This book was a very quick read. I didn't realize that it was a middle grade book, because I picked it up from the library just based on the cover. There were things about this book that I enjoyed. The concept was interesting, as was the setting. I liked Serafina and her dad and their relationship. I also liked her friendship with Braeden, even though it seemed to materialize very quickly.

For me, the main issue comes with the mysteries, both the kidnappings and the mystery regarding Serafina's origins. I had her past figured out very early on in the reading of the book, and the other way before our protagonist. The 'foreshadowing' just wasn't subtle at all. And again, I understand that this was a middle grade book, but I think even a ten or eleven year old would see some of these revelations coming a mile away.

All that said, it was a very quick read, and kept my interest throughout. It looks as though this is going to be the first in a series, and I would probably pick the next up from the library if I saw it, but I wouldn't necessarily go out of my way to find a copy.

I marked the SPOILER button on this review but just in case: There are HUGE spoilers for this book in the review below.

You have been warned...

I picked this book up because I was excited to see that it took place partially in Ireland, and I love stories with Ireland as a backdrop.

Unfortunately, this book totally missed the mark for me. I felt like the author was trying so hard to create suspense and intrigue that the development of the characters suffered as a result.

Kate had some redeeming qualities, but was ultimately a boring character. And I didn't understand the reason behind her falling out with Mannix (pre-Joanne...I totally get the following out AFTER Joanne) before the events of the story. Was it solely because he was laid off from his job? I understand that it would create tension in many relationships, but it seemed like a contrivance simply created to introduce his infidelity. Also, they are hard up for money but they decide to take what little she's managed to save and take a trans-continental vacation when their son has special needs that include expensive educational needs? What?! That makes absolutely no sense to me.

Mannix was a pig. A weak, cowardly, selfish pig. I have no sympathy for his character whatsoever.

Hazel and Oscar could have been better characters if the author hadn't tried so hard to be clever and misleading in her portrayal of their relationship. From the beginning, we are supposed to think that they are in a physically abusive relationship. It never really sat right with me, just from the things they would think to themselves, especially Oscar.

Then we find out that -- surprise! -- it was all misdirection and it was actually a piece of garbage boy in one of her classes that had hit her...multiple times. And Oscar really was a good guy just trying to support and protect his wife...despite being a jerk to his overweight sister, obsessive about his revulsion to sugar, and accused of sexually harassing his ex-business partner...which was a thread that was introduced and then never paid off.

And finally, the big mystery that starts out this whole story -- Oscar placing a body into his trunk -- just seems like it was thrown together with little thought. Now, I totally believe a disgusting liar like Mannix would cheat on his wife. But to turn her into a psychopath just didn't track with me. And then Oscar's reaction when Hazel was killed (trying to hide her body in the trunk, not calling the police right away, etc.) get like it was to purposely mislead the reader again, to make him seem guilty. Now, I understand that when someone has been traumatized they can act in any number of strange ways, but this felt forced to me. It didn't feel like an authentic reaction from a man whose wife was just murdered pretty much in front of him.

There were things mentioned once or twice (always very vaguely) and then dropped and never revisited or clarified. One example is the comments made by Kate about her brother-in-law. Also, the whole Bolgers storyline was completely dropped halfway through the story. And after Oscar leaves the O'Brien home, that's the last we see of his POV. I really couldn't have cared less about Mannix and his remorse for being a terrible husband and father. I would've appreciated a little more of the aftermath with Oscar.

To that end, the entire ending felt like it was just thrown together last minute. It was abrupt and not impactful at all.

To wrap this up, I felt like the author wasn't sure what kind of story she wanted to tell. One positive of this book was that it was only about 250 pages so I read it in just a couple hours. I don't think I'll be picking up any of this author's other books again.

Oh man. I had hope for this book. I had problems with the earlier installments of this series, but with the way Hollow City ended, I was hopeful that Library of Souls would just take off from there and ramp everything up. Unfortunately, it took about 200 pages before I really started getting to this book. And even after that, I still wasn't so engrossed with the story that I couldn't put it down.
The pacing of this story is my biggest issue. I could honestly say that about all three books, but this one especially. Not only did it take almost 200 pages to get interesting, the climax of the book happens almost 70 pages before the book actually ends. Not much happens in those last seventy pages either, aside from the breakup of a relationship that never worked for me in the first place, and was undone about 30 pages later.

One other thing that really had me rolling my eyes was the introduction of Sharon. So, the author is expecting his audience to believe that:
1. A boat that they were going to steal in an attempt to run away is owned by someone with knowledge of peculiardom.
And
2. That someone has experience taking people to and from various loops and just happens to know exactly where their friends have been taken.
...can you say 'plot contrivance'? Now, he ended up being a decent character, but a lot of coincidences had to happen for them to cross paths. And if they had never met? The entire second half of this book hinges on a completely chance encounter. It would've made more sense to me if they had been told of him before or even met him before and sought him out to help them find their friends.

I just want to talk about the world building for a moment. The author has done a pretty good job building this world, which is good, considering it's our world, for the most part. But I thought it was amusing that Devil's Acre was made out to be this disgusting cesspool of the world's most evil beings ever and then they get there and...it didn't seem that bad. The build up for this wicked, horrible place just didn't pay off with the reality of it.

And maybe that is my problem with this series as a whole.

I know that I am in the minority of readers when I say that I don't love this series. This should've been a home run for me. People with magical/paranormal abilities? Check. Secret school for children with magical/paranormal abilities? Check. Fish out of water main character who discovers that he himself has abilities? Check. Time travel element? Check. It checks off so many boxes for me. But I just didn't fall in love with it. I liked it well enough. Parts of it were very interesting and engaging. But so many things bother me about this series as a whole.

The characters are boring. Aside from their unique abilities, there really isn't much to these characters. There is next to no development of any of them, aside from Jacob, who I do think shows tremendous growth throughout the series. I didn't connect or relate to any character at any point in these novels.

The 'romance' just never worked for me, on any level. It was underdeveloped, uninteresting, and wholly unnecessary.
I didn't feel any chemistry between them at all, no matter how much I was being told that they were in love. Not to mention the fact that up until a few weeks before that, she'd been carrying a torch for his GRANDFATHER...just let that sink in a moment.

And last but not least, the pictures. Now, I appreciated the pictures in the first book. Not only was it an interesting format and a different way to tell a story, it was also done in a way that contributed to the world-building. Unfortunately, it felt like the pictures in the second and third books just didn't have as much of an impact in regards to the story. It almost got to a point where it was gimmicky. There were points where I was listening to this on audiobook while I was doing chores or cooking dinner, and I could pinpoint every point where I knew if I looked in the book I would see a picture. Near the end it had me rolling my eyes. Now, many of these pictures were still very interesting, but their incorporation into the story was awkward at best, and forced if I'm being brutally honest.

One last thing I want to talk about is the audiobook. Now, I don't let this factor into my rating of a book, but man...this one was rough. The narrator was just boring. I think he was trying to sound like a 16 year old, but the voice was just nasally and strange. His attempts at a female voice were not good at all, and there were major inconsistencies with the accents. Sometimes Emma would sound Irish and sometimes she sounded English, and not even always the same English accent. The main baddie, Caul, sounded like some over-the-top cackling villain from some 80s cartoon on Saturday morning. And his reading pace was sooooo slow...it definitely made the already-slow pace even more so.

In the end, while this series didn't live up to the hype for me, I can see it's merits and the potential it had. I would give the series as a whole a 3-star rating.

Approaching 4.5 stars for me. I really enjoyed this book. I loved Kelsea as a heroine. She is smart, brave, feisty, principled, and determined. She knows she's in over her head and she still fights for her people, regardless of the fact that it could possibly lead to her early death. She does not back down to bullies or even her own guardsmen, who try at times to stop her in the name of her own protection.

I liked the setting and word building in this book. It's supposed to be set at some point in our distant future in a place that was colonized by Americans and British. At first we don't know this, because it's actually a fantasy novel, but it's made pretty clear throughout the book with references to our own time.

I liked that she was a book reader, and got a kick out of her talking about the 'seven volumes of Rowling' and Lord of the Rings.

I liked the other characters in the story, and I'm curious to see what happens with the Fetch, Andalie, and others. I'm kind of feeling Kelsea and Pen over Kelsea and the Fetch when it comes to shipping her with somebody.

Speaking of shipping, I really like the fact that they don't introduce a love interest in this first book. I mean, she's definitely intrigued by the Fetch, but it's not something that is a focus of the book at all. It's mentioned here and there a couple of times, but it seems to be more of a girlhood crush than an epic love story. Besides, this girl has more important things to think about than romance.

This book definitely has some dark, graphic scenes. It is NOT a light, fluffy fantasy.

I was thoroughly engrossed with this book, and read the majority of it in one sitting. I can't wait to pick up the sequel.

I really love a good dystopian novel. I haven't read one (good or bad) in awhile, and so I was pleasantly surprised to come across this. Now, this is not your normal dystopian. It's only set about 30 years from now. But it definitely has many dystopian characteristics.

This story follows Wade Watts, a young man who lives in a time where society has greatly devolved due to great economic decline. The poor and impoverished live in trailers that are literally stacked on top of one another, like skyscrapers. Meanwhile, there is a virtual reality 'game' that has been created where many people spend most of their time. This game is called OASIS. But it's more than a game. People use it to attend school, go on vacations, order food, etc. Money that is earned in the game can be used as currency in the real world. It's pretty much a one-stop shop for people trying to escape the dangers of the real world.

Now, the creator of this game has died. In his will, he states that he has hidden an Easter egg inside OASIS, and whoever finds in will be rewarded his entire estate, including OASIS, worth over 240 billion dollars. He left clues to follow, which are all related to 1980s pop culture. So of course, everybody is trying to figure out the clues, including a group who wants to use the OASIS game for their own dastardly purposes.

This is such a fun book. It kept my interest throughout, and as someone who was a kid in the 80s and loves 80s pop culture, I really connected to Wade, who has immersed himself in 80s culture in an attempt to decipher the clues.

If I had to find a negative about this book, it would be that the romance between Wade and Art3mis didn't wow me. I liked both of their characters (not to mention Aech. I really liked Aech.) but I just didn't care about their relationship in a romantic way.

Overall, this book made me smile. I want to check out more by this author in the future.

This is probably a 4.5 star book for me, but only because I wanted MORE! Such a wonderful end to an amazing story. I would love to see a spinoff series set in this world. The characters, world-building, and plot were all thoroughly engaging and even though the book was well over 600 pages, it didn't feel like that at all.

I love Lia and Rafe's relationship, I just wish they'd had a little more time just the two of them.

I started shipping Pauline and Kaden when I first read Kiss of Deception. I was so glad their story unfolded the way it did.

Excuse me, I need to go out now and purchase every book Mary E. Pearson has ever written!

This book picks up immediately after the end of "To all the Boys I've Loved Before".

I found myself getting frustrated with Lara Jean much more in this book than the first. In TATBILB, I gave Lara Jean a pass in a lot of her actions because she was 16 and relatively naive. And in this book, she's still 16/17, but I wasn't as forgiving. Her immaturity got really old. There was almost no emotional growth until the last 20 or so pages of the novel. I had all but decided to give this book 2 stars. But the end where she has some of the realizations she has made me satisfies enough that I bumped it up to 3 stars.

I still didn't like Chris much, although she was a little more fleshed out and sympathetic than she was in the first book.

Peter was fine for me. I actually felt kind of bad for him, because Lara Jean is so afraid of everything that he can't even give her a kiss in public without her flipping out on him. Not to mention the fact that all throughout the book he is trying to spend time with her or get her to show interest in the things he likes and she keeps blowing him off. It really seemed like he was trying very hard to be a good boyfriend to her and still be a good friend to Genevieve, which threw Lara Jean into a tizzy fit. I do understand to some extent. She doesn't trust Genevieve and knows that Genevieve can be extremely manipulative, not to mention a flat-out liar. But her actions demonstrate how little she trusted Peter as well. I actually kept thinking how Peter could do better that Lara Jean.

I liked John, for the most part. My only criticism is that his character didn't quite feel fleshed out. No one is perfect, but he's pretty idealized by Lara Jean. She refers to her dilemma of Peter or John as: the reality of Peter vs. the dream of John. He didn't have any discernible flaws, which just isn't realistic.

This book was a quick read. I listened to the first third as an audio book and didn't get to the last two-thirds for a couple weeks later, but I managed to get through the last part in a couple hours.

I will read the final installment of the series, if only to see who she finally ends up with and if she matures at all.