I read the first book in this series, What Moves the Dead, earlier this month and was so excited to receive an early copy of the sequel! But sadly I couldn’t finish it. I stopped reading at 55%.

I was over halfway done with the book and barely anything had happened. The writing is just so long winded and there are so many superfluous anecdotes, I can’t. I don’t need to know so many little stories about the main character that literally have nothing to do with the plot. The main character was thinking SO MUCH and for SO LONG, it became very tiresome. There were some anecdotes in the first book, but they didn’t take over the story. The story doesn’t even feel like horror or have a strong gothic atmosphere because all we’re getting is the main character’s random thoughts. The only reason I got as far as I did into the story is because it’s so short and I thought it’d get better faster, but it did not. This should have been a 30 page short story because most of the book is either irrelevant to the main story or super long descriptions of things that aren’t important.

I received a free e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for this arc. All opinions are my own.

It breaks my heart to say this, but I couldn’t finish this book😭 Sunny Disposition is one of my favorite books of all time and I also really enjoyed Team Players, so I just knew I was going to love this, but I didn’t🥺

First lemme say that I absolutely LOVED Sage! She was everything! But I didn’t like Noah. She’s the one that looks all sweet, but she’s consistently mean & rude to Sage. This is why I hardly ever enjoy enemies to lovers because there’s always a character who I hate because they’re the problem. I thought I’d enjoy rivals to lovers better because I assumed they would be equal with the rude & it might be more on the fun side, but no it’s just Noah who’s mean. I know her rudeness comes from insecurity, but that doesn’t make it any better. I don’t root for their relationship. Sage deserves better. The book didn’t feel fun at all. Sunny Disposition & Team Players both had emotional parts, but were pretty fun & lighthearted as well, this was not. Also, the scenes were just sooo long to me that the book was dragging. 

BUT I still love you Sage & I still love Deanna Grey. I’m still HIGHLY anticipating Safety Net, the 3rd book in the Mendell Hawks series, next year🤞🏽

It was so slow and I was so bored. Although I was interested in the mystery, I couldn’t read anymore, so I looked up spoilers for how it ended lol. (A lot of the reveals were what I thought)

This is too long. There’s too much unnecessary stuff going on that doesn’t add to the story and even the things that do add to the story are happening for too long. And the book is character driven, but it shouldn’t be because the characters aren’t interesting enough to spend this much time with them…

I was so excited to read a book from the perspective of a Black asexual person because I am always on the lookout for more Black asexual books. Especially because the title put words to thoughts that I’ve been having for years. I had never heard the term “compulsory sexuality” before finding this book and when I saw that term something clicked in me and I finally had words for what I’d been warring with for a while. So, as you can guess, I was incredibly excited for this book! But, sadly I could not finish it. I had to give up halfway through.

The topics that this book touches on are necessary, interesting, and enlightening. However, the writing is not for me at all. It is INCREDIBLY pretentious. The author writes the same thing over and over again in different ways, not because they want to make sure you understand, but just to fill up space. Reading this book feels like reading a textbook without learning anything. The writing is so clunky and hard to digest. There was a lot of pontification to the point where the book felt like a chore to read. 

I did enjoy some parts of this book despite my problems with the writing style, but I just can’t continue. I am grateful to this book for giving me the words I was looking for in the term “compulsory sexuality”. Now I will try to find other books and articles on the topic for further reading because as much as I tried to push through and love this book, I just couldn’t. We need more books about this topic. Better books. 

If you’re a person who doesn’t mind pretentious writing, I’d still recommend giving this book a try because the topics discussed are so important and these conversations are necessary to have in our current society. 

Thank you North Atlantic Books and NetGalley for this arc. All opinions are my own.

TW: rape

I can’t stand these men… Genuinely terrible people. Specifically Tripp. I’m supposed to root for him and Cyn to get together??

DNF’d because this book and these characters are just straight stupid.

For the main character to be such a horror fan that she has a whole horror club and wants to be a film critic and all that, she makes even worse decisions than they do in the movies. Like how do you claim to be an expert final girl who knows all the horror movie tropes and you acting like this??

There was also way too much time spent on unnecessary things like a romantic subplot and the main character thinking about the same couple of things over and over.

This is just a no for me.

I was so excited when I got approved to read Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror edited by Jordan Peele before it was released! I am a horror girl okay?? And I especially love BLACK horror, so I couldn’t wait to dive into this collection! But sadly, I hated it and couldn’t even finish. I got through nine of the stories and then quit.

So many stories in this collection were pointless and directionless. I would spend the whole story waiting for something to happen, and then the story would end and nothing ever happened… The stories felt unfinished. I ended almost every single story with questions. 

The only story that I really loved was The Rider by Tananarive Due. This is not a shock because Tananarive Due is my favorite author of all time, so of course she delivered! There were a couple other stories that I thought were kinda good, but I only enjoyed them compared to the other terrible stories in the collection. Tananarive Due’s story is the only story that would hold up in a collection full of great stories. 

This is the most disappointing book I have read all year…

I go into more detail about my thoughts in my YouTube video review, so make sure you watch that! (@BookTribe)

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for this arc. All opinions are my own.

DNF at 55%

So the essays/chapters in this book were hit or miss for me. I connected more with some than others. I enjoyed the discussions of self love & community. And one of the essays really helped me have a revelation about self love and the way I treat myself & it is something that will impact me positively forever. There were multiple beautiful quotes. And even though I was connecting with some essays more than others, I was still enjoying the novel. Until I started Chapter 7: Greed: Simply Love…

My first problem with this chapter was that she begins the chapter talking about how she’s disappointed that these days people will kill you for a designer coat or tennis shoes, and then she continues on to say this: 

“Whether poor or rich, in the mid-fifties most citizens in our nation felt it was the best place in the world to live because it was a democracy, a place where human rights mattered.”

How can you, as a Black person, say that human rights mattered in the 50’s? Whose human rights mattered??? Certainly not ours. Yes the fact that someone will kill you for a designer coat is terrible, but in the 50’s they killed us just because they felt like it, so how is that better??? I genuinely hoped that later in the chapter she would combat this thought of the 50’s being better, but she never did. She let it stand. (Unless she did in the last couple of pages, because I did not finish this essay)

And my second problem with this essay is the condescension that was radiating from the page. I cannot stand people who say “money can’t buy you happiness”. Those are usually people who have never been poor enough to miss out on basic necessities that everyone should have. And I felt the most condescension when she was talking about Lil Kim and Monica Lewinsky. Like she was looking down on them & making assumptions about them for valuing money. And I also have a feeling that bell hooks knew nothing of Lil Kim outside of the interview she mentioned having with her (which I haven’t seen, I’ve only seen it referenced in this chapter). Kim did value love, she just might not have valued it the way bell hooks finds relatable. 

I just felt a huge sense of condescension from this whole chapter and I have no desire to continue reading. (Plus, I don’t know why I thought I would enjoy this anyway. I’m very antisocial and misanthropic, I do not like people lmao)

I read the first book in this series, We Are the Origin, last year and really enjoyed it, so I couldn’t wait for the sequel! However, this one just did not work for me. I DNF’d at 44% in. 

There were a few things I did enjoy, so we’ll start with those. I always have and always will love the shaders! And I especially loved the baby shader Ronka who was introduced in this novel. So adorable!😍 I loved the chapter headings and highlighted several of them! The writing of those was gorgeous. And I was very intrigued by some *reveals* that happened in this story. (I obviously can’t say what because of spoilers lol) I found those very interesting and I thought they would move the story forward.

But honestly, I was almost halfway done with this book and NOTHING had happened. All they did was sit in the woods and talk… It felt like one long scene. They didn’t change locations, no action had happened since the first few pages, most of the conversations that were had were either unimportant or could’ve been had later in the book after the actual story started, NOTHING was happening. The story did not move forward at all. And I thought once the *reveals* that I mentioned earlier happened, that the story would move along, but nope, they’re still just sitting in the woods talking… 

I also did not enjoy how much meaner (and weaker) the characters were in this novel. I understand that the main character, Brandi, is not supposed to be nice, and I enjoyed her not-so-niceness in the first book, but in this one she’s a straight bully. And Sarah, who is another character that I liked in the first book was so much weaker in this one. And don’t get me started on Noble, who is even meaner than Brandi. I just couldn’t stand any of the characters in this book, and that was very disappointing because I enjoyed some of these characters in the last one.

This was just a disappointing sequel for me. I tried to push through so I could continue the series, but I just can’t. Maybe another day when I can prepare myself for the slow pace, I’ll pick this back up so that I can try the next book. 

Thank you to the author for this arc. All opinions are my own.