I had a great time with this book, though I think it warrants another read for me as I had some trouble keeping the characters straight in my head - I suppose a print book would have helped with this since I could review more.

There were a few cringy lines, but for the most part I enjoyed Gideon's character (similar to my own) and the slow development of her relationship with Harrowhark. They made an interesting pair and I loved a lot of the other characters too.

Awesome and different story, for certain! 

 I guess my main confusion is I thought this was a standalone but it isn't apparently? But even if it isn't, in most murder-mysteries, I thought the killer was revealed by the end. I don't read a lot of mystery books, so maybe I'm just out of touch at this point, but I thought there was always the over-arching mystery that they can't solve in the one book that carries over the whole series and then the other that gets solved within the one book (if there is going to be a series, which wasn't specified and I thought this was a standalone).

Was this solved? I'm honestly not... sure? Like, there is the assumption, but I'm still uncertain if their assumption is actually true by the end. And then it seems like they brought in another murder in the last couple of sentences, so now I'm just more confused by this being a standalone or not.

Aside from that, I really did enjoy most of this. I don't know why I found the world compelling, but something about the corporate world of match-making is way more interesting than just some other tech-based company, even if it is all sort of the same thing on the back-end. I liked the idea of having a separate company just to verify people are who they say they are, too. Just seems like fun to me and also that Claudia feels like Veronica Mars but also is NOT great at the role (but may be getting better).

I'd say aside from the ending not being clear to me, I enjoyed it over-all. 

It didn't have me biting my nails or on the edge of my seat like a 5 star might, but overall it was a pretty damn good book and I'm excited to see the rest of the series play out. All of the characters have enriched, beautiful life breathed into them and even though there are multiple POVs, there is still an awesome, mysterious air to the story.

I listened to the audiobook and wound up buying the ebook just to look at the map and the character glossary because the names tripped me up at times, but the magic of the world really weaves well through the narrative and the narrator is top notch. Definitely recommend checking it out. 

 I get what they are going for, but I felt like the story itself was a little boring. It only got really interesting at the end. Also I'm really tired of the over-used pet names and the repetitiveness of Sokka complaining about them. The joke works fine once in a while, but it's all WAY overdone. 

 I enjoyed the native culture of this book and probably would've liked it more if the FBI investigation thing hadn't been involved at all because that's where it fell flat for me. It felt really unbelievable that they had a 22 year old posing as a high school student and then pulling in a 19 year old into an investigation. I'm usually pretty good at suspending disbelief but that was really hard to wrap my brain around; it didn't feel realistic.

Also Daunis was very Mary Sue-ish. She seemed to be perfect at everything. Super smart, super athletic, super great at investigation even though she's 19 years old and not a detective, gets the guy she likes even though she says he's only a friend and she'd never date him, etc etc. It was excessive, just like all her heroics. I didn't really like her all that much by the end, if I'm honest. And eventually got tired of Jamie too. 

 I enjoyed most of the characters in this and I think that's why I kept going, but in the end, the references and 'knock you over the head' social issues made it taste sour. I feel like some of the ways the author was trying to represent the queer community went too far into stereotypical tokenization. And while I am a person who enjoys humor in their stories, there is a point in which the pop-culture takes over and stops being humorous and gets obnoxious.

There was just a lot of overt cliches that made it less enjoyable than it could have been. Having a Big Bad that has literally no nuance to them is boring and is always made worse when we have to follow the internal thoughts of that person.

The world itself was interesting and could have been something cool if there was just more subtlety used. These are important messages to share, but there are ways to do it in which it is enjoyable to read as a story rather than an essay on right and wrong. 

 I dunno about how I really feel about this book, but overall I don't think it's something I would re-read for any sort of enjoyment. I didn't care that much for the magic system--in fact it felt pretty bland and after its first introduction was kind of hardly addressed half the time aside from it being a source of money rather than actual magic. Everything was mostly focused on the languages and the historical aspects which would be fine if it was presented a little less dryly.

I did like the characters, but after a while even they were not enough to sustain the blandness of the dragging plot. Especially when

people start dropping like flies.

I finished it, but it was another work of Kuang's that I didn't care for--even less than the Poppy War series which I didn't finish. 

I don't usually read short stories, so this was really fun! Some of them I felt were a little too short and didn't quite give enough meat for me to really bite into, but others felt like just the right amount. 

1. Starsong by Tehlor Kay Mejia: ★★
I liked that this had an f/f romance budding and that there was an interesting magic system that was kind of explained, but most of the story was just a budding romance of DMs between the characters and then we don't even see the date they go on so it's kind of a let down.

2. Afterbirth by Andrea Cremer: ★★
I know this was meant to be a sort of play off witch trials and the old interview logs, but I didn't really care for it that much. I didn't connect much with the characters so that is generally a surefire means that I'm not going to care much for what's going on. The writing style was great though.

3. The Heart in Her Hands by Tesse Sharpe: ★★★
I liked some things about this story and disliked others. Whenever I hear soul-marks I instantly want to barf. Especially when it's the kind that's "these are the first words they'll say to you" because it's a horrible fandom trope. I understand that the whole point was the main character rebelled against it, but just the fact that it existed in the world makes my stomach ache. The f/f relationship was cute, the whole kitchen witch was also a cute thing you don't see a lot and I liked the whole spin on how her magic changed in the end. 

4. Death in the Sawtooths by Lindsay Smith: ★★★★★
I liked this world a lot! Such a weird world that had me thinking of a lot of video games and TV shows all bundled into one world and it's always great when it's a reluctant pair of main characters forced to work together. I don't know why this one really resonated with me, but I just really loved the world building in this and I felt instantly connected with the main character.

5. The Truth About Queenie by Brandy Colbert: ★★★
I liked Queenie and her family and her friendship, but was a little disappointed with the love triangle angle it took. It also was light on the witch aspect and would be more interesting to see Queenie come into her power as it seemed to be an interesting magic they have.

6. The Moonapple Menagerie by Shveta Thakrar: ★
I sort of checked out during this. It was extremely confusing toward the end and I couldn't tell what the hell was going on, so I honestly can't tell you what happened.

7. The Legend of Stone Mary by Robin Talley: ★★★
This was interesting enough with a f/f relationship that I guess was supposed to be a sort of gotcha though in such a short story doesn't quite work so it might as well not have been included at all. It also felt kind of strange that

a hunter would know so much about a witch curse and the witch wouldn't?

I liked the characters though and it was a nice ending.

8. The One Who Stayed by Nova Ren Suma: ★★
I guess this one was trying to not give too much face to the coven and only to the newest member who was actually named in the story, but the way it was written felt clunky and made it difficult for me to stay connected to it.

9. Divine are the Stars by Zoraida Cordova: ★★★★
Funnily enough, I was expecting the 'come and collect' line to be about 'coming to get the magic' and not about 'getting wealth' from the beginning, but I certainly hadn't expected to see their grandmother the way she was. It was really great imagery and the family had a great dynamic that felt realistic.

10. Daughters of Baba Yaya by Brenna Yovanoff: ★★
This was kind of forgettable to me. It felt pretty childish and unremarkable and truthfully, I don't really remember much about it.

11. The Well Witch by Kate Hart: ★★★★
I don't generally like wild west sorts of stories, but I kind of liked this one. I wasn't a huge fan of the second act or the open-ended nature of it, but I guess that means that I can choose to believe that it ends well.

12. Beware of Girls with Crooked Mouths by Jessica Spotswood: ★★★★
This was one of those stories where the characters think they are doing the right thing (by doing something that isn't exactly great) but basically fucks everything up spectacularly but the result still winds up basically the same in the end. All thanks to prophecy. It's really good and more f/f grandness.

13. Love Spell by Anna-Marie McLemore: ★★★
This was interesting as the church isn't usually in a witch story as anything but a means to condemn and especially not for a witch that wants to take part in religion. 

14. The Gherin Girls by Emery Lord: ★★★★★
This one was probably one of my favorites. You could really feel the love these girls had for one another!

15. Why They Watch Us Burn by Elizabeth May: ★★★★
I like that this started out with the women being falsely accused as witches (as they do back then) only to then turn into witches as time goes on. It was really powerful. f/f relationship in this one.

I don't remember Fall of the House of Usher as it's been about oh... 22 years since I last read it. I know that I enjoyed it, but I'd have to re-read it to really compare it to the original and know the parallels to the two.

It wasn't a huge twist, really--I figured out what was going on pretty early on. Which was fine, it didn't make me want to stop reading or anything. There was a lot of info dumping in the middle of scenes which took me out of the action. Especially when it's in the middle of a conversation and then tries to throw you back into it like nothing ever happened.

The sworn soldier thing is still confusing to me and I suppose if I read this in print and could go back and re-read sentences over and over I might get it, but I was reading audiobook so I didn't have the luxury (or the interest, if I'm honest).

It also didn't feel all that horresque to me, but it could've been the narrator; it felt pretty blasé for the most part. I've had other horror books via narration that chilled me before and this one just didn't quite hit that mark. 

 I don't know what it is about hockey stories, but I never seem to find one I don't like. (I probably shouldn't say that, I might jinx myself). Anyway, this was really nice, I loved the atmosphere enough that I kind of wish it was longer than it was. I like that there was exploration of mental health and sexuality and great family interaction in it and you can never go wrong with rivals to lovers when it's done well and I think this written really well.

Also, I don't know why, but any story that mentions fanfic just gives me the warm fuzzies and always makes me hope that the author was/is a ff writer; makes one feel a little closer to them in some way--that might be silly, but whatever. It is what it is.