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This book is like 30% plot and 70% vibes and you know what? I enjoyed it.

I love a short book every so often but I will say I think this book could've benefitted from being longer. The lore is thick and it comes at you fast, maybe spacing it out would've made it more impactful? The atmosphere was lush and inviting even in just 100-something pages but if it was done right, stretching it out could've made it even better.

Tobias and Henry were lovely but I wish we'd gotten a bit more time with them as a couple. Undecided on whether I'll pick up the second book, but I did enjoy this one.

i had really high hopes for this book. the description makes it come off as this female lord-of-the-flies-esque feminine rage type story with strong hints to overthrowing the patriarchy and rebelling against the system that they've suffered under forever.

(the rest of this review will be spoilers)

except that never fucking happens. the whole system of the grace year and the men(derogatory) and the poachers has you on the edge of your seat to be sure. the first half of the book, before the grace year starts through fall and a bit of winter, was incredible. seeing how some of the girls want to work together and how some of them just see each other as enemies was a fascinating study of how the patriarchy turns women against each other and then they end up furthering the system that puts them down. this was shaping up to be an incredible story.

and then tierney falls in love with a poacher. you know. one of the guys that hunts and skins and cuts up grace year girls like her every year?

to say i was massively disappointed that this story ended up being more of a romance than a feminine rage book would be an understatement. even if the author tried to humanize ryker by having him admit that the only way to feed his family and take them to a better life was to hunt the girls – he still hunted the fucking girls. she literally finds a notebook with a sketch of her with dotted lines where he PLANNED to cut her up and still thought “oh its okay!! he's different!!”

there were other choices he could've made to support his family. and i figured he was set for death, especially when she actually decides to run away with him (because god forbid she actually try to take care of herself like grown woman, like she's been saying she could the entire book) but the fact that she ends up in the EXACT position she has been FEARING for the entire book: a mother and wife, and she's just?? okay with it?? because her daughter is fulfilling this prophetic dream she's had instead of her standing up and doing it herself? and then I'm pretty sure she DIES?

i was just...so disappointed in the direction this book took. i honestly would've dnfed when i realized the direction it was going with tierney and the poacher but i was already halfway through the book and i figured i might as well finish it.

Oh that cliffhanger is MALICIOUS but at the same time I can tell this story wouldn't have been as good if it ended any other way. The main goal of this book seems to be to highlight that there isn't always a happy ending to be found in stories like this. That sometimes, maybe even most of the time, everything doesn't get wrapped up in a neat little bow and has a satisfying end.

That doesn't mean it wasn't absolutely heartbreaking to read though. This story was highly emotional and even though it never goes into explicit detail it's still a very tough read. I really liked the hybrid storytelling between having half the chapters in Sadie's POV and the other half formatted like transcripts of a podcast. I don't listen to true crime podcasts because in real life I find the whole thing kind of icky but it definitely added a lot of dimension to this book that I don't think it would've had otherwise.

The dialogue felt a bit clunky in Sadie's chapters sometimes because the story was in such a serious tone that I could tell the author didn't want to divert from that even during conversations, but sometimes that left me thinking to myself “No one actually talks like that.”

Other than that, though, this was a very gripping read.

SO first of all I will say that this book did genuinely have me scared at points. For the good middle half of the book I had to play silly youtube videos in the background to keep me calm because I made the wise decision to read this at night. It does do a good job of building dread and having you on the edge of your seat for the middle part.

The rest of it...was pretty lacking.

My first issue was the pacing. This book is 15 chapters and shy of 300 pages and as a consequence pretty much everything feels a bit underdeveloped. Things didn't even start happening until chapter 7, which is halfway through the book. The first half of the book felt like the first ten minutes in an actual horror movie but even more stretched out. It still kept me engaged, because the premise of working at terror experience was interesting to read about if nothing else, but the horror aspect definitely should've kicked in earlier. 

The pacing and short length of the book also ties in with the character development. I don't feel like we spent enough time with any of these characters to care if or when they die; we got two or three details about them and then they just went into the thick of it. The only one who escaped this treatment was Charity, for obvious reasons as the MC.

The rest of my gripes are spoilers:

Kyle's betrayal was underwhelming because, while I could see one or two moments where he was sus looking back, the book like I said just wasn't long enough to build up to it and have it be satisfactory. We needed more screen time with him, more hints to the fact that he's hiding something, just MORE of everything. Doubly so with his grandparents. His grandma was literally only “crazy old evil lady” and his grandfather got ONE appearance at the end when he was revealed and then his big villain monologue and that was it. It just fell really flat for me.

And being brutally honest, I do not like that the big plot twist was a super rich secret society. I feel like that storyline is tired and never done satisfactorily. It also pretty much wiped out all the fear and tension that had built up in me beforehand. When I thought there was a killer at the camp I was on the edge of my seat. When I thought there was some sort of supernatural owl creature killing them I was freaked out and looking over my shoulder. Finding out that the “big bad” was just a bunch of rich cultists doing blood sacrifice to get more rich? Boring. Also not what this book was advertised as. I was expecting a slasher that would be rife with confusion and misdirection because it was happening on the set of a terror simulation. I wanted a killer that used the environment against the employees so they were questioning things up until the very end and the gradual sense of terror in the survivors that this was REAL and not a prank or a joke. Instead, we got rich people in robes.

The smallest of props for foiling the final girl narrative by killing Charity, and then the props are swiftly rescinded when Bezi uses the Owl Society powers to resurrect her. Oh well.

Overall this wasn't a BAD book, I've read worse, but this just very much wasn't what I wanted.

I did watch the first...two? Seasons of the show when it came out years ago so I did vaguely know what to expect when watching this but wow. WOW. However bad Joe was in the show he is ten times worse in the books.

From the very first page, the writing style of this book is just incredibly gripping. There is no easing you into this book's particular flavor of suspense and horror and revulsion; you're in the deep end from day one. You know exactly where this book is going, exactly how it's going to end, and all you can do is just watch uneasily as the bitter end grows closer and closer. The writing in this book is truly like nothing I've ever seen: first person from Joe's point of view yet also second person, as if his entire narration of the book is a story he is telling TO Beck. It's chilling and vicious and so incredibly unsettling you just can't look away.

Joe really is the worst sort of criminal and internal monologue tells you that clear as day. The worst part is he doesn't think he's bad, which is probably par for the course when it comes to people like him, but it still makes you a bit incredulous to read how he justifies the absolutely insane things he thinks about and does. The way he claims that Beck is the love of his life but half the time literally all he thinks and cares about is her body and when he'll next get to sleep with her. 

That being said, I did have some problems with this book. It definitely shows its age at being early to mid-2010s literature with just a smattering of bigotry. I don't if the author put that in deliberately to show it was how Joe thought or if it was just a product of the attitudes at the time it was written. For me it was just on the border of too much sometimes, but never bad enough to stop reading the entire book.

I would say definitely do a bit more in-depth research on the trigger warnings before deciding to pick them up because the tags on Storygraph missed some important ones, but otherwise this book was pretty great. I won't be continuing the series, because having someone like Joe Goldberg as the main character and being in his head is a LOT, but I did enjoy this book!

I've heard MANY people rec this manga and honestly it stands up pretty well! The art style is simplistic but very dreamy and beautiful. The story is compelling right from the beginning and much sadder than I thought it would be but I did go into this story mostly blind so I didn't have anywhere to come from.

I'm really interested to see how this will go – how the plot will progress, how Yona and Hak will come to grips with and deal with Soo-won's betrayal after the initial shock of it all wears off. I'm locked in!

The vibe of this book is just. Incredible.

Cas became so very dear to me in a very short time. I don't know if it's just because I tend to read a lot of books with protags who have a...well if not a “normal” beginning then at least one that isn't too dark. But the tone of this book was different from any I've ever read. The author does not shy away from Cas's PTSD after everything he's been through and you can truly feel how exhausted he is with just everything. How much his trauma has aged him even though he's only eighteen years old.

This is one of those rare books where I feel like it could've been longer or maybe stretched into multiple books. I don't know if the plot could've been extended that far without adding unneeded cushion but I just found myself wanting more and more of everything.

Cas and Ventillas's relationship honestly made me want to cry. Even though they were both going through awful times you could just tell they cared so, so much about each other.

The only part of the book I don't like is when Bittor and Lena are just. So shocked that Cas would draw his weapon to stop Bittor from literally getting his older brother killed. Y'know, the only family he has left, the person he loves most in the world that he hasn't seen in years? Years in which he was a literal slave? Like they didn't show any understanding to him in that moment and it pissed me off. I feel like Lena only ended up feeling guilty because Bittor chained him up and made him have a PTSD panic attack, but then she got upset at him for being upset with her and then he ended up being the one to apologize? I just didn't like how that whole scene went, but overall it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book.

Overall, this was a very solid read. I'll be checking out the author's other works as well.

This entire book is written in verse, which I wish I'd known going in, so it's a lot shorter than it appears.

I wouldn't say I disliked the book, but it didn't really live up to my expectations. I thought, since it was about a cult, we would really dive into the cult itself, the belief system, how the hierarchy works, but things just got skimmed over. Honestly, it kind of feels like everything got skimmed over in this book. Nothing really got the depth or development I felt like it deserved. Not even the relationship between the girls, which was the main focus of the book, got the development it should have.

It also says in the description that the plot focuses on the paranoia that emerges when Rose goes missing is a big part of the book, when in reality it only comes in at the very end. They suspect people outside of their group until the last couple of chapters, where the paranoia turns inward. I had hoped the book would spend more time on that, would show the girls turning on each other and suspecting each other and how it would break down the bonds between them, but it didn't. Olenna was accused and punished within like five minutes, and her reason for killing Rose was a bit lackluster. I was hoping for something more complicated and compelling than “she broke the cult's rules”, especially since we didn't get any real development for why Olenna was so devoted to Havenwood other than a few comments about how she was the one who always followed the rules the most between them.

Overall, this wasn't a bad book but I just expected more from it.

very enjoyable read. victor is a little freak, but we adore him for that. mitch and sydney were definitely the most loveable characters, and eli was so crazy that you were just watching through your fingers to see what he did next. 

never thought i'd see someone pull off dark academia and superpowers in the same story, but I'll be damned if v.e schwab didn't do exactly that. and who doesn't love a good revenge plot?

i know there's other books in this series but i thought the ending to this one was too perfect to want it to continue, so i probably won't be picking them up.

I genuinely did not think it was possible to make a story about stalking so BORING.

Absolutely nothing happened in this book until the very end. Any of the creepy factor of the MC (who was flat as a board, character-wise) so closely following and tracking what the Woman was doing was smothered with how boring the author wrote. I could tell the author was trying to make her writing down all these little details and timestamps be seen as a terrifying thing, as she's tracking the Woman so closely, but these endless irrelevant details had my eyes glazing over. I literally just sat here for an hour and read about a woman watching another woman go shopping, then go to work, then go on a date, and onward and so forth. There is no horror or dread in this book at all.

This book's only saving grace is that it's short. If it was even a bit longer I would've DNFed it.

This was SUCH a hidden gem. Don't let the modern bodice ripper-esque cover fool you; this book has so much depth and emotion in it. It's particularly interesting because on the whole this IS mainly a romance book but also the romance isn't the whole focus? Enough of the focus to classify it as romance but there's still SO much plot and world-building outside of the romance and I ate it UP. If I had to break it down I'd say it was about 60% romance and 40% world-centered plot.

On the romance: I really enjoyed it!! Urban fantasy is always cool to me but I feel like not many people can do it right, or at least in a way that I enjoy. I loved that the author brought their species into the romance in a very intrinsic way and it made their bond so much more meaningful when their powers and family structures played a big part that they both had to accustom to in order to be with each other. And they both STRUGGLED to be settled and happy together in this book, let me tell you. They really fought for each other and that showed their love better than anything else. It was truly heartwarming to watch. I almost wish the entire series (or at least the next book) was about them too because I got very attached.

On the plot/worldbuilding: absolutely INSANE. I am incredibly fascinated by this world. It's a mix of fantasy and sci-fi and contemporary that shouldn't work on paper but it absolutely does!! Getting in deep on the political state of the world and the past that led them here was soooo interesting. I wish there was some kind of separate history book for this world I could read, that's how amazing the worldbuilding was.

Absolutely loved this book. Will be continuing the series to get more of the world if nothing else, but I have high hopes for the other couples as well!

C.A.P.E Rating:Characters - 4/5
Atmosphere - 5/5
Plot - 5/5
Enjoyment - 4/5

This was a pretty good read!! I don't often go for mystery/detective-type books, I tend to lean more toward straight thrillers, but this was definitely a good time. It wasn't too hard to follow but it still surprised me when it got down to who really “dun it”, especially since I was actually confident I had already figured it out, which isn't a usual thing for me. I'm glad it ended it being who it was, though. To keep it vague, it made sense.

I also really enjoyed that the relationship wasn't insta-love. In fact, I'd say they aren't even near love at all by the end of the book, which isn't to say that they hate each other but I'm glad to get a more realistic relationship development, which actually makes sense considering the short time-period this book takes place over, relatively.

Overall this was a good time! I'll be looking into the rest of the series!

soft dnf possibly?? this is SO long i just don't think i have it in me to read it right now. it's staying on my tbr for now.

What an absolutely haunting yet necessary read.

The writing style is so brutal and evocative – I genuinely might have made at least 50 highlights over the course of the book. There were so many lines that just hit like a gut punch, almost like something you want to wince away from but you just can't stop reading. The emotions in this book bleed over so clearly that even as a person born and raised in America and 100% white, I felt like I was transported into situations and emotions I've never experienced and likely never will.

This was a very heavy read, but I don't regret reading it for a second. The way she described how impossibly hopeless it is to be a refugee, how you have to convince people that you've been through something terrible but you have to do it the right way, you have to prove you suffered in the specific ways that convince them that you deserve safety; it's just utterly heartbreaking.

I wish I could think of more to say about this book because it was truly unlike anything else I've ever read, but all I can say is that it will sit with me for a long time and I hope I learned a few things from it that I'll carry with me.

I really liked these two together! Focusing on an Arrow and an E-Psy right after the fall of Silence was a really good choice because I feel like these two are the groups that have most been affected by silence overall. This was a really solid book; the relationship between them felt natural and sweet, since it was the first time either of them had ever been in a romantic entanglement before, which is a breath a fresh air after all the previous books where at least one of the pairing has had experience. It was nice to see the bumbling side of a relationship a bit since they're totally new to it.

I cried a little bit at the end, first in a sad way and then in a really happy way. This series is promising to end really well even if I'll be sad that it's over.

C.A.P.E Rating:Characters - 4/5
Atmosphere - 5/5
Plot - 5/5
Enjoyment - 4/5

I absolutely loved the relationship dynamic in this one. All the weight and importance that had been put on the mating bond in the past books just made this one even more special; two people choosing to love each other even without that special certain connection. Being brave despite the hurt in their past to choose each other, knowing it might end badly without that bond to fall back on, but doing it anyway because they love each other so much.

Ugh. UGH. That was so well done. Singh's couple's are just getting more and more compelling as we get to the end of the series.

Things are reaching critical mass with Silence and I think we don't have long now. The little snippet with Kaleb at the end had me RABID; he's one of my favorite characters in the whole universe and I can't WAIT to read his book!

C.A.P.E Rating:Characters - 4/5
Atmosphere - 5/5
Plot - 5/5
Enjoyment - 4/5

The story for this one might be the most interesting one so far! All the couples have been fully human up to this point so it was interesting to see how Lark would approach a couple where one of them was decidedly NOT human, but I like how it was done! It left out a trope often used with human/nonhuman romances that I'm grateful wasn't there but I won't say what it is as to not spoil it.

I really liked the main characters in this one. It was so intriguing to be inside Leth's head and to dig into his family issues that had only been passingly mentioned before. Complicated family dynamics are always so interesting, and I love that we got a bit of a focus on what happened in the wider world after the events of the last book. Evain and Leth were too cute and I'm glad they have some history that kept it from feeling rushed, but the added travel time would've helped with that either way. Their relationship progression felt very natural and I do love me a bit of pining, so I have no complaints!

A bit sad that this series is over. I don't know if I'll be picking up any of Lark's other series but I had a blast with Radiance and Perilous Courts, so I might come back one day!

C.A.P.E Rating:Characters - 4/5
Atmosphere - 4/5
Plot - 4/5
Enjoyment - 4/5

A sequel that for sure ramped up the tension!

They bring in travelling between worlds as a frequent feature in this book, which is a delicate balance to strike without being excessive but I think Pullman pulled it off. Once again fascinating to see how a couple of pre-teens approach something as intense as a multi-dimensional quest. They bring in more religious elements in this book, including having...God himself become the main antagonist? I'm currently neutral on that decision though I am curious as to how they're going to pull it off.

Teared up just like I did last time when Lee died. You did good my man, rest easy.

Locked in for book three!

If you think this book can't accomplish what it wants to accomplish in only 30 pages, forget that right now.

The writing is lyrical and haunting, fast-paced but there is no adjustment period to follow along. From the very first word this world sucks you in and it will not let you go until you finish reading it. It demands no less. It's brutal and cutting and chilling and it could easily be 300 hundred pages but it doesn't need to be.

Just read it. If it interests you even in the SLIGHTEST, do yourself a favor and read it.

There were some fun and spooky parts in this book but honestly? Overall it was a letdown.

On a base level, I understand everything that happened in the plot and the personalities of the characters but this book just felt very...disjointed? Things would happen with absolutely no build-up or working towards and it would just leave me thinking “why is this happening out of the blue? why are the characters acting like this?” And maybe that could've worked if the horror of Hill House was that it messed with their minds and made them act differently but that also wasn't set up to be a plot point at all.

There were a few standard horror beats that proved that this was intended to be a scary book but nothing ever came of them. None of the scenes actually scared me because there was practically no tension besides the characters repeatedly saying “this place is creepy and I'm scared” which obviously isn't enough to build any true terror.

The ending left me completely baffled. I have no clue why any of that happened how it did and it was very unsatisfactory.

This was the lightest on plot out of any of the books so far, but I don't think it was detrimental. We got a real strong focus on the couple and with more page time dedicated to them I think we really got to put the work in to developing them and their relationship, which was nice to see. And it also didn't feel insta-love because not only have they known each other for their entire lives but Drew's feelings are established before the book starts, so it feels like we've already had some off-screen development, offsetting any of it feeling rushed over the short amount of time the book takes place.

I liked this one. The couple was good and we got a lot of conversations about boundaries and respect which I really appreciated, but honestly pretty much everything else happening in the plot was more interesting than the main couple for this one, no offence to them. Everything happening with the Council, Sascha and Lucas, Sienna and Hawke, I was more invested in those plot threads than I was with the romance.

Still, I have nothing to complain about. I'm super excited for the next one!

C.A.P.E Rating:Characters - 4/5Atmosphere - 5/5 Plot - 4/5Enjoyment - 4/5

Sadly, this is another couple I just didn't particularly connect with. I like Max and Sophia as characters on their own, but together they just didn't really do anything for me. My opinion is also affected by the fact that this book has one of the most egregious cases of insta-love out of the entire series. I've learned to sort of wave it away after reading so many books in this world but I'm almost certain this book takes place over the course of MAYBE 2 weeks. And they're talking about marriage by the end of it. I just feel like it's not too hard to put in a time skip or two. Even a few months would've made this more realistic; I wouldn't even care if the time skips were badly done. It would've been SOMETHING.

However, the lore is what saved me from rating this lower. Both getting more details on the J-Psy and spending more time than normal with Council and seeing the deepening schism between them was fascinating. We're really starting to pick up steam towards Trinity now and I can't wait to see how it all goes down.

C.A.P.E Rating:Characters - 4/5Atmosphere - 5/5Plot - 4/5Enjoyment - 4/5

Unfortunately I just didn't connect with the characters as much in this book as I have in the others, but this was still a fun ride! Plot-wise I don't think Nalini Singh could ever disappoint me. Seeing the back and forth between the Psy Council and the changelings just continue to ramp up and up is so incredibly interesting; it really makes it feel like we're heading for a war.

Also liked how we explored how the Psy's believed superiority - both in terms of their power and their ‘control' over themselves with Silence - makes them so arrogantly blind to the abilities of other races and proves to keep being their downfall with every loss. I have no idea when we're going to get to where we are in the Trinity books - if you know you know - but I'm excited to keep going and see what happens next.

C.A.P.E RatingCharacters - 4/5Atmosphere - 5/5Plot - 5/5Enjoyment - 4/5

I loved the bigger insight we got into the religion of the world in this one. Fantasy religions are one of my favorite things the dive into when I'm reading and I loved how Lark approached them in this one. I normally don't read books where the deities have an actual presence and impact on the story because I find that often authors make it so they're cruel and controlling and they just hurt mortals for no good reason and I don't like that, but I did like the deities that popped up and got speaking time in this book. It made the plot much more interesting than if they hadn't had a speaking role at all.

Karis and Ronan's relationship was nice. Definitely not my favorite, especially with the whole captor/captive dynamic they had going for a while and the choices that Ronan made sometimes, but I don't dislike them over all. I like where they ended up at the end of the story, especially the scene with them in the altar room. If you know you know. That was VERY satisfying to me personally.

I've really enjoyed this world so far! Can't wait to crack into the final book.

C.A.P.E Rating:Characters - 4/5
Atmosphere - 4/5
Plot - 4/5
Enjoyment - 4/5

this was a fantastic read honestly. the whole setup of the world, with witches being seen as a whole different species and the conflicts that followed, felt very real despite it being a fantasy book. the characters were all multifaceted and loveable, even though their flaws were present and it was easy to dislike them as well.

ranka was a perfect mc, in my opinion, and the writing really made it easy to feel everything she felt. there were several points in the book where i wanted to cry for her. the blood magic, itself, was such an interesting and visceral part of the story that it sucked me in even more.

very enjoyable read!