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1.41k reviews by:
allonsythornraxx
09/10/18
I normally don't like short stories but I love TJR's writing so I thought I would give this one a shot and I really enjoyed this! I definitely recommend this if you're looking for a quick read or if you have a spare hour!
I normally don't like short stories but I love TJR's writing so I thought I would give this one a shot and I really enjoyed this! I definitely recommend this if you're looking for a quick read or if you have a spare hour!
20/12/2021
3.75 ⭐️
This was such a cosy mystery! I loved the setting and the connection to the ‘original’ Holmes and Watson!
13/10/18
4 ⭐
This was a lot of fun and I'm enjoying the "new" Watson and Holmes characters. I can't wait to pick up book 2.
Blog | Letterboxd | Instagram | Tumblr | Twitter
3.75 ⭐️
This was such a cosy mystery! I loved the setting and the connection to the ‘original’ Holmes and Watson!
13/10/18
4 ⭐
This was a lot of fun and I'm enjoying the "new" Watson and Holmes characters. I can't wait to pick up book 2.
Blog | Letterboxd | Instagram | Tumblr | Twitter
03/09/2018
I really don't know what to say about this one. I definitely enjoyed vol 1 more but I definitely enjoyed reading this even though it felt like such a short story. This felt a bit rushed and the romance was a bit weird because Kenny had a total 180. So, it was a bit eh BUT I love the art style so that makes up for anything I disliked.
I really don't know what to say about this one. I definitely enjoyed vol 1 more but I definitely enjoyed reading this even though it felt like such a short story. This felt a bit rushed and the romance was a bit weird because Kenny had a total 180. So, it was a bit eh BUT I love the art style so that makes up for anything I disliked.
05/09/2018
This was so so good but so heartbreaking at the same time. I think this would be perfect for a Readathon or a reading slump.
FIND MY REVIEW ON MY BLOG
★★★★☆
One True Loves was so much fun to read! I picked this up because I thought the idea of the novel was interesting and I read and loved The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo earlier in the year. I picked this up one day at the library without any real expectations and then randomly decided to read it on my bus trip to school and then by the time I got home that day I was a third of the way through and was finding myself yet again falling in love with a Taylor Jenkins Reid book.
This book was so so easy to read, I really think it would be perfect for a quick readathon read or if you’re in a reading slump and want to get out of it! I thought this book had a really great idea behind it and I was super excited to dive into it, and I’m so glad I did! I never cry reading books but I almost shed some tears on the bus because of this one!
“I had predicated my life on the idea that I wanted to see everywhere extraordinary, but I’d come to realize that extraordinary is everywhere.”
The basic story idea of this book – get married, husband “dies”, gets engaged to another guy, turns out husband isn’t dead – really grabbed me and is the whole reason I picked up the book. So, was it worth the read? Well, you’ve already seen that I’ve given the book a 4 star rating so I do think TJR pulled it off pretty well.
WHY DID IT WORK? WHERE DID IT FAIL?
I think TJR did so well with this book, it’s an impossible situation and she really kept me on my toes the whole time! This book was difficult to read because it was so heartbreaking and because really no matter who Emma (the mc) chose to spend her life with by the end, someone was going to get hurt. If she goes with Jesse (the husband) she’ll hurt Sam (the fiance) and vice versa.
My only real issue with the book was also what I loved about it. I really had no idea how it was going to end. On one hand I wanted Emma to end up alone to live her life without a man for a second but also I love love and this is a romance novel so of course I also wanted her to end up with one of the guys!
“Just because something isn’t meant to last a lifetime doesn’t mean it wasn’t meant to be.”
Now, onto the characters! What’s hot and what’s not?
The first section of the book starts out with the main character’s past and shows us how she met her husband (aka. the pit that is high school) and this was probably my least favourite part of the whole book. This is essentially how we are introduced to all the main characters and the mc. And in this we see that while she was in school, Emma was a special snowflake who hated her sister because she had more than one friend and short shorts. Emma was not like other girls – she doesn’t like feminine girls and she’s proud of out being different.
Just take a look at this quote in which Emma bashes her sister Marie:
“She read adult books and wrote poetry and had crushes on fictional characters instead of movie stars and she made Olive and I want to barf.”
I know that siblings can’t all get along all the time, but she basically hates her sister just for existing and it just seems really harsh. The good things is, as the book goes on, Emma gets her head out of her a** and develops a much better (and very wonderful) relationship with her sister and stops judging the other women around her. It’s wonderful and I love it.
Along with the girl hate (which honestly why can’t we all just get along???) the only other thing that really bugged me about the book, and this is minor and petty, is the last 50ish pages. Now, I don’t know if this is just because I was tired and finishing the book on the way home from Uni and on the bus, or if I just enjoyed it less than the rest of the book. Either way, the last 50 pages dragged. I felt that the final end to the book was a bit anticlimactic and dull but, I also think that was inevitable. No matter how the book ended I don’t think it would be possible to end the book and make everyone happy and tie up every loose end. We still don’t have answers to everything the husband went through and the book still ends with a lot of people getting hurt.
Also, it all just felt a bit fast compared to the rest of the book, which felt like it set it’s own pace.
“Good things don’t wait until you’re ready. Sometimes they come right before, when you’re almost there.”
I know I mostly detailed what I wasn’t a fan of in this review, but that’s just because I loved pretty much everything else. I love Taylor Jenkin Reid’s writing, I enjoyed the characters and their development and I loved the story. This was a really brilliantly written story and I definitely recommend it if you’re in the mood for binge-worthy contemporary. This definitely fits the rain, tea, book aesthetic we book lovers strive for!
This was so so good but so heartbreaking at the same time. I think this would be perfect for a Readathon or a reading slump.
FIND MY REVIEW ON MY BLOG
★★★★☆
One True Loves was so much fun to read! I picked this up because I thought the idea of the novel was interesting and I read and loved The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo earlier in the year. I picked this up one day at the library without any real expectations and then randomly decided to read it on my bus trip to school and then by the time I got home that day I was a third of the way through and was finding myself yet again falling in love with a Taylor Jenkins Reid book.
This book was so so easy to read, I really think it would be perfect for a quick readathon read or if you’re in a reading slump and want to get out of it! I thought this book had a really great idea behind it and I was super excited to dive into it, and I’m so glad I did! I never cry reading books but I almost shed some tears on the bus because of this one!
“I had predicated my life on the idea that I wanted to see everywhere extraordinary, but I’d come to realize that extraordinary is everywhere.”
The basic story idea of this book – get married, husband “dies”, gets engaged to another guy, turns out husband isn’t dead – really grabbed me and is the whole reason I picked up the book. So, was it worth the read? Well, you’ve already seen that I’ve given the book a 4 star rating so I do think TJR pulled it off pretty well.
WHY DID IT WORK? WHERE DID IT FAIL?
I think TJR did so well with this book, it’s an impossible situation and she really kept me on my toes the whole time! This book was difficult to read because it was so heartbreaking and because really no matter who Emma (the mc) chose to spend her life with by the end, someone was going to get hurt. If she goes with Jesse (the husband) she’ll hurt Sam (the fiance) and vice versa.
My only real issue with the book was also what I loved about it. I really had no idea how it was going to end. On one hand I wanted Emma to end up alone to live her life without a man for a second but also I love love and this is a romance novel so of course I also wanted her to end up with one of the guys!
“Just because something isn’t meant to last a lifetime doesn’t mean it wasn’t meant to be.”
Now, onto the characters! What’s hot and what’s not?
The first section of the book starts out with the main character’s past and shows us how she met her husband (aka. the pit that is high school) and this was probably my least favourite part of the whole book. This is essentially how we are introduced to all the main characters and the mc. And in this we see that while she was in school, Emma was a special snowflake who hated her sister because she had more than one friend and short shorts. Emma was not like other girls – she doesn’t like feminine girls and she’s proud of out being different.
Just take a look at this quote in which Emma bashes her sister Marie:
“She read adult books and wrote poetry and had crushes on fictional characters instead of movie stars and she made Olive and I want to barf.”
I know that siblings can’t all get along all the time, but she basically hates her sister just for existing and it just seems really harsh. The good things is, as the book goes on, Emma gets her head out of her a** and develops a much better (and very wonderful) relationship with her sister and stops judging the other women around her. It’s wonderful and I love it.
Along with the girl hate (which honestly why can’t we all just get along???) the only other thing that really bugged me about the book, and this is minor and petty, is the last 50ish pages. Now, I don’t know if this is just because I was tired and finishing the book on the way home from Uni and on the bus, or if I just enjoyed it less than the rest of the book. Either way, the last 50 pages dragged. I felt that the final end to the book was a bit anticlimactic and dull but, I also think that was inevitable. No matter how the book ended I don’t think it would be possible to end the book and make everyone happy and tie up every loose end. We still don’t have answers to everything the husband went through and the book still ends with a lot of people getting hurt.
Also, it all just felt a bit fast compared to the rest of the book, which felt like it set it’s own pace.
“Good things don’t wait until you’re ready. Sometimes they come right before, when you’re almost there.”
I know I mostly detailed what I wasn’t a fan of in this review, but that’s just because I loved pretty much everything else. I love Taylor Jenkin Reid’s writing, I enjoyed the characters and their development and I loved the story. This was a really brilliantly written story and I definitely recommend it if you’re in the mood for binge-worthy contemporary. This definitely fits the rain, tea, book aesthetic we book lovers strive for!
10/09/2018
This was a fun one! I have never read any of the author's books before but I really enjoyed this one, I don't know if I'll continue the series but it's definitely an interesting story so you never know.
This was a fun one! I have never read any of the author's books before but I really enjoyed this one, I don't know if I'll continue the series but it's definitely an interesting story so you never know.
14/09/2018
4.5
The ending was a bit of a cop-out but the rest of this was phenomenal and honestly, we don't deserve it.
Tags: deaf rep, f/f romance, dark sirens, science
YOU CAN FIND THIS REVIEW AND OTHERS ON MY BLOG
★★★★☆
I don’t write reviews often (though, I’ve been working on changing that lately), and it’s especially rare for me to review a book that wasn’t an arc or a review copy from a publisher, so I think that’s a testament to how much I want you guys to go out and read this book!
This book is fantastic! It’s full of horror, sirens and representation for minority groups we don’t get to read about often. Aka. there’s an Autistic character and deaf characters! It’s a lot of fun if you can believe that, and now we finally have a book that doesn’t do Sirens dirty, Mira Grant leaves nothing out! You should not sleep on this book!
“People were strange. People were also wonderful.”
I’m going to bullet point everything I love about this before I gush, because I have a lot of feelings:
Creative, Intense, Atmospheric
Great writing
Compelling plot
Wonderful love story – slightly slow burn
Great representation – Social anxiety, Autism, Deafness
Actually well-written Sirens – hella scary
Flawed characters – no one is inherently good
Fantastic audiobook
The plot + writing really draw you in! Because of this, the book looks longer than it feels.
THE ROMANCE
I’ll be honest the draw of Sirens and a wonderful F/F romance is what drew me to read this book. It also helped that Mira Grant is a pen name for Seanan McGuire, the author of one of my favourite series, the Wayward Children series.
I won’t go on about it forever, but the romance in this book is, I think why a lot of people will read this one so I’m going to talk about it. No spoilers but there is a wonderful and cute (but slow) romance between two women (bisexual and lesbian rep) and I love it. The MC’s love interest is cute af and also Autistic, and here’s the kicker – the mc does not give a sh*t. I love it. She doesn’t even blink an eye and I really appreciated that because usually it’s a big deal in writing, when it doesn’t always need to be.
How I remember it:
“Hi *is cute and awkward af* can I interview yo-“
“No.”
WE STAN TWO BEAUTIFUL LADIES. THIS IS REAL LOVE.
SIRENS & A+ WRITING = UNPUTDOWNABLE
This book is so so dark but, that’s what makes it so good! The Sirens are not played down or sugar-coated and that’s probably what I loved most about this book. Usually, when you read about Mermaids or Sirens you get books like To Kill A Kingdom where they’re really romanticised. Well, you won’t make that mistake with this book.
They’re totally badass and scary – combined with the beautiful writing style, you really get the feeling that if you came up against them in real life, you wouldn’t survive.
“The seas did not forgive, and they did not welcome their wayward children home.”
^^I’m dying at this quote, honestly
REPRESENTATION
Autism & Lesbian – Olivia
Bisexual – Tory
Heather & Holly – Deaf (they use ASL)
Mr Blackwell – Physical disability that affects his ability to walk
This book is chock full of representation, and is a wonderful model for how other books should be written, in terms of diversity! It has characters from all over the world and of all different ethnicities, it also has deaf characters (at least 4 characters who know ASL) and a love interest with Autism. None of this is used as a plot point in the story and it’s all treated as normal, which is honestly so refreshing to read about!
There is also another character in this book with a physical disability that makes it difficult for him to walk and I just wanted to mention him here because i haven’t seen him mentioned much in other reviews. We don’t see much of him throughout the novel, but I really enjoyed him in the novel because he is a really complex character (like most of the characters in the novel) and isn’t defined by his disability.
Also, can I just take a moment to scream about deaf characters who are actually represented well??? I legit cried guys, this made me so happy.
Okay, I’m done thank you.
“It was beautiful, in its own terrible way.
So many monsters are.”
My only real issue with this book was the ending, but that’s a minor fault and I get the feeling there’s going to be a sequel so it’s okay! There’s been no wind of a sequel so I put this down as a standalone, but I would definitely love to continue. I loved this book and found the creatures to be really interesting, though this definitely still works as a standalone if that’s what you’re into!
TW: Social Anxiety, Murder, Loss, Horror, Animal deaths, Minor body horror, Physical disability
4.5
The ending was a bit of a cop-out but the rest of this was phenomenal and honestly, we don't deserve it.
Tags: deaf rep, f/f romance, dark sirens, science
YOU CAN FIND THIS REVIEW AND OTHERS ON MY BLOG
★★★★☆
I don’t write reviews often (though, I’ve been working on changing that lately), and it’s especially rare for me to review a book that wasn’t an arc or a review copy from a publisher, so I think that’s a testament to how much I want you guys to go out and read this book!
This book is fantastic! It’s full of horror, sirens and representation for minority groups we don’t get to read about often. Aka. there’s an Autistic character and deaf characters! It’s a lot of fun if you can believe that, and now we finally have a book that doesn’t do Sirens dirty, Mira Grant leaves nothing out! You should not sleep on this book!
“People were strange. People were also wonderful.”
I’m going to bullet point everything I love about this before I gush, because I have a lot of feelings:
Creative, Intense, Atmospheric
Great writing
Compelling plot
Wonderful love story – slightly slow burn
Great representation – Social anxiety, Autism, Deafness
Actually well-written Sirens – hella scary
Flawed characters – no one is inherently good
Fantastic audiobook
The plot + writing really draw you in! Because of this, the book looks longer than it feels.
THE ROMANCE
I’ll be honest the draw of Sirens and a wonderful F/F romance is what drew me to read this book. It also helped that Mira Grant is a pen name for Seanan McGuire, the author of one of my favourite series, the Wayward Children series.
I won’t go on about it forever, but the romance in this book is, I think why a lot of people will read this one so I’m going to talk about it. No spoilers but there is a wonderful and cute (but slow) romance between two women (bisexual and lesbian rep) and I love it. The MC’s love interest is cute af and also Autistic, and here’s the kicker – the mc does not give a sh*t. I love it. She doesn’t even blink an eye and I really appreciated that because usually it’s a big deal in writing, when it doesn’t always need to be.
How I remember it:
“Hi *is cute and awkward af* can I interview yo-“
“No.”
WE STAN TWO BEAUTIFUL LADIES. THIS IS REAL LOVE.
SIRENS & A+ WRITING = UNPUTDOWNABLE
This book is so so dark but, that’s what makes it so good! The Sirens are not played down or sugar-coated and that’s probably what I loved most about this book. Usually, when you read about Mermaids or Sirens you get books like To Kill A Kingdom where they’re really romanticised. Well, you won’t make that mistake with this book.
They’re totally badass and scary – combined with the beautiful writing style, you really get the feeling that if you came up against them in real life, you wouldn’t survive.
“The seas did not forgive, and they did not welcome their wayward children home.”
^^I’m dying at this quote, honestly
REPRESENTATION
Autism & Lesbian – Olivia
Bisexual – Tory
Heather & Holly – Deaf (they use ASL)
Mr Blackwell – Physical disability that affects his ability to walk
This book is chock full of representation, and is a wonderful model for how other books should be written, in terms of diversity! It has characters from all over the world and of all different ethnicities, it also has deaf characters (at least 4 characters who know ASL) and a love interest with Autism. None of this is used as a plot point in the story and it’s all treated as normal, which is honestly so refreshing to read about!
There is also another character in this book with a physical disability that makes it difficult for him to walk and I just wanted to mention him here because i haven’t seen him mentioned much in other reviews. We don’t see much of him throughout the novel, but I really enjoyed him in the novel because he is a really complex character (like most of the characters in the novel) and isn’t defined by his disability.
Also, can I just take a moment to scream about deaf characters who are actually represented well??? I legit cried guys, this made me so happy.
Okay, I’m done thank you.
“It was beautiful, in its own terrible way.
So many monsters are.”
My only real issue with this book was the ending, but that’s a minor fault and I get the feeling there’s going to be a sequel so it’s okay! There’s been no wind of a sequel so I put this down as a standalone, but I would definitely love to continue. I loved this book and found the creatures to be really interesting, though this definitely still works as a standalone if that’s what you’re into!
TW: Social Anxiety, Murder, Loss, Horror, Animal deaths, Minor body horror, Physical disability
18/09/2018
1.5/5
Wow, this was a wild ride of hatred for me. This book was an accumulation of distorted thoughts, unfinished ideas and wayy too much genre splicing and it was too much.
YOU CAN FIND THIS REVIEW AND OTHERS ON MY BLOG
★☆☆☆☆
This book is a clusterfuck of nothing and I was sorely disappointed by it.
I’ll be completely transparent with you guys, I requested the book purely based off the front cover and because I’d read and enjoyed some of the author’s works in the past. However, this was a huge mistake for me. I never read the blurb because I generally don’t do that for most of the books I read, and I won’t be making that mistake again with a Sedgwick novel.
I had no idea what this was about and so I had no idea what to expect. The story launches completely into itself with no explanation and no way for you to understand the context of the situation without having read the blurb for the book. I hate this about books. I don’t read blurbs and I know a lot of other people don’t, so when I started this I was at a loss for what was happening. This book is confusing and strange, a combination that doesn’t always play out well.
You’re better off reading something that can do this better like The Raven Cycle or Space Opera if you’re looking for a weird story.
“The night is when monsters arrive, when monsters are made.”
GENERAL THOUGHTS & CRITICISMS
I mean, wow… what can I say? This was my first 1 star of 2018. The Monsters We Deserve really takes the cake! It even beat out Zenith, which I only rated 2 stars, for my worst read of the year!
This book has received a lot of 4 and 5 star reviews but I think it really missed the mark for me. In general, a lot of things were about this one. The writing style was pretentious to the point where he was coming off not only as rude but as judgmental and arrogant. Also, at one point in the beginning of the story, and this is what really gets me, he schools the reader on how to use a comma. Thanks, you pretentious asshole, I’m a literature student, I know how to use a comma. And then throughout the whole novel, to keep this pretentious and horrible book going he proceeds to place a whole lot of unnecessary commas in his book. I just hate it so much???
There was so much borderline offensive stuff in this that is never ceased to piss me off. I basically hate-read this and would never have finished chapter 1 if this wasn’t an arc copy. Throughout the book, the author continually treats his reader/s as if they are dumb and no better than the dirt under the author’s shoes.
(There’s also another instance where he goes over what the word for-bidden means. Honestly, this did nothing to help him because the book already feels as if the main character looks down on the reader. You don’t sound smart, you sound like an asshole.
And this is a really minor note, but considering this book is only just over 100 pages, it took me a ridiculous amount of time and determination to finish it. 4 days and something like 40 notes left on my kindle as a result of this book. What a wild ride of hatred and rage.
“I would like to mention that you sent me here, It was your idea.”
WHAT DID I JUST READ?
My main takeaway from this book is that the author didn’t know what he wanted it to be. There is so much genre-splicing that it’s silly. This book feels like the author was trying a whole bunch of different things all in one go and it didn’t pay off. If anything, it felt unedited.
In the beginning, I could picture this as one of those shitty fake-deep oscar nominated movies that you get around the Summer time. Then it turned into a mystery and then a ghost story then a weird coming of middle-age story and then it was straight up an analysis of Frankenstein ft. Mary Shelley was racist and also classist (duh) and also here’s an a-z of why you should not read this book. I saw another reviewer say that reading this was like reading a thesis on Frankenstein and I have to say, I completely agree with them. [LINK]
REPETITIVE AND GRATING
I titled this section the way I feel because at this point it’s 6:15 at night and I’m tired and I just want to go to sleep. This book was just over 100 pages and yet it managed to piss me off completely and really turn me off the author’s future novels. It grated on my nerves and irritated me the entire time I was reading it. It was also so repetitive I couldn’t believe what I was reading. At first, I thought it was just a typo because I was reading an advanced copy but… the repetition stayed throughout the whole novel and it was confusing and weird. It honestly felt like Sedgwick was just trying to get the word count up and thinking his pretentious writing/character would cover him for this one.
Here are some examples if you think I’m being dramatic:
“…beaten and drawn, beaten and drawn”
“Put the shopping away, I put the shopping away and the…”
“I stared at it for the longest time, the longest time…”
The main character is dramatic and obsessed with Mary Shelley and her book, Frankenstein. I’m not entirely sure what the author was trying to accomplish with this book. Maybe he just got fed up one day and wrote a book trying to prove that the author is sperate from their works??? I don’t know, but this book turned out to pretty much just be an ode to why the dude hates Frankenstein.
SO, DO I RECOMMEND IT?
Honestly, no. I thought it was pretty terrible. But maybe if you enjoy Frankenstein or have to do an analysis on the book, this might be the novel for you.
Take my review with a grain of salt though, because as of me writing this, I am the only reviewer to have rated this one star (out of 54 reviews). That being said, it’s still a pretty new release and not many people have actually read it yet.
1.5/5
Wow, this was a wild ride of hatred for me. This book was an accumulation of distorted thoughts, unfinished ideas and wayy too much genre splicing and it was too much.
YOU CAN FIND THIS REVIEW AND OTHERS ON MY BLOG
★☆☆☆☆
This book is a clusterfuck of nothing and I was sorely disappointed by it.
I’ll be completely transparent with you guys, I requested the book purely based off the front cover and because I’d read and enjoyed some of the author’s works in the past. However, this was a huge mistake for me. I never read the blurb because I generally don’t do that for most of the books I read, and I won’t be making that mistake again with a Sedgwick novel.
I had no idea what this was about and so I had no idea what to expect. The story launches completely into itself with no explanation and no way for you to understand the context of the situation without having read the blurb for the book. I hate this about books. I don’t read blurbs and I know a lot of other people don’t, so when I started this I was at a loss for what was happening. This book is confusing and strange, a combination that doesn’t always play out well.
You’re better off reading something that can do this better like The Raven Cycle or Space Opera if you’re looking for a weird story.
“The night is when monsters arrive, when monsters are made.”
GENERAL THOUGHTS & CRITICISMS
I mean, wow… what can I say? This was my first 1 star of 2018. The Monsters We Deserve really takes the cake! It even beat out Zenith, which I only rated 2 stars, for my worst read of the year!
This book has received a lot of 4 and 5 star reviews but I think it really missed the mark for me. In general, a lot of things were about this one. The writing style was pretentious to the point where he was coming off not only as rude but as judgmental and arrogant. Also, at one point in the beginning of the story, and this is what really gets me, he schools the reader on how to use a comma. Thanks, you pretentious asshole, I’m a literature student, I know how to use a comma. And then throughout the whole novel, to keep this pretentious and horrible book going he proceeds to place a whole lot of unnecessary commas in his book. I just hate it so much???
There was so much borderline offensive stuff in this that is never ceased to piss me off. I basically hate-read this and would never have finished chapter 1 if this wasn’t an arc copy. Throughout the book, the author continually treats his reader/s as if they are dumb and no better than the dirt under the author’s shoes.
(There’s also another instance where he goes over what the word for-bidden means. Honestly, this did nothing to help him because the book already feels as if the main character looks down on the reader. You don’t sound smart, you sound like an asshole.
And this is a really minor note, but considering this book is only just over 100 pages, it took me a ridiculous amount of time and determination to finish it. 4 days and something like 40 notes left on my kindle as a result of this book. What a wild ride of hatred and rage.
“I would like to mention that you sent me here, It was your idea.”
WHAT DID I JUST READ?
My main takeaway from this book is that the author didn’t know what he wanted it to be. There is so much genre-splicing that it’s silly. This book feels like the author was trying a whole bunch of different things all in one go and it didn’t pay off. If anything, it felt unedited.
In the beginning, I could picture this as one of those shitty fake-deep oscar nominated movies that you get around the Summer time. Then it turned into a mystery and then a ghost story then a weird coming of middle-age story and then it was straight up an analysis of Frankenstein ft. Mary Shelley was racist and also classist (duh) and also here’s an a-z of why you should not read this book. I saw another reviewer say that reading this was like reading a thesis on Frankenstein and I have to say, I completely agree with them. [LINK]
REPETITIVE AND GRATING
I titled this section the way I feel because at this point it’s 6:15 at night and I’m tired and I just want to go to sleep. This book was just over 100 pages and yet it managed to piss me off completely and really turn me off the author’s future novels. It grated on my nerves and irritated me the entire time I was reading it. It was also so repetitive I couldn’t believe what I was reading. At first, I thought it was just a typo because I was reading an advanced copy but… the repetition stayed throughout the whole novel and it was confusing and weird. It honestly felt like Sedgwick was just trying to get the word count up and thinking his pretentious writing/character would cover him for this one.
Here are some examples if you think I’m being dramatic:
“…beaten and drawn, beaten and drawn”
“Put the shopping away, I put the shopping away and the…”
“I stared at it for the longest time, the longest time…”
The main character is dramatic and obsessed with Mary Shelley and her book, Frankenstein. I’m not entirely sure what the author was trying to accomplish with this book. Maybe he just got fed up one day and wrote a book trying to prove that the author is sperate from their works??? I don’t know, but this book turned out to pretty much just be an ode to why the dude hates Frankenstein.
SO, DO I RECOMMEND IT?
Honestly, no. I thought it was pretty terrible. But maybe if you enjoy Frankenstein or have to do an analysis on the book, this might be the novel for you.
Take my review with a grain of salt though, because as of me writing this, I am the only reviewer to have rated this one star (out of 54 reviews). That being said, it’s still a pretty new release and not many people have actually read it yet.
11/08/2018
The back of my copy says " This spellbinding sequel to the NY Times bestselling Three Dark Crowns will have readers on the edge of their seats." AND THEY WEREN'T LYING
The back of my copy says " This spellbinding sequel to the NY Times bestselling Three Dark Crowns will have readers on the edge of their seats." AND THEY WEREN'T LYING
14/08/18
3.5
I honestly don't know how to feel about this one. I started it ages ago just after I watched the trailer for the show and I basically read most of the book in a day. Then I got to pg 400 and didn't pick it back up for a month. It's like, as soon as the characters got together I just stopped caring??? But I do have books 2 & 3 so I'll definitely continue at a later stage because the ending was pretty interesting tbh.
I will also definitely be watching the show because it looks GOODE.
FIND MY REVIEW ON MY BLOG
★★★☆☆
I’d heard of this one in the past but I’d never had any interest in reading it, which is mostly down to me not having a clue what it was about and also being scarred by the book community’s hatred for paranormal romance. So, when I stumbled across the trailer [LINK] for the show back in June I pretty much immediately decided that I HAD to read the book because oh my god apparently I’ve missed me some paranormal romance.
“It begins with absence and desire.
It begins with blood and fear.
It begins with a discovery of witches.”
WHAT I LIKED
I do want to say that A Discovery of Witches has a 3.99 rating on Goodreads so just because I didn’t think it was the best thing in the world (though, I did still really enjoy it), a lot of other people think it’s rock your socks off cool! So, let’s start off with what I liked about this book before we get into what didn’t work for me.
What struck me most about this book is the politics. I haven’t really read too many paranormal romances in my reading life thus far so I only really have Twilight, Lux and Hush Hush for reference. Because of that, I don’t really know the rules for the genre and I don’t know how complex the worlds generally get. But, to me and considering I thought the Volturi from Twilight was shit, I thought the politics in this one was at least interesting.
There are different species types – Vampires, Witches & Daemons – and they all kind of hate each other + aren’t meant to be seen together in public (by humans at least) + they go absolutely nuts whenever they’re anywhere near each other and I’m not 100% sure why.
I also really enjoyed the main character and learning about the papers she writes for her job but I think that’s about it, actually.
Wait no! The romance was pretty great… until they got together. It actually went down pretty quickly after that!
“Magic is desire made real.”
CRITICISMS
I said before that I liked the politics of the book and lernni=ng bout all the different creatures/species but the only thing I didn’t like was that they’re not supposed to interact and we don’t really know why. Like, sure the humans might notice but there’s no real reason.
I also mentioned this before, but I was kind of over the romance as soon as it started which sucked because it was pretty much the only reason I read the book. Once I actually sat down after finishing the book, and I thought about it, the romance seemed kinda icky. The love interest, Matthew is super overprotective, the marriage stuff was weird af, he basically tells her what to do and it’s just funky. I mean, she goes from a single chick just trying to write her history paper before she hits her deadline, to married and the step-mother to a vampire and whatever else I’ve forgotten. Overall, this was just disappointing. I was hoping we would finally get a healthy human/other relationship but of course not! That’s crazy!
Also, this is kind of a petty note, but this is a hella big book and my memory is the size of a piece of rice so I was constantly forgetting names. What I’m saying is, there were A LOT OF CHARACTERS and maybe next time I’ll just make a character map.
“It is a blessing as well as a burden to love so much that you can hurt so badly when love is gone.”
No matter how I felt about this book by the end of it, I am still really excited for the tv show (even though Australia is a heathen country and I’ll have to wait until it’s on DVD to watch it). It’s got a great cast and a really cool aesthetic so I’m really excited to see how it turns out!
WILL I CONTINUE?
I own books 2 and 3 on my Kindle (and audio whoops) so I will definitely be continuing the trilogy hopefully sooner rather than later. I am hoping that the next 2 books in the trilogy will improve on the romance and the ridiculous love interest and the plot will really expand (and be less confusing) and we will get to explore the politics of the world more!
If you like Hush Hush or Twilight but you want a more adult slightly more complex version with a different kind of plotline you should give this a go, it might be your next 5 star read!
3.5
I honestly don't know how to feel about this one. I started it ages ago just after I watched the trailer for the show and I basically read most of the book in a day. Then I got to pg 400 and didn't pick it back up for a month. It's like, as soon as the characters got together I just stopped caring??? But I do have books 2 & 3 so I'll definitely continue at a later stage because the ending was pretty interesting tbh.
I will also definitely be watching the show because it looks GOODE.
FIND MY REVIEW ON MY BLOG
★★★☆☆
I’d heard of this one in the past but I’d never had any interest in reading it, which is mostly down to me not having a clue what it was about and also being scarred by the book community’s hatred for paranormal romance. So, when I stumbled across the trailer [LINK] for the show back in June I pretty much immediately decided that I HAD to read the book because oh my god apparently I’ve missed me some paranormal romance.
“It begins with absence and desire.
It begins with blood and fear.
It begins with a discovery of witches.”
WHAT I LIKED
I do want to say that A Discovery of Witches has a 3.99 rating on Goodreads so just because I didn’t think it was the best thing in the world (though, I did still really enjoy it), a lot of other people think it’s rock your socks off cool! So, let’s start off with what I liked about this book before we get into what didn’t work for me.
What struck me most about this book is the politics. I haven’t really read too many paranormal romances in my reading life thus far so I only really have Twilight, Lux and Hush Hush for reference. Because of that, I don’t really know the rules for the genre and I don’t know how complex the worlds generally get. But, to me and considering I thought the Volturi from Twilight was shit, I thought the politics in this one was at least interesting.
There are different species types – Vampires, Witches & Daemons – and they all kind of hate each other + aren’t meant to be seen together in public (by humans at least) + they go absolutely nuts whenever they’re anywhere near each other and I’m not 100% sure why.
I also really enjoyed the main character and learning about the papers she writes for her job but I think that’s about it, actually.
Wait no! The romance was pretty great… until they got together. It actually went down pretty quickly after that!
“Magic is desire made real.”
CRITICISMS
I said before that I liked the politics of the book and lernni=ng bout all the different creatures/species but the only thing I didn’t like was that they’re not supposed to interact and we don’t really know why. Like, sure the humans might notice but there’s no real reason.
I also mentioned this before, but I was kind of over the romance as soon as it started which sucked because it was pretty much the only reason I read the book. Once I actually sat down after finishing the book, and I thought about it, the romance seemed kinda icky. The love interest, Matthew is super overprotective, the marriage stuff was weird af, he basically tells her what to do and it’s just funky. I mean, she goes from a single chick just trying to write her history paper before she hits her deadline, to married and the step-mother to a vampire and whatever else I’ve forgotten. Overall, this was just disappointing. I was hoping we would finally get a healthy human/other relationship but of course not! That’s crazy!
Also, this is kind of a petty note, but this is a hella big book and my memory is the size of a piece of rice so I was constantly forgetting names. What I’m saying is, there were A LOT OF CHARACTERS and maybe next time I’ll just make a character map.
“It is a blessing as well as a burden to love so much that you can hurt so badly when love is gone.”
No matter how I felt about this book by the end of it, I am still really excited for the tv show (even though Australia is a heathen country and I’ll have to wait until it’s on DVD to watch it). It’s got a great cast and a really cool aesthetic so I’m really excited to see how it turns out!
WILL I CONTINUE?
I own books 2 and 3 on my Kindle (and audio whoops) so I will definitely be continuing the trilogy hopefully sooner rather than later. I am hoping that the next 2 books in the trilogy will improve on the romance and the ridiculous love interest and the plot will really expand (and be less confusing) and we will get to explore the politics of the world more!
If you like Hush Hush or Twilight but you want a more adult slightly more complex version with a different kind of plotline you should give this a go, it might be your next 5 star read!
