Mini Reviews ✨ Invisible Ghosts and Tithe

Guess what? I’m too lazy to write two separate reviews, and I don’t think I have much to say about either of these books, so I’m going to write some mini reviews.

Let’s hop into these reviews, shall we?

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Invisible Ghosts, by Robyn Schneider
(find out more on Goodreads)

Within the first 20 pages, I understood where the story was going, and everything was set up. I liked that it was straight to the point, and easy to like and read along with. 

Logan and the fact that he returned as a ghost was fascinating, and I honestly love ghost stories about particularly chill ghosts. We seriously need more books with ghosts like Logan. I liked Rose’s relationship with Logan, too, and the way her guilt over his death was portrayed. 

However, once I hit around 120, not much else had happened. Since he beginning, the plot introduced Jamie as a potential friend with to no flaws, and I liked him, but… I needed more plot to happen. 

In fact, up until page 130, there hadn’t been much conflict or plot progression. Some things happened, but nothing too serious or long lasting. 

At around page 220, I realized that I liked the story, but there were a lot of things about it that I just didn’t care about. For example, I felt like Rose had too many friends, and none of them had much of an indivisible personality. They would just occasionally chime in and say a joke or whatever, and it almost never had a nothing to do with moving the plot along. 

Another problem I had was that there were WAY too many pop culture references. I learned in a creative writing class that one should try keep current references to a minimum (like, only mention Starbucks once or twice) so that the book ages well. But that is NOT what happened here. Even though Invisible Ghosts was published in 2018, last year, I already feel like it’s outdated, coming from the overused Hamilton and Harry Potter references, and sayings like “#goals” and such. 

Character Thoughts:

Logan: I really liked Logan’s character, but… all I know about him is his love for slightly-irrelevant Netflix shows. Like, that’s it? Should he have more of a personality? 

Rose: Generally, she was an okay MC. Some of her decisions were annoying, but then again, she is still like 16 years old. I can give her a break.

Jamie: He was the only other character I liked, and that a good thing, since all of the other characters didn’t really matter. He was okay, but sometimes cheesy.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Tithe, by Holly Black
(find out more on Goodreads)

I really liked this one more than I thought I would! The early-2000s vibe was worrying me a bit when I started, but I quickly got used to it.

There were a lot of things I was already familiar with, thanks to reading The Cruel Prince and The Darkest Part of the Forest a few years ago. I was really impressed with how passionate Holly Black is about the world of Faerie, and the amount of thought it seems she’s put into this whole world. Several books of the same world and similar characters is a lot to handle!

There were a few scenes which felt too rushed, and some which felt way too drawn out. For example, in the beginning of the book, everything that Kaye did was described heavily. It was very visual, but almost too visual, with too much information and not enough excitement going on.

But when I was about 40% in, it felt like some characters jumped to conclusions without experiencing anything I could see. Why was Kaye suddenly friends with Corny? Why did Corny suddenly care so much about whether or not Kaye accidentally left some details out of her explanations? How did Kaye know the kelpie would like her offering, if she literally knows nothing else about Faerie? Why is Corny so upset about Kaye leaving him behind, even though she has no reason to? Why do they say “fey” but not “fae”? Did I miss something here?? (And all of these questions happened within the same 20 pages!) In short, I just wanted more characterization and less descriptions when I didn’t need something to be described. 

Overall, I enjoyed Tithe. It was good, but I still prefer Holly Black’s more recent works, particularly The Wicked King. 

I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the books in this series!

Rating: 3.75 stars out of 5

Tell me. Have you read any of these books?
What did you think?
Chat with me about it!

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Happy reading, everyone! 🙂