The author accounts eir personal journey of queer discovery which could serve to explain gender dysphoria both to people on the outside or those who may be experiencing it without understanding. Man did the mom tick me off, not just on the pronouns, on many things. It kind of just ends randomly. But it’s a memoir & I guess we are all in progress & evolving so …I’ll take it for what it is.

Wtf was the pointtttt MC was the worst person I ever heard of pining for the worst ex & being awful to her friend who probably would have been insufferable if not for the comparison  

Ok so there’s more time spent here in book 2 just pining away instead of plotting but shhhhh their hands just touched. This installment saw relationships broken or mended (&sometimes broken again). I’ll be impatiently waiting for book 3. More was revealed about the Truthbringers, the scravers & their motivations, less politics than expected with the king & queen at odds. But the action & character interactions were impeccable 

I’m not sure how this got on my radar… audiobook recs or dark academia recs but great for both those. I almost DNF’d because I was afraid I wouldn’t “get” all the Shakespeare (& I’m sure I didn’t) but I ate this up.

Frank was irking me, did I find him kind of endearing at the end? idk. It was persevering through, it wrapped up nicely, but it was a struggle (Franks attitude towards Abigail in particular, Tammy deserved a throttling a couple times tho). This isn’t much of a mystery, it’s family drama with mystery elements. There’s a huge reveal with no lead up at all & I was stunned, it was a good twist but pointless. Unless the point of the story is just Frank

I honestly could not conceptualize what this book would be like from the (completely accurate) description. I thought it was going to be a splatterpunk smut fest & while when it was spicy; it was absolutely filthy… that was such a small part of the book. It actually had a lot of heart, charm & wit right along side the accidental cannibalism

I enjoyed the poetry of the journey left open ended.

Good recap at the beginning, which helped it’d been a while since I read book 1. There was little action in book 2 until the end. Focus was the love triangle (love corner)& I don’t like either option:the one she’s fated to against her will or the forbidden love she wants

Alex has more time with her would be bfs because she’s flunking training but then seriously injures someone with an apple, takes out trained guards & mythical beings

it’s just bland

First, this is simply not a thriller. It’s a family drama. Why go out of the way to write “a thriller” on the cover?

Super inconsistent with what is revealed. Chapters flashback in time but some dates only have years making you have to read in to who the character are to know if it is before or after the trip. & then there are random flashbacks in memories later in the timeline.

Honestly Matt sucked & UltimatelyI didn’t care what really happened to him. I just hoped it was more interesting than it was 

I wanted to like this. It draws extensively & specifically from (mostly) Celtic folklore about the fae. I forgive a lot with a 1st book in a fantasy series because we have to build out a whole world but my issue was:

I was taken out of the plot so many times by a characters behavior:

-Why is Toby kissing this guy? Why do we like him?

-why is this character mad at Toby?

-Why doesn’t Toby just tell the truth?

Etc

Also ..not what a hope chest is.