Stone

This book was so amazing it was hard to put down.
I really loved how it's written in verse. It's certainly not for everyone but it really helped me feel immersed in Xiomara's mind. She ended up being a really relatable character even though we have basically nothing in common. I love characters that provide that connection. Literally everything is just so beautiful I don't even know how to properly explain it.

Definitely a book that was more engaging on reread. Like, I didn't understand why Aled was such a jerk at first, but I get it now and I appreciate that all the other characters acknowledge where he's coming from but that what he did was still messed up. Frances is a well written character. I like how she has separate “versions” of herself she presents to other people.
Also this cover is just???? amazing???? the BEST book cover i've ever seen

A very lacklustre YA Fantasy book.
I'm not sure why I've seen so many people reading it lately as it has nothing special going for it, other than a to-be-released netflix show.
The main character is very typical. She thinks she is ugly, is very dismal, etc. Alina is meant to be relatable to young girls aged 12-17. The type of main character you'd see in a self-insert fanfiction. She obsesses over the darkling for about half the book, and it gets annoying fast. After she is kissed by the darkling, she spends about the rest of the chapter thinking about telling people about it.
She has two love interests, the aforementioned “Darkling” and her childhood friend “Mal”. At first, when Alina sees some other girl look at Mal, she starts obsessing over how she used to have a crush on him and that it was no big deal. Which we can infer ‘used to' is not accurate. But then her powers get discovered, and she meets the Darkling. Keep in mind he is 100+ years older than her. Eventually, the Darkling kisses her for the first time, and as I said before, she totally freaks out. It even gets to the point where he's supposed to go up her her room after this insignificant winter ball that only ever truly existed to further develop her and the darkling's relationship. At the end of the book, however she is with Mal. Enough flip-flopping to be a mock love triangle.
The other characters are flimsy as well. The side characters only seem to exist mostly as filler to make the book longer, which is fine by me, as they are all unlikeable anyways.
There's no point disecting the Russian influences of this point, as other reviews have done so in a better way than I can.

This concludes my review. If you like the book, I mean no disrespect.