booksonmars's Reviews (670)

not because it’s bad but because it’s so big 🥲

i love reading a non fiction and seeing how much the author loves and has passion for the subject in question. i picked this up because i’m taking a module this year that discusses circadian rhythms and how light affects them, so it was interesting to see just how deep light is rooted in our daily lives. i learned so much about biological systems and the meaning of natural darkness in a surprisingly poetic way. a scientific read that’s easy to follow with beautiful writing. 

a simple reprieve from the literary books i’m currently in the middle of. i liked the slow burn, and surprisingly enjoyed the fake dating aspect, even though it’s my least favourite trope. johnny and verity’s vulnerable moments were sweet to read. however, i do think the view that a woman can’t be alone and unmarried in her thirties without feeling lonely is now a little outdated. 

a slow kind of book with not much going on, but atmospherically it was a good read. a character study on those involved in the latter part of the trojan war, and insight into their inner turmoils and the way war settles inside them. as always i love briseis as this sort of story keeper and mediator of the group, and seeing all the women in her eyes as autonomous beings unlike the classics they’re derived from. i didn’t know there was going to be another book in this series, and i’m very keen to read the next.

kinda disappointed with this book. the writing and plot was good, but the chemistry and character work was very stilted. the relationship between raya and strickland felt very stiff, and the attraction part came out of nowhere. i can’t even call what they had romance because when they had non-physically intimate moments i didn’t feel any emotion, it just felt like they were info dumping to each other and then reacting in the most bland way. 

there was no growth in the trust department; every time the other person did something bad or untrustworthy instead of communicating about it they would try to get ‘revenge’ or just flat out ignore them. miscommunication is okay but it being repeated throughout the book really irritated me. 

the murder mystery aspect also was very rushed, sparsely discussed through the majority of the book and then dumped towards the last three or four chapters. i really struggled through nearly all of the chapters, and only really liked it towards the last ten. 

a sweet story that combined the significance of the lunar year and valentine’s day. it touched on all kinds of love, from romantic to familial, and the characters were easy to love and root for. 

i liked the storytelling at the beginning, the writing made the story feel very fable and folklore-esque. it was after the first act that i think the plot started to meander and the development of the characters halted. everyone became kind of one dimensional and not very much depth went into them, if there was it was more told than shown. some of the worldbuilding too felt very info dumpy and in the most random places. i’d recommend for the atmosphere. 

miss ali hazelwood you have done it again. delivered one of my favourite romance books of the year so far. i truly loved this book: i loved the enemies to lovers, which i never do in contemporary romance, i loved elsie and her journey to addressing her people pleasing tendencies, and i loved jack (jack if you are free next week i am also free next week which is when i am free).

 over the course of the steminist books ali hazelwood has really polished the way she writes her characters, and i think elsie is her best yet. aside from the romance, i really rooted for elsie throughout her academic work and her working on herself too; and i really liked how much jack supported her on this. an ideal man! (my ideal man.) i do wish we had more depth on the relationship between elsie and her family, and i wished that we actually got to see them in the book.

loved the bee and olive mentions too! i think i’ve come to terms with the cheesiness of her books and i actually enjoy it. ali hazelwood is a nerdy romantic (like me) and i love her <3

an interesting enough read, but the pacing was way off. there was hardly any buildup to the beginning of the plot line, it very much just jumped into them forming the team. i also wish there was more: more of them preparing for the heist, more depth in their relationships as they felt very surface level, which made it hard for me to feel any emotion for the ending. it felt very rushed and lots of things were glanced over. a good enough titanic inspired story, i thought it was such an original idea, but it needed more characterisation.