booktribe's Reviews (603)

A short, fun, spooky read. Perfect for Halloween! Hoping we get a sequel👀 I’ll definitely be reading more from Kyeate!

I did not want this book to end!🥰🥰 Give me all the Black gothic books!!!!

This book was so cute!! I loved Reggie and Makayla together! Reggie is definitely a new favorite book boyfriend. He was so sweet and caring! 

I loved that they went on so many dates! When I’m reading a romance book THAT’S what I want to see, adorable dates! 

Fake dating is my favorite trope, but I loved the fresh spin the author put on it in this book, for every fake date they went on, Reggie got to take Makayla out on a real date. I loved that twist on the fake dating trope. 

This definitely didn’t feel like a debut novel. The writing flowed so well, the characters were interesting, and the chemistry between the characters was great! I can’t wait to read more of Lady Marie’s books!

Thank you Lady Marie for this arc! All opinions are my own.

Update: the more I think about this book, the more I hate it, so I’m knocking it down from 2 stars to 1 star.

I have a lot of thoughts about this book, most not good…

*Note: Being that this book is by a Black author, I feel the need to state that the way she chose to write her book is valid! Though I do not agree with the way she wrote it, doesn’t mean it’s problematic in any way. Also, I am a Black woman and this review is coming from the perspective of me as a Black woman.*

I’ll start out with the couple of things I liked about this book. I liked the podcast element, since it broke up otherwise monotonous writing. And I thought the character work was good. By this I mean, I thought the characters were exactly who they were supposed to be? Did I like anyone other than our protagonist Maddy? No. But the characters were developed well.

Now, let’s get into the main thing that ruined this book for me and why I hate it. The protagonist of this book was Maddy, but most of the pov chapters were in the minds of racists and racism apologists. I assumed that our protagonist was the main character and that her voice would be centered in this novel, but it was not. Instead the story mainly centered 2 people, one being the main racist’s bestfriend who condones the racist things her bestfriend does and even laughs and enjoys those things, and the second one being the Black boyfriend of that character who only cares about the white gaze and also is okay with the racist things his friends do, even though he himself is Black. We all know people like that right? Well, I  do not want to read a book that centers their povs. It was EXHAUSTING being in their heads. And had I known that we would spend most of our time with them, I would’ve never picked this book up. 

Also, I made the mistake of picking this as a group book for the Black readathon I’m hosting, not realizing that it centers the racists more than our protagonist. So, I definitely regret picking this book for a readathon that centers the Black experience. And I would’ve DNFed this book at about 30% in if I hadn’t chosen it.

I have one more thing to say, but this thing includes a major spoiler, so if you don’t want spoilers please don’t read the review beyond this point😊





❗️❗️SPOILER WARNING❗️❗️

The worst racist of them all not dying at the end was incredibly disappointing. Also, little miss racism apologist that I mentioned up above, got off very easily and no harm came to her at all. A book that’s supposed to be about getting revenge on racists with no revenge on the biggest racists, how dreadful…


Also, why would the Black students want to have an integrated prom with those racists? The whole integrated prom thing would’ve been way more believable if the school wanted to do damage control and decided to integrate the prom. No group of Black people that I know would ever want to go to same prom as a group of racists. I found that to be almost a plot hole.

I didn’t care for the love interest. I liked everything about the book except for the male love interest, but I never enjoy romances if I don’t like the characters so why continue reading🤷🏽‍♀️

I just didn’t care about the characters or the story.

This was such a wonderful book! It started off great and kept me consistently interested throughout. I’m the type of reader who reads multiple books at once, but while reading this book, I didn’t pick up anything else! I just had to finish it.

I loved so much about this book. I am IN LOVE with the Black, magical burlesque club! The movie Burlesque is one of my favorite movies, so making it Black and witchy was like a dream come true. I wanna go there, I wanna work there, it’s just perfection. The characters were very interesting. You either loved them or hated them, but no one was forgettable! I really enjoyed watching our main character, Zora, grow as a person and as a witch. The fashion descriptions in this book were everything! And the author really knew how to set the tone and describe everything you’re reading, from outfits to detailed scene descriptions, without it feeling like info dumping or getting boring. 

I just have so many wonderful things to say about this book! My only complaint was that I found the reveal of the murder mystery to be kinda obvious. It’s like the person you most suspect is the one who did it. I wish the reveal had been more of a twist. But, I loved everything else about this book. It’s Black, Queer, and witchy, what else do you need? More! That’s what else I need, more! I will definitely be reading more from Amanda Ross ASAP!

Simultaneously heartbreaking and beautiful❤️

Aliens by Richard Van Camp: ⭐️

Legends are Made, Not Born by Cherie Dimaline: ⭐️

Perfectly You by David A. Robertson: ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

The Boys Who Became Hummingbirds by Daniel Heath Justice: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ne Le by Darcie Little Badger: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Transitions by Gwen Benaway: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

Imposter Syndrome by Mari Kurisato: DNF (confusing)

Valediction at the Star View Motel by Nathan Adler: ⭐️⭐️

Parallax by Cleo Keahna: ⭐️⭐️⭐️