blewballoon's Reviews (763)

What happened here? I loved Flowerheart; it was one of my top books of the year when I read it. This did not match that level of quality at all. 

The writing felt incredibly juvenile. I've read middle grade books that were more subtle and nuanced. It was like the author had no faith in the reader's comprehension skills at all, so everything had to be explained thoroughly and repeatedly. This made the pacing feel painfully slow.

None of the characters, not a single one, felt like an actual person. Ofelia's POV was like reading the perspective of a small child for how gullible and surface level her thoughts were. Lope was slightly better because they weren't quite so naive, but still very one-note. The plot was both predictable and nonsensical at times.

There are a lot of poems scattered around. I can't say if they're good or bad, they didn't really contribute to my reading experience negatively or positively.

I really wanted to like this, and I had been so sure that I would. I'm trying to be generous with my rating because I know this is only Catherine Bakewell's second book. I do hope she continues publishing and perhaps her next book will be more to my taste. The nicest thing I can say about this one is that the cover is beautiful. 

Giving 5 stars for having a ton of fun while reading. This is so much more than the Minotaur smut I expected (although expectations were also met in that department). 

I really enjoyed the setting and characters. The lore of the old ruins, the guilds, the politics, the artifacts, and the supernatural races were all intriguing. I thought Aspeth was a very engaging character to follow, she has a distinct personality and her choices make sense. I was rooting for her even when she did the "wrong" things. I adored the friends she made and their little underdog party of 5 trying to learn how to dungeon crawl. 

I do think the romance could have been stronger. It's not bad, but both Aspeth and Hawk are very preoccupied with their own plots (Aspeth in particular, who is keeping a ton of secrets) to the point that the romance doesn't get much build and when the love declarations happen it feels a tiny bit unearned.

Fantastic audio, the dual narration was so good. It was awesome to have the male narrator voice the male characters in Aspeth's chapters and vice versa. I was happy to be spared the unfortunate cringe of someone with a gorgeous deep voice trying to do a female character's dialogue. I wish more audiobooks would do this!

Won this in a giveaway. Tried the first book in the series and had to DNF it. Never gonna make it to this one.

"She was dressed provocatively: Daisy Dukes, bikini top, several piercings, nose, ears, and belly button, black eyeliner. Maybe the eyelashes were not hers."
I've heard enough. This is too much like a parody of men writing women.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book!  

Wow, this was so much fun! Also, a small thing, but I think this is the most polished ARC I've read so far? I don't remember spotting any typos, and I thought the writing and pacing were even smoother than the last book I read by Olivia Dade.

The only critique I think some people may have is that there's not as much zombie-fighting action as there could have been, but there was plenty for me and as a person who loves filler I really enjoyed all the quieter character-driven moments. There are so many great side characters that elevated the fantastic dynamic between Edie and Max. The humor is great, I kept telling my friend about the funny bits. There's laughter, there's emotion, there's heart, there's friendship, there's trust, there's world building, and there are luscious sex scenes. 

I took a long time to finish reading this, but maybe that's because I subconsciously just wanted to keep the book around because it made me happy every time I opened it up.

Loved this. Highly recommend the audio, the narrators are both great and I loved the little radio segment excerpts. 

This book was exactly what I wanted it to be, even though I got so damn frustrated with Aiden at certain points. I feel like with a lot of contemporary romances, especially single POV ones, I'm usually more aggravated with the FMC because she's jumping to conclusions based on nothing or just refusing to give the MMC the benefit of the doubt out of insecurity or whatever. Lucie does not have those problems. She's very emotionally mature, and optimistic while being grounded. I was very impressed by how she handled scenes that usually get harpooned by a trope and instead navigated them with honesty and vulnerability. 

I thought the chemistry and romance was totally there, the banter and sexual tension felt natural. Some aspects of the spicy scenes were not quite to my taste, but I think they were written well and quite steamy. 

I was enjoying the book well enough at the start, but around the 50% mark I started to get frustrated with it and my reading experience ended on a low note.

The writing style is light and distant, like being recounted a fairy tale. It reminded me of The Teller of Small Fortunes, but that book did a better job of making the characters feel distinct and memorable. Most of the side characters here, including the love interests, are only surface level depictions. 

Aside from the lack of depth in the characters, the plot is repetitive to a frustrating degree. Anne in particular was hard to sympathize with. I figured out what message/resolution the book was going for so painfully far ahead of the sisters that watching them fumble the ball as their magic house, magic cat, magic diary, and magic family friend all tried to give them hints was excruciating. 

I did really enjoy the magic house, I think the sense of the house being alive and the sensory descriptions of the tea and pastries were really fun. It made me want to eat cake, and I don't even like cake. I also enjoyed the little glimpses of world building for how the witch world fit into the human world, it would have been nice if there had been more of that.

The audiobook narrator wasn't my favorite, using the same blandly whimsical tone for everything, and I disliked their attempts at male voices.

This was good, but not really my thing. I think people who enjoy more literary/poetic prose and poetry will get more out of this than I did. 

I think this book is aiming for something similar to what The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue and This is How You Loose The Time War were trying to do, but does it better and actually pulls it off. I enjoyed how expansive the locations and time periods were, it truly gave the sense of how long these characters had been fatefully intertwined, but we are only in each setting very briefly and the majority of the book is spent following the present timeline. 

I think the weakest aspects of the book were in the present timeline. The present never felt like it had as much weight as it should have because it was written in the same style as the fleeting glimpses of past lives. I also felt like the reveal of what had caused the entire premise was somewhat lackluster. I really didn't feel the romance, either. Despite all the poetic prose about the love between the main characters, it just felt like I was being told they loved each other and it seemed more like a trauma bond if anything.

Again, I think other people will enjoy this book more than I did. It's not bad, and I think the premise was done justice, I just prefer characters to feel a little more grounded and rounded.

I maybe liked this book slightly more than the first book? I listened on audio, so apologies if I spell any names wrong.

I like the relationship between Vivian and her sister, but I still am not quite connecting with Vivian as a character. Some of her choices baffle me, and it feels like most of what she does is just ask for favors from people. It doesn't feel like there's a lot of mystery solving going on, it feels too much like she's just winging it and relying on others. I do think the 1920s setting is captured well enough, and the  Nightingale jazz club is fun.

I don't find the love triangle compelling.

I am probably in the minority in preferring Leo for Vivian, but it seems like the author is leaning towards Honor and trying to write them with more chemistry. I understand it thematically, it's the more dramatic way to go, but then it seems unfair for Leo to keep sticking his neck out for Vivian all the time. It doesn't feel like she's earned that much loyalty as just a friend.

I'll keep reading the series because I really like Katharine Schellmans's other books, and I'm hoping this series will grow on me.

This didn't slap quite as hard for me as The Reanimator Mysteries by Kara Jorgensen does, but it is set in the same universe and it was fun to see more aspects of the paranormal world and the New Orleans setting. 

I did find Bennett and Theo charming, but I felt like their romance was maybe a little too rushed and there wasn't enough time for the chemistry to build up properly. I rarely say this, but I think the book would have benefited from being a bit longer so there was more breathing room between plot beats and to allow the sense of time passing.