clovetra's Reviews (262)

didn’t think i liked this series as much as i did! i found the first book to be fine up until the mid-point, but with this i was seated and ready the entire time.

i will say the only reason i think i gave a fuck about this is because emily is the silliest billiest ever and js so charming. plus having a whole book where wendell’s identity is out in the open is fun! i found every other (human) character inconsequential though. poe and snowball own my life tho omg was i so happy with the fae interactions in this. left no crumbs!!!! 

i’ll be real and say the minute i finished this, i would’ve given it 4-stars. but now ive left this review to the side (fuck you uni) i am thinking back on the book and realising…. wow no it was fine. it was a book. i had a good time reading it but it wasn’t particularly remarkable and deserves a 3-star rating instead. which honestly is the exact same way i felt about the first book which is a funny situation.

the plot of this was….. Mid. what happened with de grey felt anticlimatic, and it felt like the first book was being repeated again in some way. i can’t even say it served any thematic purpose because it kind of didn’t… like just because emily points out “hey this happened in the first book” doesn’t make it a witty plot point or negate the fact it very much felt repeated. in many ways this book felt like it was trying to replicate the success of the first, but instead it ended up feeling like a cheap knockoff, where technically even though the stakes were higher in this story, based on how the first book went, there was really no tension. any sticky situation emily was i knew she’d get out of it. and what’s worse is that at least the first book she faced some consequences!! homegirl lost a finger!!!! what stakes does she face here? the uni doesn’t kick her out, she doesn’t lose any relationships, everyone at the end of the story is fine and everything works out perfectly. idk it made me less excited because i felt like i’d already been here before. at least the first book had novelty. 

this series is really weird to me, because in one way i find it so unremarkable, not to say bad but just…. Fine. yet i keep finding myself coming back. in the moment reading the books i do feel like i have a good time, but i think that’s due to the atmosphere and the funny dialogue at times. after any amount of time away from this series i look back and go “oh why did i like it so much. i’m trying to think back and i actually can’t tell you why i was having fun”. i think a lot of the draw defo is emily and wendell, but if you look even the slightest bit beyond them…. these books fall apart.

i say all that but i will be reading the last book and i can almost guarantee i will have the same reaction and criticisms. i am nothing but a creature of habit. 

oh this. this was interesting. this was interesting and good. and yet honestly i don’t know how to rate this. on one hand i really craved this, but on another some bits were repetitive and other parts were unclear to me, but like always who knows if that’s the book’s fault or a skill issue on my end. 

anyways. 

i did find my feelings towards the mc conflicting. for one, i dont even think she has a name. she does have a characterisation, but at some times she feels like a character & sometimes she feels like an audience surrogate. she toes each line well but at times its hard to tell what her role is in terms of the story. her motivations were interesting yet confusing and shrouded in mystery a lot of the time, which felt unnecessary. the chapters where she convenes with the local women was... confusing. at one point i thought what was happening was literal, but after a while it was obvious it wasnt based in reality, and then i was confused because truly what was going on there? it seemed like the book wanted you to think it was real but also not...? like i dont even think it was an attempt to mislead the reader. i dont know what was happening there.
i really liked the theme surrounding the murders of women, the intersectionality between being native or black, as well as the justice the women often do not receive. i do think the ending or "resolution" of the murders in acre was... weird. the text was leading me to believe one person was the culprit, and then randomly said it was another character. that second character's motivations truly didnt make sense, and felt tonally disappointing and boring. i also think the ending in general is disappointing. based on the text, i wasnt expecting our mc to solve femicide worldwide and everyone is resurrected and yaaay everything is happy!! like there was a resolution in terms of relationships and the mc's own connection with femicide but other than that it felt lacklustre. it kind of felt like the book was finished not because the story was done, but the author had decided to stop writing. idk if that makes sense.
i did find a few characters stood out to me. txupira was really fascinating, and i loved how significant she was to the text. i also really enjoyed claudia too, and i felt like they were the true standouts. everyone else kind of felt one-dimensional but im not too mad at that as i dont think the other characters were important enough to need that depth.
wow is this review insanely vague. look i hate writing spoilers in my review because Ummmm idk its just a habit i have now. and this book's story is what makes the book. so i dont want to give anything away. i really liked the discussions surrounding misogny in brazil, and how the indigenous community is treated and viewed specifically in acre. the ayahuasca trips were quite fascinating as well, although this is just a personal thing but i wished that what was happening during those experiences was more clear. thats just a skill issue on my end tho.
this book has left me feeling a lot and also nothing. i dont think the story itself was particularly groundbreaking, but learning about the femicides in brazil and all the additional factors influencing these murders was fascinating. i also really liked the writing style employed, and imo the dialogue was fun a lot of times, and the inner thoughts of the MC were super well written. i do think in some regard this book will stick with me, but on the other hand this book didnt really feel like a novel... idk its very hard to explain. was a good read, and im happy ive read it, but i really dont know how to feel. 

ummmmm
no comment except i need the sequel immediately
and i am so sorry ali hazelwood i doubted your slayage 

recently i have discovered i do not like short stories, mostly because its so hard to pinpoint my feelings on it because often there’s so much variability. but honestly this has ever so slightly made me a bit more optimistic for this genre. because this was great!!! but this wasn’t a complete knockout for me because some stories were meh. honestly for me to want to give a short story anthology 5-stars i have to like every single story. and i didn’t 🤐

i’m gonna discuss the stories in order and then rank them because i want to. anyways.

build a body like mine: was a good way to open the book. honestly tho this wasn’t really memorable. like right now every other story i can recall most things about it’s progression but this one? interesting but unmemorable. 7/10

the problem solver: meh. kind of said nothing interesting, was predictable and felt almost aimless. still liked the writing style though. 6/10

she’s always hungry: as the title story this was…. Odd. i saw the opening two pages and literally didn’t pick this book up for like 2 weeks because i was so confused. but then i read it. this was kinda fun, defo made me a bit more interested in the collection, but the title felt disconnected from the story, which wouldn’t really matter except it’s the title story so 🤷 6.5/10

the shadow over little chitaly: this honestly sold me on the book. absurd. silly. stupid. i loved it. only thing was i felt it was lacking a bit more horror and mystery and.. Pizzazz? i guess? 8/10

hollow bones: this was very much a hit or miss. i do think there were some interesting elements, but the setting wasn’t nearly fleshed out enough, although i will say the ending was so far the most interesting. would love a full story of this tho. 7/10

goth gf: HELLO. this was so funny omg. absurd again but also goddamn so relatable. the ending was funny and i like my men pathetic and aware that they suck. so much fun reading this. 8.5/10

extinction event: aaand back to… meh. this is kind of like “hollow bones” because the story wasn’t nearly given enough room to be fleshed out imo. but this was also better because it was easier to grasp, but the ending felt like a deflated whoopee cushion. 7/10.

night stalkers: this was weird. this felt out of place. like it was in the wrong story collection. it was… fine! there didn’t feel like much horror to me though, and i couldn’t have cared less about the characters. 5/10

shake well: ew ew ew ew ew. pimples. um anyways i had fun with this. i like me some body horror. didn’t stick with me as much as some other stories tho, but the humour was fun. 7/10

the king: favourite. easily my favourite. needs a full story of it. so fun, so silly, so intriguing. no notes. 10/10.

company man: interesting to end on. predictable in nature, but fascinating. i had fun with it, and i think it was perfect for a short story. 8/10

and now in order from my most to least favourite we have; 

the king; goth gf; the shadow over little chitaly; company man; shake well; she’s always hungry; build a body like mine; extinction event; hollow bones; the problem solver; night stalkers

what else do i have to say? i don’t know. i’ve been sitting on this review for like a week because honestly i don’t know what to say. short story collections are always hard for me to explain. all i know is that eliza clark is now an author i will be keeping my eyes on, because although the stories were hit and miss, i liked the overall writing style employed.

suzanne collins watch ur fucking back i feel like ive just been shot 47 times in a row

baru. my love. my apple of my eye. 

god this was so elegant. and so delectable. 

hands down, baru is one of my favourite characters of all time. she’s not exactly likeable (well she is but she also isn’t at the same time) but god is she written well. baru is almost more fleshed out than real people i’ve met. she’s fascinating, and her intelligence makes the story fun.

the rest of the characters were…. Ok! tain hu ofc is the love of my life and i would do anything for her. the rest of the characters were…. Meh! they felt all very same-ish, and especially as the ending got closer, with so many players i couldn’t tell what everyone’s motivations were, if they were going to betray baru or supported her , etc. man i couldn’t keep track at all.

i gotta be honest and say the plot is…. Um. look ok the plot was interesting. but half the time i had no idea what the fuck was happening. at least with gtn i could infer what was going on. there was not much inferring here. there was a lot of looking up reddit summaries. i had vague ideas of what was happening but i defo didn’t understand the nuances, especially getting closer to the ending.

speaking of the ending….. Woah. a lot of ppl i’ve seen who’ve read this have said the end was predictable?? but to me it wasn’t at all. i was soooo confused for a second but when it all clicked i seriously had to pause for a second. wow. i think the ending is great and leaves just enough room for a sequel without feeling like bait for another book.

now one other issue i had with this is the subtext. this is solely a personal issue because im a dumb reader. but i did not get the subtext a lot of times. literally had to message han because i missed the subtle hinting about a queer character (no spoilers here). like i had no idea i’d missed that until i read a summary and then ran to han being like “HUHHHHH”. and that happened a few more times than i’d like to admit. i’m not the brightest reader ok i can get a certain degree of complexity but beyond that i have the reading comprehension of a slug.

the writing overall in this book is…. UGH!!!!!!! /pos. beautiful. it’s so hard to describe just how this is written, but if you’ve read it you’ll get what i mean. it’s so good. it’s so unique yet adds to baru’s coldness yet also allows her to be feeling…… seth dickinson 👏👏👏 LIKE FUCK!!!!!!!

god i can’t wait to read the sequel this was banging. i just wish i was a smarter reader LMAO all the “issues” i had with this were solely because i am a dumbass ❤️ oh well at least when i get to my eventual re-read i’ll probably have an even better time.  

u know a book’s good when ur looking forward to the reread the minute u finished it 💀

i am so bored and uninterested in the plot and all the characters. snooze fest.

mediocrity and beans.
i really think this premise had such great potential, and almost nothing substantial was done with it.
the main character, alex green, was boring. she had almost no personality to me. no backbone, no interesting plot developments in the middle of the book, nothing. at the start of the book i do think she was a good narrator, and within the last like 10% of this book i think she served her role, but god was the middle a slog! nothing fucking happened! ok well things did happen. but it was super monotonous. im sorry how is ur book boring when youre premise is that WOMEN BECOME DRAGONS. how do you fuck it up that bad. seriously thats such a golden idea and instead i have to read about the 45th time of alex puttering around. like honestly after the apartment is introduced up until the last 20% of the book i cannot recall anything truly meaningful happening. at least nothing meaningful enough to warrant such a large portion of the book dedicated to alex making a stew or telling the reader for the umpteenth time beatrice is wild or her dad's an asshat or the librarian is the only intriguing character to come out of this story. im gonna say it. miss gyzinska shouldve had a bigger role and a lot more time dedicated to her story. 
i was interested in this book for two overarching reasons - it has the LGBT+ tag and seeing the in-universe explanations and mechanics of dragoning. and guess what. guess. fucking. what. i was let down on both ends. now little bit of spoiler territory here but im not tagging it so live with it 🤷
how dare you tag this book LGBT+ and have like 4 pages with gay people. HOW DARE YOU. (/j) im sorry in my mind to tag a book LGBT+ you need a lot more than this book gave. are you serious in telling me a side character is gay for like. 4 pages. fucks off for 90% of the book. comes back and gets a passing mention of their gayness. REALLY. and then the only other gay character literally kisses someone of the same sex ONCE, and is gay for TWO CHAPTERS IN THE END, and then in the epilogue theyre married to someone of the same sex. no. dont you dare. this is not a lgbt+ book. its a book with lgbt+ characters sure! but saying "characters" is really pushing it considering every body has the personality of a thumbtack. and dont try me with the "dragoning is an allegory for being gay" or sm. no. shut up.
and the science.... damn. i got nothing there. the little excerpts were interesting sure, but after a while everything surrounding dragoning became repetitive, stale, and amounted to "uhhh nobody knows why this happens". AND THAT NEVER GETS RESOLVED. and ur main character is a fucking scientist. and half of the cast are also scientists. are you for real. ARE YOU FOR REAL.
now you know how i love me some tension. and even though i love to bitch that a book is boring because there's no stakes, sometimes character writing can keep the book going without a strong plot. but honestly this book wasnt good on either aspect. the plot was predictable and flat, and the characters were all nothingburgers. honestly even the librarian wasnt that great. just comparing to everyone else she kinda ate. but if i compared her to literally any other book with decent character writing she would flounder. although i do have to bring mention to beatrice - yet again for this book she sucked. but her sucking was unique. where everyone else sucked because they were as interesting as watching paint dry, beatrice was interesting because she annoyed me in the end. throughout the novel she was fine, but following prom, she kind of reminded me of when someone writes self-insert fanfiction in a fantasy world and they so clearly overpower their mc. beatrice kind of reminds me of the god-made sue trope. if youve read this book, go look that up lmao.
what else can i say. i dont know why im giving this 3-stars. maybe because i thought the character development of alex & beatrice was nice? maybe because i liked seeing the change in society from the start and the end of the story? i dont know. all i do know is i feel cheated out of my promised gay book. three queer kisses is not nearly enough for the LGBT+ tag.

this was fine. 
nothing in this was remarkable, but it also wasn’t bad. it was interesting at times.
the ending felt so anticlimatic. i also felt like the plot moved at lightning speed. also i honestly didn’t give a shit about any character, i just wanted to see who was right — the governess or miles. 
this was a perfectly ok audiobook. the most book to ever book. 

heyyyy. hey hey hey. HEY. HEYYY. holy shit. rebecca kuang i could kiss you. 

i’ll be real, booktwt’s reaction to this terrified me. and honestly? i get why people wouldn’t like this. however i think it’s “flaws” are excusable or explained well-enough in the text for me to overlook so. YIPPEE.

ok let me start on the two main characters first — alice and peter. my loves. my pookies. i need fan art of them right this goddamn minute. alice was by far one of the best written characters’ i’ve seen in a while. because holy shit. she’s not only incredibly relatable, but she had extreme depth to her character to the point i almost felt like i knew her. like i almost feel like ive lost a close friend because now ive finished the book i won’t see my baby girl again. her character development actually went so fucking hard i also think it’s one of the best arcs ive read. i already miss alice and i just finished the goddamn book. peter was… ok. he had no character development or depth for like more than half of the book and out of nowhere he instantly became just as fleshed out as alice which i loved. i also love my baby boy. him and alice’s relationship was quite fascinating but imo i preferred when it was purely platonic (don’t give me shit for this spoiler one of the genres is romance 🤷). i do think their romantic relationship was built up well enough, it’s just a personal thing for me. i preferred when they were ribbing each other in every convo lol. i do say as well what happens with the Kripkes defo helped turn the tide towards my opinion of peter, as tbh before that i was ready to straight up beat his ass. 

the overall plot was… Ok! i do think if you’re going into this book for the plot you’re setting yourself up to hate it. this is a book about alice and peter, and hell is just the setting which drives alice and peter’s thoughts, feelings & actions. i do think the plot kept me gripped up until the second court, but ill be honest the minute we moved on from that i was a bit… bored. it felt like they were kind of just pissfarting around. but in the later stages of the book i reflected and realised that all that Nothing kind of had to happen in order for alice and peter’s characters to grow. i will say it defo was slightly difficult at the time to stay interested, but its not like absolutely nothing happens either. i’m someone who needs tension to be interested in a story, and although there wasn’t any for a certain chunk, kuang instead interlaced the story with such banger philosophical thoughts that looking back on it im actually not as mad about it, and the more i read of this “boring” chunk, i was less and less bothered until i was having a great time. 

the worldbuilding is difficult for me to sum into one word. on one hand, kuang’s take on hell draws on past interpretations with a novel spin with unique elements. i did like the first court’s interpretation, was a bit meh on the second court as there was a predictable theme the courts seemed to be following, but then after there it all kind of just fell apart. yet again there was an in-universe explanation for this, so im not annoyed or anything, but idk i expected more. the eighth court was intriguing, but defo not to the level of the first two. 

i do think there is one issue i can’t really look past as i have with the others. and that’s the fact there were a lot of instances of deus ex machina’s that i simply couldn’t overlook because they threw me out of the text. the ending could be described as one, but i do think what happened was not only built up well before it happened, but it made sense with alice & peter’s character developments, so im not mad at that. i actually loved the ending. but there’s a couple of instances where alice and/or peter are isolated and put into a situation where they cannot escape, and then Random Hell Citizen Number One saves them. and idk it felt like lazy writing at times. why are you only introducing this now where the only purpose is to save them and then after it’s irrelevant!!! i don’t know if that makes sense but i don’t want to be too specific because i want to make this (mostly) Spoiler Free.

ok there’s two last things im gonna comment on because i seriously can just yap forever. i love love loved the academia in this book. idk why but reading this whilst in my third-year was so fucking funny because yeah. all of it is so silly yet also so soul consuming. and idk i felt like i could relate. and plus the whole concept of magick? HELLO? so unique, so fleshed out, so fresh…

oh r.f. kuang. your mind. yet another banger. it’s defo not my favourite book of hers, as the poppy war will always stay winning, but damn was this good. a beautiful love child of babel and yellowface.