alex
uhmmmm
i really loved her memoir but i feel like i was reading the same book only this time she has a relationship with her teacher. i don't think there's really any character development nor do i think it really says anything about the relationship she has with her teacher and all that comes with it. kinda disappointed especially with the ending.
Oh gosh this book. Amazing cover and premise, but just did not hit for me the way I was hoping it to.
I think this book is gross just to be gross and usually I don't mind a good gory book here and there, but they have to be good for me to justify it/like it. I made a lot of notes in this book while reading it and most of them were the same critique over and over again, because I found this book to be repetitive. I found the prose to be pretty bland even when it was supposed to be horrific and gory. There is a section about parasitic worms that made me feel bored and that seems wild to me. A lot of the actions/what was actually happening was shocking (I guess), but the writing around it was as if she was doing something mundane. Overall, just not my kind of book.
Thank you to netgallery for the ARC!
3.5/5⭐️
This book had probably one of the craziest stories i've read which i really really enjoyed and the rating is solely based on that because i did have some issues with this book. mainly with the dual POV. it starts with one character who you don't get another chapter in his POV until more than halfway through the book and even then I wish we got so much more from him minus the last chapter of the book. as much as i wanted more thomil i kind of wish the last chapter didn't exist or was written in a different order somehow. another issue i had was sciona's character is definitely written to be unlikable in the beginning but my god was she insufferable. i liked that she was older because i find most fantasy to have female characters be like 19 or 22 at the most but making her 27 and that awful was certainly a choice. all that aside i did like it! would recommend it
i'm ngl i wasn't going into this book with high expectations especially when i discovered that the magic system involves carving magic onto skin basically and then naming the main character Rune... it's certainly a choice.... but that ending???? never saw it coming and honestly. credit where credit is due i find romantasy to be boring and filled with this tropes but this shit got me pumped.
that being said having two characters names gideon and harrow was also a choice and a very confusing one. is this author a secret the locked tomb fan??? what's going on with that i refuse to believe it to be a coincidence.
1/5⭐️
this book put me in a reading slump, but i hate dnfing things. i think the cover is so cool but so wasted on this book. i thought it was going to be gross and scary, but it's really really boring and also not really a horror novel. this book probably would've done numbers when books like my year of rest and relaxation were super trendy and everyone loved that kind of feral and unhinged main character. super bummed by this one
4/5⭐️
The woman has done it again. Insane that she is 3 for 3 for me.
Black Flame is about an incredibly repressed and closet woman, Ellen, who is restoring a hedonistic film from the 1940s and it ends up haunting in her life. Ellen, who I hated until about 70% into the novel is in her 30s and living in NYC during the 1980s. I bring up the timeline of the novel because there is something about this movie that makes me feel like I am watching a movie from the 40s especially the ending. I truly felt like I was watching the movie the books is written around, it felt very unique and new. I did find it to be a tad slow in the beginning, but once it picks up it really took off for me. I think Gretchen achieved exactly what she set out to with this.
The only issues that I had with this book is that I truly love all of the characters in Gretchen's prior novels, even the evil characters I felt intrigued by them. The characters in this novel didn't hit quite as hard compared to her other works. I also personally have no idea how film works or how film restoration works and because of it I found myself questioning certain scenes and having a hard time visual what was actually happening. This was mainly a problem when Ellen cuts her hand in the beginning of the novel. I had to reread that scene a few times and still not entirely sure what happened there.
Can't wait to read more from her! Such a gross, delightful novel.
3.5/5⭐️
“Alien meets Midsommar in this chilling debut adult novel from award-winning author Andrew Joseph White about identity, survival, and transformation amidst an alien invasion in rural West Virginia.”
First horror book for this year's Halloween Season! Andrew Joseph White's adult debut novel was gross as hell, but overall quite enjoyable! The story is disgusting, horrific, and possibly a glimpse into the not so distant future. The ending was so disturbing and so completely unexpected, but after reading it I truly couldn't think of a better way to end the story.
While I loved how disgusting and vulgar the novel, there were some parts of it that left me wanting a little bit more. On a emotional and psychological level there is no way to make it anymore graphic than it already is, but when it came to talking about the Hive or Stagger or anything worm related I do find the descriptions got a bit repetitive. I also think that the novel is more so an adult novel due to the obvious graphic nature of it, but some of the prose still felt a bit YA for me. To the point where I found myself cringing at a few lines and overall structure of some of the prose.
At the end of the day, I truly enjoyed it and I look forward to some more adult novels from AJW!
i started this book in march and life got in the way. picked it up about two days ago a little under half way through and finished it fast. what an insane book i cannot believe i put it off for this long. excited to read the rest of the series, but slowly. i've only heard about the heartbreak this series gives and i cannot imagine it getting worse than the heartbreak this book gave me but i guess somehow it does. can't wait to cry.
1.5/5
She had me in the first half ngl, I really went into this thinking that I would love it as much as the first one, but I was incredibly disappointed. Ava Reid will never hear a complaint from me about her prose, but it doesn't really save her this time around. I really am not a fan of what was done with Effy's character and I felt like there was a lot of plot points that were abandoned at the end. Spoiler heavy review below!
I was very excited to read this after loving the first one so much and was excited to see where the story would take Effy and Preston, but a suicide attempt? And one done very poorly at that? Not what I was expecting and I almost DNF it at 72% in. In the beginning when it is mentioned that Effy was taking more than one pill and that the people around her had a hard time waking her up I literally thought to myself "I hope she doesn't try to hurt herself". And yet... Here we are. There is nothing written after Effy makes an attempt on her life that shows her getting the help that she needs and it honestly feels like she didn't even tell the truth to the doctor who simply discharges her a few days later. Preston simply goes to the dream world and carries her out and depression is *poof* gone. Isn't that nice. Also absolutely INSANE to have Effy try to hurt herself and then Preston still goes to the suspension hearing. That whole plotline was ridiculous especially for it to end like that. I have a lot more thoughts on the this matter, but it really comes down to that I think it was handedly very poorly and I just do not get the point of it. Also would love to know if I missed something or if the reason why certain words were capitalized in the poem was just not explained? I really liked that subplot of the daughter and her transcribing the poem for her father, but it did just feel like a repeat of the first book.
Overall, I find some of the plot points to be either unnecessary, repetitive from the first novel, or just completely mishandled.
this book as a retelling is... oof... but if i don't think of it as a retelling and it's own story then sure why not. overall very conflicted therefore no rating. i had a fun time reading it and ava reid does have pretty proses, but that was not lady macbeth idk who it was but it was some other woman. kind of insane to have a macbeth retelling and not have the line about killing a baby
