booktribe's Reviews (603)

This book was definitely not what I was expecting, but in a great way! It is not your typical romance, it is a beautiful story about two poeple’s lives together. I’ve been craving more books that showcase the length of a real partnership and this book gave me that. It showed the progression of our main characters and their relationship, as well as the progression of the side character’s lives. Speaking of characters, the characters were developed so well! I really loved them, main and side characters. Some of them had to grow on me though, but that’s because they felt like real people who came with good and bad aspects. 

The book took a little minute for me to get into. I wish we had seen a little more of a cute dating experience before they got serious. But, around 35-40% into the book, it started to pick up for me because I started really caring about these characters and their lives. The book also had a good amount of funny scenes, as well as emotional scenes. There is one scene in the second chapter where I went from being incredibly angry to cracking up out loud in a matter of two sentences! This is definitely a sweet, emotional, at times frustrating, and engrossing read. If you’re looking for a book where you’ll be fully invested in the characters and story, pick this up! Also, I’m in love with this cover and the fact that this book had Black trans woman representation🥰

This book is peak Black love!❤️

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

TW: transphobia, cancer, death, alcoholism, infidelity, difficult childbirth, minor adult/minor flirtation

It is just soooo long winded. The author describes every single thing in a scene from the color of someone’s shoes to the scuff on the hardwood floors. I can’t. It could’ve been cute😭

On the run from his past, Eric, and his two daughters, are desperate for cash when he comes across an ad that says he could get paid good money to stay in a house. However, there’s a catch. The house is haunted and the owner needs someone to prove the paranormal activity. Eric is eager to take the job, not just because his family needs the money, but also because he has secrets and questions that need to be answered. Can staying in the spite house help him? Or will he and his family be devoured by it first?

I really enjoyed this book! It built SUSPENSE okay?? There were so many secrets! I stayed very intrigued throughout this book, I had to know what was going on! I also loved the characters, which is rare for me in horror books. I wanted the whole family to be safe and I even cared about side characters. I enjoyed the writing, I highlighted so many good quotes in this book. I always love Black gothic books, and this one was no different.

I spent most of this book thinking I’d give it 5 stars, but I did have a couple of problems that kept it from being a 5 star read. Firstly, I found it hard to picture the house, specifically the “floating” hallway. I’m not sure if it’s just me or if it wasn’t explained well enough, but the layout of the house and layout of the whole property confused me. I think the book could benefit from having a map or some type of imagery showing the layout of the house and the whole property. And the second problem I had was with the ending. I was left with questions and it felt incomplete to me. There was a big mystery of the book that was left unsolved. I think that was purposeful, but it made the story feel unfinished.

I really liked this book and definitely recommend it to anyone who loves horror! I’ll be looking forward to seeing more from this author in the future!

Thank you Macmillan-Tor/Forge and NetGallley for this arc. All opinions are my own.

TW: war and cancer mentioned, child death, child neglect, suicide 

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

Sadly, I DNFed this book at 59%

I wanna start my review with the things I liked about the book. Firstly, the character development. I can tell that the author really cared about her characters and developed them well. They all have distinct personalities and I can tell that there will be lots of characters growth and changes in the series! I particularly liked Elijah and Emriah. Another thing I enjoyed was the ASL representation. The world needs more ASL representation in the media and I enjoyed picturing the characters signing while imagining the scenes. I’d like to see more of that in books.

But there are a few major things I didn’t like about this book. Firstly, there was a huge lack of world building. This book takes place on another planet, but that’s barely mentioned. And we have no idea what this planet is like. How is it similar to Earth? How is it different besides the fact that humans can’t talk on this planet? And speaking of that, we didn’t learn the reason why humans couldn’t talk on this planet until 35% into the book. We’re thrown into the story with no setting of the scene. The second thing I didn’t like about this book, and the main reason why I couldn’t finish it, is the many inconsistencies within the plot. I have so many questions about this book that I know will not be answered. There have been multiple scenes where something happens that makes absolutely no sense to me. I can’t tell if it’s the characters purposefully being stupid, or if it’s just lazy writing to hurry up and get us to the next scene with no regard for the reader’s or the characters’ common sense. The characters make a lot of stupid decisions. It was also a little too slow for my liking. I think it could be shorter. But I could’ve easily gotten past that if not for the other problems I mentioned. Those things made the book very frustrating for me to read.

I do feel like one day in the future I will try another one of this author’s books because I see a lot of potential for great storytelling. I’m hoping I’ll enjoy something more in the future!🤞🏽

I can tell it was trying to do body horror around pregnancy, but it was just uncomfortable, not scary. Also, way too much penetration mentioned in the book for my liking😬 (both sexual and non sexual). Somebody was just constantly poking her in the vag, I didn’t like it lmao

In my head I said, this is not body horror, it’s more like vaginal terror, and I stand by that😭

And  it was pretty boring as well as uncomfortable.

Couldn’t connect to the characters, specifically the male mc.