clovetra's Reviews (262)

ohh i think this was too hyped up for me. GOD did i want to love this because i literally have a signed mf copy!!!!! but i mean i didnt hate this! it just wasnt Amazing. it was great, i had fun, and i cant say more than that.
the plot was decent. i'll say at the start it was quite good, and had me intrigued and trying to work ou the "mystery". i felt like there were almost too many plot twists though, and that resulted in none of them being fully fleshed out, instead leaving me slightly confused with what was going on trying to connect all the plot elements to each other. i'll be honest and say i didnt like a lot of the plot twists, especially the one with the island, but i dont necessarily think they were written poorly, i just think it needed more hints? like more for the audience to latch onto to reach that point themselves? especially surrounding celia's fate, actinium, etc., there really wasnt too much buildup in terms of clues, leaving most reveals to become a 'tell not show', which was disappointing. 
the characters were Um.... 
ok i kinda didnt give a fuck about anyone. after the Big Reveal that happens midway in the story about cee, i stopped having any vested interest in the cast. im not really sure why per say, but idk i was holding out hope based on the mystery surrounding celia, and the minute it was resolved i realised i didnt really like any of the characters 🫣 like kay was fine, but she was quite bland and seemed to have no personality (yes i know thats almost the point but guess what. it doesnt make for a good protag). act seemed... i cant put my finger on it. it kinda reminded me of adam from shatter me. i really cant explain it in any other way. he seemed to be trying to fill every hole in the story - scientist, tech wizz, cool mysterious guy, love interest, etc etc etc. like homeboy was doing too much. cee herself was probably my favourite character, but at like 60% of the book she started pissing me off too with her bullshit with hero. speaking of hero he was.... There! he had no personality. yet again the point but, say it with me, i dont care if its a plot element or commentary or theme, if it makes the book boring, it sucks. and he sucked. there were other minor characters too, but honestly what with Everything going on, i couldnt keep track of what the fuck was happening with kay and cee, let alone these side characters. 
the ending? a nothingburger. it really was like deflating a balloon. it sucked all the air out of the story, and by the last couple chapters i was waiting for this to end.
i think a lot of my issues with this is that it was, a) trying to do too much all at once, and b) i didnt get half of the book. sue me im a DUMB READER!! but seriously i was taking notes!! notes!! and yet i still was lost. i think for once my dumb dumb brain is not my fault, so im gonna blame the book. and im serious when i say my lack of enjoyment easily came from this issue. at the start of the book where only a handful of things were going on, i was loving this! but then by the end of the book when theres 47 different plot elements and 21 plot twists i wasnt having fun because it felt like i was trying to do a quiz whilst blindfolded. Huh.
ugh i really wanted to love this. it sounded so up my alley. and plus i OWN THE SIGNED COPY! I HAVE TO LOVE IT! 
maybe i put too much pressure on myself to enjoy this. or maybe i hyped it up to myself too much. either way im sad i didnt like this more :( i defo will reread this Some Day, and pray i enjoy it more when i know wtf is going on, because i'll tell u this was pretty Meh on a first read :((

this was bomb as hell. seriously this book has made it to my list of books i always will rec when someone asks me for my definitive rec list. i think everyone should read this.
this book defo helped me find the words to verbalise a lot of issues i have with societal interpretations and expectations surrounding autism. especially liked the verbalisation surrounding the medical paradigm, it defo helped me put into words why i have such an issue with person-first language.
this also lowkey helped me embrace my autism? not to say i didnt before. but ive always been the person to say "oh if there was a cure for autism i would 100% take it i hate being autistic most of the time it fucking sucks". but idk this book has almost made me realise autism is what makes me who i am? i cannot seperate my autism from me or me from my autism, and this book has made me start to accept that a lot more.
i also loved the definitons of new concepts. this helped me learn im a dumbass and have been misusing neurodivergent because i didnt get the definition. Oops! 
idk how to explain this better but this has defo helped me understand how autism and autism-based activism works on a deeper level. im so serious if anyone ever asks me for autisic and/or nonfic book recs this book WILL be making that list. 
i suck at nonfic reviews 

and the crowd is….. confused?
i defo will say i am more endeared to warner now but like…. i still don’t enjoy him. he’s Fine.
his dialogue is cringe as hell still.
plus ok sure king ur life sucks dick but like so does everyone else’s in this universe. idk he’s kind of pathetic. and not in a cute way.
i’m interested to know wtf is happening with him and juliette.
also bonus points for dog

this was super cute!!!!!!

i don’t really have much to say because this was very much Just A Book

i mean not just its groundbreaking in terms of being a disabled teen and finding love and your people but like. nothing was truly remarkable here.

i love me some disability rep. i love me some sapphic rep. i love me some nonbinary rep.

plot was short and sweet and characters were fine.

odd choice to have this in greyscale imo but what do i know im not an artist.

a good time all around.

what a terrible terrible book.

i can find no redeeming qualities in this.

except that somehow it kept me entertained.

the cringe levels were off the charts.

the love story felt cheap.

every piece of dialogue made me recoil.

the writing was so overly prosaic it lost meaning.

every character is insufferable.

the plot is nonexistent, lacklustre and downright boring.

10/10 i will be continuing the series im sorry i am like that meme of the man mining diamonds i gotta know if it gets better (i highly doubt it will yet for some reason i will still be sat)

damn. i can’t believe ive finished this series. 

um i feel like this was easily the weakest book in the series. i still had a good time but everything was Meh. 

the plot itself was boring as hell. at least in the other books it felt like the characters were consistently working towards their goals, even if they were having tea or going for a walk or something. in this book, idk it felt like most of the time wendell and emily were pissfarting around. yes there were moments were they were directly working to find the stepmother but even when they were, it felt like they couldn’t really put their heart into it. which meant i kind of didn’t care whether they succeeded or failed.

emily… oh how i love her. but upon reflecting god does she give mary sue in this book. i hated the turn she takes. fairy queen does not seem like something she would like based on the character we have been shown in the past two books. a lot of the time she feels out of character, or she feels like she’s just doing and saying things because the plot begs her to. and idk the ways she gets out of “danger” this book feel so contrived. i couldn’t buy it. i just sat there by the end going “ugh” because i knew she wasn’t really in any danger. at least the first book has real stakes!!!! girl lost a finger!!! what are the stakes here? literally nothing she gets everything she wants and more 🙄

wendell loses all his character. sure there’s in-text explanations but i couldn’t care less why his characterisation is just “hey look im fuckjng about also im super duper powerful whooo look at me do cool sword shit”. the other books i looked forward to seeing what shenanigans he got up to. but this book? i almost dreaded every time he opened his mouth because idk it irrationally pissed me the fuck off. 

the ending was nice i guess. i mean i still have issues with it because it didn’t feel earned. ok technically it was earned but the way they earned it felt impossible. like based on the rules set in universe, nobody should’ve survived any of the dangerous things that happened. so it feels almost tainted to me. like i know this is a lighthearted story but when you put the stakes that high insinuating every character should be dead and xyz should happen, and they somehow circumvent it because of what boils down to luck….. ohhhh that annoyed me.

what else can i say? i’ll be sad to see this series go, but this book has left a sour taste in my mouth. i felt like with each book in the series the plot got progressively less based in reality, and i can probably drum most of that down to wendell essentially getting god powers whenever necessary and emily being the greatest smartest etc. drydaologist to ever exist. sigh.

damn i had been looking forward to this for eons! but like always my enjoyment of a YA book hits a peak because sometimes a YA book YA’s too much. this was one of those books. but literally other than that i think this book was fun! but this was not a masterpiece. it was a book i read and i enjoyed.

carolina was um…. conflicting. i kinda didn’t buy her character development, idk it didn’t feel authentic for me. her personality throughout the entire book was not really my cup of tea, idk something felt Off with her. lalo was fun but felt Off as well. it felt like he was purposefully devoid of any character flaws and was written to be a perfect character which is…. no thanks. where are his negative traits. why is he only a good person my GODDDDD. and because technically both of them have noble motivations instead of creating tension whilst the romance built i was not interested in their relationship because they were both mostly flawless. obv carolina can be hardheaded but idk even then that trait is painted as a positive so i was kinda bored reading about two perfect people. yes they make mistakes throughout the story but everything always worked out super well for them so i was like… shrug!

this book felt like it had so much fucking filler. like seriously half of this book was just fucking around so lalo and carolina can become closer. a lot of things that could’ve realistically padded out the story while they bonded happened “off-screen” which is so infuriating to me because likeeeee WHY NOT DO IT IN THE TEXT!!!! like lalo’s research, most of his travelling, him being turned, etc. all happened outside of the story!!!! HUHHHHHH?? and even then the filler wouldn’t have been so bad if the book didn’t take MORE THAN HALF OF THE BOOK TO HAVE THE ROMANCE HAPPEN. and it’s not just a little over half NAWWWW it’s quite a bit. and seriously it happens for like three seconds and then the book ends. well at least that’s what it felt like. how are you gonna tag ur book romance and then more than half the book doesn’t even have romance. are you serious. it felt like there was a lot of padding that seriously needed to be trimmed. and it’s an issue that honestly plagues this book in every aspect. 

i will say though i have to praise this book for its unique contributions to the vampire mythic. like the thing about trees and shit???? and obsidian??? i really liked it and found it super creative, and a lot more intriguing than the basic stake through the heart bs. plus the whole thing surrounding what happens to a human when you drink their blood also helped me not just going “ok why doesn’t lalo just drink from someone willing or sm”. still don’t understand why he couldn’t go to a blood bank but 🤷 

YA is really a hit or miss for me because some parts of it i do really love, but a lot of other parts exhaust me. and i fear this was a book that more often than not exhausted me 😵‍💫

oh how i love the silly little gay people in my phone telling me random shit about living laughing and loving. and i kind of am living for the fact that these two random gay guys have taught me quite a bit about self-care. special shout outs to the makeup and alcohol sections, really made me want to embrace a Bourbon Drinker Aesthetic

in other news listening to this in audio form made this 10x more fun. idk katya’s voice was so soothing in this, and trixie really gave personality to what was being said.

i loved the fact this book was a mix of a  memoir with a dash of self-help. i fear if this was just a memoir i would’ve been inundated with information i already knew, and if it was a self-help book i would’ve just dnf’d (sorry i fuckjng hate self-help books 99% of the time). a perfect blend. and also a perfect encapsulation of what trixie and katya are about.

a worthwhile read that yet again makes me appreciate audiobooks as a medium for books. 

and thank you audible for the free trial.

and fuck you youtube for not having this free online smh /hj

it only took me 48 days to read a 350-ish-page book but i did it!! now from how long it took me to read this you'd think i hated this but i didnt.... slow-paced books just take me a While.
i gotta say the characters are really the only good parts of this book. everything else blowed. shout out gay people as well.
louis is my pookie. i think he was a great mc. he was also so funny. why does nobody talk about how mf funny louis is. bro is out here calling lestat a gay vampire... pot calling kettle sweetie. plus claudia is all "pookie pls dont go i'm literally gonna kms if u do" and theres a line break and then louis goes. louis is a comedian. i kind of had no attachment to his moral drama around being mortal. his long tangents about crashing out over the smallest things kinda bored me by the end but yet again it was kinda funny how melodramatic my boy was.
lestat can fuck off. moving on.
claudia! baby girl! im gonna be honest even tho every mention of claudia features her blonde ringlets, idc im picturing her like the show adaptation. she was also quite funny. most of the times tho i pictured a lot older than 5 y/o so my ass was confused. but this is because im a dumbass this is not miss rice's fault. i felt so bad for her a lot of the time because bro i would be pissed too if i was eternally a 5 y/o. by the end of the story homegirl is like at least 70 years old i'd be fuming too.
and on that note... hey what the fuck. why is there randomly incest subtext between louis and claudia. i was expecting some wholesome daddy daughter vampire murder yay! instead i got... Yuck! bro louis what the Fuck. every time louis called her his paramour i wanted to blow up the moon. anne rice what were u thinking. honestly by the end i pretended it didnt exist and was head-cannoning claudia as a lesbian so i could block this subplot out of my mind.
every other character was surface level and boring. did not care a lick.
the plot.... Ehhhhhh. nothing going on was ever engaging until the climax of each part. i seriously was PUSHING to read this until some wacky shit was going down and then i was sat. and then right after i was bored out of my brains again. anne rice pookie what was this. walking simulator book 101 /j (i hate that criticism but tbh this book was moreso a philosophy simulator book).
what else can i say? there really is nothing more to this book. seeing a GAY CHARACTER be canon in a book from the 70s(?) eats. the three main characters eat. thats kind of it. if i did not feel a bond with louis because hes so fucking pathetic i wouldve given this a 3-star. also i almost cried at the end of part 3 because i was so distraught. this book was Perfectly Average.
will i continue this series? sure! i would rather blow my brains out than read a book with lestat as the main character but also i need to read the queen of the damned so i can see aliyah in all her glory on the big screen.