dbguide2's Reviews (863)

This was really good! I didn’t realise that it was so short – 224 pages! A good thing is that it didn’t feel like I was missing out by it not being over 300 pages. The pace was exactly what I want in a horror book. And another reason why I liked the book so much was because it felt a lot like a horror movie would – and I love it when books feel like that.

I did guess the one plot twist, but it didn’t bother me much when I read it. Then there was another plot twist that I definitely didn’t see coming, which was really cool to see. Normally I can figure out plot twists (thank you years of watching crime shows). All in all, the plot is really good, reads easily, and it’s enough to get you to finish the book in one setting!

I really enjoyed the characters. Chrissy was a strong character and she definitely sees most of the action – she is psychic anyway, so it would make sense that she does. I didn’t really like Chase – I felt him very annoying when it came to Chrissy. Emma and Kiki were cute, I did like reading their chapters.

Chase, I don’t want to go into detail because I don’t want to spoil anything, but he was definitely my least favourite of the Ghost Gang. He seemed to want the fame and everything that came with the Ghost Gang more than wanting to find out the truth. Maybe he changes after this, who knows.

There was also another minor character by the name of Bram and Chase doesn’t like him at all for reasons I won’t go into. I didn’t appreciate that of Chase. It felt too much like girl-on-girl hate for me (except they were guys).

Unfortunately, there was the issue of trying to figure out whose chapter was whose (as it’s a multi-pov book. I didn’t feel like their voices were strong enough to tell them apart – which is a shame as it’s such a short book.

I recommend this book if you like ghost stories, true crime series. Maybe you like multi-pov. Or a lot of real-life references in your books! Definitely recommend this to you!

Thank you Nora for adding Exy terms and rules in the back. Just another reason for passionate fans to create teams😆 If you’re looking for a defensive player, I might be able to play for like 5 or 10 minutes. Or just be on the sidelines, please, and be moral support. I have a very loud voice and would love to shout at the other team.

I think in the first book we don’t get much of Andrew’s personality because we’re getting so much of Neil (and also Andrew is trying to act like he’s all cool) but this is the book where we get to know him more, and what he is… is a massive dork and I love him for that.

He also shows more of his personality as we read on and his sense of humour – which I absolutely love. It’s my type of humour – both that I love to see in characters and also that it fits my sense of humour. I’d love it if we were friends so we could just be super snarky all the time. But I don’t think he’d want to be friends with me…

And with showing more of his personality, you also get how absolutely amazing and what a natural talent he is at Exy. I love that. I love how Neil encourages him to be more passionate about it – true, that’s mostly because Neil is an Exy fiend and wants to talk about Exy 100% of the time – and although Andrew doesn’t really become passionate about the sport, he puts enough effort into it. And I think that he does truly like the game and maybe in the future when he’s had a lot of therapy and time to work out his feelings, he’ll be able to say it fully.

The amount of sass that Neil shows throughout the series proves that he’s the perfect partner for Andrew. And also the fact that Andrew likes it when Neil goes off on someone just makes it even better because it proves that Andrew listens to Neil and focuses on what he does.

There’s just so many good quotes and a lot of them I love to look at are just further examples of Neil’s mastery of sass and also the fact that, much like me, he sometimes does not have a filter. Which probably makes me love him more.

The found family aspect starts build itself more and more in this book and there’s sweet moments between different characters, there’s heartfelt moments, and there’s definitely tense moments, because this series loves to be tense.

This is a series I will always hold up as a great example as a found family (trope) series. But I will also add that it’s dark and that’s ok because books are allowed to be dark. And the found family aspect in this book is very messy. And that’s totally fine because what type of perfect family dynamic do you know of and what is it like to live that life?

I read some spoilery reviews, mostly to see what the paranormal aspect of the book was. I wasn’t really impressed by it and showed me I was right not to carry on. I chose not to finish early on since I wasn’t able to get into the verse style of writing. I’m totally fine with a book in verse, I just couldn’t get into this one.

Another reason was definitely the characters. I didn’t like Margaret at all. Found her boring as anything. Her friends were a bit more interesting but once again, not enough to keep me reading.

I was annoyed by the fact that we barely see any hint of any type of paranormal activity and I checked the reviews and some said it only appears quite far into the book and even then barely. Quite disappointing.

While I did like the lyrical parts and it could be soothing at times, it could also be a bit boring. The book felt like it was pushing the naval camp as this elite thing and that was also very boring for me.

I was reading by Chapter 12 and told myself that if, by Chapter 15, I’m still not interested, we’re marking it as dnf. And so I reached Chapter 15, and I still wasn’t interested.

I usually know early on if I’m not going to enjoy a book or possibly mark it as did-not-finish if the characters aren’t working for me. Either I don’t like the way they speak, the way they treat others. I also dnf early on if I don’t like the narration or if the 1st POV just doesn’t work for me. With this book it was the main character. Wren. I didn’t like her character early. I couldn’t get myself to care for what she cared for, get angry at what she was angry at. If she was interested in something, I could not get myself interested in it.

I also didn’t like the way magic and the magic system/rules were written into the book. I don’t know if there were any other magic other than healing and destructive magic. From what I read, healing magic was only to be used either in the military or in the clergy. I didn’t like that they force you into one of two roles in order for you to use magic. What’s the penalty if they catch you using magic and you’re not in the army or a nun? They kill you? That’s even more restrictive.

I liked Hal enough to try to reading (at least until 40%) but his personality didn’t shine enough to intrigue me. The plot played a disappointing factor as well. I was sort of interested in carrying on to see what the plot would shape into and how the characters played a role in it, but ultimately, it couldn’t give me the boost to carry on.

I really like anthologies but this one definitely missed the mark by a lot. I didn’t like any of the stories, I found myself flipping through a lot of them and decided to dnf it early and just barely skim some of the stories.

It was quite boring. All of the stories. They needed a lot of work. If I managed to finish the book I’d probably rate it a full 1 star out of 5. Maybe 2 if I were feeling generous.

I didn’t even reach the 5% mark. I tried hard with this one, but it was definitely not to be. It wasn’t holding my attention at all. I got through the first chapter and realized I wouldn’t be finishing the book, but tried a bit more. But ended up (like I knew I would) deciding to stop reading.

It was the case of the writer thinking they were capable of writing lengthy sentences and thinking it would work because they’re writing a fantasy book – it’s even more seen when it’s a high/epic fantasy book. It’s a very, very common thing to have long sentences for fantasy because I don’t know, apparently fantasy = long sentences. Some authors do it well and I’m not too annoyed by it. Personally I think we could without long sentences in fantasy or anywhere else. Like learn where to end one sentence and begin another (of course, I’m including myself here). Smythe, unfortunately, is not an author who knows how to masterfully create long sentences.

That was mostly the reason for dnfing the book. I could tell I would have this issue the entire way through and I wasn’t interested in having to slog through a near full paragraph and it just being one sentence. Plus, the characters didn’t capture my interest from the beginning.

Hopefully I’ll like the author’s other books because I’ve seen those synopses and like them. Then again I liked this synopsis as well so who knows? My main reason for not liking this book was solely due to the main character, Cal. I didn’t like him at all. I think it was how he saw the world and thought. And because the book is written from his point of view, we unfortunately see all his thoughts.

I did see a bit of Leon (the love interest) before I dnfed and I much preferred him and would maybe even finish the book if it was from his point of view. It also looked like a certain trope was in their budding relationship, one I very much dislike, so that was even another reason for me to not want to read any further.

Another reason I didn’t like Cal is that I thought his focus and idea of media and his view on social media was weird? Like he thinks badly of some media personnel because ‘they act a certain way’ (I’m paraphrasing) but Cal has nearly half a million followers and you’re telling me he HASN’T taken some type of media/marketing course or maybe acts a different way off camera so he can be ‘himself’ off camera? Maybe I feel this way about him because (to me) it doesn’t feel like he’s been written to have so many followers, if this makes sense. I also feel that Cal is a bit self-absorbed and he tries to show that he isn’t, which makes me dislike him more.

Oh, and also the formatting in the e-arc was really annoying me too. Bits of interviews meshed into the paragraphs and it was difficult to read. I tried to force myself to read it and fizzled out before the 50% mark. Once again, don’t force yourself to read a book! There’s no merit in that!

But then again, my best friend read the book and loved it. So, two different people, I guess.

Look, I really wanted to finish and like this book. But I kept reading a few pages of it and then putting it down to read something else. It was when I used the text-to-speech function on my kindle and realized nearly a chapter had gone by with me not paying a lick of attention – I had to dnf this, otherwise I was very likely to get into another reading slump. It stayed on my Currently Reading shelf for about a YEAR because I kept trying to get myself into this book.

So yes, I dnfed this at 25%. The cause? I guess not being interested enough? The characters were interesting and I liked the whole plot – rebellions are always fun to read about. It’s not that it was high sci-fi – I liked that bit. I think it was largely due to the characters – though they were interesting from time to time – it wasn’t enough to keep my reading.

Maybe I’ll pick it up in audio some time.

I did not realise this was like 764 pages!! I thought it as a nice 300-400 somewhere fantasy, and my eyes grew a tad bit wide because the last time I read a book over 600 pages was I think The Wise Man’s Fear? And that took me a month or two to finish ahaha. So I thought I would take a week or even two to finish this one, because it’s so huge. But I actually finished this really quickly!! It was so so good that I didn’t even notice how much I was reading at a time until I looked at the time? Which is definitely a tell (for me) that I really enjoyed a book.

This book gave me everything, from a brief mention of currency (which, oddly, is a thing I absolutely love to read in fantasies), to characters I knew I could root for and absolutely love, and which ones I should watch out for.

Tauren Darrica and Kalai Ro-Ani were two characters I had such fun reading about. I loved meeting them and getting to know them; seeing them meet each other and getting to know each other. Tauren is that type of character who likes to think they’re tough but he’s actually really soft and he cares about people and wants to help them. I loved seeing how fierce Kalai gets because he takes on a job as an archivist, which isn’t really known for its action and drama.

Another thing I really loved was seeing them become closer to one another and, furthermore, wanting to be closer to each other – which really really warmed my Grinchly heart. They brought out the best in each other and made each other go for what they wanted! I don’t normally go seeking romance out (in books), but I’d seek this romance out.

Yes, there are dragons in this novel. Is dragon a genre? Well, it’s one now. I loved seeing the dragons and reading about the different types of dragons – I could read about dragon types and wings, scales, even how strong the tail is, for ages. The dragons in this are funny and compassionate. Even though they don’t speak, they have bounds of personality – does that make sense? I feel like that makes sense.

I can’t say much on the plot, the book is really long so the plot develops a lot and there’s some twists and turns (which I loved). But there’s also mystery and intrigue, which is done really well! I kept wanting to know more and turning the page so quickly, I must’ve paged more than one page 😄

If you’re into long plots. a super cute romance (like seriously, massive heart-eyes will ensue), and dragons, I definitely recommend this book.

I mange to get to about 11% and (once again) realised I wasn’t connecting at all to the characters. I’m definitely more of a character reader. Don’t get me wrong, I really really love my plots, but badly written characters spoil the vibe for me and is the main cause of me dnfing a book.

Plus, there was a lot of information being shoved at the reader in the tiny part that I read and that’s another reason to not carry on reading. I like having information but not that much in such a little timespan.