Lori

This book was a bit of a disappointment for me after how good Tender is the Flesh was.

I liked the idea of the book but found the narrative hard to get into. It felt like the author wanted to write this in a way that would intentionally confuse readers and make this book into a psychological bender. Instead, the narrative is jolting and not enough information on what, where, and with who is provided. It took me far into the book before I realized one character was a cat.

I liked the wording throughout the book as it was expressive and the right amount of flowery. It was enjoyable to read. I just wish the plot felt the same way. The plot was messy and spent too much time in the beginning slowly explaining the setting. When the story starts to move forward the focus is on the relationship and changes between the two women. The very end is when the convent and religion is somewhat explained in an unsatisfying way. It’s a quick blip then the book is over.

The book was not what I was expecting and did not deliver much.

The best part of this book for me was the main character setting up a coffee cart. I enjoyed reading about building the business and getting to know the other business owners. Sadly, I enjoyed this more than the mystery part of the book.

This book wasn’t much of a whodunit, as it felt like you were not provided enough details to guess for yourself. I did like the side characters, like the business partner and the main character's family. They had good personalities and individual skills, and they added to the fullness of the story.

I liked the business part of the book, but I could have been happy with a cozy story about that part alone. I will give the next book a try.

I found this to be a better book then the last as now it was easier to keep track of all the characters. The book keeps the split timeline though the aunt’s old journals. This time focused on another prophesied fate.

Again, we are led on a wild chase following the main character though her thought process in this newest installment. This one was better than the last but not by much. I think i just don’t like the way the main character points the finger at everyone, and they all confess some piece of information.

The book is a decent cozy mystery, and I liked the parts from the aunt’s point of view. I just find the book slightly lacking on the mystery part of the book. Yes, we get drama, but gossip is not the same thing as investigating.

This is another King book that's too long.

I liked the older age of the main character along with the setting of Derry, Main. There are also good references to the Dark Tower universe. So many times, I wanted the book to end but there are some great parts in this book. This book gets weird, and it can work at times, but I can see people who are not into the DT universe struggling with this book.

Even now I am struggling to remember what happened in the book as it was so long and a bit confusing. If you cut 60% of this book it would be great.

This book was such an inferior instalment in this series. We lose so much of the wit and chemistry of the other books.  

The female lead is different from when she was in the other books in the series. I expected a stronger more female-empowered romance. What we got was a childish and bossy female lead and a terrible father male lead who just wants someone else to deal with his children. Both characters get better as the book goes on but not by enough.  

It’s hard to get past how terrible the male lead is. His complete neglect of the children is not endearing and throughout the book, he only seems to want a wife to handle them. Don’t bother with this book. 

This was good but not as good as the first two books.

There are parts the I liked but the male leads attraction borders on harassment. The female lead is interesting, but their romance is weak. The is not much of a lead up to the relationship instead there is instant attraction and lust though out the book.

I found the side characters where what made the book more enjoyable. The Bridgerton matriarch stands out in this book, and she was great in every interaction. Sadly, the main couple was boring to follow. Besides lust they don’t have much going for them.

I didn’t care for this book as much as the first two.

The female lead was great; it was just the male lead that I didn’t care for. I really didn’t like that the male lead takes so long to see the female lead for who she is and accept her. He was also funnier in the other books, but he loses his personality in this book. The chemistry is not there. I kind of wish that she would have found someone else as she did deserve better.

The writing and other characters are still well done but the romance isn’t there. The female lead is the best part of the book and others may like to read this book just for her. I can get why the male lead is jealous of her.

This was another great book in the series. 

Again, the world-building is very well done, and Lady Whistledown has become a favourite character. The romance is another slow-burn type and the enemy to lovers is very well done. Every scene with the male lead being called out by the female lead was a volley of great dialogue.  

I was worried about the romance with the sister as part of the story, but the bond of sisterhood is endearing in this book. I am happy the sister isn’t hurt in the making of this romance. The Bridgerton family is also fun to read, and the mother is marriage-minded and understanding of all her children.  

This book was better than the first book and worth the read. You don’t have to read the first book, but it does have some history from the first book.

I kept receiving recommendations for this book and I am happy I finally tried it.  

 The book quickly sets up a witty dialog and interesting characters. The Lady Whistledown gossip clippings is such a great addition to the book. The clippings are funny and offer insightful witticisms about many characters. The large number of characters in this book can be a lot but the author does well at creating separate personalities and setting up a larger world beyond the Bridgertons.  

The romance in the book was a slow friendship to romance that felt natural. The two main characters were interesting and had a good amount of chemistry. The only thing that stops this book from being great is a scene where the female lead takes advantage of the drunk male lead. This was a big subtractor to the book and it is not taken as seriously as it should as the book only views it as a breach of trust. The male lead also withholds information on reproduction from the female lead. They do work through these issues, but I wish they were not included at all.  

I did like the book overall and the ending was good. It stands out among the other historical romance I have read. 

This was a fun adventurous book, and I did not like it.  

The overall action is fun, and the book never takes itself too seriously. My issue is the writing. I am not the best with grammar, but this author did not even run a basic spellcheck or edit. This felt like someone’s first book on Wattpad. The story felt rushed. We go from one situation to the next and there isn’t much rest periods. This stops the books from being a cozy fantasy.  

The main character’s point of view was difficult to read as it went on for too long at times. The dialogue was another part of the book that was terrible. Conversations were all over the place and a little cringy at times. The author uses a lot of modern slang that takes you out of the fantasy setting.  

The idea was good but with such bad writing, I could not get into this book. This says a lot when I am an avid Wattpad reader. This could be better with editing. 

This book was a little hard to get into at the beginning as it felt like you are stepping into the middle of a series. There is no book before this one, so we are left with a lot of history that is only explained in small bits though out the book. The story is not what I was expecting. There is not really a demon hunting society or even many demons in this book. Instead, the story is all over the place and was hard to follow along.

There were so many ideas thrown in that I stopped caring. Page after page you struggle to follow the main character to solve the murder of her boyfriend then there is also the mystery of why this is continuously happening. The main character barely manages to keep on task for either mystery. At the end of the book all the characters are gathered, and the mysteries are unveiled. This does not play out well and felt cheap.

The book does seem to set up a second book and it honestly sounds better thin this book. There are parts of this book I liked, and the overall idea was good, but the execution wasn’t the best.

I liked the first book so I thought I would give this one a try.  

This book solidifies the series as a leading part of Japanese healing fiction books that are popular right now. The stories are not a repeat of the last book and the main characters are a great part of the book. The book is well written and you don’t feel the drag of translation. This book could be read as a standalone although its worth it to read the first book.   

The stories are beautifully crafted and it’s impressive the connection to each of the characters in the short stories that the author builds. There are no weak stories in this collection. The book is well thought out and you never feel cheated when it is explained how each item is recreated.  

 I enjoyed this one and am looking forward to the next book to be translated. 

I loved this book. It’s slightly weird and you never really get a full understanding how things work but I could not get enough of it.

There are three points of views in this book and each character we follow is well defined and interesting. It would be hard to pick a favorite. The switches are slow at first allowing readers to get a good hold on the set up but once you get into things there are more switches. This could be annoying, but it really helped set the atmosphere of confusion and claustrophobia. All three main characters are all driven, one by the exploration of wild magic, one by revenge, and one by protection. I really enjoyed each of their personalities and the arcs they took.

I had read another book by this author (The Luminous Dead) which I would recommend reading but it also had some great scenes of claustrophobia and mental confusion. This just shows how good the author is at passing on the feelings of situations to readers. In this new book we also got an almost heady exploration of power and magic woven throughout. Its hard to explain, I was driven to read on like one of the characters was driven to explore a wild type of magic.

This book is going to be one I would read again and recommend to others.

This sounded better then it was. This was a book club read.

I was optimistic going into this book and the beginning really helped reenforce that notion. Things really take a turn once the main character is on set of the fictional show similar to the bachelorette. I am not a fan of the bachelorette or shows like it, so this book wasn’t for me. As well the book is written from the main character’s perspective as well as online articles, text, and group chat. This made it very annoying to get though and wasted so much time. I hated the emojis.

The romance in this book is hard to get into as she has no actual interest in dating these guys then near the end of the book she is suddenly really into a few of them, this and probably the cheesy flirting that the book acknowledges is cheesy but doesn’t try harder on. There is drama, flirting, and twists which could have made this book good but instead it’s obvious who the main character will end up with as most of the guys are very quickly ruled out.

The diversity in the book is not great. All the male contestants are model-esc, and we are told that some of them were people of colour but there is no actual diversity in their characters except for the guy with the French accent. For our plus size main character, she starts off strong about being body positive but quickly looses herself confidence. She really was not a great character as all the morals she preaches are lost throughout the book with out second thought to them.

The choices made by the main character is really what make me not like this book. If she was a real person, then seeing this on tv would have made me lose some respect for her.

I enjoyed this book. Like the first book is it not that great of a mystery but it’s the rest of the book that makes it good.

The mystery is not what I come for in these books, instead it’s the stories about personal connections and building confidence in yourself worth. It was nice to see the characters from the first book and Vera is always a great character herself. We even get more development of Vera’s frenemy neighbor as a little side plot.

This book is another series of good stories with new characters. I really enjoyed the discussion about social media and what we really know about the people we see. It didn’t feel forced but had a natural storyline that worked well with our traditional main character. Vera getting really into social media in this book was fun to read.

I liked this book even more then the last and would love to see another story in the series.

It started off good and the story was set up quickly but from there the story and romance were all over the place. Parts of the romance are done well but with such a messy plot its hard to get into.

This author can’t write good female leads. The female is someone who is supposed to be independent and strong, but she folds so quickly under every character in this book. As well she seems so blind to everything around her. This may be because the author needed this plot device to make sense of the “twists” that she has added.

Even with a messy plot and another disappointing female lead this wasn’t the worst book. For myself I would say this is in the top three books in this series. Which really doesn’t say much about the series.

I need to start seriously asking why I am continuing to read this series. I would say this is the worst book of the series. Having read the book this was based on, this was just a terrible version of it. I have to admit I never thought there would be a dark romance reimagining of the book in the first place.

Most of the story takes place from the priest’s point of view and he is an awfully written character. There is nothing to really like about him. Most of the book is him calling himself a monster then punishing himself in a really descriptive way. As well as wanting to kill the female lead for reasons that are not explained very well. Part way though the story he then changes his mind about killing her. There is nothing romantic about the way this character is written, and he mostly just stalks her.

The female lead is tepid at best. She lacks personality, is helpless though most of the book, and I simply don’t like her. The smut that we are here for is little to none and boring. There is nothing to recommend in this book.

This may be my favorite of the series, but I sadly must report that it contains the least amount of smut in the series.

The writing in this one seemed to be better the last few books. The plot made sense, the characters were better written, and I didn’t mind the relationship. What didn’t work for me was the romance went from incredibly slow burn to it’s happened. Then wasn’t much of a connection between enemies to lovers. As well this author doesn’t seem to write strong female characters very well. They all feel so passive. Which in this case is a crime as the female lead was reimagined from a character that had a much stronger will.

This was more enjoyable to read then the others possibly because of its simplicity. Some of the other stories had crazy and often stupid actions that made it hard to get into. On the other hand, this story is pretty vanilla for a dark romance.

It was nice to see a female villain, but it was like the author couldn’t decide to go all bad or have some good. This wishy-washiness was what held the story back for me. If she’s truly bad then let her be bad, if she’s not then the author either shouldn’t had gone so hard on the terrible acts though out the book or created a better redemption arc. Since neither is chosen, we are left with a mess of character developments.

I will say the smut part of the book was better then the last few along with a better written chemistry between the leads. There is more to like in this book, but the gun scene just reminded me of a similar scene in The Stand. Although with completely different vibes.

It does seem like the author has gotten a bit better with each book. We’ll see.

This one was darker then the last in the series and a bit better. Again, the reimagining of the characters is well done and this time its in a fantasy setting.

There was more to like in this book but again you had characters making the most stupid decisions. The male lead in this one was at least better at following though with some of his darker personality but not by much. The female lead was supposed to be some bad ass who will take down the crown, but what we got instead was a weak girl who couldn’t keep up. Verry disappointing.

There as some good moments in this book that made me like it a little better then the last but not by much.

This was a book club pick, and it was ok in the end.

What stops this book from being good is that the characters make such stupid decisions to the point of making every situation worse. It could have been a better book as the reimagining of so many characters is well done. I also liked that it was placed in a more modern setting.

This was supposed to be a dark romance but its really about people with daddy issues getting together with some BDSM type (but not really) thing going on. Its much softer than I thought it was going to be with the description of how dark and tormented the main male lead is.

This book was good, but I felt like it brought up a lot of serious subjects that it failed to discuss.

The book starts of well and has a good cozy feel to it but not much happens. Then in the second half of the book it went into more serious matters and had too many plot points. This is where the book doesn’t do was well as the author glosses over the darker subjects and sweeps some story lines under the rug. There was so much left untouched that I was surprised when the book ended that there wasn’t more.

There are a lot of parts that I liked in the book but there wasn’t much balance with them. It goes from to mundane then to too serious. With a better balance this would have been a great story, as is it was ok.

I have always heard great things of Christie’s books and I somehow managed to get though life with out hearing the spoiler for this one. I can now see why people love these books so much. The characters felt real, and the details given in the book are very descriptive but not overly done. It was the perfect mix to be able get right into the story.

Now for the mystery part of the book. I truly had a piece of paper beside me while reading trying to figure out what happened. I managed to get it down to two people before sadly a co-worker gave it away. I am still angry about this. But I think even when you know who it did it’s still hard to figure out the how of it all.

It is well worth the time to read this and if a get some time I will have to try out her other books.

I always heard this was a must-read book and I can see why. This book is phenomenal at setting an atmosphere and it doesn’t let up. There is a constant presence of the former wife Rebecca felt throughout the book.

The reason this isn’t a five start for me is simply because of how many hints the author gives away. The suspension is slightly lost when you understand more then the main character. It’s both good and bad that the main character is naïve, but since the readers are not it’s hard to suspend your understanding of what has happened. Since there is this gap, you simply have to wait for the main character to catch up and we end up going though some unnecessary scenes.

The writing and overall story are great. I honestly could not put this book down until I finished it.

This seems to be the year of not that great King books and this one is not worth the effort.

As always, the idea is there but the execution of this book is terrible. The beginning and the end are both good its just the 80% left of the book that’s hard to sit though.

Throughout the book we get the stories of the residents in the town but most of the stories felt like filler we didn’t need. A lot of time is spent or random rants, thoughts of sex, and menial tasks. I feel like I didn’t get the chance to like any of the characters. There wasn’t enough time before the changes in the residents started.

Sadly, there is not much I liked about this book. It was not worth the effort to read it.