I loved this book. The way Victoria Schwab weaves a story together is just so satisfying. Her writing is poetic without being overblown. The way she can paint a picture is just amazing. Her characters are flawed and have emotional depth. I really enjoyed the dynamic between August and Kate, and can't wait for the next book.

I also appreciated that their relationship (at least to this point) is NOT romantic. People going into this book looking for a YA romantic fantasy may be disappointed. That being said, the way they stick by each other is wonderful, and I could see their relationship turning romantic in future books...

There really aren't many negatives for me to address in this book. One thing that I have noticed about Victoria Schwab's books (I've only read The Archived and The Unbound at this point) is that she tends to throw you into the story with no background information, and we as readers are left to decipher the world bit by bit as the story progresses and we are fed little snippets of exposition. Now, there is nothing necessarily wrong with this structure, but for me it does tend to make the first part of her books drag a little. I feel like this would only be true for the first read-through. If I were to ever re-read the book, I would have a better understanding of the world and the actions of the characters would make more sense because I've already put the puzzle together.
So, keeping that in mind, the first half of this book is slightly slower-paced than the second half. There is the whole setup of these two characters ending up in the same place and getting to know each other that does drag a little bit. But when they are finally thrown together for a common purpose, the story takes off and doesn't slow down.

Like I said, I loved this book. It's a great book to read at this time of year (right before Halloween) and I cannot wait for the sequel. I need it like...right now.

***UPDATE***
I just re-read this book before picking up the sequel. And I'm happy to report that I actually enjoyed it more the second time around. As I stated in my original review, because I was already familiar with the world, I was able to fully appreciate everything that was going on and didn't feel like it dragged at all. I'm bumping my rating from 4 stars to 5 because although it may not be a perfect book, it is a perfect book for me.

I have seen several reviews regarding this book. It seems like people either loved it and gave it 5 stars or hated it and gave it one star. I have to say, I am pretty much right in the middle on this one. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. I guess my opinion is that this book was okay, and had an interesting concept, but was a little boring in the execution.

What I liked:

1. The concept was intriguing. Nadia is a young woman living in a society where every twelve years, the citizens forget everything about themselves. No one knows why this happens or how to avoid it. Instead, they all keep extensive journals that help them reclaim their lives after each twelve-year cycle. For some reason, Nadia did not forget during the last Forgetting and has kept it secret for the last twelve years.

2. The cover. 10/10

3. The antagonist. Now, I didn't *like* her, but I felt like she was well-written. She definitely felt like she was justified in everything she was doing. She gave me a Delores Umbridge vibe. Maniacal and evil, but always true to her (warped) principles.

What I didn't like:

1. The pacing for this was off. I listened to this on audio book on 1.5 speed and it felt FOREVER long. There were several repetitve passages and the book did drag for me quite a bit in the middle. Also, the end felt very anti-climactic and repetitive.

After the townspeople were shown all of the heinous things Janice did and Jonathan killed her, the book went on for far too long after that. We visited all of the side characters and learned what happened to each of them, and it felt like it just took too long. Especially when some of them weren't in the story at all before that point.

2. Using sexuality as a plot point.

I didn't like that there was a plot twist of Eshan (not sure if I'm spelling that correctly since I listened to this on audio) being gay and having feelings for Gray. Sexuality should not be used as a shocking reveal. It just shouldn't. I understand that a gay person may not want anyone to know in this society because if you can't/won't reproduce you end up 'lost', but still...using it as a plot device cheapens what could have been an interesting character arc. Not to mention the fact that it's only vaguely mentioned two times right at the end of the story, which shows that it was purely plot-driven.

3. The romance. It was fine, but I wish we'd gotten more time for them after

he was forced to forget her. That idea of him having to remember her and choose her even without the cure was very intriguing to me, and instead they decided to just cure him.

Also, Gray was supposed to be around 19, but he felt much younger to me. Nadia felt a little young as well.

4.

the other world plot. I didn't hate the twist that this takes place on a planet colonized by Earth, but I wish it had been executed a bit better. There was a lot of info-dumping which contributed to the dragging feeling I had.

5. This one is primarily due to the fact that I listened to this on audio, but it was kind of annoying getting so much inner dialogue from Nadia. Someone would ask her a question and then she would think in her mind her answer to them, but the way it's written makes that very confusing if you're listening to it instead of reading it and seeing that there are no quotation marks. And she does this constantly throughout the book. Occasionally afterward she'll say something like, "Instead of saying that, I said (blah, blah, blah) instead." But this isn't always the case.

Other Odds and Ends:

1. I thought the narration on the audiobook was very good. The narrator did a nice job with male voices and her female voices were distinguishable from one another and had different qualities.

2.

When they learn at the end that these forgetting trees are causing the forgettings, why don't they just get rid of them? Are they essential? They aren't the ONLY trees, at least I didn't get that sense.

3.

Having some people choose not to remember wouldn't work. What if you choose to forget, and then someone you were involved with in a previous cycle (in a romance or maybe a familial relationship like Anson and Nadia) chooses to remember? Are they just supposed to keep quiet that they have that relationship with the other person who chose to forget? Like if Jonathan's real parents had been alive and chose to remember, are they just supposed to never mention to Jonathan, "hey, you're my kid!" just because he chose to forget? Ugh, all this happens right at the end of the book and it annoyed the heck out of me because it was never addressed.

I'm slightly interested in the next book in this world, which is apparently a companion novel that takes place hundreds of years later, but I'm not exactly sure if I'll pick it up anytime soon.

I am not okay. This series has left me so messed up I'm not even sure how I'm going to figure out my feelings about it in a coherent manner.

***Some spoilers for This Savage Song may be contained in this review.***

I loved everything about this story. I re-read This Savage Song yesterday in preparation for this book and I felt like the transition from the first to second book was very well done. There are some different characters and elements introduced in this book, but it all felt like it was felt the same world. There was a level of cohesion that I really appreciated.

Kate and August are still great characters, and I love that this book has both of them going through internal struggles that end up being quite similar, despite the fact that they spend about a third of the book apart. I love their friendship and that their relationship is based off an understanding each has of the other that they don't have in any of their other relationships.

I really liked the addition of Soro, and wish we could've had a little more of their story. I would love to see a novella from their perspective. Also, I love that Victoria Schwab wrote about a non-binary character. It doesn't feel like I see that very often in popular literature, so that was really interesting.

The villains were scary AF. Sloan creeped me out all through the first novel, but with his growing obsession with

Kate

in this book, his creepiness reached a whole other level of disturbing. And Alice was just terrifying. I thought they were both very well-written, and I believed their respective motivations in regard to their actions. They were both revolting, awful creatures, but it didn't feel one-dimensional.

The writing is, as always, stunning. I love the way Victoria Schwab creates such a rich and interesting world for her rich and interesting characters. Her story ideas are so unique and she executes them to perfection in this series.

I also really appreciated the fact that this was a duology. I think we really need more duologies. The writing tends to be tighter and less filler, when you compare them to trilogies or longer series.

If I had to find something to critique, and I will, since no book is actually *perfect*, I would say that there were a few character threads that were pretty much dropped. All of the people Kate knew in Prosperity, as well as Mony, who she meets back in Verity, are introduced and then we don't hear from them again. Now I understand it for the most part concerning the friends back in Prosperity, since she left and there doesn't seem to be much in the way of communication with other territories, but Mony was introduced as a part of the FTF. She and Kate spend one day together training and that is all we ever hear from her, unless I missed a reference to her later on.

One more thing I wanted to touch on was the end of this book.

I thought it was perfect. So often, there are these epic fantasy stories with 27 main characters and every one of them makes their way through the series relatively unscathed. Every once in awhile a minor side character is killed, but it's not someone you care about anyway. Now, I'm not saying I want the characters I love to die, but in a story that is all about a war between humans and monsters...it's completely realistic that at least one of our main characters will meet their end. Now, that's not to say I wasn't shocked and heartbroken when not only one but TWO characters died in the last 20 pages, but honestly, that is realistic (yes, I know I'm using the word 'realistic' to talk about a fantasy book...so be it.). And really, I like the fact that the stakes were high. This wasn't manufactured drama. But I still can't believe Schwab did that and I'm super sad. But that's okay. It means she did her job at creating kick-ass characters you want to root for.

I haven't read any of Schwab's adult books, but I love her YA novels. I can't wait to see what she is going to come out with next.

2.5 stars

I think I'm done with Jennifer E. Smith. I've read four or five of her books and only enjoyed one of them, and I think that was more because of the quirkiness of the story rather than the writing or even the characters.

TIWHLL was just not great. It wasn't offensive in any way that I can think of, but it wasn't something I will even remember a couple of days from now. It was predictable, trope-filled, and boring. It was also at least 100 pages too long when you consider what actually happens in this book, which is a whole lot of not much.

What I liked:

1. The setting. I don't know that I've read many books set in Maine. I also liked that this took place during summer and specifically around the fourth of July.

2. The initial concept of two people meeting through email by accident and then hitting it off. I actually thought I was going to like this based on the first 20 pages, which was filled with their correspondence.

What I didn't like:

1. The characters were flat. Graham and Ellie never intrigued me, whether together or separate. I just didn't find them interesting at all.

2. The romance was too insta-lovey for me. I get that they've been trading emails back and forth for awhile, but the whole idea that he would orchestrate a meeting with her by getting his movie to shoot in her little small town without talking to her about it first is a little much. And when they finally meet, after a misunderstanding that ends up being pointless, they are immediately smitten. He is only there a few weeks,

and for most of that time they don't even talk or spend any time together because she's afraid of the paparazzi

and she talks about how much it's going to hurt when he leaves and blah, blah, blah.

3. Speaking of the misunderstanding,

it was a stupid plot point that only existed to drive a wedge between Ellie and her supposed bestie. It took about five minutes for Graham to realize his error and then he ditches Quinn to track down Ellie, which was actually kind of shitty. That being said, I didn't buy that Quinn would be so angry about the emails that she would start ignoring Ellie. After all, it's not like Ellie knew that she was emailing a movie star. She was emailing someone anonymous, and Quinn acts as though it's some huge betrayal. It's just not authentic. So then Quinn disappears for the entirety of the novel until she up and forgives Ellie right at the end. Pretty convenient, huh?

4. The 'big reveal' was really lame.

So Ellie's father is a senator who got into a relationship with Ellie's mother when he was already married. So yeah, he's a real winner. Anyway, Ellie's mother refused to take any money from him (sorry, but that's dumb) and eventually ran off with Ellie, changing both their names so Ellie wouldn't be in the news...or something. I felt like the reveal wasn't as shocking as the author seemed to think it would be. And honestly, the characters' actions and reactions seem blown out of proportion to me. Before we're told what the big secret is, it's made out like it something really big, something that would justify running away and changing your freaking name. But when it actually comes out, it's just not that big a deal. Even when it's thrown into the news people just kind of shrug it off. So why all the cloak and dagger stuff?! Also, they spend all this time setting up this trip that Ellie and Graham take to meet her father and then nothing ever comes of it.

5. This book was way too long. The first couple of Jennifer E. Smith books I read were pretty short. Recently I read Windfall and now this book, both of which are over 400 pages, and neither of which needed to be. Scenes are dragged out far too long, and they are boring. Almost nothing actually happens in this book.

The trip to meet Ellie's father is the only real action of the story, and even that becomes convoluted when they run out of gas, get stopped by the coast guard, find out their gas guage is defective, and then hop on a bus to get to where her father is just to turn around and come back...zzzzzzz.

6. So. Many. Tropes. The writing in this book is just so mediocre. And the tropes. Oh my goodness, the tropes.
- Fish out of water story where one character ends up in a small town that he/she is not at
all familiar with. There, he/she meets a local and love ensues.
- Love interest has a Super Secret Secret that keeps him/her from being open with other
love interest.
- Drama is manufactured in order to drive a wedge between supposed *best* friends.
- Famous person falls in love with the girl next door.
Now, tropes have their place. And I believe that almost any trope can work if the writing is great. Unfortunately, that does not apply to this story.

7. There is no plot. None. Now, if this story had amazing character development, I would forgive this. But it doesn't.

Like I said earlier, I think this is my last Jennifer E. Smith book. She is just not for me, and that's okay.

So, I put off reading this book for a long time. I actually read her second book first, and thought it was cute, but not the literary masterpiece others make it out to be. There were some great conversations about immigration and race, but for some reason I didn't buy the relationship between the two leads.

Feeling like the hype around that book was unjustified made me wary of this book for the same reason. I ended up picking it up at the library because eventually I will watch the movie and like to be able to compare the two.

Again, this book turned out to be just okay for me. It has some nice moments, and Nicola Yoon has a knack for structuring her books in quirky, very readable ways, but I just didn't connect with the characters at all.

Maddy has lived in a sterile environment her entire life. Her mother, a doctor, has been protecting her from SCID, which is a disease that causes her immune system to be pretty much non-existent. Anything could be a trigger and if she were to be exposed to the outside world it would eventually lead to her death.

She is completely cut off from everyone, with the exception of a nurse and a tutor or two.

Until the day Olly and his family move in next door. She becomes immediately obsessive over their comings and goings.

Eventually Olly and Maddy connect, and are pretty much immediately a romantic couple.

Honestly, I never felt the connection between them. I felt like their love story was kind of boring. I never found myself smiling at any of their interactions.

That being said, the first half of the book did have this bittersweet element that made you feel for them.

Then the second half of the book happened.

***minor spoilers ahead***

I've seen several reviews upset about the end of this book, specifically the 'twist'. But honestly? I realized where this book was going the moment Maddy did what she did halfway through the book. And I don't mean that to sound braggy. All I'm saying is that I felt like the way this book was structured (in first person from Maddy's perspective) made the 'twist' seem not that twisty to me. Now, that's not to say I enjoyed it. I thought it was actually kind of lazy writing. It almost felt like a bait and switch on the author's part. You think you're reading one kind of story most of the way through the book just to have it change completely in the last 50 pages. It felt like she had created this quirky love story but then couldn't figure out how to keep them together without changing the entire dynamic of their relationship.

Anyway, I didn't really think as much of this book as others seem to. I'm not sure why I can't fully enjoy this author's work. Maybe I'm just too old.

I don't have a lot of experience reading graphic novels. I just finished Defy The Stars which left me wanting more books with AI characters. I'd heard about this graphic novel
In the past and decided to jump in and see what I thought.

I really liked this story. I love the structure of the graphic novel. It felt like a movie to me. The art is wonderful, and the story itself is really compelling. There is just enough humor in this story to balance out the heavier moments.

If I had one critique, it would be that this felt so short. Just as I was getting really invested, the story ended. And I get it. This is the first of several volumes in this series. I think that is just the nature of graphic novels and something I'll have to get used to if/when I continue with more graphic novels.

2.5 Stars
I struggled with deciding what to rate this book. On one hand, I liked the concept. It's definitely a little tropey: first love comes back to town but a big dark secret is keeping them apart...but if it's done well, I really enjoy stories where first loves come back together. Unfortunately, I just didn't feel like this book lived up to my expectations, and it definitely wasn't accurately reflected in the synopsis.

Things that I liked:

1. Side characters with personality. For the most part, I liked the secondary characters in this story. Cory, Mackenzie, and Gwen were fun and interesting characters, and I liked the dynamic of the three of them with Declan and Harper. I did feel like Sadie and Kyle very one-dimensional, and wish they hadn't been such caricatures.

2. Declan was a good guy. I felt bad for him because I felt like he deserved better than Harper.

3. The book cover is really beautiful. The book cover is half the reason I put the book in my cart.

Things I didn't like:

1. HARPER.

What a miserable character. Oh my goodness, this girl is an absolute mess. At the beginning of the book she learns her mom has cancer. In order to dull the pain of that, she spends most of her time going out and getting wasted and messing around with random guys with her bad-influence friend Sadie. But she didn't really need her mom's illness as an excuse to be self-destructive and irresponsible. She's got so many excuses it's not even funny. Seriously, every single time she doesn't get exactly what she wants, she uses that as an excuse for wildly irresponsible behavior. Her boyfriend was sent off to boarding school. Her response?

To get so wasted she blacks out and has to be saved by her friend before she has sex with another guy she's never even met.

Oh, that's the big 'secret', by the way. And dragging it out for almost 200 pages when it's something as predictable as that is just lazy storytelling, imo.
Anyway, back to Harper. So this girl has some serious self-destructive tendencies. She literally cannot deal with being by herself. She's also one of the most selfish characters I've ever read about. Everything is about her.

Declan's mom's death? You would've thought it was HER mom who had passed away, the way she used it as justification for pushing away Declan. Declan going off to boarding school and actually making friends, some of whom were...GIRLS?! Well, it just left her so incredibly lonely she just couldn't help but go out and cheat on him! Seriously, everything is about her and how it makes her feel. Never a thought for anyone else. Even her best guy friend (who she always calls whenever she's wasted and wants to get away from whatever loser is trying to hump her leg) showing his new girlfriend attention is remarked upon in terms of how it affects her:
"As soon as I've caught up, Mackenzie grabs Cory's hand and sprints toward the Ferris
wheel. They get in line and I feel a twinge of loss. Which isn't at all justified since it's not
like Cory has stopped including me, or that he was ever mine to begin with. But without
swim practices, I already see less of him. And it's little things, like the way he's always
near Mackenzie, looking our for her, that make me wonder whether he's done looking out
for me that way."

She uses her mother's cancer to get out of going to school and avoid Declan, and then doesn't even help her mom with chemo or anything. She sleeps in. Her comment? "Yeah, I'm going to hell. What else is new?" Such a selfish person.
Now, if she had actually shown some growth throughout the course of the novel, maybe I could've excused some of this. But seriously, every single time she doesn't get her way immediately, she backslides.

At the end when Declan is late for the party, he tells her he's not sure if he can make it. It takes her literally five minutes to start drinking and smoking pot. She tries to act like it was such a favor to Declan that she hadn't had anything to drink up until that point, and then justifies her actions by saying something along the lines of, "what does it matter? He's not going to be here anyway." After all of that, we never get a real resolution. Everything is left very much up in the air, at least in my opinion. Who is to say that she won't lash out the next time he has to end a conversation before she's ready or can't come home one weekend? Or what if he, god forbid, wants to go out with some friends to get food or go bowling or something?

I had absolutely no sense that any of her behavior would change at the end of the novel. In reality, I feel like this book would've been better served if her character half-way through had started seeing a therapist or something. I really didn't want Declan and Harper together. I wanted Harper to find a little bit of self-esteem and self-respect as her own person instead of relying on Declan and their relationship to measure her own self-worth.

2. Slut-shaming.
Pg. 42 she actually self-slut-shames, assuming that Declan thinks she's a 'skank-wad'

Pg. 83 Referring to Sadie: "The only boys immune to her charms were Declan and Cory, who made it clear they thought that she was shallow and stuck-up and a few other choice S-words"

Pg. 99 "Catherine has been crushing on Declan since the sixth grade. And if he didn't know it before, he does now. She pulls him toward the dance party and promptly shoves her huge boobs into his face."

(When Catherine starts grinding on his 'crotchal region') "God, could she be any more aggressive?"

And then more: "[...Cat] had to serve a suspension last year for breaking the dress code eleven days in a row. No joke. Eleven warnings, this girl had. Just put on a fucking sweater.

Pg. 119 "Sadie is already deep into not-so-deep conversation with Mike Sanders.
Her latest victim.
I mean, infatuation."
There are several other instances of her talking about Sadie where she basically says it without actually saying it, but really? Sadie has so many other things that Harper could criticize her about. Sadie is a shitty friend. But it's almost always about Sadie being a party girl and hooking up with new guys all the time. Blah.

3. The 'parent has cancer' trope.
I didn't feel like this was particularly well-written. It seemed to serve mostly as a plot device for Harper justifying her shitty behavior. Because again, it's all about how it affects HER. She doesn't even spend any time with her family. And her parents just kind of let her do whatever she wants. I get that they are going through a rough time, but if my daughter had been caught drunk in a pool with a boy I didn't know, she wouldn't be going out to a bunch of parties all summer. Anyway, I didn't feel enough for these characters to actually feel sorry for them and the situation they were going through.

4. This book doesn't feel original at all.
Aside from the fact that this book relies on a ton of tropes, it also has a very similar concept to Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson. Granted, this book is not nearly as fluffy (it's not fluffy at all) as SCS, but it's about a girl who goes back to a summer home she hadn't visited for years because her father has cancer. There she meets up with her first love, but something she did the last time she was there is keeping them apart; her own inability to deal with confrontation and difficult situations.

The only difference is that in SCS the main character actually physically runs away from confrontation and in this book Harper emotionally runs away using alcohol, drugs, and sex.

So there's first loves reuniting, parent with cancer, and a main character with an inability to deal with her emotions and tough situations. There's even a tree house that meant a lot to the characters in each book, and initials being carved in wood. There were times when it felt very similar. Again, the tone in both books is very different. TYWFA is much darker. But my main problem with this is that in comparing them, SCS was an all-around better book. The parent's illness was handled much better, and we got to know the family members better. When there were setbacks, you felt it. It mattered. The romance was more believeable and I actually rooted for the main character.

It's a bummer because as I started this book I was looking forward to it. The first 40 or so pages seemed pretty good. But Harper just could not get out of her own way long enough to actually grow the hell up. And the fact that the emphasis was put entirely on the romance I feel like was a missed opportunity, because as much as we may not want to believe it, love doesn't conquer all, and this girl had issues that no boyfriend was going to be able to fix.

I'm really enjoying this series. I've never been a graphic novel person in the past, but I think I need to start checking them out. I love where this story went and the new characters and places introduced. Being a graphic novel, it was a super quick read for me. I really like the artwork in this as well. I know some people aren't fond of it, but I like the style quite a bit.

3.5 stars
I wish I'd enjoyed this volume as much as the first two. I think what it comes down to is that I was really interested in the story being told in its 'present day', and this book was 97% flashbacks.

Now, some of the flashbacks were very interesting. I liked seeing Tim 22's backstory. It had the classic villain origin story going on which made him sympathetic in many ways. I also loved Effie's backstory. That was amazing. And Driller's and Telsa's flashback sequences were good as well. However, having one whole section dedicated to Bandit felt a little unnecessary. It was kind of cute I guess, but we learned no new information there. Everything that happened had already been relayed during Andy's flashbacks in Volume 2.

Meanwhile, the current action did not move forward at all. Honestly, this issue felt very expositional in nature. And while I love good character development, I want it in a way that doesn't feel info-dumpy, which this tended to do. It's strange, because I felt like the flashback elements in the first two volumes were very successful. We get a couple of scenes interspersed with current action to keep the story moving at a good pace. But the structure of this volume being completely flashbacks killed the momentum for me.

Again, I will definitely pick up the next volume as soon as I can. I wish I'd liked this more, but I still love this series and can't wait to see what happens next.

This was a very difficult book to read and a very difficult book to sort out how I actually felt. I have to say that anyone who is at all triggered by stories about physical and emotional abuse should probably skip this one. I don't feel like that is a spoiler because you get that this isn't going to be a functional relationship in the synopsis.

Dreamland is a brutally honest story of an emotionally and physically abusive relationship. And I know that I am lucky to not have any experience in a relationship like that, although I have had friends who have been in abusive relationships. I feel like it's natural for someone on the outside looking in to see all the warning signs and say, "Hey! He's no good! Why let him treat you like that? Just leave." But once someone gets pulled into the cycle of abuse, it's not easy to get out. And just as in Dreamland, it's not like the guy starts out as an abusive asshole. It begins on a smaller scale: Expecting the victim to be at their beck and call; dictating where the other person can go; becoming short tempered when everything isn't up to their standards. From there it moves on to the more intense psychological and ultimately physical abuse.

So all that being said, yes, I did get frustrated with Caitlin, but I understood that it truly was an authentic story. People stay in abusive relationships all of the time and justify it to themselves in one way or another.

I would've liked to see this story last a little longer,

to she how she's able to cope with her life post-Rogerson.

There was a bit of slut-shaming going on in this book. She even refers to one girl as the 'school slut'.

There is sex (nothing graphic or even vaguely described, it's just mentioned in passing that certain characters are having sex) and drugs (marijuana) contained in this book, as well as mentions of bulimia and drug addiction. the last two are very minor, but this book may not be appropriate for very young teens.

I prefer some of Sarah Dessen's more recent books, and for awhile I thought I was going to hate this book, but then I realized that it was only because reading about this relationship was so disturbing. I actually think it could be a really important book that sends a good message.