books

<p>With the release of the Netflix series adapting Bardugo’s Grishaverse (side note, I kinda hate “verse” terms) to the screen, I had been reading a lot of praise for the world and the written series, in particular the Six of Crows duology. Sure enough, popular review sites seem to back that hype up. It is very well reviewed.</p><p>After trudging my way through the Shadow &amp; Bone trilogy, I thought I would finally get to the payoff: Six of Crows, pretty much universally praised fantasy heist book with a great cast of characters. What’s not to love?</p><p>Well… A lot, I found out. I acknowledge that I’m probably just not the right audience for this, I guess. I know it’s targeted at YA, but the praise is so universal, even my like-aged fantasy reading nerd friends recommended it. But it fell so short of expectations for me.</p><p>Now, I didn’t hate it. I’ve read worse. And there’s definitely things I liked about the book, and Bardugo’s world. But not nearly enough to like as much as everyone else seems to.</p><p>I constantly found it very difficult to believe, even in a world of fantastical magic, that a group of 15 to 18 year olds had the breadth and depth of skills and knowledge the main cast do. And found myself constantly asking in the second half of the book how this palace could possibly be described as impregnable as it had been when the crew seemed to pretty much have the run of the place.</p><p>The timings of the flashbacks were jarring to me, the romances were shallow and unbelievable, and for probably half of the chapters I asked myself, “did we really need to change character POVs for this?”</p><p>I ultimately landed on a 2.75/5 - still above average, but a far cry from the consensus. Ultimately I was disappointed that this was a teen drama with a flimsy heist backdrop rather than a heist with background romance.</p> <small class="notice" x-post-type-data="None"> Takahe has limited support for this type: <a href="https://sh.itjust.works/post/50575405">See Original Page</a> </small>

<p>Congratulations, and thank you for participating in the 2^nd^ Annual Book Bingo for c/Books@Lemmy.World!</p><p>If the existence of this bingo is a surprise to you, or you want to revisit the guide, <a href="https://lemmy.world/post/28953205" rel="nofollow">see this link</a>.</p><p>If you would like to join us for 2026 bingo, we’ll be posting information on the morning of May 1^st^, US Central Time (UTC -5)!</p><p>There are 2 official ways to submit your card and be recognized:</p><p>Fill out <a href="https://tally.so/r/vGBzDl" rel="nofollow">the web form we made using Tally</a>, which will organize the data for us. Completing the form will also give you a Markdown-friendly list to copy and post in this thread if you would like.<br>Or, if you would prefer, comment in this thread with your list of completed squares, including the titles/authors you read. Here is a list of squares for reference/copypaste:<br>Please provide information ao all squares you completed a work for, even if it didn;t result in a completed bingo for that line.</p>2025 Bingo Squares (click to expand)<p>* 1A: Number in the Title - * 1B: Author from a Different Continent - * 1C: Featured Creature - * 1D: Minority Author - * 1E: Now a Major Motion Picture - * 2A: Independent Author - * 2B: Set in War - * 2C: Orange Crush - * 2D: Short and Sweet - * 2E: Banned Book - * 3A: Mythology or Legend as Important to Plot - * 3B: Title: [X] of [Y] - * 3C: FREE SPACE - Off Your TBR Pile - * 3D: LGBTQIA+ Lead - * 3E: Saddle Up - * 4A: New Release - * 4B: Alliterative Title - * 4C: Judge a Book by Its Cover - * 4D: Award Winner - * 4E: Gamble, Game, or Contest - * 5A: Steppin’ Up! - * 5B: Political - * 5C: Late to the Party - * 5D: Cozy Read - * 5E: Jerk with a Heart of Gold - </p><p>ADDITIONAL POINTS TO READ BEFORE TURNING IN YOUR CARDS!</p><p>Questions? Please ask!</p><p>Turn-in Guidance</p><p>Please make an effort to spell titles and author names correctly! For titles with more than one author, please separate author names with a comma. This will help with data compilation for a bingo stats thread coming later!<br>If you didn’t do a square, don’t list it. Please leave incomplete squares completely blank on <a href="https://tally.so/r/vGBzDl" rel="nofollow">the Tally form</a>.<br>If you did complete a square, even if that one didn;t directly result in a completed bingo, please fill it in. This will help with the bingo statistics page coming soon.<br>You can substitute any square, but please remember: only one substitution per card. On <a href="https://tally.so/r/vGBzDl" rel="nofollow">the form</a>, there’s a substitution checklist for each square that will trigger a place to fill in the substitution information. If you accidentally choose a substitution for the wrong square, please de-select the substitution to clear it.<br>Please make a note if you did a square on hard mode. On <a href="https://tally.so/r/vGBzDl" rel="nofollow">the form</a>, there is a hard mode checkbox for each square.<br>Only turn in your card(s) once you have finished with bingo; do not submit a card still in progress. If you’re using <a href="https://tally.so/r/vGBzDl" rel="nofollow">the Tally form</a>, there is a review page before submission; please make sure that you click submit after double-checking your entries! You cannot edit your card once submitted, so if you realize you’ve made a mistake, please post in this thread to notify us. You can also copy and pase the submission review page to place it in the thread to share with other participants.<br>The feedback questions at the end aren’t required, but will help us with improving Bingo for all of you in the future.</p><p>More than one card?</p><p>If you did more than one card, and are submitting <a href="https://tally.so/r/vGBzDl" rel="nofollow">via Tally</a>, please differentiate your username for each additional card. For example, I would list my first card under “JaymesRS@literature.cafe” and my second under “JaymesRS@literature.cafe - 2”.</p><p>Timeline</p><p>Submit your finished card(s) by May 1st, 2025! This thread and <a href="https://tally.so/r/vGBzDl" rel="nofollow">the Tally submission form</a> will remain open until 12 noon, US Central Time (UTC -5) on May 1^st^ as a courtesy, so please make sure your cards are turned in by then, so they can be counted.</p><p>Reward</p><p>Any five in a row is considered a win! Your only reward this year (as of the time of posting) is the warm glow of satisfaction and bragging rights. However, our ultimate plan is to recognize bingo participation with a flair-like system in the future, so we plan to calculate completion retroactively whenever that’s available.</p><p>In Closing</p><p>Again… <a href="https://tally.so/r/vGBzDl" rel="nofollow">HERE IS THE LINK TO THE TALLY FORM TO TURN IN YOUR CARD</a> (or you can comment in this thread). The form goes live on April 17^th^, 2025, and both it and this thread close around noon on May 1^st^, US Central Time (UTC -5). Be sure to get your card(s) in before then!</p><p>Thanks to everyone that participated this year! This was a fun challenge to put together for us. If you are interested in helping to coordinate the bingo challenge or related resources, please reach out to the moderators of !books@lemmy.world and let us know!</p> <small class="notice" x-post-type-data="None"> Takahe has limited support for this type: <a href="https://lemmy.world/post/45679392">See Original Page</a> </small>