blewballoon's Reviews (763)

For most of this book I was just begging Allison to chill out and go to therapy. She has some glaring character flaws, probably the biggest being how quick she is to assume the worst. One of my least favorite things about the enemies-to-lovers trope is when the enemies aspect is entirely based on the main character making harsh assumptions about the love interest and antagonizing them unnecessarily. This love story mixes in the second-chance-romance trope as well to try to justify the one-sided antagonism, but it isn't enough to excuse the way Allison handles the academic rivalry between herself and Colin. 

Colin was more sympathetic and likeable to me at first, but we hear a lot about his past behavior that wasn't good; the BFF doesn't trust him, so that's a red flag; and he makes one huge mistake in the present that is kind of hard to get past. It turns out to not quite be what Allison thought, but it still shows a severe lack of communication. It's kind of hard to say whether or not they will make it as a couple and whether or not they are good for each other.

I did really enjoy the audiobook narrator and Jenny L. Howe's writing, it's good for a debut. I also loved the Providence, Rhode Island setting. I almost feel like this could have been a stronger book if it wasn't a romance, since the other elements going on were well thought out and took interesting turns.

Originally when I first saw this book I was very excited for it, but by the time I finally picked it up it looked like the reviews weren't very good and I was a little worried. I'm glad I gave it a shot anyway, I did like it. 

I liked the unusual take on a haunted house and the slow paced plot. There's nothing spooky or particularly suspenseful here, but I didn't mind that. I also thought the asexual representation was interesting. Asexuality is a spectrum and I'm not sure how many people will relate to the experience Lucky describes. I could relate to some things, but not others. The romance is a light simmer, and there's a lot of communication that some readers might find boring, but in my opinion is more realistic for how a healthy relationship actually starts. I also thought the ESP aspect of the main character was a cool concept that contributed to the main plot, although it does lead to a lot of scenes that just feel like character exposition/telling-vs-showing.

The only thing I didn't really like about the book was Lucky herself. I didn't hate her and she didn't annoy or frustrate me, but I never really liked her either. I am trying to describe why and the individual traits (confident, capable, self aware) are not bad things. I also would never say that a person shouldn't focus on their career over a budding relationship. It's also not that she doesn't grow or change at all, she does learn some stuff and make adjustments. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Not sure what it was, she just didn't quite work for me.

The audiobook narrator was good, but a little more monotone than I prefer.

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

I've read quite a few Jane Austen universe novels, and this is one of the better ones. I'd put this up there with The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow in terms of feeling true to the characters in the source material and maintaining an elegant writing style throughout that compliments Jane Austen's original writing while still being a bit more natural for a modern reader. Both books also explore the nuance of Mary Bennet and what a happy ending for her might look like, but in this case it is because her story tangles with the protagonist Charlotte Lucas/Collins. 

None of the original characters from Pride and Prejudice felt overly villainized here, which I appreciated. It also felt like a fairly organic insertion of LGBTQ+ representation into the historic setting, although it did seem like there were an awful lot of lesbians in Mary's neighborhood. 

The story is quite slow paced and focused on Charlotte's journey of opening her eyes to consider more than the most practical path and allow the layered petals of who she is as a person unfurl and bloom. 

Overall, I would definitely recommend to fans of Jane Austen's characters and fans of queer historical romance.

Read 50% and then skimmed the rest. 

The portrayal of neurodivergent-but-unlabeled Molly bothered me. It made me feel like I did back in middle school when one of the neurodivergent-but-unlabeled students in my class would think they were getting along with a group of people for a change, but it was clear to everyone else that he was being used for entertainment. Even if they weren't saying anything openly hurtful, it was still a gross thing to do. I can't say how accurate of a portrayal Molly is because maybe there is someone out there who experiences the mental inconsistency of being perceptive and astute one moment and completely gullible and naive the next, but the treatment of the character in her own narrative didn't sit right with me.

I have more complaints. The writing is aiming for a more simplistic and whimsical style that flattens all the characters and undercuts any attempts at emotional depth in the storytelling. There is nothing to latch onto with any sense of grounding. 

Also, in my opinion a central purpose of a mystery is that the reader should be able to see the clues and connect the dots as they read. Perhaps they are hard to find and there are red herrings, but you should be able to get to the reveal and feel that it is plausible with the information you have. This book

arguably breaks the promise of the genre in favor of having the POV character obscure relevant information from an otherwise very detailed internal monologue. I did figure it out before the reveal, but not for the right reasons, and I can see how a reader would feel their trust in the mystery had been betrayed. It would be like reading a romance novel where you spend 90% of the book with one couple and then at the end they break up and date other people who were mentioned briefly in a random early chapter. That's not satisfying and that doesn't really qualify as a romance.

 

This book has an alarming number of similarities to the movie The Duff. The jock neighbor named Wes, making a deal that revolves around wooing a different guy, the jock neighbor giving the main character a makeover, a mention of a plaid red dress, a special spot in a semi secluded area, and more. The biggest differences are that there aren't really any mean girls in this book and I found the protagonist of The Duff a lot more charming, Liz drove me nuts! I was reluctant to give this 4 stars because I found her so frustrating. On the flip side, this Wes definitely beats movie Wes in terms of romantic potential. He was so obviously kind and considerate that it made the main character's irritation with him seem unreasonable. 

Coming back to this series was like curling up in bed with my favorite blankets and pillows. I have enjoyed it so much, I can't really think about it critically anymore.

I knew from the premise that this would be dark, but there was a point where I was like "woah this just got extra f**ked up" and I had to put the book down for a bit. 

Overall, a very interesting and suspenseful story. It's fairly slow paced for the most part aside from some especially dramatic moments, but during the calmer parts of the story there are always looming threats and the sense that trouble is closing in on the main character. I still have some lingering questions now that the book is over. I did like the romance and the found family elements of the story, they were fairly uncomplicated considering everything else going on. I also enjoyed the the historical scientific elements, but this is not a story for the squeamish.

The audiobook narrator was excellent, I'd definitely like to listen to more of their work. 

Bit of a personal criticism, but I did feel a strong lack of women in this story. Up until around 25% into the book there is only a passing reference to the main character's mother and sister, otherwise the world is entirely inhabited by men. I understand that women were not allowed in the medical profession, but surely they did exist in Scotland. The first named woman that does show up is of course flawlessly gorgeous and saintly, which irritated me a bit. The sister mentioned in passing earlier also comes back for two scenes to be generally homophobic and snobby. Again, I understand that this was probably a side effect of the historical setting, but I did feel the absence.

I am sorry I left this on my TBR shelf for so long, it's wonderful. 

This is an exquisitely slow burn (sooooo slow) and a very calm slice-of-life historical fantasy. No enemies to lovers, only true companionship and loyalty. No big bad, only distant enemies that come to their ends off-page. No challenging quests, only emotional journeys of self discovery and acceptance.  

The writing was both intricate and clear, with an obvious effort by the author to make it sound period appropriate while also making it perfectly evocative of the deep emotions of the perspective characters. I did notice a handful of typos, but they were tiny specks in a tapestry of gorgeous wording. 

The fantasy elements were subtle and woven in nicely with the historical setting as well. The romance was just the way I like it: honest, friendly chemistry, and so much yearning and pining!! Delicious!

Ugh this book made me so mad. I had said at one point out loud that if a certain thing happened I would give the book two stars, so I'm being true to my word. Clearly a lot of people enjoyed this type of story and I'm happy for them, but this was not for me. I should have DNF'd at the start when I first wanted to. 

I found all of the POV characters exhausting and tedious for different reasons. The humor did not work for me, but I will admit there was one single line that did make me laugh (

"Facial hair is not a motive, my lady."

) A lot of the messaging (which is rarely, if ever, subtle) has a lack of nuance and covers the same criticisms of fantasy that we have been hearing since at least the 2010s and that doesn't really apply to the majority of fantasy stories coming out today. The world outside of the POV characters feels kind of vague and amorphous. There are some non-POV characters that felt like they would be a lot more interesting to follow and had their own arguably more compelling stories happening off screen. The plotline with The Cobra and The Last Hope goes in a good direction, but it took way too long to get there and I was too mad about other plot developments to enjoy it. There was so much that I just didn't care about and that didn't feel earned.

Moira Quirk is a fabulous narrator and this type of darkly humorous tone (Like The Locked Tomb series) is in her wheelhouse, but I did have to get used to her attempts at an Oklahoman accent. Speaking of, for the main character being from Oklahoma there are some glaring mistakes like saying "I was in hospital," referring to afternoon tea as if that's a normal thing Americans do, and calling glasses "spectacles." 

Maybe I'm an anomaly but I really liked Key and he was the main thing keeping me reading. I wish he had been in the hands of an author who didn't need to use him to advance the agenda of the plot. What happened to his character was just everything I didn't want. I knew he was probably going to be killed to make the main character realize other people in the book were "real" because she connected with him more than any other character, and I suspected he was going to come back wrong and all those earlier hints at his magical lineage would slap the main character in the face. The writing beats you over the head with the (wow, so groundbreaking) ideas that slut-shaming is bad and having big boobs doesn't make you evil, but doesn't extend that courtesy to people with sociopathy. Maybe that was too much for me to ask for, or maybe the sequel will prove me wrong and try to make him less blandly evil and return to the potential I saw in his earlier portrayal, but I don't care enough about anything else to find out.

 

I wasn't enjoying the book at first, but I'm glad I stuck with it because it picked up for me around the 30% mark and overall I think I liked it. 

The main character was kind of awful at the start (because she needed room to get better) and as soon as we met a few of the other focus characters of the story I felt like I could see all the scaffolding of the plot and arcs and I wasn't sure if there was enough substance to make it a compelling story. While I did turn out to be right about almost everything I predicted, I ended up somewhat enjoying the journey to get there and there was one reveal that I didn't expect.

There are definitely some odd and messy aspects of the book, but I think it does manage to succeed as a decent afterlife comedy-drama with a passable romance and charming side characters.