RANKING EVERY BOOK I READ IN 2025!

It's it's James picked up on some themes that I know are there where yeah, there's some anti-semitism within this book. That's bad. but it still is a really interesting worthwhile experience.

I think it was well written. I liked the characters well enough, but those characters have left my head way faster than any of the other books that Adrien Tchaikovsky wrote.

There are those rough edges that you can tell it's a first author, but I'm gonna give it a solid B. I think Evan delivered on a premise and made it engaging the entire way through.

Brilliant story. just a top tier of medieval horror inspired by Christianity. I genuinely think this can go down as one of the classics of this era in terms of just wildly standing out from everything in the pack that's like what's trending, what's good in the algorithms.

The themes were not woven in subtly enough. It feels like a lot of the fat got burned off, and we just were left with something that ended up being a bit too gy me story-wise.

And by the time you get to Children of Memory, it's just like it makes you re understand what communication can be and how meaning needs to go from one medium to another. Flawless.

So, I'll just say if you think the themes of the first book sound interesting, just know the second book is then him going communication. You find that interesting, expand, grow, poke evolve, and then we do it once again for the third book to possibly reach a perfect end to the series.

And so, it is just this magnificent realization of alien intelligence that I personally believe is unparalleled in any sci-fi book I have ever read.

And the characters just didn't actually earn the growth they went through. It just felt like one traumatic thing happened and people just flipped and so much just didn't vibe with me overall in terms of realizing what could have been a cool story.

This doesn't look like your typical cat drawing at all. It's closer to a blob. And it really works.

I am just finishing up Empire of the Damned, which I'm very happy to say I found to be right in line with the first one, which you always want to see as you get deeper in a series or at least this.

I had it was just like one of those like reading experiences where I'd say the reading experience was more solid than I could say like the technical aspects of the book. But what are we reading fantasy for here, an escapist fun time a lot of the time. And Empire the Vampire managed to do that while also having like rock solid moments of emotion and pain.

And I actually really enjoyed it. this was not the best book I've ever read. You the pros didn't blow my mind, but I was entertained the whole time despite the surprising lack of action.

I think I was more positive on it when I first reviewed it because I was excited about these cosmir elements. And the more I've sat on it, the more it's unfortunately, probably you can tell from how I'm talking, faded from my brain a bit.

And Jade City starts really, really good. Lets you know this is going to be some morally questionable characters as they go up against some true villains to try and take control of John Lon, all of Kon, and the jade trade as foreign influences begin affecting the city and they're holding on to their way of life of honor and jade and being organized crime syndicates.

And then in Jade Legacy, it actually has the balls to come in and say, "Okay, and now where can they end up cathartically for you as a reader to see this full arc, this flawed human as just a person, a legend who tried to do their best?" And even on a reread, the final scenes made me cry, man.

And then Jade War happens and you realize, oh, we're not following morally gray people. We're following monsters. Oh, this is going to be so much worse than I thought.

I just have like I don't have a ton of praise for Magic Bites. I just have like no hate for it. It very well did what it was trying to do and I could see becoming a big fan of the series if I continued through it.

I just think this was a lot of fun for its aesthetics. Needed a more solid story.

I enjoyed this more the second time I read Red Rising. I'll put it at the bottom of a still maintain Red Rising goes from good to great in its sequels. But knowing where the seeds go, I think helped the reading experience of the first book a lot.

A thousand% if you're his Dark Materials fan, pick up the Old Kingdom. Read Saabriel. It's just sensational.

It's freaking brilliant. I adore this one. It actually managed to be despite how bleak that setting sounds. An adorable story.

It's such a fabulous execution of a great concept. I wish I hadn't read this right after doing a bunch of other books by AdrienChaikovsky about communication because it got a little tired by the time of this.

It's got Sanderson's signature character work where you like that he's fully fleshing out this system and having these people really live in it and exploring their personalities through how they view the system he's set up. And don't think too hard about trying to predict the end because you will.

And I like the unveiling of some monsters and beasts, but it just never hit that magical spark. never really had it like really making me thrilled to pick up the page again. So, it's going to be a high C for me.

So, first book is like a brother conflict, not actual brother, but like we're brothers and a kind like conflict expanding as like a an underdog rises to power and you get this great world building of a, you know, inspired epic fantasy thing with it's so different than any fantasy world you'll ever see before.

It is repugnant in terms of its actual theming and messaging. It's not just a result of having aged poorly from when it was written. Even back then, the ideas that are putting forward are gross.

I wish the end result of the mystery without getting any more into spoilers was more shocking, but the backdrop of one embracing like mental health things to craft a Sherlock Watson dynamic and two having these like kaiju looming in the horizon type threats did make it feel different absolutely so than any Sherlock Holmes reimagining I've seen.

I really, really, really liked the Faction Wars. And I was surprised to see so much push back from some people saying they didn't love this as a dungeon crawler Carl book. I sure did.