the first half was slow but the last half wrecked me.
Written in Tahereh's lyrical way, this tale is absolutely beautiful and devastating. I love Laylee and seeing Alice and Oliver again. Her weird, wonderful little world was expanded and retained its oddities. This book was beautiful.

DNF at 25%

TW for rape, drug abuse
I was listening to this on audio and it didnt get any more exciting after 3+ hours. None of the characters were super engaging. I wasn't invested in any of their lives after the power came about.
One of the voices was the same as the female puberty monster from Big Mouth on Netflix and it freaked me out so much that I couldnt listen.

I JUST REALIZED THAT I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL MAY FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT AND I'M A N G E R Y.
But also sad.
because I love these characters and this world and I don't want to wait that long.
My only thing was that my 2 fav characters are dead and it killed me inside.

Everything was a bit too cutesy and convenient in this one. The character development was cut off completely. It was just kind of meh.
But it was a good, cute palate cleanser between all the dark fantasy and SciFi I've been reading lately.

DNF at 16%

I LOVED THIS SO MUCH AND I WAS NOT EXPECTING TO
I don't know why I wasn't expecting to. I've enjoyed a past series by Maggie Stiefvater but ya know.
The beginning was slow but the characters kept me going. I love all of them so much. I'm adopting the boys. They are my children now. I haven't even finished the series and I'm hype for the Ronan books.

don't even talk to me until I get a wedding novella

3.5 stars

I have such conflicted feelings about this book.
I love Xifeng. Well, I loved her up until the end of the book. The plot was driven by her conflict and need. And then we reached the point where she gets what she wanted and she no longer felt conflicted by her action and it got boring. The climax of this book ended on p.283 and never regained momentum.
I wanted so badly to love this book.
That being said, I'm still hopeful for the sequel. I know Julie C Dao is an amazing writer and will do the rest of the story justice

This book gave me so much anxiety.
Tbh I feel like a lot of it was filler and building up for the last book but I love these characters so it's five stars ok