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I feel like I got tricked into reading a Scooby-Doo fanfic about Velma, but if she was the dumbest dumb-dumb ever.

Skipped from book 4 to 12 and we're still calling the khui symbiote a cootie which just makes me cringe every time.

Did all the people who gave this more than 3 stars read the same book? Excuse me, SLOG through the same book. It took me almost 8 weeks to finish this. I read 28 other books because I kept putting this down. I almost gave up and DNF so many times.

My feelings for almost every character I had come to like turned meh or into outright hate. Except for Lucien because he was lucky enough to not even be present through like 3/4 of the book. And the Archeron sisters have been annoying in all 3 books so nothing new there.

Other popular 1 and 2 star reviews sum up my disgust and frustration so I can just be done.

If I decide to be forgiving enough to pick up the 4th book and Nesta isn't given an immediate attitude adjustment though I will nope right on outta there.

I was almost tempted to never add this to a shelf because it's embarrassing. My own, and fremdschämen for the fact that this even exists. Reading this was like being unable to look away from a train derailing. I'm pretty sure there are less tropes and kinks NOT included. Everything under the sun was thrown in. And not always in a good way. There was a safe-word established that I can't recall ever being used. Little miss virgin-had-no-idea-how-sex-worked-or-had-ever-touched-herself was enthusiastically a-ok with EVERYTHING right off the bat. Mhmm sure. Whatever.

I never want to think about Santa sexually in any way shape or form ever again. I wish I could induce memory loss.

What an emotional roller coaster.

The last few panels was just tears. So many tears

Booktok strikes again. Dammit.

Not me reading this because my boyfriend is 10 years younger than I am

Oh, Ingram... Sweet birdbrain. Truly young, dumb, and full of cum.

I wish this Duskwalker had introduced himself to Mayumi as Kit. Then it could come out that he'd shortened it from her calling him Kitty when he rescued her as a child. Truly bothered me the whole book and I can't get over her changing his name the way she did.

Ok, 1: I've been traumatized.
And 2: Holy shit Author, who hurt you?! Just out here killing off more characters than George R.R. Martin.

Why did I read this? What am I doing? Taking a big ol' break from monster erotica, that's what.

I might need to buy physical copies of this trilogy.

I'm also gonna need the authors to write those stand-alone stories with other characters. Pretty please.

Cliffhanger warning. Definitely have the third book before finishing this one. Expected it and still gutted.

Look, I'll admit it. I came for the weird monster sex, but I'm totally staying for the good sci-fi. The world building, the politics, the adventure, the survival... actually decent story telling.

I need to immediately go read the next book goodbye!

I don't think The Scarecrow's Queen was supposed to make me think of The Wizard of Oz at all, but my brain kept going there anyway. Really, how many popular scarecrows are there to picture? My brain just couldn't help it. I struggled to find Hollowstock sexy because in the back of my head there was always this other goofy scarecrow from my childhood. Unfortunately sometimes I had the ick reading this which is really unfortunate because the general premise is pretty darn good. I'm chalking this up to it's-me-not-you.

Reviews are DIVIDED so I was wary going into this one. A lot of people seem to hate how long A Soul to Keep is, but I didn't feel like any part dragged or didn't fit. Some reviews made it seem like Orpheus was nonstop obsessed with one of his previous “captives”, which was really not the case. They definitely came up as a big foil in the plot but it absolutely made sense to explain this Duskwalker's personality and humanity journey.

Now, the only thing that didn't work for me was Reia's dialogue. There's specific world building indicating technology basically froze in what feels like very early if not pre-Scientific Revolution, yet Reia is overly casual and extremely modern in her speech. Almost every time she talked I mentally rewrote her in my head to make it work. I'm hoping other characters in the series are written differently, and I liked this enough to keep going.