A sapphic retelling of the story of Elizabeth Bathory as a battle of good and evil between a kind hearted midwife is NOT what I was expecting out of this (especially being YA?), and the execution was so much better than I was expecting. The characters are all incredible, and you truly feel yourself being drawn in by Elizabeth in the beginning. Anna was a truly smart protagonist, and I felt very REAL fear for her going through the story. Definitely check out trigger warnings for this (I may have exaggerated the severity of some of these, but this isn't a pretty story either), but definitely a good read. 

Solid audiobook with lovely British boy accents. While very predictable, the magic system, smaller details of the mystery, and banter between the characters was fun enough to keep me engaged. It's a fun twist on a typical "magical school attended by a chosen one raised out of a magical world." I also like the queer rep and the fact that grief and hardship are actively brought up and experienced viscerally by the characters. Agatha, while annoying, is such an interesting and fresh character to me.

I LOVE THIS BOOOOKKK!!

The prose of this book is immaculate. Grade A yearning. And truly, it does it's premise so much justice. This is such a fun, beautiful, heartbreaking book, and I want more of these two so badly. This is such an amazing book, and I adore it. 

I just didn't super enjoy the dynamic between these two. It felt kinda gross. 

Jesus Christ. This book made me literally sob on multiple occasions. I found the Hell's Belles series on Tiktok pretty soon after it started and quickly grew to love it. My own complicated relationship with religion made me often cry at the series because I hoped so badly that this is what heaven and God would be like. This book just reinforced that. Seeing Sharky, Lily, and Bel grow and come together as a family and heal from individual wounds made me sob. At work, at the car coming home from work, in my room, all over. I'm so glad she wrote thisl  

"We must continue to remind ourselves of the wrong turnings taken in the past so we do not repeat them."

I love exploring this world. I loved the characters we followed, and it was interesting to see this side of Gilead. However, this installment lacked the beautiful, lyrical language of the first, which was what I loved about it.

 - "How could Job have allowed God to fob off a batch of new children on him and expect him to pretend the dead ones no longer mattered?" I KNOW RIGHT??
- "Only an idiot would have believed this, so I did." That's funny.
- "Blood was polluting, especially when it came out of girls, but God once liked having it spilled on his altars." Yeah people.
- "Giving up was the new normal, and I have to say it was catching." Sadly, yes.
- "All that was necessary was a law degree and a uterus: a lethal combination." Hell yeah it is.
- "The powerless is so tempting." Ugh/
- "Yes, the thought-experiment penises can get out of control." What a sentence.
- "I am the great proponent of better. In the absence of best. Which is how we live now."
- "The doctors, the dentists, the lawyers, the accountants: in the new world of Gilead, as in the old, their sins are frequently forgiven them." Sadly, yes.
- It's creepy how the Pearl Girls are so kind to Nicole at first, only to completely ignore her later.
- "This place is weird as fuck." Yes indeed.
- The feeling of losing faith that Agnes describes is exactly what I felt. It's a grief, for the belief, the diety you believed in, and the person you were when you believed that.
- Paula was so cruel to that Handmaid. That's awful.
-Screw Aunt Lydia for just leaving Becka behind to die. And it's so sweet that they call her a sisteron her gravestone.
- I'm so glad that, as Aunt Lydia says, "You yourself will never have to [behave so cruelly]." I'm so grateful to not have to be the kind of person Aunt Lydia was forced to be. 

These two were so cute!! I love the themes in this book, that all our talents are useful and all people are as well. I wasn't expecting Deaf rep in this book, but it's very much appreciated! This is just such a cute series and I love it.

"Sometimes I get dizzy with all these great ideas swirling around in my golden skull."

This was... fucking weird.

I just don't get it. These people are so strange. There's just no purpose to the story. There's no message. It just... exists. Pretty art though.

This was super cute! I want a tea dragon now!! Especially a chamomile or peppermint. 

Rep: gay, sapphic

I feel like I didn't get it.