DNF at 45%

All that has happened in this book so far is the FMC, Auden, getting SA’ed at every turn, and her supposed love interest, Midas, gaslighting her that it’s all for her own good. Literally made me fucking sick to my stomach. There absolutely needs to be trigger warnings for this book for graphic sexual assault, graphic rape, emotional abuse and extreme gaslighting. Absolutely nothing else has happened in this book so far, I’m snoring and highly triggered. Also Midas is an absolute asshole and I cannot stand him and the way he’s allowing other men to sexually assault Auden literally right in front of him???Idk if Auden is going to get with his goofy ass or not but I’m not sticking around to find out.

I think going into this one thinking it was going to be similar to The Cruel Prince really hindered my reading enjoyment. This book was nothing like Holly Black’s world and story, except maybe the way that the fae were portrayed and written (which I quite enjoyed). If I was really going to compare this story to another, it would definitely be Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett (which I absolutely adored). This book is definitely a cozy fantasy with a few stakes and the tone overall just felt…weird? The romance was the main focus of this story, which isn’t what I enjoy reading in fantasy-romance. I really want a well-written fantasy world with a good magic system that happens to have a strong romance plot.

I had a few issues with this story overall that didn’t make me enjoy the story to its core. I found the romance enjoyable, but there were just things I found myself wishing were more prevalent in here. It seemed the author was trying to write a story with a heavy political plot focus, but I felt like there just weren’t enough stakes for me to care. All of vibes and ideas in here really pointed at a cozy fantasy story, and the plot the author was following really didn’t go with the writing style of the book.

I don’t think this story was necessarily bad. The writing was solid, and the romance and characters were quite sweet. But I couldn’t really connect overall with the story because of the way this was written. I’m interested in reading the sequel (which I didn’t even know existed until we were left on a cliffhanger. This book really read like a stand-alone, and I saw this marketed as such before it came out), but it’ll definitely be lower on my TBR list. I’d try more from this author, but this wasn’t a new favorite as I thought it’d be.

”A true man would be proud to fight at your side. He would recognize that you are a force to be reckoned with, Althea Nine Lives.”

Oh my god, this was absolutely incredible. Everything about this story: the world, the characters, the plot, the plot twists, the romance. Everything was phenomenally well done. Our heroine, Thea was an absolute badass and the character development she got from beginning to end was phenomenal. The writing was also gorgeous in this story. This is probably some of the best writing I’ve seen in a self-publishes book before. So many quotable lines and beautiful imagery.

The sister relationship made me so happy, and I absolutely adored the training scenes in here. Thea, our heroine, really does have to work to become a formidable warrior and it really shows. I also ended up loving the romance, and the hero. He was completely in awe of Thea, and how far she had come in her training by the end and it was absolutely adorable.

Everything about this book was just *chefs kiss*. With a completely badass heroine, a “who did this to you” scene, she fell first, he fell harder trope, a completely unique magic system, and some awesome feminist moments/“taking down the patriarchy” this is definitely going to be one of my fave books of the year. I absolutely cannot wait for the sequel.

Probably more review to come I’m just so excited how much I adored this story.

*3.75


This was a really cute and short YA historical-romance with some fantasy sprinkled in, and I really enjoyed it. There were some small plot holes, minuscule typos throughout, and a bit weak of an antagonist, but I thoroughly enjoyed my time reading this one. The romance was really sweet and I also quite liked the writing style. I just wish this was a bit longer. I really think this could have been an easy 4 stars had we been with these characters longer, and the romance was more fleshed out. But no big complaints really, I just thought this was quite cute and fun. I’ve been in an awful reading slump for the last few months, and this was a nice little novella to try and get me out of it!

DNF @ 45%


Wow, this was bad. I remember when this book first came out, and the number of people giving it 1-3 stars grew by the day (which is why Catherine House is currently sitting at a 3.11 average rating on Goodreads…). Nonetheless, I still kept this on my TBR, and wanted to give it a fair shot. But, Miss Thomas I am so sorry, this was just bad.

The premise for this story setup is interesting enough; set at a boarding school named Catherine House secluded from the outside world where only top students get in. And yes, we’ve all heard of thisbook before. However, Catherine House puts an interesting spin on these tales, with some horror and thriller elements mixed in, (where the Secret History is more literary thriller, this is just kind of straight up gothic horrory) some light gothic writing + atmosphere, and also some weird shit™ (if you don’t know, weird and gothic shit are basically my trademarks around these parts).

All of this sounds really interesting, especially with our main character Ines who is an underdog-trope-character (which is probably every MC in a dark academia story, but I digress). She’s the bottom of the barrel, failing all of her classes, lazy, smart, but doesn’t apply herself. Honestly, this girl was too fucking relatable I have to admit. She also dissociates a lot, and has very little attachment to anything that’s going on around her. She just doesn’t care, and it made the story a little eerie (one of the only actually scary things about this imo). Like you really think a story with this atmosphere, set at an elite boarding school, where your heroine doesn’t give a fuck about the school she’s at, would be at least decent, right? But it just wasn’t.

I really think my main issue with Catherine House was the writing style. It was very disjointed and fragmented and it was very frustrating to read. The story was told in a stream of consciousness type of style, which I hate. I don’t like that type of writing. It always feels very wooden to me, and never very compact. I never find a story very woven together when I read this type of writing style. And I know this is a stylistic thing, and it’s probably not the books fault, it’s just a personal preference that I hate that type of writing. Also, let’s just talk about the amount of line breaks in the book. It was so fucking infuriating to me, and there really was so little dialogue. When there was dialogue it felt very stilted or it was very info-dumpey about the school/school’s history, ect., But usually, we were just in Ines’s head and her telling us about the mundane things she’s doing. She eats fruit, she goes to the library, she sleeps a lot, she skips class. Which is fine? But the plot is so slow moving, and it’s so much about Ines I just don’t care? Like, I enjoy character based stories, but Ines wasn’t really a character I enjoyed enough to follow through with this many mundane types of tasks. Honestly this book is so short, but so much could have been cut. Speaking of cut, this book has the longest chapters. 50 pages for one chapter made me want to kill myself, especially because I was not enjoying myself while reading this. And it was fucking boring. The writing was a snooze fest. I thought we were going to get a cute little gothic moment and I was literally snoring Miss Thomas.

I hated the writing but also the characters were widely underdeveloped. Ines has 5 or 6 “friend” characters in this story, and I cannot remember any of their names. Like that’s how bad it was. One of these characters is even killed off at the end of Act 1 and I did not feel a thing except queer-baited (because I really thought her and Ines were gonna kiss…). Like the only time I felt anything for a character in this story was for the pet that Ines and her roommate Baby had at the beginning of Act 1. That’s how bad it is out here guys, I swear. I could not tell you a single god damn thing about any of these people nor could I give a shit less.

I could honestly tell this book was a debut from the first chapter; the writing is hard to read, the dialogue is stilted, the characters are barely developed. This book desperately needed an editor. I feel like I’m being a little harsh, but really Catherine House has been done so many times before, it doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. As both a dark academia book, and a thriller/gothic horror, I would definitely skip out on this one. There are infinitely better books with these tropes in them.

Gothic Book Playlist

*


So, it was a bad idea. RTC


*


I wanna see why everyone hates this book. (This is probably a bad idea).

Ok so update! I have been thinking about this book non stop for the past week, and I’m going to raise my rating to 4 stars (probably a 3.75 on StoryGraph). It was originally a 3.5, but I really do think it deserves more than that.

* * *

*3.75

Well this was sure creepy and unsettling! I love “gothic” anything, and any book that is pitched to me as gothic is probably going on my TBR. So when I heard about this book being a ”gothic 12 dancing princesses retelling”, I knew I had to read it. The problem was, I let this one sit on my shelf since Christmas of 2019. Yeah, I might have to sort out some of my reading priorities…Anyways, after waiting so long to read this one, I was afraid I had just “outgrown” this book, especially from how young the description sounded. But I still kept it on my shelf, and I’ve finally read it. And yeah, despite the 3.5 star rating, I really enjoyed it.

The writing was great, and so was the plot. I was really into the mystery, and the overall atmosphere of the writing made this book 100% better. I loved how psychological and trippy this ended up becoming—something I really wasn’t expecting at all. This is a really mind-fucky book, and I always tend to really enjoy my time with those. Not only that, but the light body horror was fucking fantastic. Books like these really make me question why I don’t read horror books often.

But despite all of my positives about the story, I do think this book read a little young in some areas and I just personally wasn’t a fan. It was a little odd reading at times. Our FMC Annaleigh is sometimes wondering what boy she’s gonna pick in the subtle love triangle this book has going on, and then the next second she remembers her sister just died really fucking tragically. Like girl…get your priorities in check. Obviously this is YA, and I’m almost 17 so I’m not the exact target audience for this book anymore (cries in growing up), but it was really annoying sometimes for Annaleigh to be so focused on the romance between the two love interests, that she completely forgets the fucked up shit happening all around her. I don’t hate romance in books, in fact I’m usually seeking that out when I’m reading anything anymore. But I think the romance was just annoying rather than something I enjoyed in this one.

So I think that’s really what bothered me the most. The beginning of the book was very slow too, so it took me awhile to get into this. I was close to DNF’ing, but I picked up the audiobook from my library and we preserved on through. But yeah, like this is a solid YA fantasy-horror novel. I really enjoyed a lot of my time reading it, a lot more than I thought I would honestly. I’m interested to check out EAC’s sophomore novel since I’ve heard good things about that one too.

-

My Gothic Book Playlist

I guess I don’t have a heart, because this was some of the corniest shit I’ve ever read (somewhat affectionate).

This is one of the those books that I didn’t really like, but I can’t exactly pinpoint what it was that I didn’t like about it. It had every element to be a new favorite for me. The writing style was dark and gothic, and the plot involved the mysterious death of the heroes ex fiancée. I think the characters had enough chemistry too, I just didn’t really like the hero. He was too tortured and too whiny, which would usually work for this type of story but I just found him really annoying.

Also the author of this book has a very obvious foot fetish, which…I guess whatever floats your boat bestie. But it was so odd at the times. The hero has to cut off the heriones boots, and he says ”[I] gained intimate knowledge of her toes. Her toes, by the by, are beautiful.”. I was giggling, because of how much foot fetish shit was in here. But my limits were set when the hero literally puts the heriones foot in his mouth during sexy times and I had keep myself from vomiting lmao.

And the really odd usage of the g*psy slur, over and over and over and over again. The stereotypes against Romani people in this book; calling them “fortune tellers” and the MC’s saying how they wanted to run away to their “caravans”. One of the quotes being: ”Put me in a G*psy caravan, I too could astound customers with the clarity of my visions in the crystal ball.”.

Even saying the hero looked like a “g*ypsy” at one point in the story because of how tanned he had gotten in his traveling around the world: ”You should have worn a hat in Egypt at least. To keep the sun off your face. The other day, Mrs. Wheatcroft told me her daughters are calling you ‘the g*psy.’ And the Wheatcroft girls haven’t had an original notion between the five of them for as long as I’ve known them. If theyre calling you ‘the g*psy,’ that means it’s all over London.” The g*psy is such a fashionable figure.” Lord Blackwood cocked a black brow. He looked every inch a g*psy king. “Everyone tells me this is the for g*psies. They’re in the highest demand.” Like what??? What does this even mean?!! Alexa play Justin Bieber rn frl…Anyways, Is the author European? It would not surprise me in the slightest due to their history and treatment of Romani people. But this is crazy? Like “every inch a g*psy king” really? Wtf. It was weird, it made me uncomfortable, it was definitely problematic.

Idk, this book wasn’t terrible. The writing was beautiful, and had some really quotable scenes and I loved the gothicness. I’ve also never read a book with a character that has epilepsy, let alone a historical. But I just couldn’t really find myself enjoying this one as much as I wanted to.

-

My Gothic Book Playlist