Daijah
i've decided to stop rating nonfiction like this now because i feel like they all serve a certain group of people. i did really enjoy this one and i think it's super validating for black people and really shows what it's like to be black in america to those who aren't. this is the type of anti-racism nonfiction i like because i have a big interest in sociology in school and this takes more of a sociological angle
okay i did really like this book a lot. i loved the magic system so much and how it combined traditional african american root magic in with the aruthrian magic system. i enjoyed the setting because it is a school i've visited before and i did enjoy bree as a character as well as how grief played into the story. this also had a trial element which i love. this was a bit info dumpy tho and i wish there was more diversity in the book besides bree and her therapist. this book also would have made sense to be aged up to new adult and just been set in college rather than ya with an early college program. it's important to have these types of stories for teens but i would have preferred bree just be in college. overall, this story was super interesting and a i've never read a king author retelling which i loved how it was done, but there were a couple issues i had with it
read for the swoon sisters' book club liveshow: october 2022
i loved the vibes, the lore, and the world. i also liked the relationship a lot but this virtually had no plot and it was noticeable lol sometimes no plot doesn't bother me but i wish this did have more actual stuff go on throughout the story
read for halloweekend: a host favorite
this is definitely one of my least favorite of tiffany d jackson's work but i adore almost everything she puts on and this had that same classic writing in here that i love from her. i enjoyed the conversations around addiction and gentrification and even divorce/blended families but i'm not really into haunted house stories in any medium so it fell flat for me there and the ending was so adrupt. i still had a good time but due to the nature of the story, it happened to just not be my favorite but if you love haunted house-type stories with an unreliable narrator that leaves you questioning if the house is actually haunted or not, you might love this one. speaking of unreliable narrators i loveddddd that aspect of the main character too
i did really enjoy the writing of this book because one thing christina knows how to do, is write. i wish there was more backstory and emotional connection developed between the two characters, and this was paranormal in a way i wasn't expecting and almost started leaning fantasy towards the end which isn't my favorite but this is a nice, short, well written novella
read for stabathon 2022: tara carpenterread for blackoween 2022: a book with queer rep
i love love love the year of the witching and sadly this book disappointed me. i adored and vibes and atmosphere and writing but that's where my love for this book stops. there isn't much plot in this book which is completely okay and something i often enjoy IF the characterization is good. i don't need to like the characters in a character driven novel but i need them to be fleshed out and well rounded. the characters in this were flat, some barely existed, and often times the actions and the characterization didn't match up. i also didn't enjoy how the world building was done in this world overall. this is definitely one of my most disappointing books of the year
read for stabathon 2022: jill robertsread for blackoween 2022: a book recently releasedread for halloweekend: a book with a halloween word in the titleread for the full moon book club september 2022
literally i loved so much about this book. i've seen some reviews say how they didn't really like the segregation aspects of this book because it was set in the modern age but i think honestly that can be very realistic to how it can actually be today still. there are many places that show the segregation displayed in the book. i also loved the writing as usually and it was so immaculate. this is honestly one of the best retellings i've read. it really took the original plot and story structure and added so much flare and twists to it, where it still felt like the original story but in a new, reimagined way. 10/10 tiffany has done it again
read for halloweekend: set around halloween/gives halloween vibesneil gaiman is a good story teller and i'm sure i would like this more if i didn't see the movie. the pacing of this book compared to the movie was just so off to me because everything was happening so quickly, it didn't have time to first develop coraline as a character and second give that creepy eerieness and tension the movie has. this isn't a bad book by any means especially since it's for children but it's still disappointing
read for blackoween 2022: a book set in the south & a book by an underrated authorread for halloweekend: horror or thriller genre blend
this book was truly horrifying and i really really loved how horror was used to explore real-life issues in the past and in the present. the imagery was gruesome and this was just so great. i'm not super into speculative horror but i like the way it was incorporated.
okay this was literally so freaking cute and i would highly recommend for the spooky season. is this the best romance i've ever read? no. but i think this is a romance that we really put you in the mood for the season in the same way that halloweentown does despite it not being an academy award winning movie
i really enjoyed the themes of this book and also the characters but to me the characterization and the pacing was very clunky and this book dragged at so many moments. i also am not a huge fan of apocalyptic media and i really didn't enjoy this author's other apocalyptic book. i enjoyed this one more but i still had problems with it
read for stabathon 2022: sydney prescott
this is really silence of the lambs vibes which i really enjoyed. i liked learning about a killer in a very intimate way and helping that solve a case. but i didn't get any 80s vibes which made me take away a star because if a book says it's in the 80s, that is a selling point for me, and if you don't deliver imma be upset. i also thought this was gonna give mindhunter vibes but it didn't really at all which disappointed me
read for horror novellas reading vlog
this novella wasn't even horror tbh and literally was just a long winded explanation of a relationship that developed from an interesting workplace with some partial relationships explained. the characterization was horrible, there was no plot, and no horror. overall just extremely boring tbh
read for horror novella's reading vlog 2022read for halloweekend readathon 2022
i enjoyed molly as a character and exploring her life. i wasn't super attached to this story because while i do love character driven stories and i liked molly, the pacing just felt off to me but the ending was so good, i just had to bump up the rating.