blewballoon's Reviews (763)

A typical Julia Quinn book, so if you like the Bridgerton series you'll be happy with this one. I had moments where I was having a fun time, and moments where I was frustrated, so it was a bit of a mixed bag for me. It also sometimes feels like J Q leaves in placeholder dialogue and scenes that should have been cut or fleshed out properly.

I read this for a local book club and if I had planned ahead I would have read the first book in the series, which might have given me more context for Olivia's character. She's particularly bland, so maybe J Q was assuming the reader would already have a sense of her personality from the previous book? Harry was a lot more interesting and sympathetic to me at the start of the book, but then he made some questionable choices and exhibited a lack of self control that seemed at odds with the character that had been established. I also feel like several of his side-plots were just forgotten like his relationships with his brother and sister. I assume his friend Sebastian shows up in another J Q book somewhere, because he gets a lot of page time and seems primed to be a leading man in another story.

As always, I loved the running gag of the Smythe-Smith musicale and Rosalyn Landor's narration.

I wasn't sure how much I'd like this one since I didn't really love A Witch's Guide to Fake Dating a Demon by Sarah Hawley. If you have read that series, this book is quite different. The tone is significantly darker and the setting is typical of classic fantasy. There is more weight given to the plot than to the interpersonal relationships and romances. 

I think the people who can't get enough of these types of Fae Court romantasies will probably have a good time with this one, and I'd also recommend Lore of the Wilds as a similar book. 

Ultimately, I didn't enjoy reading this. I didn't have a good time. I didn't like any of the characters and I thought Kenna made stupid decisions. The side characters are just there to provide exposition and kick-the-dog or pet-the-dog moments for the main characters. The kick-the-dog moments are quite gruesome and/or uncomfortable to read. The romance(s) fell completely flat. The fire fae romance in particular is totally lacking in chemistry or tenderness and felt like a frustrating slog because it was so obvious how it was going to play out. I thought the reveals in general were almost comically obvious and my predictions from very early in the book all turned out to be right. That alone doesn't really matter to me, but without good characters and compelling relationships I need more than a predictable plot. 

The audiobook narrator did a good job, very emotive.  I have no plans to read the sequel, but I will admit that it seems like the sequel could end up being more interesting.

This is my third F.T. Lukens book and it's my least favorite, unfortunately. So far their books have all been fun, with a good mix of magic/fantasy and romance in a sweet YA tone. 

I was really enjoying this one too up until the around the 40% mark, and then I am not sure what happened. I ran out of patience with the side characters of the cousin and girlfriend who seemed too zany and one dimensional. It seemed like the YA-ness dropped down a bit lower into middle-grade in a way I didn't like. I found myself skimming pretty hard and just reading like the middle paragraph of each page for a while. I don't know if it's just that I wasn't in the mood for it anymore? 

I don't want to rate it too harshly because I do suspect this may have been my issue and the book itself has plenty of redeeming qualities, especially for younger readers and for nonbinary character representation.

Thank you to Moira Quirk for her fantastic narration, I'll never stop saying that she elevates everything she reads. I am pretty sure seeing that she narrated this is why I added it to my TBR in the first place.

Audio aside, this was a nice, refreshing time-loopy fantasy. As much as I love romances, and there's one simmering around the story here, it was a fun change of pace to read something that was a bit more focused on world building and plot. It reminded me a little of how I felt reading The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, but without the characters all being kind of gross and bad and with more alternate reality supernatural shenanigans. 

I was really trying to push through this one because it's not actually that bad, but more and more my internal thoughts as I was reading were just: "this is so tedious." 

I don't think it's just that it's a generic YA-feeling enemies to lovers book because although I generally dislike those, I went into this one with a pretty open mind. The cloak and dagger setup and the magic shade didn't feel particularly original, but that's not something that I need in order to enjoy a book. I need characters that I'm invested in and can understand, and in this book I think the characters are all a little too thin. 

The side characters are entirely interchangeable and kind of irrelevant. The leads are both a little frustrating to follow with their lack of insight. I was particularly annoyed when

Ransom's internal monologue was like "you drew first blood, now it's war" or whatever when he had been stalking this girl since her mother was killed and her house burned down and he was actively in the process of killing her, literally halfway through it, when she stabbed him to escape. You started this, buddy, not her. She had every right to stab you.

The transition from enemies to oggling each other (banter is not enough to make a romance!) was not convincing for me.

There's one reveal I've been waiting for (I'm 99% sure I'm right) and I considered trying to read more to get to that point, but I've already sunk about 9 hours into this audiobook and I don't want to spend any more time on it.

Audiobook narrators are both good, but the male narrator is better and the female narrator's male voice is not great. 

An interesting concept, but nothing about the actual writing captured my attention. The characters felt one-note and exposition slowed the book down considerably. 

I was expecting something grim and dark, and this book is those things, but it's also surprisingly funny?  Kosara's perspective is lively and sarcastic, which brings a lot of light to what could have been a very dreary setting. The audiobook narrator also brought a lot of personality to the text and handled all the complex pronunciations flawlessly. I thought the monsters and the world building were cool; I really liked all the tidbits about how to deal with the different monster types and little self-aware almost meta comments that Kosara would make about the folklore of the universe. I liked the side characters, although apart from the detective you don't get to see too much of anyone, and there's lots of room to use them more in future books in this series. I definitely plan on continuing, this is one of the better fantasy series I've started in a while. 

I probably would have rated this 4 stars or more if I had liked the characters and their dynamics a bit better.  The writing itself flowed well, the setting felt like a part of the story, the supernatural stuff was cool, and the mystery had an interesting twist and resolution. 

Isla in particular got on my nerves and I found her behavior and perspective a bit frustrating. I think I suffer sometimes from "first POV wins" where I tend to latch onto the first POV character I follow and then if I get a contrasting perspective it throws me off, which is why I usually don't enjoy the unreliable narrator trope. In this case the book starts in Thomas's perspective and I found him pretty sympathetic throughout, but when we get Isla's perspective she's mostly annoyed and disappointed in him all the time. From the text, I get the sense that the author thought very highly of her, but I think her positive attributes were told a lot more than shown. Spoiler nitpick that illustrates my point:

Thomas is the one who actually finds Kit and gets him out by himself despite the harrowing and difficult circumstances, and yet everyone says Isla is the one who really found him?

The insta-love between Isla and Tanis didn't work for me, again due to feeling too much like tell vs show in terms of how awesome and great they both were. Unfortunately, my dislike of Isla dragged the whole book down for me to the point I didn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to. 

Another slam dunk by Alexandra Vasti. I adored the two leads and their relationship. I enjoyed and appreciated the dynamic side characters. I was in suspense for the mystery and surprised by the reveals. The spicy scenes were 🥵. The writing was beautiful. The audiobook narrator pulled off a pretty good male voice, in my opinion. I Highly recommend this series to anyone who likes historical romances, and I'm very eager for the next books.

I didn't like this one quite as much as On the Plus Side, despite how much I appreciate friends-to-lovers in general. I don't think I was as charmed by Haleigh and Jack, and something felt different about the prose. I'm not sure if it was the same audiobook narrator, maybe a different narrator would explain why the wording felt less smooth. 

I did still enjoy the book, though. The opening of the "rules for staying friends after hooking up" was a good narrative framework that leaves a whole bunch of information gaps to entice the audience into wanting to know what's behind some of those rules. The gradually breaking or bending rules as the story went on was nicely done. I appreciated the anxiety and bisexual representation with Haleigh and the more diverse body types for everyone, including Jack. More books about guys with round bellies please! (Also looking for more books with short kings!) I think this was a very well done instance of a love triangle and a good reminder of the reality that there are probably multiple people out there who would work well together, but it's ultimately a matter of choice.