booking_along's Reviews (1.97k)

atmospheric and creepy in its slow crawling realistic horror that i think leaves it out completely to the reader if you want to have it be a supernatural or a nightmarish but real horror (and let’s face it sometimes the real horror and nightmares one has to suffer through are more horrific than any supernatural creature could be!) 


for not even being 200 pages this book took me a few days for a number of reasons but mostly because its slow trotting pace didn’t make me want to just read this book in one sitting (as i have done with both “nettle & bone” and “a house with good bones” by this author because i just got sucked so into those stories that i couldn’t stop).


that doesn’t mean anything negative - i enjoyed this story a lot! not as much as “what moves the dead” which to me had even more atmospheric creepiness and i loved the build up and conclusion of that book more then this one. 

this one was good but i felt as if the longer build up with most of the books pages over 120 of its 155 pages building up and then wrapping the story up basically in 10 - 15 pages at the most before wrapping up the characters…. it felt a bit rushed for me. especially since we really didn’t get a good explanation. 

and yes as i already said that leaves the reader the option of deciding for themselves if it’s supernatural or not i prefer clearer endings or at least ones that then show more of the characters aftermath after the ordeal and show me how they are doing now - which we do get a little but again too little and a little too rushed feeling. 



overall this is a great eery read and fantastic for the cold rainy foggy autumn night and a big cup of tea or two and just be swept up in the  atmosphere and setting. 

i am either missing something enormous (possible since i ha e no idea who this author is and what kind of backstory i might miss about the characters in this story) but as this story stands as a singular thing - it makes no real sense? 

we have this pretty typical normal of boring person and she meats some people in a shop and that’s it?! 

i am sorry but i don’t understand what this was supposed to be or what was supposed to be fantastic about it. it might have been better if we actually get to see the change that the wig could have possible brought but since the story abruptly stops once that happens…. 

yeah sorry don’t understand this one but maybe i have missed something because i don’t know the person that has written this but if that’s the case there should have been something before the story to tell the reader that they should only read this if they know something specific before going into this. 

if you enjoy Monk then this book is a great addition to the series. 

the characters are mostly well done -i did find monk a little out of character (not because of the drugs funnily enough but just how he talked and behaved through parts of the book where he wasn’t) but natalie and other characters were well done. 

it also was a good length -it felt similar to an episode in the ways that it told its plot points basically one after another but still build up to the big mystery solved at the end. 


there was sections of the book that could have been done better and less hurtful to culture or people of different sizes - there is a good amount of mentioned of “fat” “big bier gut” and similar things that could have been phrased less aggressively as there where in the context of how they where used (being bigger isn’t something that needs to be noted as if it’s a characteristic! if you describe someone you don’t know anything about and giving a person description go for it but basically using it as a personal trait goes a little too far.

also some of monks comments where rather down grading towards the Hawaiian culture and historical way of things. 
and i get it because it’s monk and of course he wouldn’t enjoy for example eating on the ground without proper plates and utensils BUT someone (for example natalie) could have just said: you don’t have to do it but let’s not be disrespectful for those that enjoy being part of this tradition?

it wasn’t a huge deal and i guess a good amount of readers might not even notice it but for a character obsessive about details: some of those details in this book felt a bit lacking. 



but overall this was fun and easy and a nice read for a quick more or less entertaining and fun time but nothing overly special. 

still a good cozy mystery and a nice one for fans of the show!  

a very slow build up to the actual story and plot as well as the romance. 

some things where just utterly strange in this story that i couldn’t get used to no matter how often it was mentioned: the green or violet blood or that the werewolves blush green? didn’t get used to that at all. 

this book felt like a dragged out introduction -to a world, to side characters that will get their own main story…. it didn’t feel like its own individual story that just finished in itself what it wanted to tell but very much like a start to something.

can’t say i am a huge fan of that overall. 

also a lot of the things about this world don’t really make a lot of sense to me. 

for example of little werewolves and vampires know about each other. it felt like a very forced way to give background into this specific world that Hazelwood build to have the wolves and the vampire basically quiz each other on what’s a myth and what’s real about their behavior and ways -aka asking the vampire if they mind garlic or asking the werewolf if they… i don’t know smell each others butts during the full moon. 

while Misery’s and Lowe’s marriage is the first in a few years it is not the first overall so why is there so little known about the other. 
also if it’s really your huge enemy shouldn’t you know what can actually hurt them or is just myth and hearsay?

would make more sense if they knew more about each other instead of spending 3/4s of this book being introduced to each other as different species in a world that only separates them by a small river. 



i didn’t love the main characters? 
lowe was okay but we honestly got very little from him since basically the entire book was told from Misery’s point of view and i didn’t really enjoy her. 

i don’t know if it was this forced writing of how unfeeling and uncaring she was supposed to be and clearly wasn’t that at all. 
or how she was so unsure about her worth … well anywhere at all, or that she always seems to expect everyone to think the worst of me about her without any actual prove for that? 

look i am one of the most self crippling people out there - if i can find something i think someone will dislike about me i am 100% sure that they think about that and hate me. no questions necessary how else could it be! 

but misery had serena -which their friendship had good moments and ones where i felt like they had an abusive relationship going on while also feeling like those two despise not really having any page time together had more of a romance going on that the one that was supposed to be building between misery and lowe. 


anyways… friendship between serena and misery that they grew up with and supported each other through with for most of their lives - and then i am supposed to believe that  misery can’t fandom the thought that anybody could like her? 
mhm. 


so clearly this book had some pretty big flaws.

and it’s one of my least favorites but this author… but it’s not bad. 

<b>
this reads like a fanfic that tries to do too many things at once, but the writing style the why the chapters are separated and the story is told? it feels like reading a fanfic that is updated irregularly instead of a complete and published book. </b>

and here me out i love fanfic! i am reading those for 20+ years now and i will cry ugly you tears if for some reason that could be taking away from me at any time. fanfics are fantastic and some of those are better than a good amount of books i have read in the same time span i read fanfics for! so i am not putting fanfics down. 
but some story’s feel a bit disjointed between chapters and feel like the author -half way through the story- decided to add some new plot elements because why not? and while on AO3 that’s completely okay… in a published book? can’t say i am loving it!  


i think this could have been better if there wouldn’t have been so much going on at the same time. 
if the focus would have been on the marriage and building the romance, trying to bridge the difference of species and the lack of knowledge there would have been great especially with how the characters where behaving and with the relatives and their behaviors that would have made an entire story and book and would have had a romance focus. m
OR if Hazelwood wanted to do something different with her first fantasy- fine! then do the fantasy mystery of where the heck is the best friend and all the intrigue and backstabbing going on with that. 


but mixing it all together? it felt like it all fell short in its own ways. 


this book was okay. 
in some parts it even was good. 

but it wasn’t great and i think it could have been if at any point during the publication process someone would have stepped up and said: you know what? let’s just focus on the species stuff and the romance - or on the mystery and what evolves around that and forget the romance! let’s  branch out and have the first fantasy hazelwood writes be NOT a romance focused story! 

either in of those would have made the book fantastic . 

as it is? 

it’s okay. 

it’s slow paced, sometimes dragged out and sometimes skipping ahead in ways that made me feel like i missed a few pages or a chapter not because i was missing the plot but because i was questioning the timing and moment of the overall story. the main characters aren’t great and the overall story isn’t as fluent and nice to read as it could and should have been. 


i think it’s people that don’t know anything about what alpha can mean could be surprised by this and enjoy it. 
 
and for every Hazelwood stan that can’t let even one book of hers out. 


but beside those? 
let’s face it there is better fantasy romance and even this kind of interspecies romance out there -especially the ones with alpha relations -just try some fanfics to see what j mean if you need to. 

this was a nice try but it didn’t quite reach where it tried to go.

this series is a hit repetitive in the way that it all has similar plot and premises- murderbot gets into helping and safe others while getting hurt and pretending as if murderbot doesn’t care while clearly caring. 

when i read this the first time the almost reused plot got too much for me and i didn’t enjoy this overly much. 

but if you go in knowing that each book is extremely similar i didn’t mind as much and just enjoyed the bit over dramatic action moments and the snark of murderbot. 

okay conclusion but overall too long and trying to hard to make it seem as if all those pages are actually necessary. 

there were too many POV switches -what was that constant back and forth between how many characters 4?5? in the first part?- and not enough actual plot happenings to satisfy the over 500 pages build (if it wasn’t closer to a 650+ pages build up) 


the crossover? completely unnecessary and to me felt like a money grab if having readers need to read both series to understand the hate going on and i am guessing will need to have read this series to continue on with the next book in the Court of… series that i would guess has at least a few scenes that weren’t really  shown in this book in the next one. 

but this entire book and its plot could have happened as it did without the crossover. no need for it at all! 


positive: at least the sex scene were kept to a minimum in this one and so that was nice especially since it didn’t fit in the last few books of hers but it really would have been bad to have a sex scene every other page with what’s going on here. 


the ending wasn’t bad -but the book was too long.


there really is no need for Maas’ books to be longer than 400-600 pages and a real editor should just go through those 800+ page suckers and work a bit and strike out what’s unnecessary and make those books more enjoyable to read by just taking out the at least 200 pages of unnecessary talking or running around or sex moments. 


it would have been nice to get some actual real explanations with this book too. how it all really worked and were the magic comes from, how the world travel works and if all those bad <spoiler parasites guys are actually dealt with if they are just waiting for the next door to open to come back and try again?  


overall was this book a worthy finish? 
eh 🤷‍♀️

it wasn’t a a bad book but it stretched too much and tried to be cleverer than it was and it basically did was every Mass book did all over again. 


i honestly wish this entire cresent city series would have just been the first book as a standalone. 
that would have given that book a lot more power and ground to stand on because the second and now this third book just dragged that slow build up action packed page turner of a first book down. 


i would recommend it for hard core fans. 

for everyone else? 
decide for yourself if you want to read a pretty typical Maas plot. 

but you certainly can’t read this book and really understand parts of it without reading all 5 court of series books before.