falon

idk?? it was alright, pretty weird, definitely slow. i liked it but,,enough to read the other books? we'll see

i feel like,,,i was cheated. i'm just so sick of the cheating spouse trope in thrillers. there's other things that happen in life and i feel like i've just seen it a thousand times. that being said, i had a good time listening to this. i sped right through without even thinking and i ended up invested in alyssia a lot by the end. i thought theo was a good unreliable narrator where most people would probably not realize he's unreliable, but i never trust men so ✌️

I'm surprised at how low I rated this because i was actually really enjoying the beginning. i thought it was a little trope-y, sure, but the writing was easy, the characters were fun and it seemed like an interesting enough premise. but the downfall of this book for me is inan. i don't know what it is about him but he makes me feel so icky. i hated being in his head and his romance with zelie straight up creeped me out. it was beyond insta-love, filled with angst and saturated in melodrama, and didn't even make sense. one minute they were fighting, and the second inan doesn't act like a douchebag, zelie was in love with him? i'm not buying it. he also changed his mind about magic on a dime, seemingly with only one driving force behind it. he didn't feel like a deep character to me; he felt like a flopped attempt at a complex character that ended up confused and all-over0the-place. the only character i really liked was amari; i've seen her character before, sure, but iactually enjoyed her chapter and thought she was pretty well-written. i enjoyed her arc. the rest of them could be copy-and-pasted from any other fantasy story i've read. i most likely won't continue on with this series unless i'm bored one day and get curious about the cliffhanger.

honestly, i hated every moment reading this book. the main character was so blah, the writing drove me insane, it felt so slow and so many things just felt illogical. like all of the police work was absolute bullshit and the things about this book i was excited about were really minor parts of the plot. the two is really just bc i didn't see the plot twist coming, but even then the plot twist scenes took forever and were rushed through with a villainous monologue. like what even was this book lmao

that one twist knocked me off my ass, but it dragged so so so much through the middle and besides that one twist the rest of the ending was meh

horror?? more like the version of the orphan you tell your mom so she doesn't get mad at you for watching it

I really wanted to love this book. A cult novel by one of my favorite authors? I was so stoked. However, I felt like this book fell flat, especially in the final act. The last third didn't have nearly enough development and it seemed like a series of summarized scenes rather than a fully fleshed-out ending. I did love the characters, the writing and a lot of the emotional exploration in this book but there was so much missing by the end.

I had such high expectations for this book and so much of it just fell flat. Although the premise of the book seemed interesting, and Marissa Meyer is known for reimaginings, I found this book to be very basic and like every other superhero book. It definitely had unique aspects, but overall it seemed very cookie cutter. This book didn't bring anything new or exciting to the realm of superheroes. Although I liked the two main characters individually, I really didn't like them together. Their romance seemed forced and I didn't feel any chemistry. I really couldn't care less about the Renegade side characters, and while I really did like the Anarchist side characters, I feel like I barely got to know them. The writing, while definitely not bad, felt very basic and young-adult to me. The whole book felt very much like setting up for the next one. In general, I found Renegades to be charming enough, but definitely predictable and boring at times.

i actually liked this better than shadow and bone for a couple reasons:
1. NIKOLAI
that's it 
that's the review

just kidding
i also found myself more engaged and having strong feelings about the characters, albeit negative ones cough mal cough
it was still messy and nothing happened until the end and alina is a still a piece of white bread i had a better time reading this, probably because i listened to it

3.5

Of course, since it's Roxane Gay, this is a stunningly and fiercely written essay. Gay writes about the collective trauma of last year briefly but in better words than I've ever heard. The only thing about this is that I wish it was longer, maybe fifty pages more. I thought this was going to go far more in depth about the actual writing process; it wasn't what I expected but I still was moved by what I got.

this is a strange book to discuss. i understand what the book was going for in its message, and i do think it was successful in some aspects, however the overwhelming gratuitous grossness made it so hard to remember the message of the books. i decided on a four because this is certainly one of the most memorable books i've ever read, and it illicited such a strong reaction from me, but i do think it was over the top to a detriment at some point. i mean i can only read about human shit consumption so many times.

2

i mean the whole book had its issues but i was vibing but then what the fuck was that ending??

i don't really know how to rate this. it's one of the saddest and most disturbing books i've ever read. it was well written, well researched and had fleshed out characters, but i can't say i enjoyed it or would recommend it because of the subject matter, especially because it's based on a true story. so yeah.

so fucking boring feels boomer-ish in some weird way? there was like two stories i didn't absolutely hate. also who do i need to speak to so that authors know open endings/being coy with your point doesn't mean leaving anything interesting out of the story

I feel like I want to give this book one star because I really can't think of anything I like about it, but I try and save one stars for books I really hated, and I just don't have strong feeling about this book. Everything about this book was so basic and boring and there was absolutely nothing redeeming or standout at all. The characters were all cookie cutters with nothing interesting or specific to them that made them worth caring about. The world building was simply not there; I didn't understand the significance of the Shadow Fold or Sun Summoner or anything because it just wasn't explained well. The writing was so so basic and was literally just telling the story and nothing else. It was so simplistic that it got in the way of the story because it just wouldn't describe things in detail so I didn't care about what was happening. Whatever, I just want to read six of crows.

I wanted to like this one but it didn't work for me. It felt like it was going for an almost Chuck Palahniuk style in the writing and the twists but didn't have the skill to pull it off on a larger scale so instead shortened it. However, the length made it so it was just twist after twist with nothing else making it strong.

jesus. christ. where do i even begin with this book?

i want to start by saying a book has never before made me cry this much. i don't consider myself to be much of a book crier unless it's my absolute favorite series or something. but goddamn this was really something else.

this book is very much a study of trauma, yes, but it talks about so many other things. chronic illness, addiction, success, fame, failure, found families. there is so much inside of this book and it doesn't all flow perfectly but that's because this book truly does not feel like a story, it feels like real life, where things are imperfect and often out of order and irrational.

i've never read about a set of characters that feel more real. there were many times i had to remind myself that these were things that were fictional because of how raw and honest and unflinchingly the story was told it felt it could only be real life.

the way that trauma is discussed in this novel is truly unlike anything i have ever read. it shows the harsh reality that so many things never really leave us. we often like to think of survivors as these individuals who can confidently tell their stories and inspire others and are perfect people afterwards, but this book shows the true reality of the shame, resentment, anger, and self-hatred of trauma. and while it is truly one of the best things to hear when a person can come to terms with themselves and talk openly about the things they've been through, some people never get to that point, and that is an equally important side of trauma to discuss.

it never tries to make jude, or any of the characters, into something they're not. they behave as real people do; imperfectly and flawed. they hurt each other and they lash out when they shouldn't but that's what makes this story so impactful. how real and genuine every character's actions and feelings are portrayed make this so good and why it means so much. i often found myself forgetting i was reading and just feeling like i was another one of jude's friends, watching his life unfold and desperate to try and make him see how beautiful he is but never able to.

i could honestly go on and on about how incredible this book was, i think the last thing i'll say is that, while this is one of the saddest things i have ever read, it has also touched me the most and i know this is a story i will carry with me forever.

this book was so bad, i almost can't believe it. i don't know why i continue to pick up self harm books when i'm consistently disappointed.

diving right into it, without the problematic parts of this book, the writing and plotting is very immature. there isn't much of a plot at all, which i normally like character driven books, but the main character, willow, is the actual worst. this book tries to deal with depression, but the author just portrays it as one drawn out whine fest. willow is always moping and whining in the most obnoxious way. the writing is weird and very overdramatic, and it very much sounds like the writing of a young teenage girl. this book almost feels like a wattpad book in not only how annoying the writing is, but also in that the book feels disconnected in that every chapter has a drama point that doesn't have much significance.

also, can we talk about the character of guy? he is so creepy in just about every way. he carries around a condom from the second time he met her because he wanted to fuck her at some point and he forces her to cut herself in front of him. i don't know if the author was trying to make him “swoon-worthy” or whatever but it completely failed. honestly, thinking about him makes my skin crawl.

overall, this book felt like the author trying to make a book about self harm but having zero idea what she was talking about, and i'm honestly offended this book exists.

3.5
I feel weird about this installment in the series. I loved the first two books, was iffy on the third, and didn't like the fourth at all. This one was...weird. It reminded me a lot of Beneath the Sugar Sky in the quest/plot-heavy aspect. I didn't love it in that one and I didn't in this one either. I think in the quest stories the length of the novels work against them. I wanted more time and development with Jack and Jill, Jill especially. I'm not sure in what way, but the ending felt rushed and left something to be desired. That being said, I loved being back with these characters, Jack was a horrific delight, Jack and Alexis's relationship was so cute and gay and I'm in love with it. I thought Jack's OCD was really well done. Overall, I liked it, but Down Among the Sticks and Bones will always be my favorite.

I'm very sad to say this has been my least favorite installment in this series. Starting with the good, though; Seanan McGuire's writing is stunning and gorgeous as ever and I don't think she will ever disappoint on that front. I also fell in love with Lundy, as I always do with our main characters. She was interesting, flawed, and fleshed out, and I will never understand how Seanan McGuire can do that with so few pages. However, this book was very strange because it took place over the longest span of time than any of the other books. There were several exciting things that happened and characters that were just talked about but we never got to see. Why tell me about the cool stuff and then not show me it? I had to hear them talk about a dead girl and a tarantula queen or something but not even that story was ever laid out for us. Instead, we saw a few mundane things happening in each world and then got told that interesting things happened at some other time. The world itself was the least compelling of any we've visited before, as was the moral/theme of the book. As usual, there was one overarching message, almost like a fable. But this books' was mostly about money and payment and I just didn't care. The side characters were lacking as well, which is not typical of this series. I didn't have any sort of connection or understanding of Moon and why she did the things she did. I liked Lundy's little sister more than Moon and I only knew her little sister for about 20 pages! In the end, I defintely didn;t hate this book; in fact, I had a great time reading it and I'm still excited for the next installment. It was just not up to par with what I've come to expect from this series.

This is definitely the most plot-heavy book of the series with an actual linear plot. This was not what I expected at all but I also adored it. I'm always shocked at how Seanan McGuire can conjure up new characters and make them so unique and also make me fall in love with them in such a short amount of pages. I'm obsessed with every character in this series and I love that each new book leaves the potential for 10 future stories. I adore this series so much.

I'm definitely the unpopular opinion on this book. I didn't hate this story by any means, but so much of it just didn't work for me. Of course, the writing was stunning like everyone says, but my main issue was with the romance and the structure of the book. I really like both Addie and Henry as individual characters, but I felt they had no chemistry as a couple. I felt like they only had feelings for each other because Henry remembered Addie and they didn't have any real connection beyond that. At about the half point of the book, or maybe the last third, the structure of the book became alternating chapters of Addie and the entity who cursed her and scenes with Addie and Henry. The Henry and Addie chapter were only filler written in a beautiful way to try and convince me of this great love story they were having but it felt so contrived. The chapter between Addie and the entity were equally as tiring because I knew what they were building up to from the very beginning so there was no feeling of tension, only of dragging out an inevitable. I guess my main problem with loving this book is how much it was trying to convince me to root for these characters I felt had zero spark. I didn't hate this book by any means but I'm very sad to say it's my least favorite V.E. Schwab book to date.

I loved this book so much! Jack was my favorite character of “Every Heart A Doorway,” so I was thrilled when I began this book and found her to be the main character. The world of the Moors, while being contained in such a small amount of pages, felt so fleshed out. Every character, even the very minor ones, felt multi-faceted and real. The story was so beautiful and is probably going to be my favorite of the series.

This did what it was intending to do really well but it's just not my kind of story.

I think this is a really excellent piece of feminist work. It sets up all its arguments, counter arguments, is very concise with its language while conveying its message in a few well explained paragraphs. However it did get a bit repetitive, both in using the same words/phrases continuously (like colluding) where it was unnecessary, as well as perhaps not being the most inclusive with its language. However, definitely have the a lot of the language to talk about masculinity/patriarchy issues in a way that would make sense to people unversed, for which I'm very glad I read this book.