chronicallybookish's Reviews (1.53k)

3/27/22
Quick Stats
Age Rating: 14+
Over All: 5 stars
Plot: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Setting: 5/5
Writing: 5/5

Special thanks to Bloomsbury YA for an ARC of this book! All thoughts and opinions reflected in this review are my own.

This book just drove home what I already knew. I would read Brigid Kemmerer’s grocery list and love it. This is one of my most anticipated books coming this spring—I mean, Brigid Kemmerer, return to Emberfall and Syhl Shallow, disability rep, AND MORE TYCHO???—and it exceeded all my expectations.
This book is tri-POV, following Jax and Callyn, best friends who live in a small Syhl Shallow town near the boarder to Emberfall, and Tycho, a fan favorite from the Cursebreakers series. As courtly politics and magic reach Cal and Jax’s town, they find themselves on opposing sides of a potential war, and have to face the fact that everything they’ve always known about magic and the King, may not be true.

I loved this book. I loved the plot, the story, and I already loved the world, but now I love it even more. I loved all the cameos from Jake, Harper, Grey, Rhen, Noah, and Lia Mara. I loved the disability representation in Jax, a below the knee amputee. I loved one of the romances. I already adored Tycho, and I loved seeing more of him. I loved Callyn and Jax and their personalities and characterizations and growth. I JUST LOVED THIS BOOK OKAY?

I will admit, Callyn’s storyline kind of made me want to scream at times, since, because I’ve read the Cursebreakers, I knew so much that she didn’t and I just wanted to shake some sense into her. I mean, don’t get me wrong. It was well written, made sense with her character, her past, the world, and all of that. I think it was well done and I don’t have any complaints with it, it was just SO FRUSTRATING. I think it was supposed to be.

I flew through this book. It’s like 560 pages, and I read the whole thing in under 24 hours. In two sittings. I stayed up late into the night, reading until I couldn’t keep my eyes open and had to put it down because I was so hooked. I honestly don’t know what it is about Brigid Kemmerer’s books that are so addicting to me. Her characters are just so alive, her worlds are so easy to fall into, and she is a master of keeping you on the edge of your seat.

All of that is to say: this is the best book I have read so far this year—and I’ve read 61 books so far. I have only one complaint, and that is the fact that I’ll have to wait over a year for book 2.

3/15/22
BRIGID FREAKING KEMMERER MAN
I LOVE HER I LOVE THE CURSEBREAKERS I LOVE DEFY THE NIGHT I LOVE THIS
actual rtc

Quick Stats
Age Rating: 15+
Over All: 5 stars
Plot: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Setting: 5/5
Writing: 5/5

ARC acquired at YALLWest.

Seriously. This book was amazing. I read the whole thing in under 48 hours, and I am chomping at the bit for book 2. The worst part of ARCs will always be having to wait extra long for the sequels. I honestly don’t know how I’m going to do it.
Thrice married, thrice widowed, 18 year old Alessa is the only one with the power to save the world from the impending apocolypse—but she can’t use those powers when she kills every person she touches.
THE ANGST IN THIS BOOK. Immaculate.
A heroine who’s desperate for affection, but whose touch brings excruciating pain and death to anyone she so much as brushes her finger against—until she meets him. Think Juliette from Shatter Me type trope. Alessa has all the angsty longing of Juliette, but she’s a little bit more mentally stable, a little less whiny, and a little more fully fledged as a character (in my opinion).
Dante—the one person she can touch—is the epitome of tall dark and brooding. He has all the essential perfect traits of your favorite YA love interests, but he’s dynamic, relateable. The mystery of his past draws you in and is revealed slowly but feels natural to the story. The suspense and intrigue around him builds as his secrets begin to come to light. It’s drawn out deliciously, but never to the point where it becomes overwrought or annoying.
But he has a personality outside of his brooding secretive side. A softness, humor, and a genuineness that lends an air of realism and unpredictability to his character.
And he and Alessa together absolutely wreck me. I’m obsessed.

Though not directly stated in the text, Emily Thiede has stated that Alessa has ADHD. The representation is #ownvoices and absolutely incredible. The ableism she faces broke my heart, especially when it came from the people who were supposed to love and protect her unconditionally. The way that she internalized and grappled with that ableism she’s been shown from those who claim to love her hit so hard in a way that both destroyed me and made me feel seen. And when Alessa chose to value herself as she is and trust herself and love herself… I nearly cried, it was so powerful.

This book was incredible, unique, powerful, angsty, amazing, swoonworthy and a bit steamy. I am obsessed, I tell you, and I cannot recommend this enough.

Quick Stats
Age Rating: 14+
Over All: 4 stars
Plot: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Setting: 4/5
Writing: 3.5/5

Special thanks to booksparks and Clarion Books for a copy of this book! All thoughts and opinions reflected in this review are my own.

The plot of the latter half of the Spin the Dawn duology. A unique cast of characters. An omniscient narrator. Add all of that together and what do we get? A good book.
I actually don’t think I’ve read a non-classic book with an omniscient narrator before, and at first I wasn’t sure how to feel. The narration started out pretty heavy handed in the first couple chapters, and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get into it. However, after the first few chapters, the narration voice faded a bit, making it more akin to your typical third person narration, with a few instances of that omniscience peaking through, and I was able to be absorbed.
I liken the plot to that of Unravel the Dusk, because the driving goal is very similar, but this book is still wholly unique. I can honestly say I haven’t read anything like it. There were plenty of twists and turns that had me on the edge of my seat. Some moments had me full on gasping. The story takes a sharp turn when we get to part 2 (or maybe part 3? Whichever part comes at the like, 60-70% mark), and watching the unexplained aspects of the first part of the story come together with the tendrils of the second part was fascinating. The plot and storytelling were so multifaceted in a way that isn’t common in YA fantasy.
Sometimes all the different moving pieces, and the unique narration, ended up bogging down the pacing and plot, which is the reason I didn’t give it five stars, but it was still thoroughly enjoyable and I highly recommend this book!

Quick Stats
Age Rating: 9+
Over All: 4 stars
Plot: 3/5
Characters: 4/5
Setting: 4/5
Writing: 5/5

Thank you so much Caitlin Sangster for hosting the giveaway of this book that I won! All thoughts and opinions reflected in this review are my own.

This was a fun, cute, and quick read. A good middle grade debut. There were some plot holes, some aspects of the magic that were never really explained, and some actions that didn’t quite make sense in the character’s context. Also, the “plot twist” near the climax didn’t surprise me in the least.
However, I think this will be a lot of fun for a fantasy-loving preteen. This is a book I’d have loved in middle school, and despite some holes, I did quite enjoy. Plus, the cover is adorable, and the world can always use more fantasy standalones.

Quick Stats
Age Rating: 8+
Over All: 3.5 stars
Plot: 3.5/5
Characters: 4/5
Setting: 4/5
Writing: 3/5

Special thanks to TLC Book Tours and Amulet Books for an ARC of this book! All thoughts and opinions reflected in this review are my own.

I shall call this… mixed feelings. This book had a lot of potential. Black girl magic summer camp? Sign me up. I love magical boarding school books, and the magic and world of this one was fascinating. The writing and actual plot just… didn’t quite live up to that. I had a hard time getting into it, and some of the writing was clunky, and the way things were worded was confusing. And if I had a hard time understanding what the author was trying to say, someone in the age range this book was written for will probably have an even harder time.
I really liked the social media aspect of the book. I love books about kids wanting to be influencers, and I think that aspect of the book, for the most part, was interesting and fun. I wasn’t a fan of the intersection of the youtube and magic. I don’t think they meshed well. There were a lot of things we were just told about magic and tech, and expected to believe, but it didn’t make sense to me.
All in all, it was good, but it had so much potential to be better.

Quick Stats
Age Rating: 13+
Over All: 4 stars
Plot: 3/5
Characters: 3/5
Setting: 4/5
Writing: 3.5/5
Disability Rep: 5/5

Special thanks to Penguin Teen for sending me a copy of this book! All thoughts and opinions reflected in this review are my own.

I have mixed feelings on this book. It was good. The chronic illness representation, and the portrayal of becoming sick, getting a diagnosis, and everything that comes along with that was incredibly well done. You can tell it’s own voices. But there just wasn’t really anything outside of that.
The book is super short. Like 250 pages. But I think that’s a good thing, because it’s also very slow paced. The narration is 80-90% introspection and internal monologue. Outside of the chronic illness, there isn’t really a plot. We just kind of float along with Anna (see what I did there?) through her life. There’s no tension. There’s no true driving force. And I liked it and felt engaged with it, because I lived it and I related to it and saw myself in it, but I think it will have a very hard time keeping the attention of a non-chronically ill reader.

Some reviews seem to dislike that the illness used is fictive. I don’t have anything against that. The authors reasoning for why she did that makes a lot of sense to me. Able bodied people do not understand what it’s like to suddenly become sick and have your entire world upside down—but they think that they do. They have an idea of what it’s like, which isn’t inherently bad, but it’s usually not correct, either. There is a surrealness to becoming chronically ill that an able bodied person cannot understand, so Heather Kamins wrote about a surreal disease to try to relay that feeling, and I think that was a really interesting take.
Also, disabled authors don’t have to write about their own disabilities. Writing about her experiences while using a fictitious disease could have been healing. It could have been a way to process the trauma that comes with becoming chronically ill without having to directly face it.
Disabled people owe you nothing. Some of the reviews saying they wished she’d written about her own chronic illness just really didn’t sit right with me. There is so much trauma around becoming sick and everything that comes after. Medical trauma from doctors, sure, but it’s also so traumatizing in general to have your body turn against you. Like, you traumatize yourself, which is hard to express in a way that makes sense, but that’s how it feels. And however someone choses to relay or express that trauma is valid and acceptable and you are not entitled to more.

I highly recommend this book, whether you are abled or disabled. It may be a little slow or boring if you can’t directly relate, but it’s so important. It expresses what it is like to go through the onset of a chronic illness beautifully. And I think that’s something everybody needs to read about more.

Quick Stats
Age Rating: 14+
Over All: 4 stars
Plot: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Setting: 4/5
Writing: 4/5

Special thanks to Penguin Teen for providing me with a free copy of this book! All thoughts and opinions reflected in this review are my own.

I love Jessica Goodman. They’ll Never Catch Us, her previous novel, was one of my favorite thrillers of last year, so I had high hopes for The Counselors—and it did not disappoint!

Camp Alpine Lake is Goldie’s happy place. Every summer she goes to the posh camp for super rich kids on a scholarship, because her parents work there, and there is nowhere she feels safer. After everything that happened to her during the school year, she’s more desperate for camp and the friends that come with it than ever. But when a local boy is found floating face down in the river, dead—or maybe murdered?—Goldie has to face the fact that her favorite place on earth might now be the idyllic sanctuary she’s always thought it.

Is this a murder mystery? Yes. But It’s also so much more. Told in alternating time lines, we see Goldie’s summer, but also her past. We see her friendship with her best (camp) friends unfold over the years, we learn all about Goldie’s dark secrets from the school year, and we get to see how all of these things tie back to the body in the lake. It’s an intoxicating mystery, but it’s also a story of family, both blood and found, bullying, first love, and female friendships. I think The Counselors will appeal to anyone who loves a good contemporary, even if they don’t typically pick up mysteries.
I was so invested in every aspect of this book. The mystery, of course, had me utterly drawn in and on the edge of my seat, but I was also desperate to see more of these characters I grew to love, and to bear witness to the ups and downs of Goldie, Ava, and Imogen’s relationship, which though strong, definitely got toxic at times. Despite the toxicity, I couldn’t help but root for all these broken girls to figure things out and come back together.
I enjoyed the ending. It wasn’t the most shocking thing ever. I wasn’t thrown for an utter loop like I was with TNCU, but I was satisfied and I thought it packed a good punch. Watching the pieces finally fall into place, like the most satisfying puzzle, made up for the fact that the whodunnit wasn’t a huge surprise.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I highly recommend it, and I really need to finally pick up Goodman’s debut, They Wish They Were Us.