blewballoon's Reviews (763)

I listened to this on audiobook and it was excellent! I was multitasking a lot as I listened, so I didn't follow along as precisely or speculate as much as I would have liked. The plot threads all weave together really elegantly by the end of the story, and I feel like if I had been paying closer attention I could have appreciated that even more. The setup of the world with how magic works was interesting, I like fantasy worlds where magic is known but I'm a bigger fan I think of stories that take place in what's essentially our world, but with some magic under the covers that not everyone knows about. I thought the two male leads were engaging and enjoyable, and the romance worked well for their personalities and histories. I'm looking forward to more from this series!

This was absolutely lovely! I had been wanting to read this book ever since I saw a youtube video by Bernadette Banner where she redesigned romance novel covers to be more historically accurate. I am so glad I did! I listened to this on audiobook and the narrator was excellent. I loved the protagonists, they were both interesting, passionate, and complex in their own ways. I loved the exploration of the often overlooked women's contributions to arts and sciences. There were some great steamy scenes, but plenty of substance in all the other areas of the story.

There was one instance of a sort of miscommunication trope, which I typically dislike, but in this case it was more of a "these two people are having two different conversations." So, they were actually trying to communicate but just completely misinterpreting each other, which makes sense in context.

I picked this book based on the cover. I was hoping for a cozy book with cottages, flowers, magic, and wholesome vibes. That's exactly what I got. I was happy and interested every time I picked up the book to read more, and I teared up at the ending. It didn't feel too YA for me, besides that there is a romance and the main character is a teenage girl. 

There is a lot of unpleasantness in this story. Most of the characters are terrible people, the atmosphere is bleak, and there's a sense of isolation for the main character as she deals with a lot of difficulties alone. I did like her, she's smart and she fights back as hard as she can when faced with any kind of attack, mental or physical. If it weren't for her strength of spirit, the book would have been rough to get through. I didn't care for the romance, though. Overall, not as appealing as Rebecca but it does build a strong sense of atmosphere and the prose is well done.

Bit of unfortunate implication for the albino person to be evil, even with the main character trying to remind herself not to be creeped out by his appearance before he's revealed as the villain

This was a good, quick spooky story. I'd recommend it as a Halloween read. It had elements that reminded me of The Lost Apothecary, but this was a more focused narrative with a supernatural element coming in to dial up the horror. The audiobook was good, but the narrator's intonation was a bit monotone. 

This was a fun story, mixing historical and fantasy tropes. There are a lot of characters to keep straight, and the structure of the story was a little jumbled, but overall it was a good time that didn't take itself too seriously. It's a whimsical universe I'd like to revisit.

You're in Coriolanus Snow's POV for the entire book, and I personally found him awful and hard to sympathize with even in the earlier parts of the story where I think he's meant to be more sympathetic and likeable. Since you don't get any other POV and Snow is so self absorbed, it's hard to get a good measure of the other characters and a sense of who they are outside of his feelings about them. I loved the Hunger Games books and movies as a teen, and it was neat to see the origins of some aspects of the games and a little more world building about the history of Panem, but I didn't really enjoy this story on its own. The writing is as clear and suspenseful as I remembered from the series, though, so it helps get through the book quicker.