eggcatsreads's Reviews (480)

I AM HEARTBROKEN.

MARGARET OWEN HAS GIVEN ME EVERYTHING I WANTED IN THIS BOOK JUST TO RIP MY HEART OUT AT THE LAST PAGES.

I knew exactly what was going to happen at the very end and YET. THAT LAST LINE.

Also I know it's not practical but I want a book focusing on a gnole romance, possibly with a human. Love them so much.

If I wanted to listen to the most annoying unlikeable people argue and snipe for pages and pages, I'd just go home for Christmas and see my real family.

I don't think a single character was redeemable, either with being the worst ever or just annoying as hell. Even the so-called main character Joy was absolutely NOT a Joy to listen to her snipe and snipe about her kids not having kids and how Terrible it is that she's not a grandma. I hated every character so much I was hoping she WAS dead just so she'd shut up. When we get a reveal of one character being the way she is because she was abused and starved as a child, I just didn't care.

And the "twist" ending was so bad I almost stopped.

If you like the most annoying people on earth and tennis to a god awful degree, you'll probably like this book.

This book was absolutely hilarious and I was laughing at basically every conversation.

This book started slow and I was leaning more towards 3-4 stars and then the second pov came and flipped my perspective and grabbed me by the throat and I'm still emotionally distraught. 5 stars.

Edit: Reread a year later.
This book is still phenomenal, and I think almost better on a reread because you know what's going on.

Definitely don't look up spoilers, but otherwise the first time you read all of Julie's notes it can be kind of slow until you get to the Kittyhawk section and all the pieces come together.

But on a reread it hits you even more because you KNOW exactly what's going on, and even worse, how it ends.

Kiss me, Hardy! Kiss me QUICK!

Knocked off a star for the constant homophobia, as well as some transphobia and racism throughout, even from the supposed "good guys" we're supposed to root for the entire book. I get it was written in 1990 but it was unnecessary and served no purpose except to be offensive and distracting.

Wenzhi supremacy reigns, I'm sorry Liwei but it's just the facts.

Everyone complaining about the gothic horror in the gothic horror novel, maybe read a different genre? What the fuck did y'all think this book was???

The way Ava Reid writes is so beautiful that the second I started reading I was hooked until I finished this book. She could write anything and it would flow so nicely I'd want to read it. She's also one of the few authors who I BELIEVE the two love interests actually ARE interested in each other. There's chemistry and attraction between them, which is so refreshing since half the time it's just like "boy + girl go together, right?"

-Absolutely take the trigger warnings seriously though. It's a good book but the warnings are there for a reason.

Idk. The reviews seem split but I loved this book and couldn't put it down once Shit started, and I was breathless by the time it ended. The ending was both hopeful and bittersweet and while some people seem to hate it, it makes sense to me.

Spoiler

She didn't want the House, she wanted the safety and status it provides, so if she can get that elsewhere with her mother (and not in the same traumatic place she was the entire novel) ofc she'd leave.

Maybe I have bad taste based on some of the other reviews, idk lmao. However, I loved Mexican Gothic and both of these books filled a very similar niche of Gothic horror in my opinion and I loved them both.

The best way to describe this is a fairytale version of The Final Girl Support Group, except this one doesn't suck.