Ash

This is one of my favorite books of all time. The writing is so beautiful. There were several sentences that I had to reread in order to savor the mouth-feel of the words. The feminism and racism realizations the main character makes as she goes from Nigerian to African American culture is poignant and masterfully written. I love Ifemelu and the way her thoughts progress. She is one of the few main characters ever written where the point is that they are different and have unique thoughts, that isn't annoying. She's not “quirky and special and good for the sake of being good,” she's introspective and opinionated and isn't perfect. I love this book. I'll probably read it several more times throughout my life.

I had this on my shelf for two years? I'm probably going to binge this entire series...let's be honest. I love the characters in this book. Generally, I'm not a huge fan of reverse harem because it gets ridiculous after a certain point, but I was all for this the whole way. It's genuinely difficult for me to pick a favorite of the guys. I loved Booker, Jonathon, and Auguste so much. Ezra was also great. I wasn't a huge fan of Amon for most of the book. I'm excited to continue reading.

I'm never going to be a fan when the book starts off with unlikable characters. Olivia is selfish and conniving and Bennet doesn't actually have a personality outside of taking Olivia's bs over and over and still showing up. It was never an issue of zodiac incompatibility, she was just dumb. I wasn't rooting for their pairing until the last couple of chapters. This book has one of my least favorite tropes. The MC that is pretty terrible to everyone, but it's all a “misunderstanding” and the other characters flock around and make them feel better about whatever they did. I wish this book had more zodiac history or facts. Olivia talked constantly about the compatibility of certain zodiacs, but we didn't actually get to see her do much pairing except with Harper. I liked all of the older characters and the cultural aspects with the funeral and making the moon cakes and swiss rolls. I love the enemies to lovers trope, but the enemies still have to be likable. This was just a miss for me.

I recently watched Saltburn, so I kind of figured this one out early on. I knew who Jules was, I knew Ruby killed everyone, and I knew the rest of the McTavish family members would die. I was pleasantly surprised that Cam knew about Jules the entire time and still loved her and that she really loved him. I feel like love doesn't transcend the transgressions of a character often in the mystery genre, and I usually am glad for it, but I wanted Cam and Jules to still be in love. And I know that this was set up by the sadness of Andrew falling out of love with Ruby, but still... I was hoping that Cam's father would be Howell or that his mom was Andrew's niece or something that was another machination of Ruby's. I also wanted Jules to find out about the stunt Libby pulled and have had that murder be an actual scene. Not just accidental smoke inhalation. Lol. I don't know what that says about me, but I'm not taking it back.

Never have I squeed as much as I squmpt while reading this. It's just so good. Like I think I'm just in love with Emily Henry at this point. I loved Daphne just as much as I loved Miles. The way they saw each other and communicated was everything I'm looking for in a romance. When loving someone becomes this dance where the two partners are doing subconscious and conscious small things constantly to make the other's life easier or happier, it just sends me. I loved that Petra wasn't vilified by Daphne and she put all the blame on Peter, as she should. I loved Ashleigh and Harvey and all the little characters that showed up for Daphne. The effortless banter and witticisms sprinkled in Daphne's conversations with everyone, made me giggle the entire time. I'm still basking in the glow of the "funny story" call back, but that Miles lets Daphne tell it because she loves to. I genuinely have zero criticisms for this book. I'm just so sad it is over. I really didn't think she could top Book Lovers for me.