Phillip Abraham
THIS is how you do a young adult romance!!! i feel like i've just found an oasis after wading through molasses i love you syd and harley
the most beautiful slow burn known to man that i'm so incredibly thankful to have witnessed
it definitely took a while for me to get into it, but by the end the theming and development made a lot more sense and overall was really interesting! might even consider checking out the sequels
"Be careful you don't scare him," I began but the unicorn beside me let out a snort which sounded annoyed before suddenly lurching towards me and turning into a boy with frosted tips in his hair and a huge grin on his face."
DNF @ 40%
i can acknowlege that i'm not the audience for this book, but even still, this is NOT well written in the slightest. i kept pointing out basic typos and clunky sentence construction, and usually i can tolerate subpar prose to a certain degree, but it was just not good here. did nobody read that sentence in the editing phase??? did they decide it made sense??
and the actual plot... at the very least, i hoped it would be a guilty pleasure sort of story that i can enjoy if i acknowledge its flaws, but no. i genuinely kept forgetting the love interests' names because they were all just the same brand of smirking hot male love interest. if you want to write about that, fine, but at least try to make them meaningfully different. i also don't understand this book's use of multiple POVs, since both tory and darcy sound like the exact same character.
the sole enjoyment i got out of this book was laughing about it with my friends, and sending screenshots every time something insane happened. if you have a high tolerance for bad writing AND just want something to laugh at, you could probably find enjoyment in this book, but otherwise, please don't read this.
this book has me thinking. so much thinking.
edited after rereading:
still holds up really well! i do think that i glossed over lauren and bankole's incredibly uncomfortable age gap the first time (
2 ⭐️
no thoughts, head empty. the ending was good, but not great, and everything else... i didn't hate it, but didn't love it.
also the fact that rowan was on the sidelines for 2/3rds of the series was... questionable.
haven't read heartstopper in a while but i'm reminded of how cute it is just from volume 1! i might actually read further - they're just so cute together!
5/5 ⭐️
never in my LIFE have i ever said i had a favorite book. well - that has now changed.
do i hate media with superheroes in it? yeah!
do i love this book and victor vale? yeah!
3.5 ⭐️
My feelings on this book are conflicted.
There were SO MANY things that I loved about it. The side characters - Izzi and Helene were my favorites in the entire book, and I really wished at times that they were more present than they ended up being. I also loved a lot of the action stuff from the second half, with the Trials being (mostly) really compelling and interesting to watch, and I also really enjoyed the dynamic with all the characters in Laia's POV - It was really engaging, and I really liked what we were able to see of them!
And yet, there was a lot that I disliked - The slow first half, the frustrating miscommunication in Elias' POV, and the GODAWFUL love square. Seriously - why did this have to be in the book?? It was so painfully obvious who would end up together, and just felt like a waste of time - Not to mention how both characters that didn't end up in a relationship got the absolute worst outcomes afterwards. The way Elias and Helene's dynamic turned out made me so, so frustrated!! Did we really need to have Helene banished to being the “not-love-interest” girl who gets written out of the spotlight??
(I also just think that Laia and Elias would've worked a lot better as a platonic relationship, not a romance
update: i genuinely remember nothing that happened in this book?? i remember liking it but i also feel like it might've been recency bias talking
original rating: 5.0/5.0
4 ⭐️
not as good as scythe, but still decently interesting! to be honest, not much really happened during the first half of the book other than setup for future plot points. loved greyson as a main character, but honestly didn't find his plot to be all that important.
and ROWAN. i'm sorry but what happened to him?? he went from being this skilled antihero to instantly getting captured. he was kinda just... there, but not really there the whole book. not to mention his romance with citra (which was already hard to believe then) somehow tanked even further here
2/5.
For a book that I planned to read five years ago and never got around to until now, it's so disappointing to realize it just doesn't mesh with me. I'm sorry, but it was a chore to even read through, and I honestly tuned out around halfway through.
I felt little to no connection to any of the characters. Putting the extremely stilted dialogue aside, I could not be brought to care about any of these characters. I definitely couldn't care for any of the ten-or-so side characters, or even remember their names, for that matter. Even the two leads, Rufus and Mateo, who are involved in the supposed “sad love story”. In reality, it felt more annoying to read than sad. Seeing Rufus... almost babysitting Mateo?? It annoyed me to no end, and I feel more sorry for Rufus that he sacrificed a majority of his time that could've been spent with his friends to Mateo. I thought their relationship was cute during some of the final few scenes, but it didn't feel anywhere near fulfilling because of how abrupt the buildup was.
The ending was somehow even more anti-climatic than I expected. Mateo turns on the stove, and dies, and Rufus is sad, and then is left to wait for his death. I was honestly shocked by how abrupt it all was - From one scene of Mateo dying, and the page flips to acknowledgements. It left no feelings - Not even of annoyance. Just a “What was the point?...“
What I will give this book is that the writing was decent. I would've liked some of the background world to be built upon. Learning more about the nature of deaths in this world, or the possible involvement of Death-Cast in these deaths at least would've helped to make this book slightly more interesting. Instead, it feels more of the skeleton of a good story that just wasn't fully realized.
i think this book was made in a lab specifically to appeal to me. this fulfilled my itch for a character driven book like emily wilde's encyclopedia of faeries so well, and i'm incredibly excited for the rest of this series. actual review to come but this was so good
not to be dramatic but this sounds amazing??? please let this be good so i can be annoying about it
“They'd devoured each other in this forest, these boys so ravenous and defiant and tearful, they'd not known how to stop. The way Andrew loved Thomas was terrible and eternal, but he couldn't remember if he'd ever said that out loud.”
this was one of my most anticipated books for this year and i'm so glad it didn't disappoint!! andrew and thomas' relationship was actually very sweet despite how much they suffered - i'm so glad this story didn't fall into the trap i see in so many ya novels where the main characters just don't have any chemistry. something i also did NOT expect from this book was detailed illustrations of the monsters, which i absolutely loved!! it added so much to the twisted fairytale theming!!
the ending, without spoiling, is open-ended, but doesn't feel cheap to me since i feel like you could pretty easily come to a reasonable conclusion about what happened. this book has such great atmosphere and i really loved how it was maintained up until the very end. there were a few parts where i felt the talks about andrew's sexuality were a bit jarring compared to the rest of the plot, but i do understand how important that is to his character and this book's audience.
overall, i highly enjoyed reading! the horror in this book is (as someone who's easily freaked out) not all that graphic, more haunting and uncomfortable than anything else. if that sounds up your alley, i definitely would recommend!
i'm absolutely disturbed by how cute the fish danmei was. guess i'm staying seated for volume 2
4.25/5 ⭐️
if this sequel actually improves on the original i'll eat my hat and buy a copy of this book too
it was fun! a bit too short to really build on its subject matter, but i liked what we got to see!
the main character and her internal struggles were compelling, and i liked seeing her growth throughout. the ending did feel a bit too convenient and abrupt for my liking, but i think it made sense within the context of the book. i'd also like to shout out the very cool illustrations at the start of each chapter - they kept me engaged!
overall, a pretty interesting usage of the magical girl trope! i probably won't think about this much after finishing it, but i did have a good time reading it.
