blewballoon's Reviews (763)

The Pairing

DID NOT FINISH: 16%

Casey McQuiston is a great writer and there is some excellent humor here. Unfortunately, I'm having a hard time connecting to the main character and the entire premise is just making me uncomfortable and putting me in a bad mood. There is nothing wrong with casual sex, but here it feels self destructive and selfish and it's difficult for my demisexual heart to enjoy. I can see how this will work very well for lots of readers, but I'm having a bad time due to my own tastes so I'm gonna bail.

Content Warnings

Out of the Blue

Jason June

3.75

emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

There were things I liked about this book. One is that it was refreshing to have a male main character/love interest who didn't have "hard planes of abs" for a change. I think there's been a lot of progress in terms of having romance novels with female leads that are a larger size, but I feel like there's still a big lack of the same for male leads. Another is that I like that the story concludes essentially that

friends and family are just as important, if not more than, a month long romantic relationship. Although, I do feel like the rest of the text didn't really support that conclusion since it spent a lot more time developing the romantic relationship than any others.

Unfortunately, I also disliked aspects of the book. I had seen that the reviews for this weren't great, but I tried to go in optimistically. I have to admit that the negative reviews are probably justified. The book did give me the vibes of reading merperson AU fanfic written by an inexperienced young author. I read The Spells We Cast by this same author and thought it was well written and very enjoyable, so maybe they have improved a lot. It does seem like this was a fun project for the author, so I'm happy they shared it.

Content Warnings

Can't Spell Treason Without Tea

Rebecca Thorne

3.75

lighthearted slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

If you liked Legends & Lattes, you will probably like this. The story is basically the same, but with a few tweaks. There are two main characters who are already a couple at the start of the book. There are books and tea instead of coffee. There aren't as many magical races of people; it doesn't feel tied to the D&D universe and feels more like a generic fantasy. I loved Legends & Lattes and I'm happy to have more of a good thing, but I did feel like this wasn't quite the same level of quality. I found the prose to be awkward in parts, especially the dialogue, and even the audiobook narrator seemed to struggle with the phrasing despite trying her best. I also got a bit frustrated with how much the narrative had to repeat and over-emphasize things without trusting the reader to interpret for themselves; a case of telling vs showing. In theory this book is full of stuff I really like, I adore cozy settings and good people, and yet I was cynically annoyed sometimes with the book's tone and wasn't properly suspending my disbelief. Maybe I was just cranky?

Content Warnings

Where the Dark Stands Still

A.B. Poranek

4.5

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I admit I bought this based on the cover, and I can happily say that the cover matches the tone and quality of the book very well. I would recommend this to fans of Howl's Moving Castle the Studio Ghibli film (not the book it's based on), but the atmosphere is somewhat darker and less fanciful. I would also compare it to Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik, but the writing felt closer to the characters and easier to submerge into. I listened to the audiobook and I thought the narrator did a great job of handling the complex pronunciations and reflecting Liska's positive attitude in the face of danger and horror.

I expected the ending, but I hoped I might be wrong. The epilogue offers a small glimmer of hope.

Content Warnings

Spell Bound

F.T. Lukens

4.5

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

What a fun and wholesome book! I definitely recommend this to YA readers, but as an adult reader I also had a great time. I was pretty confident I'd enjoy this, since I enjoyed In Deeper Waters by the same author. If you enjoy the Heartstopper comics and light fantasy, you would probably enjoy these books as well.

Content Warnings

At First Spite

Olivia Dade

4.0

emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Olivia Dade has been on my list of authors to check out for a while, and now I'm looking forward to reading more! This book was a lot of fun. I did find that certain areas of dialogue or humor would have worked better if they had been trimmed a little, but that didn't take away from my overall enjoyment. This is for romance lovers who embrace the silliness of the genre. I think the audiobook narrator did an alright job, but I may have preferred reading the text myself in this case.

Content Warnings

Serpent & Dove

Shelby Mahurin

4.5

adventurous dark funny tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Shout out to my friend Katelyn for recommending this, she was so right. What a fun ride! This is such a good example of YA Fantasy Romance tropes, edgy imagery, and angst done well. Is this high-brow literature? No. Are some elements ridiculous? Yes. This is a book best enjoyed if you can channel your teenage rebel brain and not take it too seriously. The book doesn't seem to take itself that seriously, either. It feels like if the author had to make a decision, they choose based on what seemed the most entertaining, and for my reading experience that was not a bad thing. The romantic leads were nicely matched with each other, clearly they both needed to grow, and their complimentary strengths and weaknesses would push each other to grow in the best directions. I thought the supporting characters were compelling as well. I had a blast listening to this audiobook. I rarely want to jump into a sequel when I finish the first book of a series, even if I liked it, but I actually do want to just keep reading this story. (TBD if I actually will though 😛)

Content Warnings

Spitting Gold

Carmella Lowkis

3.25

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I don't like it when I feel like a book is trying to manipulate my opinion vs giving me the information and allowing me to come to my own conclusions. The narrative structure of having the older sister's perspective first, and then the second sister's perspective

to contradict it

, might work better for another reader than it did for me. It felt too much like the author was going for an unreliable narrator trope with

the first sister

and then decided at the last minute

to give her some character redemption at the end.

I think if you are more of a thriller reader who reads for the plot/mystery and not so much for the characters, you may enjoy this more than I did. But, I also don't know how well the mystery/plot stands up on its own. I was able to predict most of it. I was going to give this 3 stars for being an okay read that I didn't love, but the ending went slightly better than I expected, so I'll give it slightly more than a 3. The audiobook narration was good.

Content Warnings

A Sorceress Comes to Call

T. Kingfisher

5.0

dark funny tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I loved this, as I expected. The tone feels like a fairy tale, the plot is like a horror historical romance. I really enjoyed having Cordelia and Hester's perspectives. There's a great supporting cast of decent people, which highlights how awful the villain is as a person and a threat. There's also a lot of humor sprinkled around, which works for me, but I can see how maybe it wouldn't work for some readers.

Content Warnings

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club

Helen Simonson

3.75

emotional sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I had to start the audiobook over after I realized I had gotten a couple chapters in and hadn't absorbed anything. But, after getting a better sense of the characters, I did find myself more invested and by the last 30% I was making excuses to keep the audiobook on and not wanting to stop. I will say that this felt like a case of the Earn Your Happy Ending trope where the '"good" characters were constantly being thwarted by a surrounding cast of closed minded and selfish people. There are some really awful characters who are like the worst kind of people that a lot of us unfortunately have encountered in real life, but it feels a bit worse because society as a whole seems to be on their side. If I didn't like Constance, Harris, and the Motorcycle and Flying club girls as much as I did, I might have been too frustrated with the other characters to enjoy the book. I did wonder throughout the chapters why we were getting so much of

the perspective of the kind German waiter. I wish I hadn't wondered, what a horrible and senseless way to end that story. I suppose that's the point, though.

Content Warnings

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