A Beautiful Doom
Ratings8
Average rating3.3
15
Ratings8
Average rating3.3
Four troubled friends, One murdered girl... and a dark fate that may leave them all doomed. After the mysterious death of their best friend, Ella, Yuki, and Rory are the talk of their elite school, Grimrose Academy. The police ruled it a suicide, but the trio are determined to find out what really happened. When Nani Esvez arrives as their newest roommate, it sets into motion a series of events they couldn't have imagined. As the girls retrace their friend's last steps, they uncover dark secrets about themselves and their destinies--discovering they're all cursed to repeat the brutal and gruesome endings to their stories until they can break the cycle. This contemporary take on classic fairytales reimagines heroines as friends attending the same school. While investigating the murder of their best friend, they uncover connections to their ancient fairytale curses and attempt to forge their own fate before it's too late. Praise for The Last 8: "This debut is, at times, both joyful and heartbreaking ... Pohl's characters are tough, funny, and brave as they manage to persevere despite the debilitating weight of grief."--Booklist "With its powerful world building and emotional twists, The Last 8 is a beautifully fresh take on the idea of an alien apocalypse."--Foreword Reviews "A sci-fi romp with ample intergalactic twists to keep readers satisfied."--Kirkus Reviews
Series
2 primary booksGrimrose Girls is a 2-book series with 2 primary works first released in 2021 with contributions by Laura Pohl.
Reviews with the most likes.
might dock this rating more in a minute
i had a lot of issues with the writing, the pacing, characterization, and much more. this book had so much potential to do good YA dark academia but failed to really wow me in any manner.
the representation in this book... doesn't really matter? ok nani is native hawaiian but you mention plumerias and her tūtū calls her mo'o and that's it? same thing with the queer rep, although relationships, sexuality and feelings are addressed which was kind of nice. super pointless tho
the mystery picks up after the halfway mark, and i can't honestly tell you what the point was of a lot of the first half of the book besides establishing that these girls are a grieving their friend's death.
the murder mystery plot was also poor. didn't really make a ton of sense even after the big reveal and villain monologue, and i get that this is the first book in a series setting a precedent for the rest of the books but damn was that lackluster.
overall very disappointing especially given the potential of a dark academia/fairy tales urban fantasy
The initial story was engaging, I'd thought that the fairytales they were supposed to be wouldn't be real in this world. When I learned that everything kinda went sideways.
The dialogue was horrible and went immensely unrealistic. The story was heading so much towards an ending that the characters made assumptions and giant leaps in logic that no one would ever make in that situation, which made it had to empathise with the characters.
Not to mention that the ending explained literally nothing of the magic or the curse or the book or anything. Like there is a curse but it's also just a normal person killing people? Pick one and stick to it.
Besides the diaglogue being shitty the book in general was also just badly written. Many things were repeated multiple times which also just made parts boring. Not a fan
Life is too short to listen to bad audiobooks.
DNF @ 50% I just truly don't care about any of these characters and the plot is slow.
Heerlijk verhaal. Ik vind het heel goed opgesteld, naarmate het verhaal vordert kom je meer en meer over de meisjes te weten. Heel fijn hoe je in dit heel verassende verhaal steeds heel herkenbare zaken tegen komt. Tot de laatste pagina's onwetend over hoe het zou eindigen, en wie de villain is. Heel benieuwd naar deel 2.
