Truly amazed by how much punch a 100 page novella can pack! 

I was absolutely engrossed in the premise of this book and truly did sound hellish. The mental mundane torture was incredibly well founded. The development of Soren and the relationships built in so few pages still felt incredibly vivid and well written. 

I could easily pick this up and read it all over again immediately and am hoping that a better book binding comes out for it! Cannot fault this book at all. 

Truthfully I didn’t enjoy this as much as I hoped sadly. Being prone to overthinking myself, thought I found some parts quite relatable, the whole audio book came across a bit … YA?

As a non-fiction this probably doesn’t make sense, but to me the writing style felt very young and almost more of a coming of age book in various parts. 

Though some funny anecdotes in parts, the actual topic of overthinking itself didn’t really have a lot of depth so much as a humour counterpart growing up. Now whether this is her genuine experience or more of a way of dealing with it, it made me feel quite detached from the book.

I will say though the last 10% around losing her dad was very emotional and gave a much more rounded view on how the overthinking actually impacts her behaviour and regrets. I wish we got more insights in the book like that which I felt was sacrificed for the humour sadly. 

This book is thought-provoking and though not a mother myself, I believe this book talks of themes on loss in various forms

(I.e, losing a child, losing self identity, losing the balance in a relationship)

that still made the book feel emotionally relatable. 

I really enjoyed how Amy has to conveyed these characters in her writing and their emotional states and opinions without villainising any of the core characters - particularly between the MFC and her partner. 

This book in a very indirect way is quite powerful and has great feminist themes which I personally enjoyed that didn’t feel too … “preachy”.  

I enjoyed the twist with the mother in law doing the speech on abortion and being very pro-choice. Though not a twist in the plot itself; something it didn’t expect to see.

The only reason I can’t push this to 5 stars is there were parts where I feel the same point was being addressed over and over again without pushing the development of the characters on. 

Overall an interesting and quite quick read in my opinion. Worth picking up.

Having stormed through this book - pun intended - over the last 2 nights I feel I’ve had enough time to process the book without the shock ending completely skewing my review of the entire book.

I did find this book to have a much slower start than the previous books in the series. The plot for me didn’t really pick up until the 50% mark. The first half didn’t really move the plot in any significant way for me and just seemed to be solely focused on the narrative between characters and using various tangents to set up “quests” for the second part of the book which left me feeling a bit disengaged in places. 

That being said, once I hit that half way point,  I  became hooked! Like any good fantasy book, the use of the test & trials trope created some great plot twists and ‘close-save’ moments which I thoroughly enjoyed. 

Whilst I wouldn’t say there was any super strong development in the characters - as they felt very consistent in their behaviours throughout the book - I did enjoy how this didn’t prevent the plot from taking unexpected twists. 

I will say that this book definitely seemed to have a slight resemblance to ACOMAF by Sarah J Maas - more in creative inspiration that any duplication - but I did mean I couldn’t help in places but compare the two in terms of execution. 

Overall a good read with some fantastic plot points and twists which I really enjoyed. There is a lot of back story and lore in here which has definitely been added in to prep for the next instalment in the series.

That being said the slower start to actually get into many any progress with the “quests” themselves in the first half of this book did impact my enjoyment of the book as a whole though doesn’t leave me any less excited for the next instalment. 

This is definitely a mixed bag and whilst part of me would like to bump it up to a 3 star rating, there are just one too many things I think needed to happen to improve my enjoyment of it to rate it any higher.

The plot itself wasn’t exactly the surviving the wilderness plot I had hoped it would be and was initially set out to be.

The plot moved into this drug scheme coverup which just felt out of place.

The 3 of the 4 main female characters felt too similar and far too one note for me and often left me trying to work out who was who when reading about the backstory.

The writing itself was okay, though there was ALOT of  chit chat and got bored of the semi-frequent arguments between the friends which were quickly gotten over and had no real bearing on the story. All this did was drag out the story and messed with the pacing of the book. 

I do think the characters backstories were interesting and internal challenges but felt that this book just tried to throw in too many moving parts in the plot that just felt a bit disjointed for me. 

Had the book been more concise and focused on the characters  themselves and their struggles in the wilderness setting of hike - it could have been a much stronger read in my opinion.

Where to even begin to describe how much I LOVED this audio book! Absolutely faultless and immediately want to listen to it all over again. 

Sci-fi books sometimes run the risk of being so science heavy it feels like hard work to follow … this book however took a clever approach of using characters less versed in science to help explain concepts in layman’s terms so it was so easy to follow along with an enjoy and created some great character interactions. 

The humour in this book is was brilliant. The witty sarcasm from various characters regularly had me in fits of giggles without detracting from the plot line at all. 

The characters themselves felt incredibly varied and built some dynamic relationships which I really enjoyed and ultimately became really attatched to

particularly Rocky and their playful demeanour and sarcasm

. 

I also found myself getting incredibly emotional during parts of the book and full disclosure actually cried!

When Rocky said how long they had been alone for and saving Grace’s life! My heart absolutely broke.

Without a doubt THE best audio book I’ve listened to. Huge praise to Andy for the fantastic plot but also to Ray Porter who narrated the book! An absolute MUST to add to your TBR in the audio book format! 

A very dark book that left me with the feeling of “what the f*** did I just read” …

The writing style itself was very gritty and created a very dark and twisted atmosphere which left me feeling uncomfortable as a reader … but in a way that felt intentional and appropriate for the plot and it’s characters. I particularly like the writing choice of not forgiving the “Nightbitch” a true name and is just referred to as mother or Nightbitch as a reflection of her lack of identity outside being a mother. 

That being said, this felt like it should have been a short story that was drawn out far too much. A lot of the book is reiterating the same dark thoughts of this wolffish-aggression tendencies brought on by the loss of self and struggles of motherhood…which whilst interesting to start just brought the book to standstills as nothing was really happening and just felt like random points of sudden development rather than a slow growing change in the mother.

The amount of animal death/attack -

particularly the outright violent murder of their pet cat …

  in this book and the detail did make me feel quite uncomfortable - though I understand it being used a tool to show this frowning animal instinct, I feel like a lot of the time it was just used to create shock for the reader.

Overall whilst the writing style was intriguing, the premise of the book and its pacing just didn’t work for me. Not one I would read again. 

I should preface this by saying that this book shared lots of similarities to that of the Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - which is one of my favourite books - so my view of this book is slightly skewed by the comparison.

The writing style was incredibly atmospheric and described a very beautiful and magical setting for the plot to unfold which I enjoyed thoroughly.

However, I found myself strongly disliking both MFC Beatrice and Rosa who came across as a very un-genuine friendship which made the plot harder to fall for at times.

The way Rosa belittled Beatrice’s mum dying when she was a kid and then later Beatrice believing her wish to redo her goodbye to her dead mum is more important that helping her best friend get a wish to bring back her dead daughter … baffling.

If you were to remove the themes of

an abusive husband

the writing style of the book did seem to lean into a YA style book which made it seem like it skirted the edge of some deeper and complex emotions and instead invested the word count into very descriptive detailing on the world around them. 

Whilst the writing certainly captures the imagination, the plot pacing and characters could have done with a better balance. 

A very sweet and lighthearted book filled with little nuggets to wisdom and poetic quotes.

I enjoyed the format of a series of short stories which cover a range of ages and dilemmas of the various characters and how their lives in twine in simple but unexpected ways.

This format does seem to be very popular with other Japanese translated books I have read in the past.

The format and writing style were minimalistic which made for a gentle and quick read. 

That being said the content of the plot itself is meant to be a very lighthearted thought provoking book rather than any hook and intrigue or drama which made it feel slightly monotone throughout.

whilst I did enjoy the book and the messages it portrays in each story, not sure i see myself reading again but glad to check it off my 25 for 2025!

I don’t think I’ve ever read such a gritty, dark and intense book and though it isn’t a book for everyone given the incredibly difficult nature of the plot … it is a fantastic read, though please check content warnings before reading!

The writing approach with the longer chapters and dual timeline really captured the slow manipulation and development of Vanessa’s mindset in a way which felt raw, challenging and outright heart breaking. 

The characters themselves felt incredibly clever and multi-faceted. From grooming nature of the teacher which felt even me as the reader feeling vulnerable and uncomfortable to the clear obsessive attachment issues Vanessa adopts.

The plot itself did slow down in parts but still continued to keep me hooked and didn’t ease up or comprise on trying to unravel the trauma that Vanessa faces just for some nice tidy ending.

A very dark and challenging read but the author has created what’s feels like a very human depiction of trauma and denial. The writer balances Vanessa’s revision of an abuse as a romance as a coping mechanism without glorifying topics of sexual abuse  between an adult & minor.