blewballoon's Reviews (763)

I really enjoyed Vampires of El Norte by this author, and I enjoyed this one as well. This felt like more of a horror read, with the scary stuff happening fairly quickly and being the primary focus of the plot. This story fits the gothic horror paradigm of a new wife faced with a mysterious husband, a creepy house, and a hostile welcome to her new home, but it still felt fresh and different. If you liked Fleabag season 2 but wanted it to be set at a haunted house in historic Mexico, you will probably enjoy this as well. I did get a little frustrated with Beatriz sometimes, but overall she made for a compelling heroine. The audiobook narrators both did a great job, but sometimes I did wish I could see the text because I wasn't sure how some of the Mexican words were spelled based on how they were pronounced.

This was cute and chaotic. I think fans of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna would enjoy this, and I actually preferred this one. It has the same concept of a hidden magical house with a quirky found family living there. I can't remember if we got the male love interest's POV in The Very Secret Society, but here we do have a dual POV where Essie is a witch who has grown up in the magic house and Josh is just a regular guy who doesn't know why he can't find this one property he supposedly owns. I did like both Essie and Josh; they were not perfect, but they were sincere, and I think the love story was paced well enough. As I said, the book is chaotic and characters kind of pop in and out to thrust the plot in different directions. A lot of the humor is the juxtaposition of crazy stuff happening and characters reacting nonchalantly. The narrator was alright, but her American accent slipped now and then and sometimes she spoke with a quiet mumble that made it hard to make out specific words.

This was a suitable entry in the cozy small town witch romance genre, this time putting a You've Got Mail spin on the romance. I definitely liked Fitz more than I liked Tom Hank's character in the movie. However, I didn't like Charlie's character as much as I like Meg Ryan's. Charlie made some bad decisions,

one of them completely overshadowed the one sex scene in the book, it was impossible to enjoy because I could not stop thinking about what a bad choice she'd made and how it was going to come back to bite her, especially because there were plenty of other things she could have done instead! It was poorly justified.

She does blame herself for these mistakes, but in a petulant way, and the narrative and supporting cast just brush them off and tell her she didn't actually do anything wrong. The relationship issues felt entirely one-sided on her part, I'm not even sure why Fitz liked her considering how often she gave him mixed messages, threw stuff at him, and blamed him for her problems. There were a couple times when they discussed the possibility that the family shop wasn't doing well and might close, and I thought "maybe it should." I think possibly I'm being overly harsh and I was just not in the right headspace for this type of story, or maybe the main character and I got off on the wrong foot and she didn't manage to win me over like Fitz won her over. I think the best thing she did was defend Fitz and his sister a couple times when the small town mob mentality tried to blame the newcomers for their problems. I liked Charlie's parents. I thought the audiobook narrator was great. If you want Gilmore Girls + witches this will probably work for you.

I honestly just wanted to read this before re-watching the movie so I could compare the two. From what I remember of the movie, it's a relatively faithful adaptation with some streamlining of the plot and world and some character changes I think to make things more conventional for a YA dystopia film of the time. In the book, R is very reflective and poetic in his internal monologue. There are a lot of philosophical musings about life and humanity. I admit that sometimes I did skim through these parts. There are many dark subjects discussed by the characters, but what happens during the course of the story is fairly tame apart from some quick violent scenes. Do check the content warnings, though.

Cute graphic novel about ghosts and gentrification. Great for middle grade readers.

The most interesting aspect of this book, the book eating, is such an insignificant part of the story. Instead the book is mostly covering the same themes as Handmaid's Tale, but with less dystopia and religious commentary. Characters and conversations are flat, predictable, and monotonous. I've listened to like 6 hours of this audiobook at 1.5 speed and it feels like it's been 12, it's really dragging and depressing. I don't want to make myself read another 7 hours of this bleak situation, and I don't really care what happens. I assume it's bad, like everything that's happened so far. 

Emily Lloyd-Jones is one of my favorite fantasy writers, their writing style and their characters are just the best and I love how so far all of their novels have been connected by little lore drops in each one. Part of the reason I love them so much is probably because Moira Quirk narrates the audiobooks, and she's my absolute favorite narrator. I did really enjoy this, the hunt was a cool fantasy hunger games setup and the trio of characters we follow were love-able yet complex. 

Mild Spoilers to explain why it's not a 5 star:

I had an idea of how the plot might resolve and I think that made what actually happened harder to accept. As I think was intentioned, the way things did end up going was a bummer. I wish I had been able to finish the book feeling a little better. Instead, the whole last hour or so of my read I was stressed from being in traffic and this book only made me feel worse. It's a good thing when a book can affect you, great job to the author of making me care, but I ended the book feeling unsatisfied and I can't give that a 5 star rating.

I don't enjoy this writing style, the constant similes and metaphors feel like interruptions while I'm trying to decipher what's actually happening. I really dislike the Sawyer POV chapters in general, I don't want to read more of them. I think this would work best for younger readers who are currently in the throes of teen angst and like feeling dark and literary but want something more urban than dark academia. 

This is my first Chuck Tingle book and I'm definitely looking forward to reading more of their horror. If you are creeped out by bugs, you will have a very rough time with the horror elements here. I was surprised at how quickly things got freaky. I really liked the main character and the found family she made, I always prefer my horror books to feature good-hearted characters that I can get invested in. Mara Wilson did a great job narrating. A heavier spooky book if you've had any experiences with neurodivergency/autism, homophobia, and fundamentalist religion.  

I was very into the concept of this book, it's a great idea with a cool setting and characters in theory. Unfortunately the writing didn't work for me. The author used "taunt" instead of "taut" at least twice.  I found the characters kind of unlikable and inconsistent. Somehow despite feeling inconsistent, the dialogue was so repetitive that a few times I thought maybe I had actually gone back to a previous page by accident. I didn't find the recurring humorous bits funny. I figured out the mystery immediately. I didn't have a miserable reading experience, but I can't recommend the book either.