Lisa Fries

Obviously, I was a bit hooked by the series prior to this one, cause you don't read 3 books without being a bit hooked - but this book is reallyyyy when I got hooked.

I loved getting deep into the nitty gritty of the details of Lana's past & the town where so much of her trauma stemmed from. We're so close to the end game, and you just know that Lana & Jake have something brutal planned. 😏

Completely satisfying end to this Criminal Minds-esque serial killer thriller. Lana is such an epicly amazing character. Her & Jake's end game was absolutely delicious. I couldn't help but smirk with delight at the comeupance that Lana dished to that town.

I gave the earlier books lower ratings, but overall this book & the series as a whole was a solid 4 stars ⭐ Cutting it up into 5 parts definitely kept me binging - it was nice to digest as bite sized chunks - even if I started the next book immediately after finishing one. It really is just one book though.

The romance is a nice little treat, but I'm less in love with Lana/Logan as a couple and much more in love with Lana's story and her arc of revenge. If you like romance it's worth the read. If you like thriller, crime & revenge stories, I highly recommend this.

The story continues.. another quick fun read. This book again doesn't really stand alone, but very much feels like the middle chunk of a longer book. So rating it on it's own, it's decent; but within the context of the full series, the plot, investigation & murders all move forward in a necessary way.

We finally get to Lana's hometown which feels like the beginning of the end in an exciting way. I continue to love Lana and how badass she is. My only critique is we see Lana get a bit jealous & petty - this may be realistic, but it just seems out of character & beneath someone who's so controlled and focused on the big picture of her revenge.

Once again, jumped immediately into the next book.

Things start to pick up a bit in this book. It gets much more into a Criminal Minds vibe which I liked. It still feels odd to rate this as a standalone book. This book has some level of resolution with Hadley's step-father storyline.

Didn't blow me away, but a pretty quick, fun read. Once again this installment ends on a cliff hanger, which automatically hooked me to starting the next book immediately.

This was a quick, decent read. TBH, I don't really feel that it's right to review each book separately. The books are like serial novellas. Not much is resolved by the end of this book. It doesn't stand on its own but very much feels like the first 100 pages of setup in a longer book.

Since it's so quick to read and the book ends on a cliffhanger, I started the next book instantly. Lana is a great FMC - strong, sarcastic, badass, but with lots of trauma & layers. Logan is a nice guy, he doesn't stand out much but ticks the box. I don't find their romance particularly developed, but their relationship feels much more like a means to an end in furthering the thriller/mystery plot.

Loved it! This is a book that I went back to reread many of the chapters so I could fully soak it in. I know many complained about the book being too dense & confusing. I will admit at times, I did confused or mixed characters up - like why in the world is Lewellen both a man and the name of the city the man comes from?! But overall, I really just loved all the lore & world building we got. Were there two many names to keep track of at points? yes but I just kind of glide over the less important bits and try not to get stuck.

I really enjoyed learning more about the neighboring Islands, their relations to the gods, Violet's history, her parents possible transgressions and what her powers could unfold.

I LOVED Ridoc in this one. He really had a lot of time in this book to show really endear himself to the reader - his humor, his loyalty 🤌

I loved learning more about Aaric, his dynamics with his brohters & the royal family, his aims, his power. It will be interesting to see what part he plays long term.

Have to give out a shout out to our shadow daddy Xaden Riorson. I'll never not love him and I'm so invested in seeing how he progresses from here on out 👀 Already can't wait for the next book.

Final note: I generally try to post spoiler free reviews but I must say Imogen & Quinn's final scene absolutely gutted me. I was sobbing so hard. Even though we really don't fully get invested as Quinn as a character, RY does an expert level job of getting into Imogen's POV, showing us the heart-wrenching emotions she's feeling in that moment.

Worn is such an excellent and comprehensive history of cloth, clothing and the people that make them.

It’s an extremely dense book, but the author does a really great job about centering the humans that hold up the clothing industry. It’s not just a total info dump, each aspect of the industry is told through the experience of the people the author has met all over the world while researching for the book.

This personal approach to history, economics and society really makes the book engaging. I listened to this on audio so there’s definitely points I glazed over a bit, but it was interesting enough that I’d love to listen again to really soak up the soak up the details.

I feel I need to preface this review with the fact that I’ve realized Science Fiction maybe just isn’t my genre. I enjoy sci-fi movies & TV, so I always thought that would translate to books, but in film, when they start talking about physics & quantum mechanics, I politely disassociate and just focus on the pretty pictures. I guess I can’t do that while reading.

Boyyyy does this book get deep into the nitty gritty of physics, mathematics, quantum mechanics. Every theory or experiment that Ryland has is explained in excruciating details. I’m not a complete dummy, I understand some of it, I just don’t care 🤷🏻‍♀️ To me, a lot of the pathos and fun of the book really gets distracted by getting lost in these scientific details. But also, I think that may just be a me problem. I think this sci-fi just doesn’t make my heart sing. That’s ok.

I had high hopes due to the glowing reviews but it never really grabbed me. Aside from the science, I just found Ryland to be a bit hokey for my taste. On the other hand, I loved Rocky. I loved their friendship, how they learned to communicate, all of that was A+.

It’s a good read, just not quite my cup of tea.

I may be in the minority, but this was by far my favorite book of the series. I really love the world & magic mechanics of the series, but the 1st book felt like a lot of setup and the 2nd just started us going. While I did predict some of the reveals well ahead of time, this one was still super engaging. The first 1/3rd took a little bit of time to ramp up, but by midway through it grabbed me. I was totally emotionally invested by the end. There are bits of the magic mechanics that I found a tad confusing, but I kind of just went with it, let it be magic and not bother me too much. The whole book has a lot of wonderful metaphors of how we treat others as individuals vs. as a society, capitalism and how our systems fail so many. Sprinkled in there's also a nod to the power of individual choice, how we choose our path - the timeline of our life rests on our choices and we're meant to be just as we are. Loved the resolution, the characters and how they grow and I'm sad there's not more to read based in this world.

The series starts picking up in this one for sure. With most of the world already established, I felt there was more room for plot, action, suspense than the first book. The lead up to graduation feels well paced and I enjoyed how it evolved. Once we get to the climax it all feels very earned and a nice suspense built up. El's really starts to evolve & bloom as well. She's still sassy, but the heart grows along with our understanding of her core

Overall enjoyable read but didn't fully grab me. The world building & magic mechanics is really great. I definitely loved learning about the world and how it operates, but wished for a little more action. The climax felt a little rushed & not as exciting as I had hoped.

EDIT: Feel I need to add that reading this book is well worth it to read the series as a whole. I felt each book got better and really loved the 3rd book.

I wasn’t fully invested in The Cruel Prince. It felt it took right until the end to interest me, so I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to continue with The Wicked King. I’m glad I did.

There’s a nice amount of twists and turns in this one. I have a knack for predicting what will happen and I was gladly surprised by a lot of the twists. Both Jude & Cardin have nice development in this one.

While the series hasn’t fully hooked me, it’s been an enjoyable read and looking forward to The Queen of Nothing.

Quick, light-hearted read. It's a fun concept - a woman is absolutely in love with her favorite audio erotica artist, and by chance, he ends up joining her family for Christmas.

I tend to like romance that has a bit more depth, but this was enjoyable. Not much conflict to be had, but if you're looking for a cute little Christmas romance story then this is the one.

Finishing this book, I still find myself wandering through the melancholic and bleak world in my head. What is life without connection or purpose? Do we create connection and purpose to soothe the knowing that there really isn't anything out there - or that maybe there is, but we will never know for sure.

This isn't a page turner. I wasn't hanging on by the edge of my seat. A lot is left unknown, but it's stuck with me. The first few pages has some of the most hauntingly poetic descriptions of grief. It took me a while to finish this one. I think that initial bit of grief hit me a bit too hard but the last half I read in one sitting. It's a beautiful story.

Another 2.5 rating if half stars existed.

Ok so stuff actually happens in this book! Like there's kind of a plot! And there's tons of smut! So what's the problem? - this book is about 100-200 pages too long. It all just gets really repetitive, even the smut. And ya know, the plot is still not great. There's a lot of bits that feel really unbelievable or big conflicts that resolve 2 pages later - a lot of it feels unnecessary. Christian is also as insanely controlling as ever, which weirdly continues to be less scary to Ana then his penchant for pain.

I watched the movie right after finishing this. While it's no Oscar winner, they cut a lot of the unnecessary fat, rewrite some of the bigger leaps to make more sense and soften Christians wild control issues. I rarely say a movie is better than the book, but plotwise that definitely applies here.

Did I keep reading it though? Yes. Did I finish it? Yes. Am I going to read the 3rd book? Yes.

Plot: 1 out of 5; Smut: 4.6 out of 5. Wish I could give half stars, cause this is a solid 2.5

Terrible story, the first 1/3rd was hard to get through. I put it down for a couple months before picking it back up to finish; cause I hate not finishing. Once the smut geared up it got more readable, but it really is just that. The whole abuse=BDSM plot line is bad. It's the guy being a stalker/insanely controlling that's really worrisome. It's also a very 2011 book and even feels dated more than that. I was 25 in 2011, at that point I had a smart phone for ~3 years. I get that Ana's a “bookish” gal, but her being so flustered by technology is a weird thing that comes up constantly. She's ~22, not 60.

The ending is abrupt and dumb - though it's clearly done so that you want to read the next book. My ebook had that 1st two chapters of the next book and that satiated my curiosity enough for now.

I'd read the next two if I didn't have anything else to read