mari

i'm in an incredible amount of pain right now

nina lacour strikes again!

i loved so much about this book, from the roadtrip aspect to the all-girl band to the journey of meeting people throughout the roadtrip. nina lacour's eclectic and poignant writing leaves enough unsaid while addressing everything at the same time.

had gripes with the main character because he was a Teen Boy but otherwise, chef's kiss!

don't hate me but i laughed at the ending like YEAH that's how u defeat that particular bad guy... anyway

i ADORED this book and how beautiful and lyrical it was. following evike and gaspar on this journey that was deeply entrenched in world-building made it so hard to put this book down. the beginning of the book was a little rough, but after about 15% of the way through i really got hooked (but of course... life got in the way)

i echo all the praises being sung for this book!

uh... hm. might dock this down more, despite the fact that i enjoyed most of it

i can see why so many have dnf'd this book. most glaringly, there are issues with pacing & writing – writing is not bad, but there are lots of places where it's a miss. there's just too much in this book, and because of that there are a lot of holes as well. the story moves way too fast for anything to be acknowledged and extremely grievous wounds occur but the character is up and fighting two chapters later?? bro?

this definitely leans on the younger YA side for sure, so if you're up for an easy action-packed adventure that doesn't give you two seconds to breathe, this might be up your alley. me? not so much...

i'm not entirely sure how i feel about this overall, but i can say that i really enjoyed the conversations and scenes regarding genderfluidity, which i thought were beautifully done. i think that this book's shortcomings fall with the overall storytelling, as the plot meandered and the pacing felt off after the first 30% of the book

also, i'm a sucker for a good book with sibling heroes (see: the bone witch trilogy) so i had gotten my hopes up that there was going to be some of that in this book but uh... mild spoiler alert? i was disappointed?

(i had a fever today so i could read and absorb info, but writing... eh rip)

the fact that this book isn't longer makes me sad because i am so hooked on yaa gyasi's storytelling abilities y'all

even more moving were the themes that we see that get passed down and evolve with every generation and how strong the trauma is towards the younger generations. while i adored each vignette of life, the last few were really beautiful and drove home so much that was brought up throughout the book

i'm so glad i also picked up a copy of transcendent kingdom as i can't wait to read more of yaa gyasi's writing!!!

mild spoilers, you've been warned

yeah uh... the next book better explain what the hell all of that was, because you can't just have an entire war progress and have it covered in a chapter via dialogue

but otherwise, i enjoyed myself and i'm really looking forward to the next book. lots of fun yennefer & geralt moments in this book, and a lot of political navigation & trying to finally get to ciri's role in everything. that being said, i didn't appreciate the aforementioned chapter where an entire progression of the war was glossed over in a dialogue and would have rather have read about that for another 100 pages than be left with the bare minimum information to go off of (and even then, it didn't even seem that relevant to the rest of the book?)

I AM ABSOLUTELY RUINED GOODBYE

despite how emotionally wrecking this book is, i couldn't put it down. TJR's writing shines in this book as you are drawn into emma blair's life story and can't wait to find out what happens next, or how the characters are going to deal with the situation. i felt everything emma was going through despite not going through a single thing she had, and felt genuine anxiety when jesse resurfaced at the worst possible time.

while navigating the whole being married and engaged scenario definitely made this a worthwhile read, what really drove home how much i loved this book was how we saw emma grow over the years. whether that was through her relationship with her family's bookstore, or with her sister, or even with herself and how she started listening to what she really wanted, deep down, it was amazing to see her character adapt and change. the ending made perfect sense, but it also had me wrecked.

TJR... bring me more

this book made me smile and giggle and have a ton of fun during a time in my life when there was otherwise no fun and for that i'll never forget it

the hype surrounding this book and talia hibbert is totally warranted (and i'm absolutely sure, even after only reading one of her books). her writing is fun and quick and quippy without missing a beat in terms of relationship or character building. chloe, red and even all the side characters felt incredibly real and critical to the story, which is something i feel like a lot of romance books struggled with but get a life, chloe brown excelled at.

my one gripe (and the reason i couldn't give this the full five stars) was red himself. i just really didn't like him as a love interest outside of the quippy conversations and fun rapport, so i got uncomfortable at some points with his (very horny) inner drivel and how he spoke to chloe at times.

that being said, i am SO excited to get my hands on copies of the rest of the brown sisters series, because i can't wait to meet the other sisters more in-depth! i have a feeling i'll see (perhaps too much of myself) in dani hahaha

when i tell y'all i'm devastated...

the hype around lacour's writing is well-deserved, as its simplicity and vulnerability drew immense emotion out of me, and before i knew it i was crying... pretty often throughout this book (but in all honesty, i've generally been in an emotional blackhole where any semblance of sadness gets sucked in and extended). for a 200-ish page book, i went through a ROLLERCOASTER of emotions and felt every single crucial moment so deeply sdalfjsdjf thank u nina lacour for giving me a good reason to cry lmao

hmm, might change the rating in a second

i think the story and the writing were beautiful, but what frequently got in the way was my inability to wrap my head around the plot, what was going on, and the relationships between some of the characters. i don't know why, but the transitions between the very magical realism bits of the story and dealing with real life were jarring for me.

perhaps, once again, i'm the wrong time wrong place to fully and properly enjoying an anna-marie mclemore book

these stories were compared to shirley jackson (aka my favorite horror author), but i honestly think these were far superior

don't get me wrong: i was TERRIFIED after every story. i made the mistake of reading this over my lunch break and losing my appetite on more than one occasion (i'm a weenie eek). some of these stories are properly scary and horrifying, and enriquez does an amazing job at unsettling you in that way.

but the rich and tumultuous history of argentina and enriquez' consequent criticisms being woven with the horror aspect made everything much more real, and thus much more terrifying. i don't want to spoil anything, but there were non-gory parts that made me squirm more than the gore.

bangs fists on table I WANT MORE (but also... not during lunchtime lmao)

my brain is still foggy from a day spent battling booster shot side effects, so pardon me if this is incoherent

enjoyed this a lot more than i thought i would!! it's very similar to you, but after season one for the most part, and i really enjoyed that aspect. the female protag surprised me at several points with her motives and the male protag was properly creepy.

my gripes stem from some of the writing, and there definitely could have been more scary moments between logan and delilah that built tension for the climax. otherwise, though, had a good time!

far from perfect but i had such a fun time!

this was a fun historical adventure story, akin to daughter of the moon goddess in story telling but based much more in reality (actually there wasn't much fantasy to it at all?). the beginning might come off slow to some people but i adored the writing and how it pulled you in and immersed you in canton and xiang's world

the story overall was very wholesome and sweet with some plot twists that made me laugh (idk man serpent & dove broke something inside me). my personal favorite character was anh, she was borderline unhinged and fun for a naïve character like xiang to follow around like a lovelorn puppy dog

overall very surprised and very happy that i got to read this!!!

dnf @ 10%

yeah this is a no from me. cannot seem to care one bit about what's going on or find it in me to learn the world. thankfully i got this secondhand for cheap so i'll be rehoming this and not continuing with the series

uh... sorry?

i guess i just don't get it. while the writing was immersive and beautiful, i just didn't really understand enough of what was going on, and wasn't lost enough to just vibe. i found the jump between the fantastical and real world to be really jarring throughout the book, and as we dove deeper into the fantastical world, i missed the boring (and honestly irrelevant) real world part of the book (seriously, what was the point of the first like 100 pages?)

perhaps i wasn't in the mood for this but man do i feel catfished lmao

i apologize duly to veronica and justine who finished this book... an eternity ago. it's not even that long of a book and yet it took me so long to finish? sigh

you know, world-building that feels like a textbook at some points is only done well on occasion, and SMG knocked it out of the park with this one. i was obsessed with all of the details and history behind all of the different vampires. the slow reveal of what got atl into this situation was great, and i loved the relationship between her and our lil dummy domingo (bless his heart)

definitely spent too much time in the back of the book reading about all the different species

2022 is the year we recognize that 3 stars isn't a bad rating

i had a fun time with parts of this book, and i really loved lou as a character, as well as her friendship with ansel and coco. she's pretty much the only reason i enjoyed the book lmao

i wasn't sold on the romance with reid for most of the book, and as more twists got revealed in those last ~200 pages i grew more and more exasperated. it just felt a tad ridiculous at the end, and not 100% well executed

i'd be interested in reading the rest of the series but i heard the second book drags and it's even longer than s&d

shut up i loved this

it's not perfect, and i'm still swishing the content around in my brain to figure out why i wasn't 100% happy with this, but boy did i enjoy myself! the dual timeline was really cool to read and i thought it culminated well.

honestly, even though i'm a humble homebody, i saw myself a lot in poppy and her hot mess. also really enjoyed the banter between the two!

i have more thoughts but i'm so exhausted lmao i'm just here to read and vibe at this point #burntout

to my family on here seeing this: we're not ever going to mention that i've read this book okay?

this had no right to be as funny as it was

embarrassingly, TJR has a chokehold on me and i don't mind at all

i'm not sure what it is about her writing style with regards to daisy jones, evelyn hugo and now malibu rising, but it's unbiased, uninvolved and yet utterly intoxicating. the only time i was able to put this book down was when i had to sleep

generally, i'm a sucker for these almost biographical novels about people who never existed. seeing them throughout life, and seeing how they grow and develop given what they experience simply enchants me every time. that, paired with TJR's inexplicably addicting writing style, made me enjoy this from start to finish

my heart goes out to all the fellow eldest sisters who saw themselves in nina

listen this was a solid 3 stars until those final 50 pages lmao (did it have to take all of that build-up... debatable)

let's get this out of the way first: the MC is insufferable. i had the same gripes with the MC of summer bird blue, because my god if a teenager was yelling at me and being so self-righteous in my face like that i would not give them a second of my time. maybe that's just ADB's fatal flaw

HOWEVER... the scifi concepts challenging what it means to be human and the inherent inability of AI to be wholly good or wholly bad with what rules they are programmed to follow harkened this book to my first love, isaac asimov's i, robot, and thus made this book enjoyable. there are a LOT of conversations in this book on what it means to be human and i enjoyed most of them

... yeah okay i'll read the rest of the series but there better be more exploration of AI trying to be humans but better!! i will not take 500 more pages of an insufferable teen who thinks she knows it all!!!

have i eaten swiss cheese with less holes? yes. did i still enjoy this? absolutely!

unexpectedly so, i'll admit. a lot of my friends didn't enjoy this book for various reasons, so i really braced myself, and the first ~50 pages or so made it hard to really get into the story. but once manu finds el laberinto, the story takes off running and absolutely does not stop.

there's a lot of world-building thrown at you throughout the book in not the prettiest or most satisfying way, but the world-building works really well hand-in-hand with the amplitudes of commentary being made. so, sure, some things have too much detail and others not enough (or even contradictory detail), but it was important to the message and morale of the story.

as i said in one of those updates, a cata POV would've been immensely interesting, though i'm not 100% sure how that would be implemented when she's not there from the start of the book. like manu, her situation is incredibly complex as she's at the mercy of her parents' choices but is trying to make decisions on her own as she grows into herself. still not 100% sure of her train of thought given the holes and whatnot, but found her character interesting nonetheless.

the third act (fourth? it happened really late in the book tbh) reveals were a little much, but most made sense. again, holes don't help, but i didn't mind too much at that point? especially with the hilarious friends-esque scene where they're just rattling off their reveals and everyone's gasping at them lmao

super interested in reading the sequel!! when it comes out in paperback lmao

did i enjoy this for all the wrong reasons? perhaps

there was a lot of commentary in this book that felt weirdly pro-western but i ended up interpreting it as “haha make fun of the american and how much they lack manners” lmao. the culture differences are stark and pointed out throughout this book, but for some reason it feels the gaze is cast down upon malaysian culture when it should be the other way around? or maybe i'm misinterpreting that lol

jess was kind of an insufferable MC in that sense, as it extended to the way she interacted/perceived locals and her own family. everyone besides jess made the book enjoyable, even ng wei sherng who, in my humble opinion, deserved more exploration with the complexity of his character and situation.

still ruminating on how i really feel about this book, so don't be surprised if my rating changes in a few days

amazing world-building and magic system with incredibly complex and motivating characters. i loved fie and how she dealt with the two most privileged and ignorant boys she could ever happen upon. i also love jas and tavin and how complicated their relationship and their backgrounds are. all three of them together was just chef's kiss

my main issue with the book had to do with pacing and plot, as it started getting a little grapes of wrath-y towards the 60% mark. there were plenty of exciting scenes, but it felt like we were just running to a point, stopping only to hide for a bit, and then running again for far too long. maybe 75 shaved pages would've saved this book from making me skim some parts lol

overall, i enjoyed this and am interested in picking up the sequel!