Anne

Just like the other Tessa Bailey book I read, I like the story and the characters, but they're so focussed on sex and the way they talk about each other('s bodies, mostly the guy) kind of grosses me out. (Doesn't help that the first time the guy meets her, he starts with a paragraph on how great her breasts look.)

I wish the book was less focused on sex and more on developing their relationship. The MMC came on a bit too strong for my taste and I think the book needed more time for the FMC to actually face her past and fears, it felt like everything was going a bit too quickly to feel real.

*more like 3.75

I was a bit unsure about wanting to read this, because it's YA and I was afraid it would feel very young and teenage-y and I was not feeling that, but I actually enjoyed it, I think it helps the characters are not super young (18&20). They're both very likeable, Mallory's relationship with her family was interesting and I liked their dynamic, I also really liked how confident/straightforward Nolan was. I also liked all the side characters, they were all fun and I would not have minded seeing more of them.

I don't know a lot about chess, so not sure how accurate that part is. It's probably a bit unrealistic how good Mallory is, but I didn't mind it personally.

I liked it, the story/world was interesting, the main characters are likable and I do have a weakness for graceful assassin/warrior people, the looks-innocent-but-secretly-is-dangerous type does have a certain charm.

I liked the relationship for the most part and Lara's personal development was interesting. I liked Aren as well, but I do think he was maybe a bit too soft for the king of a nation depending on keeping secrets from his wife's home country.

I did not love how this book ended, but that might be a personal preference, it caused a situation that seemingly would make it very difficult for the main characters to be together in a satisfying way and I don't like my romance to get too dark.

I liked parts of this book, it was captivating while I was reading it, but a bit too stressful for me and the ending does not feel very satisfying, or maybe believable is a better word.

I liked Lara coming to rescue Aren from her father, her gathering all her sisters and the infiltration was great, I'd love to see more of them. Aren's mental space made a lot of sense for the most part, I can understand how he obviously felt betrayed by Lara, but can forgive her eventually because he understands what happened to her and why she did what she did and that she tried to stop it. But the choices he makes regarding her and his country seem dumb tbh.

[spoilers for the ending] So much hurt happened because of her, to so many people in ithicana, it feels unrealistic that other people would accept her back as queen, even with that shark justification. And this is probably on me, but it also doesn't feel satisfying that she will spend the rest of her life surrounded by people who lost family and friends because of her (and Aren, he's not innocent in this, he trusted/misjudged her so easily). I mean there was that whole scene where people kept telling her about everyone they lost because of her. I think I might have preferred an ending where they both leave Ithicana and start a life elsewhere, maybe with her sisters. Also the way she kills her father is pretty unsatisfying, so quick and sudden after so much built up.

I also agree with other people that the sex scene after Lara was badly injured and Aren fixes her up was weirdly placed. Like no way that was fun for her just after getting stabbed in the leg till the bone.

I thought the world and the magic were interesting and there were a lot of good story elements, but there were some elements that made it hard to fully enjoy the book.

I thought a prisoner having to become the poison taster was an interesting concept, that made sense for the story. I liked Yelena and her recourcefulness and determination. I also liked the friendship she developed with some of the commander's soldiers. The plot was engaging and I was entertained by the book as long as I tried to ignore some of the issues I was having.

"warning": I'm going slightly into things happening later in the book in my review, I don't think it's spoiler-y enough to cover, mostly things you can guess if you're familiar with this type of story, but maybe don't read it if you don't want to know anything about the book.

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(At first) I though Valek was an interesting character. Yelena and his growing closeness was interesting to me until I realised how old he must be and that they were supposed to have a romantic relationship. Based on the information we get about him killing the King like 15 years ago, he must be like twice her age! She's 19 I think, and he's like mid 30's? That's just creepy. Not to mention that the way he fell for her and communicated that didn't feel like something a 30-year old adult would do. Couldn't he have just been like a mentor figure? I feel like that could still have been the close relationship she needed and would inspire the loyalty the story needs, but without the romance, this book didn't need it and it made the story worse.

Also, maybe I understood it wrong cause the author was very vague, but I feel like it was implied that they had sex when they were hiding for some hours to escape the prison. This would be after they had been captured and locked up for 2 days, and Yelena had been very sick for like a whole night and was covered in bodily fluids from that at some point. That being the first time they had sex is a weird writing choice.

Another thing is that I am unsure how we are supposed to feel about commander Ambrose. Yelena seems to like him and feel some loyalty to him and he has his kind moments. But he also orders all magicians in the country to be killed, which are usually children, to protect his secret, that's he's actually (born as) a woman, which I'm not sure if the commander is supposed to be a trans man or is just hiding his/her gender to be a more convincing leader? . And while his country's system seems to promote equality, he doesn't seem to actually make sure everyone is treated fair and that the people he appoints to lead are good people. Including the whole 'no murder for any reason even self-defense' rule. Plus the whole carving a letter on Valeks's chest as a reminder of his loyalty is weird.

Speaking of Valek, there's a similar two-facedness there. He seems relatively kind in the book and does some good things, like allowing that kind of wrongly imprisoned man to start a new life and helping Yelena of course, but of-page seems to have done horrible things, like killing innocent children because the commander says so (maybe we'll find out he actually didn't kill them but sent them to the other country or something, but still, Yelena is already "passionately in love" with him despite that). The author just seems to gloss over some of the more horrible things that happened before or during the book in general. Maybe that's just because it's a young adult book and they want to show the bleak history of the main characters without being explicit, but that just makes it feel like it's not being taken that seriously at times.

While writing this review I started to doubt my 3 star rating, but I think it does make sense, the overall story I'd probably rate slightly higher, there were a lot of interesting elements and it read easily. I'm mostly just not sure how much I want to take away from my rating due to the in my opinion problematic elements.. I'll keep it like this for now

Fun romcom, very sweet, I liked how supportive everyone was of each other.

Some bits did make me roll my eyes. Like I just cannot take anyone that uses 'No Ragrets' unironically serieusly... There was also a bit more tell instead of show that I would have liked.

I liked most of the story, fake dating while being childhood rivals is a fun trope. A fun quick holiday romcom.

Things I didn't love:

- the girl was extremely hung up on their childhood rivalry when the guy was not at all, which made her seem very childish and petty.

- the guy had apparently been pining for like 10 years (in which they either didn't or barely saw each other), which honestly is a bit sad.

- the way the sex scenes were worded was uncomfortale for me (like 'milk', 'cunt', immediately thinking about 'putting a baby inside her').

Very cozy book, the tea- and bookshop sounds really nice. I like that the characters are quite capable, it always feels more relaxing to read about someone who knows what they're doing. I also really liked the side characters, all the people in the village were very likable and I'm curious to see more of them in the rest of the series. Although of course Visk is the best side character.

The one thing that I'd like to see improve in the rest of the series would be that the dialogue feels a bit clunky at times and that there's a lot of telling instead of/plus showing, especially in regards to how Kianthe and Reyna relate to each other.

A quick read if you're looking for a light-hearted semi-holiday romcom.

I like the setup of the grumpy restaurant owner being the female lead's dating coach, but the characters fell a bit flat for me and I think the story tried to do a bit much for the short page count.

My main gripe is that the main characters don't really feel like real people. The female lead is very naïve, the male lead I heard someone describe as 'women-writing-men', which I thought was a pretty accurate description, I'm not sure how to describe it better, but he just didn't feel like his own person, just there to be the 'perfect' rough-but-loving romantic interest. The main secondary character is the guy's younger 16 yo brother, who is the main person driving the two main characters together, but he often says things to his brother that would have felt more natural coming from a close (same-age) friend rather than his teenage brother.

Very light spoiler about the guy's background: I didn't like the cancer storyline, I just don't want to think about that while expecting to read a light romcom. I think I at least would have preferred knowing she survived it from the start.

(It's not super Christmas-y btw, most time is spend on dates in the couple months/weeks leading up to Christmas)

DNF at 87%

I tried to finish it, but it got too much. I don't like any of the characters (except maybe Lana? She seems to have brains and a personality at least), none of them have more than one personality trait, Graham is grumpy because the hates tourists, Zoey loves everything about Alaska, Killian and all the other resort people are just rich, and all the townspeople are grumpy but supposedly good people. The main characters seem to only like each other because the think the other is hot and/or cute, they don't have any actual chemistry. And unless there's a big reveal in the last chapter, we don't ever find out why Zoey is so obsessed with Alaska, I don't care about the actual reason, maybe she just wants to escape her small town and thought Alasky would be beautiful or whatever, but give me something. It just seems weird that there's never a moment where someone asks her why she's been saving for literal years and quit her job to come there, since it's clearly so important to her.

The main characters are also so inconsistent, Graham is apparently not looking for a one-night stand but keeps seeking her out because...? She's pretty? She's there but not obnoxiously rich? Zoey is broke and supposedly barely had enough money to eat, but spends a ton on a Brazilian wax at the expensive hotel so she can have sex with Graham?

Also I don't love how violent Graham is, constantly offering to fight people, the weird hitting thing with his friend, hitting the wall when he's upset, beating up some people instead of handing them to the police.

Not the book for me.

Fun romcom book, not the best-written one I've read in terms of plot and character depth, but it was a cute, relaxing read.

The book is nice as a relatively quick cozy read, but it does have some issues that stopped me from really loving it.

The worldbuilding was fine, pretty basic, but it worked well for the story. I liked all the magical creatures, they all had their own personalities and were quite cute. I also liked the side characters, Tanya is such a good (very forgiving) friend and I'm glad she had her partner who seemed very supportive of her (especially since Aila sometimes seemed to forget Tanya had her own stuff going on) and Luciana was great, I'd love to know those two irl. I also really like how supportive Aila's parents were, I kinda wish they were featured a bit more. I would have loved to see a scene where they meet Luciana, both before and after they know about her crush.

My main issue is with the main character. I didn't like how she treated other people. In the beginning I could deal with it, expecting some character development, but after a while, with little to no improvement, it started to really grate on me. I don't think her social anxiety was always an excuse for how she interacted with other people, for example she was quite rude to the unicorn keeper, purely because of some superiority feeling over thinking unicorns are boring. And while I don't think it was an unrealistic portrayal of what social anxiety can look like, it did not make for a relaxing read (I have social anxiety myself, I don't like being in my own head when it's bad, so I don't find reading about social anxiety this bad, without improvement, particularly cozy). I think it would have worked better for me if Aila's improvement started a bit earlier in the book.

I would have like seeing Aila work on herself more (the therapist was shown once, with useful tricks even, and never again) and have some revelations a bit earlier in the book, so we could spend more time on her working through them and her repairing the relationships she'd unknowingly kind of neglected. Including how she saw the zoo guests. While I completely understand the hatred towards the general public in a job like that, some small positive interactions earlier on would have been nice. Maybe a guest asks a really interesting question and actually listens to her explanation, or maybe she sees some people gently interacting with one of the animals that shows they must care about them and she realizes not all people are bad (although the bad interactions were also funny, like that dumb couple with the engagement ring, I'm just saying have both!). Since the crowds were such a big part of her anxiety and one she works on in the story, it would have been nice to see some more of that.

Since it was kinda obvious how everything was going to play out, it was a bit frustrating at some point that they kept Conner around so much even after he was clearly a dick (and a poacher...), instead of clearing the air with Luciana (I get why Aila felt the way she did about Luciana, but it was clearly a misunderstanding, especially since Tanya didn't even seem to mind her even though she's so supportive of Aila). I get that she was anxious to break up with him, but it got a bit frustrating when she went of a bunch more lunchdates even after she basically ghosted him and was ready to ditch him for what seemed like months? (time passing wasn't always clear). I'd rather have seen some more interactions with Luciana, some slow bonding and flirting, and see her make more friends.

This book focusses on characters that are personifications of (boroughs in) New York. I personally didn't really enjoy this book, but I wonder if that is because I'm not super familiar with New York and its boroughs and their characteristics.

The book was paced really quickly in the sense that a lot of action/important things kept happening and there was very little time of downtime. Which brings me to my main issue, which is that I didn't really get attached to the characters because I felt I didn't really get to know them, every time I felt I was getting a feel for a character either we switched to a different one or some action happened.

Just as a note: Manny's sudden obsessive love for the NYC avatar also felt weird and out of place.

It also didn't feel like the characters were making smart decisions, which doesn't have to be a bad thing, but often they talked about what would be a good idea and then would choose not to do that for some reason. Like when they left Long Island to fend for herself when knew they would feel left out and be less likely to work with them (but maybe this makes more sense if you're more familiar with the relations between the boroughs).

The ending also felt a bit contrived, even though some pretty important stuff went wrong, something magically happened to fix it in time to have a positive ending. Long Island didn't want to work with them, so we'll just immediately give up on her, but oh how lucky this other girl that's been helping, just happens to embody this other place that kind of belongs to NYC anyways, so she can just fill that spot and everything's fixed. I like happy endings, but it felt a bit out of nowhere.

I did enjoy the part where they had to heal a city's representative with things that are quintessentially related to their city of origin, I thought that was a fun idea that you could have interesting discussions about.

I'm done, I cannot read another book where the main characters get married after a month of knowing each other. At least she wasn't pregnant this time, but I'm suspicious that that's just because the epilogue was only like a month later than the rest of the book. I like the overall vibes of the books by this author, but I just can't enjoy the endings when they all end up marrying and having babies within a couple months at most of knowing each other. Not for me sorry. I got pulled in by practice makes perfect, which did not have any of that (although now that I think about it they did move in together very quickly I think...).

So fun books if you're looking for a quick feel-good romcom, but if the quickness of the relationships would drive you as crazy as me, be warned ;)

This book has a intriguing story and a great environment. This is one of those books where I am very sad I am incapable of visualizing things in my head, because the environment seemed so cool and interesting, with al the weird plants and different kinds of people and the leviathans of course. I also really like the main characters, Ana and Din, both were very likable and had interesting flaws and strengths and their dynamic was very fun. I really liked the story, I breezed through the book, the mystery was interesting and there were some interesting stakes and I'm very curious about the rest of the world. (small spoiler) I also hope we see Strovi again, I was rooting for him and Din when they seemed into each other at their first meeting, glad they got together at the end, so cute.

I actually thought this book was a standalone, but apparently it's a series and I'm very excited to read more about this world and Ana and Din. (The story does wrap up pretty cleanly, so you probably could read it as a standalone)

I liked it, but not as much as Ali Hazelwood's other books. I think I was missing some of the relationship developing moments. I do get from the author's note that this was also meant as more of an erotic romance than a romcom, which I didn't mind, but I still would have liked a bit more non-sex focussed interactions in between the sex I think. I did pick it up with the intention of reading a romcom like her other books though, so maybe this is also somewhat on me. Would still recommend it if you like her other books, just be aware of the focus going into it.

I was intrigued by the premise but not sure if this captured me enough to continue the series. I like the idea of story and the characters all seem to have the potential to be interesting, but I don't think feel connected enough to any of them to really want to keep reading.

The premise of a secret society where only a few of the most talented magic people in the world can get in every couple years, but there's a dark twist sounds really good and I was very hopeful, but the worldbuilding feels very surface level, we don't really get to know anything in this book and the magic is more a plot-device than anything else. The ending felt a bit anti-climatic because I didn't feel like anything important happened in the year they had at the society or that I knew enough about the world (or that the characters did) to really know where this series is going, there's some hints, but nothing that really captured me.

The characters also didn't feel like they had any development, maybe switching between 6 different POV's didn't help, but I don't think that was the only problem. Even when it seemed like there was some growth/change in a character or a relationship it soon regressed or appeared to not have happened at all, they're all kinda the same as at the beginning of the book.

Overall I'm a bit disappointed, maybe I'll try the next one, depending on the reviews and if the things I didn't like seem to improve in that one, we'll see...

The story seems very interesting, but the writing style, with the different gammer and sentence structure, made it difficult for me to focus on the book and really enjoy it. Perhaps I'll pick it up at a later date, but not sure

This book was slightly different from what I expected. In short: I enjoyed the beginning of the book, but the ending was disappointing. I think I was expecting more of a "Family Madrigal"-vibe (from the movie Encanto) and less of an evil >ex-husband/ringmaster (magic-y bad guy) vibe.

The setup of the house and the village and the theme of Orquidea making a home for herself and her family, but not succeeding entirely <spoiler>since her secrecy and harshness made a lot of the family resent her and move/run away</spoiler>, was very interesting, but the plot did not go where I expected it to go and in this case it was a miss for me. I think was hoping for a less explicit magical threat and more of a story about a family coming together.

Thoughts(/possibly slight rant) about the ending: The spiteful ex-husband trying to kill them with his living star/endless wishing well didn't work for me. I am not sure how to explain why, maybe it was just not what I expected, but it was not a satisfying mystery/resolution for me. I also didn't like that Tatinelly and her husband just randomly had to die for that, Tatinelly just wanted a happy family and her husband did absolutely nothing wrong, that poor man supported and cared for her and their daughter and in exchange lost his own family and wound up dying with insects crawling out of his body, he did not deserve that... Also why did nobody listen to the little girl who clearly had all the answers?? I know little kids just make stuff up sometimes, but she said very specific things and they already believed in magic, why not in her? and lastly, the living star being Marimar's father just seemed stupid. /rant

I don't dislike these books, but after 4 books I'm also still not super invested, so I think I'm gonna move on to other books I'd like to read, maybe I'll give it another shot in the future.

Enjoyable, but not sure I would have continued if I didn't know how many people absolutely love this series, so I'm assuming it gets better in the next books.

I like Lindon, but somehow don't feel particularly attached to him, I do like that he thinks about problems and is not a dumb/running headfirst into problems kind of person.

I also feel like the book either doesn't explains things very clearly or just uses infodumps to catch you up.

I'm curious how the rest of the series is.

Not for me, the concept seemed interesting, but the book was a bit all over the place and I didn't feel invested in the characters or their relationships. A lot of things got introduced and were either solved extremely quickly e.g. the father of the main character, who immediately got killed and didn't have any other impact on the story or were simply irrelevant e.g. Eli being a werewolf. I would have preferred it if the book went more into the motivations and emotions of the main character, she is in a lot of difficult and emotionally impactful situations, but I never really felt an emotional reaction, were told she's impacted sometimes, but for me at least it did not hit.

Fun book, really liked the characters, especially Theodore. A bit "darker"/less light-hearted than I was expecting from the cover, but not in a bad way.

I really enjoyed this book, mostly for the vibes. I liked the writing style a lot, the book really takes you into the circus and all its weird nooks and crannies. It has some interesting worldbuilding and characters, and the story is intriguing, but does not really come together in a satisfying way. I read a review halfway throughout the book that mentioned something about the vibes being more important to the story than the plot and that really helped frame the reading experience and made me enjoy it a lot more, so that's something to keep in mind for this book. I am planning to read more from this author, I hope their other books have the same vibes and maybe a slightly more satisfying plot.