Bookish Thoughts

Sometimes you find yourself so deep into a series, that you just keep reading beyond your enjoyment of it. Because some new twist appears and you have to find out what happens next. Even though you don't really care. I really liked the first Rose Marshall book. It was fun and inventive and told an interesting, ambiguous story. I was lukewarm on the second book. I wouldn't have read or even expected a third book. But then, over in the Incryptid series, which takes place parallel to this series, major changes happened. A big bad was defeated in a way that would have huge repercussions for Rose, and I just had to see that play out. So I guess I got my closure. But having gotten it, I'm not sure I needed it. My problem is with rose herself, who is feeling less like a character and more like a mouthpiece for the author. These books have lost a lot of the ambiguity that made them interesting. People are very definitely either good or bad, and that comes with a whole host of opini...

This was a fun adventure, though I was a little disappointed that we didn't get to spend as much time in the underworld. Rose spends the majority of the book in a living human body, trying to figure out how to get back to her ghostly state. It's a trick pulled by Bobby Cross that serves to mess up Rose's life without bringing them that much closer to a confrontation. I'm hoping that in the next book they finally face off against each other.

Seanan McGuire initially wrote a bunch of short stories about a ghost. Then she stitched them together into a book. Then she turned it into a series. I originally read this book several years ago, but I finally picked up the sequel (and saw that a third is forthcoming), so I had to go back and re-read this one. Since I first read this story, I've read the main Incryptid series, of which it's an offshoot. That meant that I picked up on a lot more this time through. The world where this takes place is incredibly rich, and I missed a lot of the references when I first encountered them. That contributed to me liking this story even more the second time around. I was also better able to appreciate the structure, since I knew where everything was headed. I didn't expect my re-read of this book to be quite so rewarding, but I'm glad it was. I'm definitely hooked on this series and Rose Marshall now, and I can't wait to see where her story goes. (especially after the ev...