elena

this is so precious and wholesome!

3.5
“You want to see the future but you only see the sky”

3.5

very mediocre..

i think it's going to be very predictable to people who've read at least a few thrillers. usually i don't anticipate twists but here i could tell exactly what would happen and it did. the main character felt way too exaggerated and silly as well.

3.5

3.5

didn't expect to see the word “femoid” in a book I read but here we are

I don't think anything I can say will do this book and how it made me feel justice. this story, especially how casual this whole thing was for the characters, just killed me. and then the very end killed me once again.

“You only live once. And if you do it right, once is all you need”

3.5

4.5

3.5

3.5

3.5

“You deserve every single place you claim in history.”

iconic

was hoping that it would focus more on the language than it did :(

I feel like the way things wrapped up was..a bit too convenient? but this books hits the feelz nevertheless

3.5: this was fun and all, but if I had a shot everytime she thinks about them dancing that one time in college I'd be dead because of alcohol poisoning

3.5

Okay, he's done it again? It's really good!

The thing here is, many books get labeled as both: thriller and mystery as if they're fully interchangeable regardless of the book content. This is not a thriller in my mind but a dark, atmospheric murder mystery.

The characters feel very real, it's easy to warm up to them and relationships between them are written very nicely and I cared about them so much (cough especially between two specific characters cough)!
What I didn't like was the info dump in the end. I think his first book suffered from the same problem? I might be wrong here, it's been a while since I've read it. I feel like there are many little details that could've been sprinkled throughout the story itself instead of just throwing them into the final reveal as well. I think this way it'd have more of a gradual build up, that I felt was missing.

There are some things that usually make me doubt my desire to pick up a book (historical fiction that goes waaay back to the past & boat stuff), but! I had zero negative feelings about these while reading this book. And it actually does take you on an adventure!






(i HAVE to say, Arent is a weird ass name lol)

love what she's done with Cat's character. reading from Audrey's perspective, while yes, she is definitely self-absorbed, makes you see good in her too, trying to help Cat with her disaster of a love life, which makes the contrast even more stark when you see her through Cat's eyes. seeing her spiral with her desire to succeed at something, make sure the past stays hidden and obviously growing annoyance with her friend: the ending was just IT.
hopefully Max's train of thought in the end doesn't mean that this book will get ruined by being turned into some sort of series though

whoever shelved this book as a thriller was drunk or delusional and is responsible for my emotional breakdown

3.5

what i loved so much about this book is the insight it gives. as a cisgender girl, who's never struggled with problems related to my gender identity, reading from felix's perspective helped me a lot to learn & understand how crucial and meaningful a process of self-discovery in this regard can be.