crispycritter's Reviews (516)

As obsessed with these books as Curran is with Kate and Kate is with Slayer.

These books are about to be my entire 2025 reading personality. 

Is this where SJM got the whole soup thing from?!?

Like most craft books, there are going to be parts you take and parts that don’t resonate with you. I think you can get all that you need from this book out of the first chapter or two. 

Things started going off the rails when Maass used Twilight as a positive example of emotional interiority. Then we took a sharp nosedive. Highlights included: punching down on genre fiction, using a book about assisted suicide and at least three books involving extreme sexual violence against women as lodestars for his flavor of “emotional” fiction, and encouraging writers to emotionally manipulate readers by making them cry. I’d say this dude must have a hard on for A Little Life, but it might be above his reading level. 

I agree with the general premise of this book: the most impactful books tend to delve deep into character. Without emotional depth books can feel hallow. Maass’s examples indicate that emotional depth is something that only comes from dramatic content choices: death, destruction, all-consuming romance, etc. Almost like there’s nothing to be learned from quiet books and ordinary interactions.  

I did not resonate with any of the examples Maass shared nor did I appreciate how prescriptive his advice was. Overall, I just don’t think I can take a craft book seriously that holds up The Fault In Our Stars as peak Literature™️ . 

This book was published when I was deep in my litfic douchebag phase (I was trying to impress boys). Stoked to have been living under a rock until now and to discover Kate Daniels in the year of our lord 2025. What a delightful trip down memory lane. Big Buffy the Vampire Slayer vibes sans Joss Whedon. And Curran? Be still my heart. Anywho I'm almost through the entire Immortals After Dark series so it was high time I discovered another early 2000s urban fantasy with one thousand backlist books to devour.

First DNF of the year! An interesting premise. I gave it my standard fair shake by holding on until the 30% mark, but unfortunately, there was nothing to grab me beyond the quirky back cover copy. Why this didn't work for me is a tale as old as time: Hallie, our FMC, spends a lot of time explaining to the reader how physically attractive she finds Hayden aaaaaand . . . that's it. No emoting. No yearning. I'm becoming a lot pickier about contemporary romance, and unfortunately these days I just need a bit more than "boy who is hot and nicer than my ex" to keep my interest. An attempt was made to include some banter but it was mostly Hayden: here is a fact about a cryptid, Hallie: lol bigfoot isn't real.

Something that really hampered Hayden's character development IMO was that Hallie kept saying she "didn't understand Hayden." That's . . . fine. And part of many normal human interactions with new acquaintances. But when it was written in only Hallie's first person POV - it's also hard as the reader to understand Hayden. And to understand why Hallie feels such intense emotions about someone she admittedly doesn't know and doesn't understand.

Stylistically, this book reads like THE blueprint for rom-coms - punchy, quippy, spicy, funny. Talia Hibbert has such a strong voice. Frustratingly - the middle dragged on a bit and it began to feel like a slog to get through. If I didn't have the ebook version, which made it easy for me to pick up on nights I couldn't fall asleep, I might have considered DNFing it. Fortunately, the last 60 pages or so really picked up.

Red and Chloe were beautiful, well-rounded characters. Their emotional development together and as individuals was *chef's kiss*. Hibbert's chronic illness rep and discussions of class and racism I thought were so well done. And the third-act

breakup was handled in a way that made it feel earned and appropriately frustrating as a reader. I love some well-done conflict!

This book is set in a post-apocalyptic hellscape where most of the world's population has died and the folks that remain must battle daily against illness, injury, disease, and fending off violent roving gangs. It's an absolutely brutal existence where only the fittest survive. My favorite part of this book happens when our heroes are on a warpath to take back their bunker from a band of hostiles who've already murdered a bunch of their friends. One dude (not the love interest) tells the female main character that she's, like, really really pretty. Everyone in their group totally thinks so. And she doesn't even know it! This is vital information to communicate to the reader.

Second favorite moment communicates another similar yet critical piece of information. The set up: couple is about to have a baby, a very dangerous proposition in said post-apocalyptic Earth. The woman might very well die during childbirth given the lack of medical supplies and trained medical professionals. The couple takes a moment, in the midst of much handwringing about their future, to tell the female main character that she's, like, really really pretty and of course the male main character is into her, how could he not be? He looks at her all the time. She's so modest, she doesn't even know how pretty she is or how he looks at her.

This book has a super interesting premise but fell flat for me. 

As cool as it sounded to read about the children of Mina and Johnathan Harker, Moriarty, and Van Helsing running around bell epoch Paris solving fantastical crime - I’m not certain their parentage actually mattered. It just made for a cool hook. 

The world building was almost nonexistent as was the character work. Super sad this didn’t work for me. 

The little I read was hilarious, but I have to be in the right mood for essays. 

Marked safe from another booktok darling. I tire of these romantasy copy pastas.