nico

2.25 ★

this was ok... i never thought i'd say these words, because man, i really do hate this phrase but this book just had too many words. it doesn't really matter to me if i connect to the characters or to the plot, all i care about is enjoying reading, and i simply did not. all i was doing was looking at words, and after a while it felt exhausting; i was reading sentences and couldn't put together a narrative, or any character... as a whole, i understood it, i know what the plot is, who the characters are and what they did; but that's just it, there were too many instances in which i felt like i wasn't reading about anything at all, words after words after words, and nothing with <i>meaning</i>. so, this wasn't for me - i can understand why this is considered a great book, especially for its impact at its time, but i don't care for it

3.3 ★

very interesting, i had no idea this was mostly told from the lawyer's perspective, and we really only find out what happened at the end

2.3 ★

didn't dislike it as much as the last one, but this one was just so ... why? predictable, no development whatsoever, what even was her problem? i started this and was hoping the love interest wasn't her best friend who was about to get married (it wasn't, but still uninteresting). i understand it can be hard to write a fleshed out interesting relationship in a short story, but my god it was so uninteresting

2.0 ★

no comment...

3.4 ★

ok, i'd say this one was a lot less developed since the plot happens in like ? only a couple of hours? i didn't connect to any of the characters, and i kinda hated how "not like other girls", "poor me" rosie was :/ and even leo had his own e4 traits, and that is just NOT for me. tbf i kept imagining him as buck from 911 so a few points for that (even if it had nothing to do with it, i just love buck). still cute-ish but lacking some flavor

3.8 ★

these are amazing, cause what do you mean i can listen to the whole book in my drive to uni? this was cute, but i guess my biggest problem will always be that it's too short (even if that is the point of these)

4.0 ★

i found this audiobook and it was so short i decided to give it a go! this was very cute and i might read the other books in this collection. i could've done without the 2 conversations about how good that man was in bed... genuinely added nothing, it just threw me off from what was happening.

either way, i liked how their relationship was developed; especially since it was done in such a short amount of pages, it was nice.

(another thing, in the audiobook having them read the emails over and over again was getting annoying. i understand we have to know who's sending what, but most emails were two sentences long, so i was listening their emails 5 times in the span of a minute)

2.0 ★

this was such a dumb book. i really only read this because i've had it in my tbr list for ages now, and i was in the mood for something bad. unfortunately, it really was bad. the guy main character was such an asshole, and not even a likeable asshole, but a spoiled rich heartless pretentious thinks he's better than everyone asshole. and the way they try to tell you it's for a reason, and "once you find out you'll understand why he's that way"... i really didn't. he was an asshole, fuck him honestly. my jaw dropped when i found out this man was 30 years old. THIRTY. i was imagining a stupid 19 y/o kid, the way he talked about everything (like literally that one man from after, or the way people pictured harry styles in wattpad fanfics).

zahra was also a terrible character, the way she kept excusing that manchild every time he treated other people like shit ? she had a few more redeeming qualities, and the diversity in this was appreciated, but fucking hell man, stand the fuck up. the plot in itself was lacking to say the least. literally a disney fanfic, and not in a good way. thinking about this woman being the same age as me, i cannot excuse a single choice of hers, and i can't even comprehend most of her thoughts. i liked that she was a positive person, but it was treated like something NO ONE above the age of 10 does,, i can guarantee you there's a ton of people who like to have fun in life, and it's not something to be ashamed of nor the "i'm not like other people" discourse. especially with people working in a disney amusement park, c'mon now...

3.25 ★

this was fine, but i wanted to give up several times... around 20% i had to stop reading for a few weeks, cause i just didn't have the energy to go on, and i guess i just finished it, cause i needed to know what happened to all the kids. the "plot twists" were so basic; i didn't predict exactly what they were, but i knew something like that would happen...

the young mila pov one was so predictable, it's always the same. i thought it was that, but i guess i didn't want it to be that, so i believed it wasn't. then we get to know the shadow was a kid, and i was expecting the present day sidekick would also be a child. but we find out it's a woman, so i just resigned. and boom! mila is the kid who was kidnapped gasp no way :|

and the goran one.... ok. i wasn't expecting tommy to be dead and be a figment of his imagination, but i was waiting for them to reveal that goran wasn't who we thought he was. at one point i even thought the twist was that goran was the real mastermind behind everything, but i couldn't fit that with the amount of time he spent with everyone + his time with tommy. fortunately, i was wrong about that, but of course they'd pull some other shit from there. he wasn't the killer, but he was a killer.

i also despised whatever was going on between him and mila. just what the fuck? based on what? i already hate the way authors treat heterosexual relationships, because to them is just "man + woman= romance" without any trace of chemistry, rationality, or sense... but for fuck's sake, boris made so much more sense, than mila and goran.... and then she gets pregnant immediately????? girl...

anyway, i will not be reading the next ones, even if we were technically left on a cliffhanger and i want to know how it all connects. i'll just search about it online, cause i can't deal with any more of this.

the last thing i wanna address is the way abuse, mental illness, and self-hatred is portrayed in this made me very uncomfortable. i'd love to comment on the possible misogyny, but alas we only really have 2 female characters that talk more than twice so i hope you understand what i mean

4.2 ★

this book was so good. i was so scared of not liking it, because i've read one of the author's other books and the story left me disappointed, and the writing didn't help; but with this one i didn't feel that way at all. the plot, the characters and the world building were all very nicely done, and the writing felt on par with everything

i actually thought eli and victor were canonically something, the whole subtext is there, so they are to me, but from the way i saw people talking about this book, i thought it was more explicit.

4.4 ★

you can't give me a book about a trans gay man and not expect me to love it! i'm so tired but i really wanted to finish reading this so my review is kinda half-assed, but man... gene's trans journey is just so relatable, and i saw myself so much in him

3.3 ★

very interesting concept, and i loved the obvious criticism. i'm not too keen on epistolary novels, and the letters were very difficult to read towards the end, but i enjoyed this

3.5 ★

the haunting of hill house series is brilliant and one of my favourite horror shows, but i never knew it had been inspired by a book. i was reading 'you should be so lucky' by cat sebastian and the characters mention this book and i just had to read it.

honestly, it was very confusing and i really liked it. when i first started reading it, i skipped the introduction written by laura miller cause i didn't really want to be spoiled; but once i finished it, i had to go back and read it, and it definitely adds to everything.

i have so many thoughts and no way of knowing how to express them, but this was an experience and i definitely recommend it