crispycritter's Reviews (516)

This gets 3 stars cause I read it in less than a weekend but hooboy is this TikTok darling a mess. 

World building? Never heard of her. Persephone exists in a world where she is “given” to Zeus but also just wants to get her grad degree at UCLA? Old timey rules for DRAMA but modern stuff randomly? Where the heck is Olympus?!? How does the political structure of the thirteen really work and how did this come to be?

Fantasy? Uh - barely. I think the only magical elements are the bridges between the upper and lower cities which I guess sting people a lil if they try to cross without permission. What are the rules here?

This is a Persephone / Hades “retelling.” In the sense that the characters are named Persephone and Hades and her safe word is pomegranate. 

This is basically Lore Olympus erotica. It’s A Court of Mist and Fury but erotica (the throne scene?!?!) This just does not feel original. I felt like I was reading Hades x Persephone fanfic. It’s a mafia romance where we are using “Greek retelling” as window dressing. 

And Hades - what a sweetie pie. I wanted him to be meaner? This dude had zero edge. The lord of the underworld was such a wet blanket. 

DNFing based on the atrocious DV rep and Tate’s tenuous grasp of information technology. This read like a 12-year-old’s attempt at describing the inner workings of a corporate office. Also not a fan of pairing a meek DV victim with a big scary dude, even if he is secretly a teddy bear. Our gal shrinks away from his touch - romance?!?!?! This woman is also starving and living on the streets and - no one notices? She literally does not have regular access to a shower and has two outfits. I can’t with these weird wish fulfillment books where we use violence and poverty to drum up angst. 

Five stars for Claire Kent’s ability to create distinctly smelly post-apocalyptic men. Let’s hear it for Zed: sweaty, stinky, greasy former stepfather’s younger brother, with just a delicate hint of eau de poisson (he’s a fisherman, y’all).

There’s a four-year-old girl Rina and a dog named Buddy and

they’re both okay, don’t worry.

🎵Smelly Cal smeh-eh-eh-ly Cal, whaaaat aaare they feeding you. Smelly Cal, Smelly Cal- it’s not your fault! 🎵

I know people adore Beverly Jenkins so I’ll try again with a different book. I just felt like I was reading blocking and the dialogue was so robotic. 

Astoundingly bad writing. I am astounded. 

I don’t know any interpersonal relationships that exist like this IRL. In a 14-year-old girl’s diary and horny dreams? Maybe. 

Liking IKEA is simply not enough scaffolding to give a character a personality. 

As an American reader, I learned new terms like “California lane change” (I promise you the drivers of New England and the DMV are far, far worse), garburator (we use the much less fun garbage disposal), and “ambulance dudes.” 

Stone appears to have a tenuous grasp of the sport of hockey. What even is a sports romance? Sports sure happen in the background but they don’t matter here. 

Kudos to Stone for attempting to deal with unequal positions of power between our celebrity hero and unhoused heroine.

Random hockey players paying for our gal’s college tuition? Jobs and apartments falling out of the sky? These are some real convenient Romance Reasons.

I desperately need to stop taking book recommendations from other people. Three stars cause it was easy enough to read but I still lost several brain cells. 

It’s no Fangirl Down 🍑😘 but it’s also not the hot garbage that was The Au Pair Affair 💩

Tessa Bailey writes the most bananas down-bad pathetic men and Sig might be our most pathetic guy yet. 

Gotta take one star off on principal because

pretty much all of the sex scenes take place when Chloe and Sig know they can’t be together and it’s this sad angsty “this is the last time” type vibe. So you can’t even enjoy them being together, you’re just sad for most of these. Why are you making me wanna cry while Chloe fingers Sig’s butthole? C’mon, Tessa. Sig and I deserved better.

I couldn’t put this book down and literally read all night and then read all day when I should have been working. 

Like Starling House, which felt like a similar read for me, I think there is a lot that a reader could be critical of here if you look too closely. Don’t pick this up looking for a satisfying explanation for the Farrow curse or well-defined world building. There are at least three tertiary characters that had pretty incomplete or unsatisfying endings. And let’s be real, there are a lot of “rules” here that are arbitrary and a lot of “miscommunication” that isn’t exactly natural - most readers should see that this is purely in service of the plot and to preserve the mystery a lil longer. 

But - if you like books that are atmospheric, emotional, and feature generations of badass women, you may love this book. There’s a couple mysteries that keep you turning the pages and a decent amount of romance. 

Five stars for me because I read for enjoyment and I enjoyed the heck out of this book. What better litmus test is there other than I LITERALLY COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN. WHO cares if there were some things that happened for Book Reasons™️?

Dystopian erotica feels pretty on brand for 2025. 

I really liked Haven, but Princess was giving me YA Dystopian vibes a la Shatter Me (we must mention how pretty the FMC is all the time even though everyone probably looks and smells pretty ratchet). I was nervous this was gonna fall more in line with Princess but surprise- I thought it was even better than Haven!

Angst, miscommunication that made sense, and a puuuuuppy. I need you to know that

nothing bad happens to the dog.