Daijah
read for psychology and the african american experience class
i loved how this book went through a lot of the history and things we learned in school and reframed them to be correct and how it also fits the history into the present. it's a great way to talk about racism and introduce people to the topic of being anti-racism.
read for horror novellas reading vlog
i was spoiled for this and knew the turn but i kinda liked the direction it went in but i wouldn't consider this a horror. it wasn't scary objectively i think it was just weird. i also thought it was kinda giving black mirror in the beginning which i liked but overall it was pretty forgettable
this was a super hyped true crime for me and i do have an interest in the silk road and the dark web in general so i was super excited for it. i honestly don't think this was gripping for me as it was for others and i never really felt a draw back to read it but it was still super interesting and flew by super quick when i actually picked it up. idk if i'm just used to dark shit but i wanted more on the silk road itself and like what was sold on it/the more nefarious side rather than focusing so much on the creator. ik this is about him but i feel like half this book was just them talking about him sitting in his room fixing messed up coding lol regardless it was still a fun time but not one of my fav true crime books
read for buzzwordathon august 2022: object in titleread for the full moon readathon 2022: set in autumn & dark academiaread for orilium magical readathon 2022: book ok someone's worst list you think you might like
honestly in my dreams i hold a knife meets bunny meets lakewood? the first two i gave both 4 stars so it makes sense i would give this something similar. i had such a good time with this but it's not my new personality or anything
okay first off, did i hate this book? no. but did i find really any sort of entertainment in this book? also no.
mostly my problems lie in the characters in this book since there is not a lot of plot going on. the plot mainly consists of flashbacks that we get of the two “best friends”, poppy and alex, of all their vacations for the past 10 years interspersed with the current vacation they are on. they had a falling out before this current vacation which put them on pause, and we get a big lead-up to what caused it.
so basically most of this book was hella boring and nothing happened. i have a problem with a lot of romance books today because i feel like they want to be fun and light but also have a little bit of depth too but it just ends of disjointed. if you want to be emotional. GO THERE. if you want to be funny. GO THERE. you can definitely achieve both of those in the same book too but unfortunately, i think ms. henry half assed both aspects instead of putting her emdussy into both.
the big falling out was basically pointless to me personally and this is coming from a very sensitive person who also is petty. while there was some legitimate reasons behind the falling out that i do understand but for grown adults it seemed a bit immature to not talk for that long. this is something i could look past a bit because ya know things get awkward but i think these 2 could use some good communication advice in therapy. as a 19 year old i feel like i have more self aware about communication than both of them combined tbh.
now moving onto my real problems.
poppy is the most pick me, wannabe quirky, white girl i've EVER seen.
alex has the personality of a saltine cracker.
so poppy literally is giving an insecure woman who wants to be different so bad that it simply becomes annoying. to me a lot of her personality and traits resembled that of a 15 year old trying to find themself while experiencing puberty. i'm not saying you don't have identity crises and still aren't finding yourself later in life but it feels as if she's stuck in that stage. again even though i'm 19, i feel like freshman year of high school me related to poppy more than i do currently. and when i tell you i was the most annoying creature to touch this earth then, that says a lot about poppy.
next up, alex. this man literally was unseasoned chicken breast rinsed off after cooking. he had no personality besides being uptight and ya know what i feel like he actually is a realistic late 20s/early 30s white man but i personally do not find that desirable. i need a little spice. a lil zest. and he was giving dry wonder bread. i actually don't blame alex much for this because i think he does have a lil somethin somethin buried in there but this whole book was told from poppy's perspective so we never see anything at all.
i didn't hate these characters together or anything of the sort. i didn't feel like they had no chemistry whatsoever either. i did think that since we didn't have alex's perspective, it was hard for me to truly see how he cared about poppy in a romantic sense.
the writing wasn't bad either but it was unmemoriable. i literally forgot that i read this book and had to put a rating/review.
this is just the most boring romance with some of the blandest millennial characters that i've ever read. i can see it being relatable for some but as a gen z, mixed, black, bisexual, woman this was not giving what it was suppose to. it lacked spice and that's that.
thank you to berkley publishing, emily henry, and netgalley for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review
read for buzzwordathon july 2022: book related words
i enjoyed the messages and themes throughout this story a lot but i don't think that literary books in this way are necessarily for me. i found the book slightly boring and that some perspectives dragged/had little relevance throughout most of the story. i still had a good time reading it and thought the messages were so interesting but i think it was better in concept than execution.
read it before. was soooooo basic and i felt like the characters and their relationship was so flat and had no depth. the reason why the heroine “hated” the hero was childish and the fact as a grown adult she put a reminder in her phone to delete him? YOURE GROWN! an extra star for the galapagos and wildlife preservation awarness/information
read for summerween 2022
this book for me i think is actually a 3 star just because of how slow and long it is but there was so much nuance added in the twists and characters that i have to raise the rating. i can also appreciate that this book set the stage for domestic thrillers which makes me give it a higher rating as well.
read for summerween 2022
this is one of those books that you can think about forever and never have true answers. this was fantastical but the horrifying nature of this story was so enticing. and eric larocca always has the absolute best writing and something about the way he writes just digs it's way into my soul.
this book literally is everything i want in a contemporary romance. this is raw and gritty and real. it deals with real human issues especially those that effect black communities without making it feel like it's a trauma dumping. its realistic. sophisticated, and heartbreakingly beautiful. i love including the aspect of them as authors and them knowing each other as teenagers. this is what colleen hoover wishes it ends with us was. i said what i said.
this is the perfect combination of a cozy mystery and a smutty romance. this had some of my favorite smut that i've ever read and i enjoy both genres so much, that seeing them combined and seeing the cozy mystery genre become more open, is amazing. this book is a little bit instalusty and instalovely which i think was done in a realistic way but it's still not my favorite lol i love a bit more ~aNgSt~
read for swoon sisters book club live discussion: june 2022
so i enjoyed the plots in this book, the smut, and the atmosphere but all i could think about was how this was too long and how there are no saints did the serial killer hero better. zade was fun but idk i feel like some aspects of his personality didn't line up. i'm not itching to read the second book that badly even though it left off on a cliffhanger but i will probably continue anyways because it was a good time.