30something_reads's Reviews (820)

Equal parts cozy, humorous, and unsettling. 

I had a great time. 

The art was lovely. The story was sweet. I think the pacing is what made this not work for me. 

🥹🥹🥹
Read this with my 7 year old and it's literally the sweetest thing I have ever read. And the illustrations are so gorgeous.

It's cozy, it's queer, it has dragons. Wins all around. 

DNF at 40%

I was already feeling iffy on these characters but Bristol Keats waxing poetic about a laundromat like she's the quirky lead in every 2000s indie movie was the final straw for me. It just felt like we were trying to hard.  To what? I don't even know. Make her interesting? 

Kind of a shame because there would be moments that caught my attention and made me say "yeah, okay, maybe we're getting somewhere now." And then literally nothing. 40% in and I don't think I should have been asking myself "god, when will this book be over?"

The narrator actually did a wonderful job though. Kudos to Brittany Pressley.

Do you like:

Solid vibes. I liked it.

This is not goodbye forever, just goodbye for right now.

 Pros:
❤️Sapphics with swords
❤️Beautiful prose
❤️Lovely illustrations

Cons:
🥲I was mostly bored 

For a book that had so much action, everything felt extremely passive. I could not get invested. 

The excellent narration on the audiobook couldn't even save this one for me. 🥴🥴🥴

Should have just been a stalker/mask kink novella. Everything that happened after she found out his identity was painfully unnecessary.  (This was WAY too long, had way too many plot things trying to happen, and ultimately got cringier the longer it went on.)

The more I think about, the more I hate it. There were all sorts of weird little red flags at first (prior to it becoming a dumpster fire). Like, has this white author ever once stepped foot inside an "inner city" hospital? Also, I've never once in my life heard any gun toting human call it "the gun store". Why does she say that so much? Why does the FMC weirdly hyper fixate on "the gun store"? Is it because she works at "an inner city" hospital?

Why did we have to use the phrase "lizard brain" so much?

His biggest red flag was thinking her gross tiktok comments on his thirst traps were funny. 

I know people want to get in on the Butcher & Blackbird hype and think they can add something to that weird little subgenre but just because you can doesnt mean you should.

I have questions. I'm not exactly sure what those questions are yet but maybe I can think of them tomorrow. 😅
***

It's officially tomorrow. I thought of my questions but I won't leave them here because of spoilers.

This is a compelling read. I truly could not put it down simply because I needed to know what happened next.

This is also a book where I spent 80% of it not knowing what the hell was going on. I believe this was partly by design since we are learning things as Lennon is learning things. But I also think this because there was simply SO MUCH going on and it never really got addressed in a satisfying way (for me).

So I don't know where this leaves me regarding this particular book. On one hand, I had SO much fun reading this. On the other hand, the longer I reflect, the more questions I have around what actually happened in this story and with these characters.

What I can confidently say is that I am absolutely interested in picking up more from this author. Her writing and way she weaves in elements of horror really worked for me. 

I wasn't expecting that ending to leave me in tears, but here we are. 🥲

This was a thoroughly entertaining read and I can absolutely see how this is a love letter to k-dramas. Everything about the plot and the way the characters were just so over the top but still lovable. 

The ending got me 🥲 I shouldn't have been surprised because it's such a classic ending for a story like this and the author could have absolutely left it at that (the last scene would play out so perfectly on screen) but I am glad there will be more to the story. Can't wait to see where this story goes!