Reread


So...yeah. This is my most hated book of all time. No lies, no exaggerations, no fucks given. Honestly why the fuck were trees wasted on this??? Like honestly fuck you Shakespeare. Sink further into your damn grave and go die further.


I didn’t want to reread this book. I hated this with my whole entire existence the first time I read it, but we had to read it for my class with West Side Story (still haven’t finished yet, although that will probably be a 2 star) to compare and contrast them. (Comparing and contrasting retellings are a fucking joke). Why we couldn’t just read These Violent Delights instead, I couldn’t tell you.


I just HATE this book. I hate the characters, I hate the romance, I hate how pretentious everything is, I HATE it.


I laughed, I laughed when these characters died. I smiled and said, “THANK FUCKING GOD, YOU ALL DESERVED IT”.


In conclusion, fuck you.


0 stars

***

Read this when I was 12 and understood most of what was going on. FUCKING HATED IT, and I still hate it and will never read this ever again. God, I hate this book with a fiery passion

”I want to stop feeling so lost. How do I find myself again? Show me the way.”


I absolutely adored this story so so much. I loved just following Dani, from seeing her doing everyday, mundane things to her huge amounts of characters growth throughout the story. The romance wasn’t even really the part of the story I was most concerned about, I just loved Dani and seeing her learn to live again. This story was so so good, and I literally read it in two sittings. I cannot wait to read more from this author, this is definitely one of my favorite books I’ve read this year.


5 stars

This second installment to the Mara Dyer trilogy was SO good.

The story was interesting and inthralling, the characters were better, the development was great, and the SEXUAL TENSION! Can we talk about the sexual tension?

I was blushing and getting MAJOR butterflies from reading the steamier scenes in this book!

I’m highly anticipated for the sequel, and I really enjoyed this.

4.5 ⭐️

This book was SOOOO GOOD.

Ok yes ‘The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer’ has flaws, but I still REALLY enjoyed this book.

It was thrilling, captivating, mysterious and jus plain right weird.

I loved the story so much. It was so weird and absolutely obscured and nothing like I’d ever read before.

I really like the characters too. Mara is such an unreliable narrator and such an odd person. But I still loved her character. I also really liked Noah’s character. And their ‘powers’ were so odd and interesting.

Look I’d give this book a 5 stars but their were definitely flaws and moments where I cringed so hard I thought I needed an exorcism. But I still loved the story and characters most of the time so my rating is quite high for that. Also for my enjoyment just because this but was so unique.

Definitely recommend if your looking for a slightly trashy paranormal romance, or a creepy, thrilling, suspenseful story.

DNF at 25%

The amount of ick I got from this. . .I think I need to stop reading about straight people.

I liked this, but I just felt like something was missing from it. I enjoyed the co-parenting, and the healthy communication and relationship between the two main characters, and I also enjoyed the friendships the heroine has in here. I also liked the siblings that our hero and heroine are fostering. But again, something just felt missing for me. I felt like the plot was moving too fast, and the characters weren’t fleshed out enough for my taste.

But, this wasn’t a bad story at all. It was a nice palate cleanser, and a very quick read. It just wasn’t the best romance I’ve ever read. I feel like if this was longer, and spent longer building on personal character growth & pacing I probably would have enjoyed this a little more. Not terrible though, just pretty middle of the road.

3 stars

SEPTEMBER 16th 2019
⭐️4⭐️
REVIEW TO COME
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OH MY FUCKING GOD! MY MIND IS BLOWN!

Six of Crows is one of the best, (if not the best) YA fantasy I’ve ever fucking read. I can not tell you how much I enjoyed this book, nor can I tell you how much I appreciate it.

We follow our main character Kaz Brekker the criminal mastermind in the fantasy city of Ketterdam. It’s the number one city for trade, trouble, and tricks. (All T’s lmao). He had his group of people in his Crow gang (hence the title. And their is also six people in his little group), and they caused trouble around the city.

Kaz is offered like 30 million kertz (I think that was there currency. I wasn’t paying all to much attention for the first 100 pages of this book. I’ll get into that later), and Kaz being the villain he is (jk he’s my fucking husband and no one can hurt him), decides that he is going to seek out this mission for the money. He comes up with his crew of 6.

Inej (my child, and we Stan and ship her with Kaz for the rest of our mother fucking lives), Nina (my baby), Matthias (we don’t really Stan him that much), Wesley (WE FUCKING STAN HIM), and Jesper (who we also Stan). They all owe Kaz a sort of payment or debt in some way to Kaz or someone else, so Kaz is basically blackmailing most of them.

We learn some significant details about why we’re going on the adventure (which I won’t spoil for y’all), and the characters set off onto their heist to the Ice Court.

I’m just gonna say it right now, I FUCKING LOVED ‘SIX OF CROWS.’ And here is why. (I have way to many reasons but imma narrow it down to 3.)

The characters in this book were OUTSTANDING. I wish I could give Leigh Bardugo a standing FUCKING ovation. Her character descriptions, depth, and development (Look their all D’s lmao) is astonishing. I remember trying to read ‘Shadow and Bone’ (also Leigh Bardugo) And DNF’ed it for the same reason here. Except it was be opposite. I couldn’t get into her characters. In this book I think that the characters are so flawed out and written so well, and I just grew attached to them all. (Even though I still don’t love Matthias lmao)

While the world can be confusing at times, I thought the world building was still phenomenal. Since this duology is a spin-off of ‘The Grisha Trilogy’, the world wasn’t as thawed out as it was in their because you are usually expected to read that series first. But I didn’t. And again, I got confused but I think the world building was exquisite.

I LOVE THE 3RD PERSON IN THIS BOOK! It’s crazy to me. 1st person is usually my go to, and when I see or start reading a book in 3rd person I internally groan. But, IT WAS DONE OUTSTANDING. This book wouldn’t have been as good in 1st person. The way Leigh Bardugo switches from characters in 3RD PERSON IS SO INSANE! I just-I-I think I would have loved ‘Shadow in Bone’ if it was in 3rd person and I can’t believe I’m saying that. I loved the way Leigh Bardugo took 3rd person POV and twisted and turned it into her own and I absolutely loved it.

I’m gonna say something though. The first 100-150 pages are a bit hard to get into a bit confusing. But, I SWEAR TO GOD THEY GET BETTER.

Also, we have 2 badass female leads and 4 badass male leads and I LIVED for it.

And finally, I LOVED HEARING THE BAD GUYS STORIES! We always hear about the good characters in stories. We always hear about the princess that needs saving, or the badass GOOD female heroine, and we never read about THE BAD characters. And I loved doing something new with this book. It was refreshing and enjoyable reading about the villains and why the way they are. What possesses them to do these things. Why are they doing these things. HOW did they do these things. I think Leigh Bardugo also did an amazing job of telling us a short backstory within 10-15 pages. We got subtle glimpses into the characters pasts, but it was enough to make us UNDERSTAND why they do the things they do, and what their going through and I just loved learning these things. Reading about the ‘bad guys’ and villains was refreshing and new. Something I usually don’t read about.

*Favorite Characters*
Inej and Kaz or AKA the BIGGEST FUCKING SHIP OF ALL TIME

*3.5

While The Vanishing Half has many thought provoking ideas, some really fantastic writing, and a great narrative, a lot of the areas of this novel fell short in my opinion. The story is a multigenerational journey: starting with two black twins in a small colorist Louisiana town during the 50s. One twin Stella, learns that she is light enough to pass as white, while the other twin, Desiree, learns to embrace her blackness. The two split up, and the novel ventures, eventually into their adulthood and their children’s lives.

There are many ideas in The Vanishing Half that were very interesting, and very many good discussions of race and colorism. However, my main issue with the novel was that I felt we just didn’t go far enough into the repercussions of Stella passing as white. We did not see the extent of who she hurt by doing this, and the time in between and to her adulthood where she was most concerned about passing for white (which definitely would have made the story most interesting). We don’t get see her fear for passing as white, and the pain she had by giving up her blackness. It was disappointing to me, because one of the main plot points of the book was supposed to be about Stella trying to pass as white women and it’s barely even mentioned.

Many of the characters in here aren’t as fleshed out as they should have been either. While both Desiree and her daughter Jude have enough meat on their characters for me to care about them, we barley got much of Stella or her daughter Kennedy. Both Stella and Kennedy only get about two chapters each from their points of view, which is not nearly enough time for me to neither care, nor understand either characters.

Not only that, but the beginning of this novel was an absolute slog to get through for absolutely no reason. We spend too long with Desiree and Stella as children, and not enough time with them as adults in their points of view to fully understand their actions. The only truly compelling part of this story was when Jude, Desiree’s daughter leaves home for college and story starts marginally picking up.

Jude and her boyfriend Reece are truly the most interesting storyline in here. Jude is definitely the character I felt the most sympathy for, due to the explicit colorism and racism she faced her entire life. Meeting her boyfriend Reece really developed her character, and made the story interesting. Speaking of Reece, Reece is most definitely the most interesting character in this story. Reece is a trans man, and we very much see the struggles and challenges he faces being a trans man in this time period. If this book was entirely about Jude and Reece, I wouldn’t have minded in the slightest.

I think spending so much time with Jude and Reece though really did make the rest of the book feel lackluster in comparison. I hate to say it (especially because so many of the other topics in this book are important) but the sections with them were easily some of the most intriguing and better written. There were so many ideas, themes, lessons, and loose threads that Bennett could have touched or tied on and The Vanishing Half really felt like the bare bones of everything that this book could have gone into.

This book really started feeling like the same life lessons spewing over and over again. I just wish we could have gotten more. The bare bones was decent, but it could have been better. I don’t think this story is bad, and I do think it’s a book many (if not everyone) should read. Brit Bennett’s writing is also phenomenally well done. I will definitely check out her other novel that she currently has out. But this was unfortunately, not a new favorite as I’d hoped it’d be.

I literally got through this book in ONE day! And let me tell you, I couldn’t put it down.

So we have our main character Stella who I personally related to her character on many levels. I thought she was pretty interesting to read about, and a sweet sister.

I loved ‘The Heartbreakers’ too, mainly because of their light humor, and their friendship with Stella.

The ‘plot twist’ in the ending is too dramatic in my personal opinion, but I think the epilogue thawed (I don’t know?) nicely making the book even more worth reading.

Although the book is quite cliché and a bit fast paced, I personally love it so much. One of my favorite novels and Ali Novak is one of my favorite authors.