heard some really good things about this book, and I was intrigued by the little hints dropped here and there in the first half.  I didn't connect with the characters, and that's certainly part of why I didn't end up liking this as much as I could have.  I'm terrified of space as it is (in a "There is no end to it!  How is that possible?  You could just go on forever until you died!" kind of way) and this book has solidified that fear for me!  The ending was kind of awesome - it was just disappointing that it took so long to get to the point of the story.  It seemed like there was so much unnecessary detail in the beginning.

If you've read any of these books, please share your thoughts (especially on the 172 Hours - I'm interested to hear what people liked in the first half), and I will have another post up soon! :)