MeowMeow
Laurence and Toby are just so damn sweet together. To be honest, I don't like age gaps because there's always risk of manipulation and abuse by the older person, but ... well, this is fiction and not real life and since we can see exactly what's going on in everyone's heads, things are all good. This is a sweet love story and I'm glad I went along for the ride. I've read 3 books by Alexis Hall now and I'm going to get every other thing he's written because he's fast becoming one of my favorite “comfort read” authors.
FINALLY stuff starts happening after the last 3 books where basically the plot dragged and nobody did anything. I love the story and the characters, don't get me wrong, but I had to grit my teeth to read the last few. This one was such a joy to read and explained a bit more about things I wanted to know.
This ended up being a bit too “woo woo” for me – not to mention I got absolutely sick of reading about how awesome she thinks her parents are. I dunno mate, reading about the reasons you think your parents are cool just makes me see them as assholes who don't think rules apply to them. So yeah. This was a miss for me.
I went back on forth on whether to give this a lower rating or not. While I enjoyed the story, the main character can just be such a thoughtless jerk that I hated him half the time. I absolutely loved Oliver, though – he deserved better, and I wish I could have gotten a story just about him and someone else who treated him wonderfully.
This book makes it possible to quiet down my perfectionist tendencies and all the toxic things that part of me tells me. I re-read it in order to remind myself of so many nuggets of wisdom that Acuff gives – and it's a bonus that he's also quite witty. This is the only self-help book that I have re-read and repurchased as a physical paperback, to study further.
Sometimes the only thing that keeps me from drowning completely in a sea of darkness is knowing that someone else understand this, that there is someone else who experiences the infinite black ocean with me. Sometimes the only thing that keeps me going is the thought that I am not as alone as my mind wants me to believe.
Immediate DNF in Chapter 2 for a main character who sees nothing wrong with her best friend being a gossipy asshole and spreading LIES, saying a guy murdered his own wife and buried her out in the woods, just because the gossipy asshole was bored that day. Also, right afterward she calls an elderly woman “that old biddie” who's about to “keel over any moment.” Then she says to the MC (who is blind) that she, gossipy bitch, would poke her own eyes out just to get the job as a blind reader if the MC doesn't apply.
WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK!! I cannot forgive being friends with someone who would willfully spread lies that would damage someone's reputation just because she wanted to. It's not fucking harmless, no matter how much you want to make it out to be that way.
Do you want to see the conversation? Here it is:
“Don't be silly. The man's not dangerous. He's just anti-social.”
“Not dangerous! Aren't you the one who said he killed his wife and buried her in the woods and the wolves are there so no one goes looking for her bones?”
She giggled. “Well, I was bored that afternoon. Don't you think it'll be fun?”
“You just want me to apply so you'd have all kinds of new gossip to spread around.”
“Come on. I'd ask someone else, but you're the only blind person in town.”
“Isn't Mrs. Murtle blind too?”
“That old biddie,” she dismissed immediately. “She's about to keel over any moment. I heard her sons have already dug her grave.”
I shook my head in wonder at that untrue piece of gossip.
“I am,” she admitted. “So are you going to do it or not?”
“I don't know, Elaine. It's awkward.”
“Look, if you don't apply, I'm going to poke my eyes out and apply myself,” she growled.
I laughed. “I'll think about it.”
I was never a theater kid, so half this book bored me immensely instead of – as I suppose was the intent – making me gasp at the author's genius for including certain plays and pages of dialogue. And I do mean PAGES and PAGES of dialogue from Shakespeare's plays. Also, the characters don't come across as sparkling and witty; they come across as horribly pretentious and off-putting. The author loved to harp on and on about how “close” their friendships were, but their relationships with each other looked so shallow.
Around the 35% mark, I realized why the story started with establishing the fact that someone was killed and someone who'd been in prison for it may not have been the real villain: because the book is incredibly DULL, and if it wasn't for those two tidbits, then I (and many other people, I'm thinking) would have stopped reading.
I pushed myself on after again feeling the urge to DNF this crap at around 50% but I wanted to see if all the things I thought were correct, and yep, they were. I knew who the victim would be, I knew who the guilty person was, I knew why people did what they did, etc. etc. These conclusions were drawn way, way, way before the 50% mark and I was thinking the entire time, “No, this can't be it. The victim can't truly be the victim ... and the obvious guilty party can't truly be the one who did it, right? There's going to be a twist. Some cool turn coming, surely?” Nope. Didn't happen. I was imagining all sorts of cool stuff that could raise the level of this book. More crimes, more cunning, something more? Nope. Boring and disappointing.
The book description had me expecting an awesome story with a strong, intelligent heroine who would be cunning enough to take down the secret societies and cause some mayhem as payback for what happened to her brother/friend. I should have known what kind of book this would be when the stupid, weak, vain heroine does the trope-y cliche of tripping into the snarling handsome asshole who she ends up loving (of course) – I should have dropped the book right then and there for this scene alone. Her so-called “investigation” is laughable. The secret societies are so cringe-worthy. Also ... hello, telegraphing the villain much? I'm shocked the word VILLAIN wasn't written in marker across their forehead. WTF. (Which goes to show how doubly stupid the main character is.)
This story could have been SO MUCH MORE. Instead we have characters bumbling all over the place like idiots, no chemistry between characters who are supposed to have the hots for each other, and overall epic levels of eyeroll-worthy cringe.
Leyli is a badass. Unrealistic, yes, because I doubt you can turn someone who hasn't done anything more strenuous than carrying a dress to a “lean, mean, killing machine” in the time-frame of this book. (E.g., just 2 weeks of training and then she has her first tandem fights with Tristan ... and then later on we find that it's only been 5 months-ish that has gone by, but now she's one of the best gladiators ever. I mean ... Okay then.
But still really enjoyable. Made scenes from Gladiator flash through my head from time to time, and also gave me a hankering for ancient Rome.
I was all set for this to be a deliciously wicked 5-star read with some wickedly clever characters, but just a few chapters in and I was already disappointed. The characters were not clever but contrived and cliche and just so boringly common ... and the worst part is that they believe they are the smartest people in the room. You know who's simultaneously the smartest and so-naive-as-to-get-tricked people in the room are? Us readers, who figured out exactly who was behind the assassination plot as soon as those characters were introduced – and who got this book in the first place thinking we were going to get something so much better. I cry for us all.
Um. I hate to break Alfi's hearts because they're sweet and dorky but this story felt like it was written by a teenager who wanted to do some sort of wish-fulfillment thing. Ally and Fish come across painfully cringe. Also, I dunno about anyone else, but reading about how Fish decided to jack off after their phone call (when they hadn't even been talking naughty) – while imagining giving her oral sex – made me flinch. Unsexy and unromantic much? Geez. The epilogue that takes place like 30 years in the future was also pure cringe .
To be honest, I don't even get why Raphael falls in love with Elena because she hasn't done anything by that point except pique his interest just because she doesn't immediately fall on her knees and does everything he says. I mean, come on, dude – if you go around killing/torturing anyone who disagrees with you, no shit you'll be surrounded by ‘yes men' all the time (except for the oh-so-special Seven, of course) so you kind of put yourself into the situation of everyone around you now being boring. I guess I just don't see how she's so special (besides smelling vampires) that an immortal, who has experienced so many interesting people through the centuries, would somehow find her compelling. Not that Raphael himself is a prize, mind you. He's the typical alphahole that is too prevalent in Urban Fantasy / Paranormal Romance / Romances.
I found it incredibly hypocritical that the changelings were all, “OMG the Psy think we're all just dumb animals” and then they turned around and were like, “Yeah all Psy are psychopaths and we'll just kill everybody because that's what all of you deserve (even though it's only the serial killer that's killing people).” Though ... I guess it's sadly accurate how the real world works, because people are like this. Freaking sucks.
Wow... the marketing/PR team for this book all need raises and promotions because they TRICKED THE SHIT out of so many people (myself included, of course) with what this story was going to be... The person who wrote the book description is a master of deception. I would take off a glove and give that person a slap with it to signal my desire for a duel, but I also want to hire the person for being good enough to deceive the crap out of those of us who wanted a historical-fantasy-magical-realism kind of story but instead got this fucking drivel.
