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Beth Bauman

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Beth is Currently Reading

Beth Bauman rated a book it was amazing

Book of Night (Book of Night, #1)

by Holly Black (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: 2022, adventure, fantasy, fiction, modern, 2022-not-childrens, currently-reading

read in July 2022

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Beth Bauman said: " Fascinating, well-written, highly entertaining, detailed and vibrant. By far my favourite Holly Black book so far.

I kind of despised the world building in Black's Cruel Prince series, so the richness and and thought in this book's fantasy world was Fascinating, well-written, highly entertaining, detailed and vibrant. By far my favourite Holly Black book so far.

I kind of despised the world building in Black's Cruel Prince series, so the richness and and thought in this book's fantasy world was really surprising. I really enjoy books that combine a modern setting and culture with fantasy magic, and this was best of the best urban fantasy, dark and gritty, with a world that newly discovered magic (shadow magic!). The way the most sophisticated shadows were described reminded me a little of multiple personalities disorder: "I was always the part of him that took care of things when he wasn't able to manage. I was given everything that made him uncomfortable--the desire to cause pain, the terror at what Salt made us do, the ability to intuit how other people felt when the bad stuff happened. I was made to be strong, so he didn't have to be." (265-266). But that was only a small section of the magic world building, and I enjoyed most of it.

The twists were great! There was a BIG plot twist reveal that I started anticipating fairly close to the beginning, and felt my heart sink because it is painful to wait and wait for the reveal when the foreshadowing is not subtle. But to my relief, that twist hidden-identity thing was revealed pretty close to the time when I put two and two together, and there were other, far more shocking twists near the end that I very much did not anticipate.

It isn't really a romance, but the romantic aspects were surprisingly compelling, and I was ABSOLUTELY cheering for them!

I really liked the main character, and I didn't expect to, but she was great. She was fierce and strong, but not arrogant, and her narrative revealed some really lovely vulnerability. Oh, also, I appreciate it when fantasy heroines are not beautiful or skinny: this girl is large and round and generously endowed, and it ABSOLUTELY fit her and, idk, made her more believable and relatable.

The villain was good, and you know how I could tell? Because he made me feel outraged and scared and angry on behalf of our main character. :D ...more "

Dec 18, 2025 10:06AM · see review

Beth Bauman is currently reading

Shakespeare's Tribe: Church, Nation, and Theater in Renaissance England

by Jeffrey Knapp

bookshelves: currently-reading, criticism, essays, history, non-fiction, renaissance, school, shakespeare

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Nov 25, 2025 06:19PM

Beth Bauman is currently reading

Poems, in Two Volumes (Broadview Editions)

by William Wordsworth

bookshelves: currently-reading, 6-stars, classics, poetry, school

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Oct 17, 2025 04:32PM

See all 22 books that Beth is reading…

Beth’s Quotes

“I had never been embraced. Not once in my memory had I been cradled in another’s arms, but John Paterson clutched me to his heart like the prodigal son come home.”
― Amy Harmon, A Girl Called Samson

2 likes

“But you are a warrior.” “I am a woman,” I argued. “You are both,”
― Amy Harmon, A Girl Called Samson

4 likes

“I love Ma an awful lot, but loving Ma is kinda like loving God. She’s not really a person.”
― Amy Harmon, A Girl Called Samson

1 likes

“I find men are more apt to let us play if they believe they will triumph.”
― Amy Harmon, A Girl Called Samson

1 likes

“My grandmother told me once that men may run the world, but women rule men.”
― Amy Harmon, A Girl Called Samson

1 likes

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