booktribe's Reviews (603)

One night when tragedy strikes, Raven discovers two things. 1. Vampires exist. And 2. She is a vampire slayer. And now, she wants revenge against vampires for causing that tragedy. However, she gets whisked away from the life she knows to join a slayer training academy. But nothing will stop her from her revenge, not even a vampire prince who she feels an uncontrollable pull too. But, when the threat of an ancient evil comes to light, Raven must stop focusing on revenge (and the distractions trying to keep her from her revenge) and save the world!

This was AMAZING! It was funny with plenty of action and lovable characters! Raven was such a great main character. I loved her! Her inner monologue was so hilarious and her emotions and motivations were very relatable (on a non-vampire revenge scale lol). I loved the way the slayers used alchemical magic to slay vampires! The pacing was great! I stayed engrossed throughout the whole novel. There were multiple twists in the plot! It was just an incredibly engaging story. I didn’t want to read anything else once I started it! I will say that this book does not come off as young adult at all, it’s definitely more new adult. And I thought it was perfect as a new adult book, I just want it to be labeled correctly!

Though I loved this book and gave it 5/5 stars, I did have a few complaints. For one, there were several confusing aspects of this novel. I think it could benefit from a glossary, because there are several different types of slayers as well as vampires, and I found it hard to keep up with the terms for each, so a glossary would be helpful. Also, I was left with questions at the end. Hopefully my questions will be answered in the sequel, but it would’ve been better if they were answered in this story so it didn’t feel incomplete. And there’s one part of the plot that’s about an ill vampire and I’m so confused about why he’s ill and what’s going on with that whole situation. I never understood. And there was one little moment in the book that bothered me. In the beginning, we meet Raven’s best friend Deidre, who is white, and they both go to a predominately Black high school. And there’s one moment where Raven basically applauds Deidre for wanting to attend an HBCU for college. It rubbed me the wrong way because I don’t think she deserves praise for wanting to infiltrate our spaces. That was just a little thing that didn’t sit right with me. No other scenes in the book gave off that vibe, so those side-eye type of feelings didn’t persist for me, but that one part did bother me. 

Overall I loved this book so much! Even though I had some critiques, my enjoyment of the book was so high that I didn’t deduct any stars in my rating! It was such a great experience reading this! And the way that the sequel was set up excites me so much! I cannot wait! 

Thank you to Entangled Teen Publishing and Sharina Harris for this arc! All opinions are my own.

TW: Self harm induced magic, sexual content, foster care & child abuse mentioned 

My fave Brandon Massey book I’ve read so far! I always love vampire stories, especially when they’re Black! And this book was INTENSE. The second half of the book was basically back to back straight up action and horror! I loved that! And not to reveal too much, but Brandon Massey shole wasn’t scared to kill off some characters we loved🤭😭

The characters did make a lot of stupid and terrible decisions though, which really annoyed me. I feel like that was a writing problem, because the characters weren’t naturally stupid, they made these stupid decisions so that the story could go where the author wanted it to go. I think the author could’ve done more to move the story along rather than just have the characters make dumb decisions that no person in their right mind would make. But that was my only complaint. I really enjoyed this novel!

They really killed almost EVERYBODY though😭😭😭 And that’s one of the things I loved about it. It felt like no one was safe, because most of them weren’t.

This was cute! I really liked Jamir and I enjoyed the side characters as well! I do wish Emmy had had a little more personality and that he and Jamie had more chemistry, but they were still a cute couple. If you’re looking for a super short and sweet read, this is the book for you! 

P. S. I think we just might get a spin off book about Gena in the future👀

This novel is not ghost horror, the ghosts are not the creepy part of this book, humans are, it is humanity-horror. And not only does it show the horror of humanity, it shows the horror of grief and how grief can make you do some strange things… 

Also loved that 2 short stories (unrelated to Linghun) were included in the back of the book!

Yongshi: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Teeter Totter: ⭐️⭐️✨

I loved this book soooo much! Naomi and Finn are amazing characters. They’re one of my favorite book couples as well as some of my favorite individual book characters. I loved them so much. This book was an emotional read for me personally because I saw so much of myself in Finn, Naomi too. Just feeling like you have to be someone else to please others really hit home. But reading it also felt very therapeutic for me. There were several quotes that I needed to hear that make me feel like it’s safe to be my authentic self as well, just like both of the main characters. So, not only was this book incredibly adorable with a perfect book boyfriend, funny moments, and intense pining, but it was also a book that meant a lot to me emotionally and actually is helping me work through my own problems. So, it was amazing in several ways. Definite 5 stars🫶🏽


P.S. why on God’s green earth was Naomi not scared to share a house with 4 strange men?? ESPECIALLY without having a working lock on her door! Did she not care about her life??? Did she have a death wish??? Obviously it worked out just fine, but that was a lil unrealistic to me lol.

I read Dawn earlier this year and really enjoyed it, so I was excited to continue the series! However, this book is slower than dial up Internet. I got almost halfway through and barely anything had happened. That 44% could’ve been reduced to the first 15% of the book. And I didn’t care about the main character at all. Like he’s interesting for a minute, but not interesting enough to carry a whole book. I missed Lilith. 

I will say that I still think Octavia E. Butler is a genius because her mind works like no other. I don’t know how she thought of the things she wrote about, but it’s pretty mind blowing that she had these ideas. The execution just wasn’t there for me in this novel. I just know that I can’t get through another 56% of this pacing with basically nothing happening. I hate to abandon the whole series, but I can’t force myself to read another word.

And don’t fight me because I know how you girls like to tussle😬

I read Bookmarked by Bella Jay in December and couldn’t wait to read more of her work! But sadly I didn’t enjoy this one. Firstly, there was way more telling than showing. The characters are thinking about the dates they went on after the fact instead of showing the dates in real time. Some dates were shown in real time, but the interesting dates were just thought about. 

This book also made me realize how much I don’t like friends to lovers sometimes because she thinks they’re friends, but he’s just been plotting on her ever since he met her. He became friends with her just to date her, which is very sad to me. I also don’t like the woman mc. She didn’t even really like him. And I think he was just in love with the idea of her.

And the accidental pregnancy at the end, which I always hate, really just made it seem like she was only with him now because she’s stuck. Also, when she left the party, he didn’t even make sure she got home safe. They did not care about each other fr.

This just wasn’t it for me. But I still wanna read more Bella Jay in the future to try to recapture that Bookmarked level story. 

This is one of my favorite, if not my straight up favorite, short story collections of all time! Most short story collections are usually hit or miss with each story, but not this one! I enjoyed basically every story. There was one that was just okay to me, but there were NO BAD STORIES! The writing was so beautiful. The stories made me feel such a wide range of emotions, such as sadness, excitement, anger, and more. My favorite stories were definitely Water Bites Back, Red Cloth White Giraffe, and Plumtree: True Stories, but I loved so many! I would love to see this as a series, an episode for each story. Yvette Lisa Ndlovu has gained a new fan in me! I cannot wait to read more of her writing! Everybody, go pick this up!

📚Red Cloth, White Giraffe: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

📚Second Place is the First Loser: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (TW: colonizing ass mfers)

📚Home Became a Thing With Thorns: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (TW: suicide)

📚The Carnivore’s Lollipop: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (TW: police violence)

📚Swimming With Crocodiles: ⭐️⭐️ (TW: sexual assault mentioned)

📚Ugly Hamsters: A Triptych: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

📚Plumtree: True Stories: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (TW: intense misogyny, sexual assault; this one is WILD & very heavy so read this one with caution)

📚The Friendship Bench: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (I’d choose the resilience aura; I wish this one was longer)

📚Water Bites Back: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

📚Turtle Heart: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

📚The Soul Would Have No Rainbow: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

📚Three Deaths and the Ocean of Time: ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

📚When Death Comes To Find You: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

📚Drinking From Graveyard Wells: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (interesting but I wish there had been closure or explanation at the end)

Average rating: 3.8 stars

Overall rating: 5 stars!