I'm too old for these slap-you-kiss-you-romances. I just... well, the fact that I wanted to bonk their heads (preferable against each others, because there could be nothing equally stubborn hard) whenever they turned that one-upmanship fest they had going with the world towards winning over the other, instead of pooling knowledge and resources, influenced my rating a lot. It's is a personal thing (I just want people to love each other and be tender), and a big caveat if you are looking at those stars, so heads up there. I'm very aware that their stubborn pride is exactly in character, and a failing that brings them many problems as well as the quality that makes them succeed. It just made me want to yeet the book and howl.

Also, the fact that I can quote Lessa's worry about coming back as "He'll shake me again". NOT FUNNY. No one would take that lightly if you put "punch" there.

Now, that out of my chest... Dragons: yeap, good, exactly why I'm here. Timetravel: huh... that was not expected, and suddenly this is a lot more interestingly unique (even if much was a foregone conclusion).

I'm likely to read the next install of this series because I can see the problems coming with that other queen, but I want to forget a bit these two logger-heads before that.

After reading J.P Delaneys "The Perfect Wife,' I gave this audiobook a try and was not disappointed.

Delaney once again does a good job developing plot and characters in this suspenseful story about a woman who moves into a home owned by a man with curious requirements for his renters. The woman discovers that there are quite a few similarities between her and the girl who lived in the house before. 

A well drawn mystery told through the perspectives of several people - in the past and present.  Left me rethinking how quickly I would sign a rental agreement . . . 

I'm divided on this one.

I liked the writing. I liked the stab at representation and consent issues. New takes of old tales are always an interest to me, and the sci-fi slant is just more win.

I could not get over Earland. On his own, he undermines most of the good bits about body-autonomy, consent and chauvinistics screenings. There's this bit where the doc passes on testing the virus/cure combo on a male cyborg ostensibly because he's too old (and in his mind, ostensibly because he has a son), but then gets all gung-ho on testing the teen girl, and a female colleague implies it is because he's a chauvinistic ass. But hey, no! That woman was obviously wrong and overreacting! (oversensitive feminists!) He just knew that the immune one he was looking for would be a cyborg teen girl. He's not racist or anything. It is just a pity that the easiest way to find her was to implement a draft on a group with little body autonomy and they... well... die. The princess (and a cure... that too) must be found! He's just working with the system! Honest! (I kept thinking of The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks, and also the Nuremberg Trials, ain't he a peach?)

The other bit that I did not like was the very end.

And I knew it was a series, but I still hate books that do not resolve the main plot. I like series with myth arcs and more or less self contained volumes. I can count the amount of books I "forgave" cliff-hangers or series' hooks with one hand, so a final demotion, though this one smaller and more personal.

Hell, likely all the cons I wrote there are personal anyway. It likely is the perfect book for many people, and I might still read the rest. I'm just not in as much of a rush as I felt I'd be at the start.

I think I enjoyed this one exactly for the same reasons everyone disliked it: the characters were so messed up it was nerve-wreaking to read.

I've likely commented many times before how I love those books that engage me enough for me to get emotional over the characters, even if it is rage enough to want to strangle them, and that's pretty much what happens here. Bruno is a messed up cookie, and Guy is a derrotist moron, and that's what drives the slide-down-the-slope plot.

There is the thing too: I think most people think this will be something that is not. It is not a mystery. It is not a heist type of book of two guys planning perfect murders. What it is, is the very, very, very messed up relationship between a sociopath and a coward. The murders are just the thing that binds them and the theme is something like "all the wrong choices". While it made most dislike the book, it made me want to bitch-slap Guy and continue to read the train-wreak.

I think Highsmith was trying for this high-minded "either guilt or law will punish" poetic thing at the end, but it felt like an unnecessary convolution that made me go "NOW you find your spine/brain/cold-thinking to live with your actions, you moron", which, yeah, OK, poetic irony or something but... 4 stars