As much as I enjoyed The Last Witch trilogy this just didn't do it as much for me. I was happy with how things ended in book 3 and feel like continuing the story may just be dragging things out. It wasn't terrible, it just felt stale for me.

I couldn't put this book down. I had no idea it was possible to tell such a gripping story from just one location. I felt the fear from the characters, the intense need to protect as a mother and the sadness of a failing relationship. So many emotions for a horror story and Iain takes you through them all .

Creepy 'Blair Witch-esque' vibes. I enjoyed this book a lot but felt a little let down by the ending.

My understanding of 'The cursed manuscripts' is that each of the books in the series is a manuscript, and we the reader. It's not really that hard to understand. A very promising anthology series.

Harry Potter for grown ups? Not that I'm a big potter fan, but it's an easy comparison for a book about magical societies set in Yale. It's gritty, sometimes very real and hard hitting. I could definitely feel the faint hint of romance between Alex, Dawes and Darlington's characters, but it didn't overpower and turn into a romance as I find many fantasy novels do.
I felt myself really pulled in by Alex and her story, her history and her absolute determination to live a better life at Yale, to somehow try and fit in.
I really enjoyed the way Bardugo addresses real life college issues into this book, as well as the bigger societal issues of how unfair the game of life can really be to someone like Alex, someone special and talented, but not from money or power.

The ending was perfect and I can't wait to read on and hopefully see more of Darlington's character and story.

I would like to apologise to this book for sitting on my tbr for so damn long!...

This book is just stunning in so many ways. It has women's rights and LGBTQ intertwined with fairytales and spells. I love how each chapter is set up with a spell, this was such a magical touch for me.

This is the first of Alix E Harrow that I've read and I definitely won't be stopping here.

A good place to start if you're interested in the world of Dark Academia. For me, I prefer my DA to lean more towards the realms of fantasy, magic and paranormal, so there were a few in here that I just didn't vibe with, not to say they were badly written, they just weren't my preferred genre within DA. Overall it's a good anthology with some very well written stories. My favourite overall was The Professor of Ontography by Helen Grant, a well rounded Dark Academia love story with a horror twist.

My other favourite's:
The Hare and the Hound by Kelly Andrew.
X House by J. T. Ellison
The Ravages by Layne Fargo