alaterdate | Assorted Reviews #6 (Reply)

A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons by Kate Khavari. Uh, didn't realize this was a "cozy mystery" or else I probably wouldn't have read it. It's not as niche as Mary Noelle Solves the Gingerbread Man Christmas Murder or things like that, but I still went into this expecting something else. This book follows a young botany research assistant named Saffron Everleigh who has to solve an attempted murder and exonerate her professor while also navigating a chance for love with a colleague.
It was SO SLOW and bogged down badly with irrelevant scenes. I also felt that the level of description of sexual harassment Saffron faced in the workplace came out of nowhere regarding the tone of the book. I can understand the inclusion as this is a book about a woman pushing boundaries in the workplace/academia, but it didn't feel like it was centering her and instead used as a shorthand to make an antagonist villainous.
It was really really boring and I wanted to quit reading it, but I pushed through then took a nap.

Babel by R.F. Kuang. My second Kuang book, I only read the first book in the Poppy War series and I didn't like it, I don't think I wrote a review though. Once again, here's a book I thought was supposed to be adult, but all I have to say is that Kuang's ideas far outpace her writing skill.

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim. This book is a retelling of the Grimm's fairy tale The Wild Swans. I listened to the audiobook for this and I couldn't tell if the characters were supposed to be Chinese or Japanese because the setting seemed very Chinese, but a lot of names sounded Japanese. There was also touches of racism that kept bothering me, with the main character calling the male lead a barbarian multiple times.
The pacing was garbage with so many scenes of meandering. So much happened that had no bearing at all on the end, thanks to the end having a surprise villain! The prose wasn't too bad, but didn't make up for the rest of the mess.