booksandfin's Reviews (123)

Just an extremely solid romance book. I read this in 6 hours which I can’t remember doing with a book in YEARS maybe ever. My only qualm was how many times Ali Hazelwood mentioned how MASSIVE Adam was. But the characters were believable and I love Olive and how much of a mess she is. Good book! Also fake dating is one of my favorite tropes and I didn’t know that was the main trope until I picked it up lmao!!

there wasn’t much commentary but I enjoyed how Hazelwood handled talking about being a woman in a male dominated field.

I want to try reading this again in a print format. The audio book just confused me too much 😔😔

This book left me speechless.
Leigh Bardugo is an instant buy and read author for me and this book didn’t disappoint (even if I put it off for years).
I think this is her most well crafted book I’ve read (and I’ve read everything but Hell Bent). The use of time and perspective change allowed the characters to leap from the page and be seen as the full people they are. The size of the cast was perfect, allowing some to be side characters while the main cast dominated the page in a captivating way.
I also love a messy and brutal woman so you can bet Alex is a new beloved character of mine.

This book made me sick to my stomach at every turn of the page, made my skin crawl, and cry over fates I already knew. I can’t wait for Hell Bent!

The ending was quick and messy in a perfect way. It had me reeling and guessing always at what came next. I can’t wait for the gentleman Demon 🤭😍.

I might just be a hater but…
Evvie isn’t likable AT ALL. Her personality is nonexistent and the chemistry was… lack luster. The time skips/ summaries were often jarring. I liked Andy but also

how he handled the reveal of Evvie planning to leave her husband was ASS. Not to mention how the whole reveal was handled.

This book was pretty heavy handed at times and it took me out of the story.

Like I’m sorry the baseball charm and the baseball stuffy the puppy had were too much.

Overall I think this book just wasn’t very well written. It had a lot of promise but fall flat. The characters needed a bit more depth and the construction of the external and internal conflicts needed a stronger hand or more time. 
About DV and Emotional Abuse:

I grew up with a father who was just like Evvie’s late husband. I think this book could have explored and really talked about emotional abuse and its impact more. Instead it felt poorly thought out with no real commentary besides one scene of someone saying “that’s kinda emotional abuse” and then a mention of a women’s shelter.

The beginning of this book was enjoyable and a quick read, but I started losing interest around the 50% mark and started to dread what came next at the 75% mark.

I absolutely adore this series and I think this is by far my favorite book so far. The plot was the most cohesive out of three I’ve read and the characters were all more than believable.
I was surprised by how much I grew to love the Grey Man this book because he was not my favorite character last book. His and Blue’s relationship is so heart warming.
I have such mixed feelings about Adam but I think that’s because I see a lot of myself him. Overall what an amazing third book with the best ending yet! Can’t wait to read the fourth.
Some Quotes I adored:

I sat on this review for a few days. What I keep coming back to is that this book (like most of Bardugo’s works) could have benefited from more pages.

Some of the lines in this book were truly beautiful and the ideas of ambition and lineage were interesting. That being said, I think the size of the cast was ambitious and because of it Bardugo’s strengths (characters and world building) got pushed into the background.

I could not find anything to love for the main character. She didn’t even feel like a full character to me. She always had to be sarcastic and witty without giving her space to also feel actual fear or other “weak” emotions. Santángel was probably the most interesting character at a glance; however, we didn’t actually get into his character as much as I thought we might.

Even his and Luzia’s relationship took me by surprise. I could see why they would be drawn together but in my opinion it needed a slower burn for the whole ‘I’ll let myself burn on a pyre for you’ thing to work.

My actual favorite character by the end of the book was Valentina. She’s not loveable but she had the most interesting character arc in the story and I think her ending was executed the best.

I loved how original this world felt and the magic in Luzia’s refranes. I also loved the exploration of magic and milagritos in the time of the Spanish Inquisition. I would have loved to see more exploration of this through either a longer story or a more focused one on Luzia and Santángel.

I won’t get too much into the ending, but I think some of it was rushed and lazy. There was no true explanation to Luzia becoming immortal. I could probably write a paper on the parallels between this book and the original Grisha Trilogy but I don’t want this review to be much longer than it is.

I adored this book. I think that some of it is incredibly cheesy and honestly predictable, but that’s part of the book’s charm for me. I guessed the ending before it happened, but even so I enjoyed every moment of it.

I’d recommend this book for anyone wanting a cozy fall read for the season or just a pick-me-up.

read this book. No notes.

boy oh boy. I don’t really read horror and this book was way darker than I thought it was going to be. That being said. I really enjoyed it. The commentary is well done and the take on vampires is new and absolutely sickening.

This book had me saying “oh hell no” as I listened and did the dishes. The narrator, Bahni Turpin, did a phenomenal job. Truly made the book come to life.

My only complaints really come from me not reading the content warnings and some minor things.

I read a lot of reviews that spoke of the way Hendrix wrote women in this. I didn’t think it was actually distasteful. He described their bodies, but he also described the James Harris’ body at the end when he was naked as well. It didn’t feel like over specialization to me. I also think men are often critiqued too much in how they write women because I’ve read number plus books written by women where the women are portrayed horribly and worse than a lot of authors who are men.
On the topic of rape and CSA: I think that it did its job at making the reader uncomfortable. I do think the book could have benefitted from a sensitivity reader because a few lines were just off for me and sat wrong. That being said I don’t think it was anything too bad. Books about these topics and featuring these topics shouldn’t be banned by any means nor should we enforce a purity culture around topics that make us uncomfortable.

I do with that Mrs Green has been a more prominent character and that we had seen more of her and from her perspective. I also wish that the ending had a little more context, although it wasn’t bad by any means. Overall this was a great book but due to the content warnings I would advise people to read them before reading.

I honestly just couldn’t get into this book. Probably because I didn’t read the first trilogy… Honestly i’m so sad about it bc Ren is a character type I adore (with the added bonus of my love for changelings). I might try reading the original trilogy and then trying again.