blewballoon's Reviews (763)

Another fun adventure in the Veronica Speedwell saga. I listen to this series on audiobook, and I spaced out a lot on this one. There were a few instances where I had no idea how the characters had gotten where they were. I did still have a good time listening and following along as they tried to solve another mystery.  It was also nice to get a lot of context for Stoker's past, and a reminder that there are still things about Veronica we don't know. She did a little more fourth wall breaking in this one, which I found charming. 

I read this book because I was trying to complete an alphabet challenge and needed a book with a title starting with the letter Z. I didn't think I'd love it, and I was right. The book does read quickly due to the simple sentence structure. The characters are not deep. The plot is fairy tale Rapunzel, without shying much away from the darker elements of that story. The portion where Zel has lost her mind in the tower is pretty disturbing, I had to skim through it. 

Legends and Lattes is one of my favorite books of all time. Cozy fantasy is the genre for me, and I feel like this series is the perfect example of what the name of the genre means. It's about personal stories focused on characters, with slices of life in a fantasy setting. Sure, the stakes are low, but stories don't always have to be about the end of the world and life-or-death stakes to have meaning and depth. I loved every minute of reading this book, and even purposefully slowed myself down because I didn't want it to end. I also unexpectedly found myself crying when it did. This book is a prequel that can be read as a standalone, but it does have mild spoilers for Legends and Lattes in the epilogue. 

I wish I had read this book when I was a bit younger, the same age as the protagonists. I feel that way not because this book doesn't work for me as an older reader, but because I think it would have helped and comforted me in a way I needed more back then. This is a solid YA wlw romance book. I think it would make a great movie as well, and it's kind of similar to Crush that came out on Hulu. Molly and Alex challenge each other in positive ways, and it's beautiful to see their friendship naturally grow. I was really rooting for both of them not just in terms of the romance but in their own lives and their individual struggles.

I was so excited to read Iris's book in the Bright Falls series! I loved the first book about Claire and Delilah, I loved the second book about Astrid and Jordan even more, and I loved this book as well. Iris plays a bit of a comic relief role in the previous two books, and it was great to see her character expanded in her own perspective and to get more of her history. Stevie really helped highlight the softer and more serious aspects of Iris while also being relatable and compelling in her own right. I found the portrayal of Stevie's anxiety to be well done, I particularly related to her experience of anxiety over the expectations of her loved ones. There were a couple of lines in her chapters that I've said to myself almost exactly. I do have one nitpick, and that's the overuse of "simply" and "just." As in: "she simply smiled" or "she just laughed." It may have been more noticeable on the audiobook, but I do think some of these should have been edited out. Very small nitpick, though! This is a beautiful finale to this series about friendship and love in all forms, I totally teared up at the end. 

I didn't like this quite as much as the first book. Fair warning, the first 50% of the book is almost entirely smut (pretty good smut, I admit) and romantic drama. The plot picks up very abruptly about halfway through and then it's chaos and other kinds of drama, rushing towards some plot twists and a big cliffhanger. I would say this definitely suffered from middle book syndrome, but I did like the new settings and characters we got to meet, and getting to know some characters from the first book a little better. I really didn't care for

the filler plotline about Raina magically losing her feelings for Alexus and then her pretty quickly getting them back, and I'm even less looking forward to her being in a reverse situation now. I like seeing relationships progress, I don't like watching them go in circles, even if the circles are magically induced. I also didn't care for the "Oh no, Finn is mortally wounded! Oh no, it's okay, Raina saved him! Oh no, actually he's been murdered!" I did suspect he wouldn't make it though after his post-healing character development.

I rated this a 3 originally and then lowered it upon reflection. The ending in particular really frustrated me. There were some positives. I liked the historical Egyptian atmosphere (mostly the descriptions of what people were eating), I liked the touch of having illustrations every now and then, and there was enough adventure. The author seems to have done a decent amount of research on the setting. The concept of old objects having quirky magical properties was executed alright. The first issue I had with the book was that the writing felt bad. It reads like fanfiction I read when I was 12, written by fellow 12-year-olds. That may seem harsh, but it's exactly what I thought in the earlier chapters. The writing improves a little when there is more action going on, but the more reflective parts are very clunky. There's one part where the main character reflects that she's been seeing visions of the past/someone's memories, and that was a surprise to me because she never had any on the page before then. Maybe that was an editing mistake. There were also many instances where there would be a paragraph of internal monologuing, and then a line on its own for emphasis. As a stylistic choice, that's fine, but it was very repetitive and once I noticed it I couldn't stop noticing it. The rest of my issues are with the story and characters themselves. Spoilers and rant:

The romance doesn't feel right. Inez reads like she's 16 and Whit reads like he's 25, and while they have some banter, without Whit's perspective I'd think it was just one-sided teen girl hormones. The book also repeats ad nauseam that Inez is too trusting, and clearly, something is up with Whit based on the epilogue. Speaking of being too trusting, her dead mom shows up to convince her to betray her uncle and then poofs away to reveal herself as a villain (one of several "twist" villains) and contribute nothing further. The worst part of the book for me: what the hell was the point of dragging completely irrelevant cousin Elvira from the very beginning of the book back to the end of the book just to brutally murder her? It was a complete waste, unnecessary shock value. No character really gets any development. After spending most of the book with him, the uncle could do just about anything and I wouldn't have a reason to be surprised. I know the cliffhanger ending is meant to make you want to read the next book, but it turned me off even more. The book was already a long slog, and you didn't even have the decency to wrap any of it up? It leaves me with no faith the author can write a satisfying conclusion.

For me, the redeeming qualities of the book aren't enough to outweigh the bad. I was excited based on the premise but was very disappointed in the execution.

This was an excellent follow-up to the first book. I think that despite it covering less ground and having a bit less adventure, I actually liked this one more. I loved seeing the bond between Veronica and  Stoker. Despite their bickering and sexual tension, they make a great investigative team and have a lot of deep trust and respect for each other, which is lovely to see.

I didn't like the first book in the series, but I thought I'd give the 2nd one a shot since I had bought a physical copy (I hadn't realized it was part of a series at the time). Unfortunately, I think I will have the same issues with it as I did with the first book, so I'm gonna DNF and donate my copy. 

This was a lot of fun! If you are in the mood for a winter fantasy romance, here you go. A large chunk of this book takes place in a colder climate, and there is much mention of a "frost king," so this is a well timed book to read during winter, or late fall in my case. There is a lot of action and drama, the world building is pretty easy to grasp, and the exposition heavy spots don't feel too drawn out. The choice to make the female MC only able to communicate in sign language was intriguing, and I think handled well. The romance I would say is more forced proximity focused than enemies-to-lovers, but it does have that element to it. I will say that the writing is not particularly breathtaking and there are some cliche/predictable fantasy tropes, but there is enough creativity for the story and world to feel fresh, and the characters were really engaging and easy to get invested in. It reminded me of how much fun I had reading The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones, although I'd say this book is a bit less lighthearted.