Iara

I'm giving it four stars but I do think if I had read it instead of listening to the audiobook the rating would be way lower. Most of the characters I either didn't like or didn't care for, but I loved the voice acting and I think it's an original way to tell a story. Though, again, it only worked for me as an audiobook. I feel like reading this would be tedious and you wouldn't connect to the characters at all. All in all, I liked The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo way more and I acknowledge I went in expecting more than what I got with this one, but I enjoyed it and I'd recommend the audiobook to anyone who asked.

I'll be honest, I took one star off because the use of Spanish in this book is abysmal. It would have been easily fixed by having a native speaker read the book over before publishing. Won't even get too into how not realistic the use of random Spanish words in the middle of sentences in English is for non native English speakers. The source is myself, whose first language is Spanish.

Voy a ser sincera, la estrella se la he quitado por ser tan sumamente heteronormativo. Y no lo digo porque la pareja sea de una chica y un chico, sino por toda esa charla sobre cómo los guardianes y las guardianas entrenan separados para no distraerse entre ellos. El resto me ha gustado mucho y espero ver más de Rox porque ya solo con lo que he leído me encanta.

I really liked the overall plot and I honestly loved the Percy and Annabeth moments. The cliffhanger was amazing and I loved the inclusion of the Athena Parthenos and its disappearance.

Still weirded out that two 16 year old boys find a 13 year old girl hot. Like, I know 3 years isn't a big difference, but that's later when they're... 18-21 or whatever. When she's 13 I'm just ??? how can you find a 13 year old attractive? Doesn't even get fixed with her being 10x more mature than them both. That's literally why I didn't give it 5 stars. I felt uncomfortable with those scenes.

I'll be honest, when I picked up this book I wasn't expecting it to have an asshole turns nice because he falls in love plot. Had I known, I wouldn't have read it. I like the worldbuilding, I like the characters just fine (even though I do think they're not all that developed and you can tell it's the author's first book), I liked the plot idea... and yet it took me almost a month to get through the book because of the poorly written romance. It's not only poorly written, rushed and forced. It also makes no sense to me why the author would choose Inan as Zel's love interest when 1) romance isn't needed at all for the plot and 2) Amari and Roën exist. If the romance had been a slow build up one, with them falling for each other through the books and not in this one then I would have accepted it, but it's unrealistic that they want to murder each other one day and the next they're in love. And no, Inan wanting to destroy magic but still save Zel isn't romantic. Stop with this horrible trope of assholes will turn nice if you love them enough. Stop.

PS. I hope he's dead for real so that Zel can either have no romance or hook up with Roën/Amari in the next books.
PS2. With how Amari talked/thought about women all through her episodes I was actually surprised the author decided to give her a romance with Tzain. Then again, heteronormativity. I guess. I was sure she was in love with Binta.

I overall enjoyed the book, but some stuff wasn't needed. And with this I mean the pirates. They add nothing to the story. And I mean /nothing/. The story would have been the same without them there. Less sex scenes and romance, but that's it. They didn't need to be there. They didn't help in the resolution of the story at all. Iwish they had not been added tbh.

I also have to say, as a bisexual girl myself, that as much as I appreciated the calling out of the sexualization we suffer, I did not appreciate the backtracking on Sosie. Being hesitant to be in a relationship could have happened in any of the idk how many f/m ships in the book, but it had to be the maybe-bi character that's not sure? I would have preferred it if it had not been teased at just to be taken back.

And before someone says it, I know questioning people exist, but having the supposed to be bi character be the one hurting the lesbian because maybe they're actually straight is a Bad Trope.

Those were really my two biggest problems with the book. I do also feel like the commercial breaks were fun at first but boring as the chapters went by.

I decided to read the book because the movie comes out in a week and I have time, so why not? I enjoyed it overall, but some of the characters just didn't click. And no, it's not Lara Jean the one that makes me say this. Reading other reviews, she seems to be the reason for low scores, but I actually liked her.

Funnily enough, my problem are the romantic interests.

We're introduced to Josh as this perfect guy but we don't see much of him besides when drama is needed for Peter and Lara Jean. Everyone's problem seems to be Lara Jean liking him because it's her sister's boyfriend, but the three of them had been friends for years before he dated Margot and Lara Jean liked him before he did so I don't see a problem with that. The problem is him flip-flopping between sisters, it makes me question if he ever loved any of them at all. Actually, Lara Jean herself wonders if they're all interchangeable to him. Will he try and date Kitty next? Who knows.

Then there's Peter, who has a 50% chance of being a jerk or a sweet guy. And, to be honest, his good moments were eclipsed by the douchey ones for me. Plus, he still seems into Genevieve. Every time Lara Jean confronts him about her he's like ‘it has nothing to do with you' even though it does considering she's your girlfriend now.

Margot getting angry at Lara Jean for her feelings, which cannot be controlled, was also not my cup of tea and made me dislike a character I had liked at first.

Anyway, maybe I'm just too old for teenage drama? Sigh.

Honestly, it's not 5 stars because of that one scene. You know the one. The football field one. I hated that scene.

I also think they got together way too fast? As in, we have Nick sad af and drinking and idk just feeling terrible and suddenly he's... dating Taylor so that Leah and Abby don't feel bad about dating, I guess. I think I would have loved the book more had it been set on their first year of college and having Abby break up with Nick because distance and their friendship growing (instead of making up that they were friends before???) and then evolving into romance.

Either way, I really liked Leah with all her faults and f ups. I wish we had gotten to see more of Abby and I would love to get a book from her POV. Also HOW CUTE ARE SIMON AND BRAM????

You know that gif that says ‘it's not realistic? It's just not realistic'? That's how I felt reading this book. Maggie's fever is not realistic. Alex being able to do all that with her injuries is not realistic. Their wounds being perfectly fine after all that is not realistic. Them being in love with each other for 3 years after working together for 2 weeks is unrealistic. Going from arguing to calling each other sweetheart in a night is not realistic. I could keep going.

I had high hopes for the book based on the premise but I was very disappointed with how it was all developed and written. That paired with thinly veiled biphobia made me not like it much when I was ready to love it.

I was really enjoying the book and then the author had to go an include a fake sexual harassment claim. I've never been a fan of that storyline and I'm even less of a fan now with everything that's happening in Hollywood these days. I feel like after that it all went downhill.
I don't see how Isabel went from giving up her job as a writer and being ok with going back to waitressing if needed because she couldn't work there without Taylor to accepting a job as a show runner that she wasn't ready for at all. It makes zero sense to me (her relationship with Taylor having nothing to do with the decision). She knew she'd have a job as a writer and she would have gotten to showrunner soon enough so I really don't get it.
So yeah, the last bit of the book was a huge letdown to me. Specially because I was enjoying it a lot until that point.

I really enjoyed the book (though going by some reviews if I had read anything by this author before I'd be disappointed?), but I didn't give it a better rating for a few reasons.
First of all, Maggie. She really got on my nerves as the book progressed. Even though we saw everything from her pov I was still on Courtney's side on the breakup? I thought I would love her when I started reading but she seemed overtly judgemental and immature (i would accept immature in the flashbacks but I can't in the now section).
Second, why is the bisexual character the only one to ‘not like labels'? Will this trope die already or do I have to kill it myself? Every bisexual person I know will shout it from the rooftops if asked so I have no idea why it even exists.
And third, I think the flashbacks took too much of the story. I would have liked to see more of them now and their getting together again seemed rushed to me. Too easy considering Maggie's (childish) behavior at first.
I will still check out the author's other books, though, and I look forward to reading them.

It's hard to review the book because even though I enjoyed the story I don't know if it should be told by a white woman. This doesn't mean white people cannot write characters of color, but I felt really uncomfortable reading some parts of the book because of it. I also don't really know if it's all that ok for a white person to be writing the n word so many times. I am also not from the US, but still.

Another problem is that Linda literally comes to her senses because she thinks Sarah is different and not because she realizes they're all human beings (which also makes me wonder what Sarah saw in her because Linda was truly awful sometimes).

So yeah, I'd cautiously recommend the book? Maybe? I do appreciate the research she did to write it though.

It's a very good book, I must say this. It's very well written and I love how Kaz always has a trick up his sleeve. I love Nina and Inej as these unusual best friends. I love how Wylan found a place where he was accepted. I LOVE how it was introduced that neither Wylan nor Jesper are straight (kudos to thy line cause it's both informative and flirty and I love it). I even loved the cliffhanger at the end. It also makes you care for bad people who're doing bad things. All but one, that is. And he's the reason it took me so long to finish it.

Matthias. I know we're supposed to think his whole thing with Nina is romantic but... it's not. I haven't read the previous Grisha books and I don't know if that's to blame for my opinion, but he is someone that has compared her to an animal. He has said she's not human. Even after getting to know her he's not sure Grisha are human, but he knows he wants her so I guess I'm supposed to be ok with it? But I'm really not. And Nina making excuses for him (he was raised by monsters, he doesn't know what he's doing etc) didn't help and made me dislike her character a bit even though she's my second favorite one. And that's sad.

Saddest part is I know they're going the whole romance way with them in the second book and I'm dreading it. I will still read it because I love everything else and I'm looking forward to see how the other relationships develop, but I'm not looking forward to having to read about this dude who did nothing to make me see he's not doing what he's doing cause he is hot for Nina and wants to bang her.

I'll be honest, if it hadn't been because people I trust with books told me the second one (A Court of Myst and Fury) was better, I wouldn't have finished this book. I do love the world building even if the characters and the whole Beauty and the Beast thing are pretty typical. And the writing is good. But I'm usually more into the characters, so even if the overall story is engaging I won't care unless I really, really like a character and the problem I had with this book is I didn't really care about anyone in particular.

Both Feyre and Tamlin are so very uninteresting when put together that I looked forward to her interacting with anyone but him. Her relationship with Lucien, and even Rhysand, were far more interesting. Probably because the author didn't have to convince us they were in love after two meaningful conversations and she could focus on actually developing their friendship/enemyship. The romance part fell short, too forced for my taste, but I am a self declared fan of slow burn so it's to be expected that any kind of instant love wouldn't appeal to me.

I've started the second one, though, and I'm enjoying it way more than the first. But that's a review for another day :P

First of all, I LOVE that Sohpie clearly states she's bisexual. Books/tv shows/movies often go the ‘I don't like labels' route and I am glad it didn't happen here. It's ok to say the word!

That said, I really enjoyed both the personal part of the book with Sophie's relationship with Mina, her parents, etc and the mystery part of it. I will say I suspected who the killer was from early on, but that's because I've seen too much crime procedural shows and not because it's obvious, I'm sure.

I've been left with a ‘what if' sense about Sophie and Mina, though I guess that's what the author was going for and I find it great that it ends on a positive note.