ellaellaellaetc's Reviews (494)

GUYS NOOOOOO😭😭😭 FUCK😭😭😭😭😭 I'VE BEEN GENRE FICTION PILLED!!! I'm what people talk about when they say that tiktok book readers do not appreciate classics. cause lowkey guys as I was reading this I was so impatient. I was like omggggg this is so boring pls get to the point!!!! and this book isn't even long. and then when the book got to the point I was like 😳😳😳 oh. I now understand why all of that was necessary 😳😳 and I realised how I had gotten used to snappy plots and knowing exactly what to expect from a novel. not that this is necessarily bad but I think I went into this book with the wrong expectations and I was super unfair to it and got highkey humbled when I realised 😭😭 guys this is a good book and I'm sorry for judging at first sight, everything was necessary!!! highly recommend to pull yourself out of your "easy book slump" (not that "easy" books are bad!!!!!!! I love them!!!!! but quality literature has it's place also!!!! it's not elitest!!!!) 4.75 stars :))

omg guys😍😍😍😍😍 this was so cute!!! I think I finished this in like a day! first ali hazelwood book to really charm me! shoutout to natasha for slaying with the book recs as per usual :) this is a ya romance about ex chess champion who enters a charity chess tournament as a favour for her friend even though she quit chess a few years ago for mysterious reasons. She ends up having to vs. the world no. 1 (who is a cute boy her age🤭). this is a massive upset as he literally hasn't been beaten in forever so she gets heaps of media attention and eventually she is asked to do a one year fellowship by this lady. she really doesn't want to do this cause she hates chess (once again, for unknown reasons) but she's just been fired from her mechanic job and needs money so she agrees to do it :) this book follows her and with her evenutal romance with the world no. 1. I don't really have much to say about this book but mostly just so cute! this was my more preferred style of romance book where you have one main pov character that you learn a lot about and they have their whole arc and then you have their love interest that is just the icing on the cake :) i think mallory's personal journey was just so heartwarming and her and the main guy's relationship (forgot his name soz) was just so, like, awwwwwww🥺🥺 anyway highly recommend if you're looking for a ya contemorary romance! 4.5 stars <3 

  girls. I'm so late to the party but this hit lowkey. this is THEE tiktok fake dating book (rewritten reylo fanfic) about phd student olive and supervisor (NOT HER SUPERVISOR!!) adam. now you really have to meet this book where it's at if you want to enjoy this. I really love it's silly goofy tone and ended up liking this book quite a bit but by no stretch of the imagination would I call this good. I am so behind on my reviews that I have since read two more ali hazelwood books (tlh was her debut) and I can definitely say that she has definitely improved with time. I think she has this really charming writing style that just puts a smile on your face but that couldn't make up for the fact that there were too many moments in this that were just manufactured cringe and general unrealistic levels of craziness that I could not get behind😭😭 there's a level of disbelief you just have to roll with when reading most genre fiction but homegirl hazelwood takes it to a new level😭😭 I won't get into the specifics because there are so many really articulate reviews that explain the strangeness of the portrayal of academia and every character just acting so illogically so I will just say this: I didn't really think that this was bad, but the main strength of this book (the lighthearted tone and humour) is something you can get from so many other romance books so I would recommend either reading one of hazelwood's later novels if you still want that STEM aspect or read another romance author with a silly goofy sense of humour (should I make a top romance books list similar to how j made a top 100 books of the 21st century list????). anyway. 3 stars. if you haven't read it by now I wouldn't bother picking it up tbh. 

 guys :) I love nina kenwood! I went to the book launch for this and homegirl signed my copy of this book and also my beloved copy of unnecessary drama (one of my favourite books of all time! my favourite australian book definitely). it was my first time at a book launch and it was so cool to hear kenwood talk about her book, the process and just romance in general! such a good atmosphere there and it really hyped me up to finally read the book and it did not disappoint! this book's plot actually really crazily matched real life events for me in a way that actually kind of frightened me. this is about anna who goes to the wedding of her best friend (and she knows she will see her recent ex, joel). she ends up getting into her own romantic shenanigans with a guy with whom she gets into a long-distance situationship with..... DOES THAT SOUND FUCKING FAMILIAR TO YOU?????? lowkey I feel like nina kenwood used a time machine to go into the future milk my friends' personal lives for her plot. it really doesn't help that there is also a character called patrick who is a photographer and I have a friend called patrick and guess what one of his jobs is😭😭 despite it's relevance to the lives of my loved ones, I really really enjoyed this! I vibe nina kenwood's humour heavy and I just loveeee being inside anna's head. I read this at a time where I just needed a good romance to get me through and nina kenwood delivers on fun romance vibes that also hits quite hard in the emotional department and strikes a perfect balance between the two. I love you nina and catch me front row and your next book launch, whatever that may be🫡🫡 4.5 stars 

 the second of the pjo x kane chronicles crossover! this one is from annabeth's perspective and is about her and sadie. I think that the way that the egyptian and greek myths were tied together for this novella was really smart and you know I'll never always take an annabeth pov wherever I can get one. I liked this one slightly better than the first and once again I am so thankful that these are short and low stakes. 3.75 stars 

 oh girl. this was a personal attack. I was interested in reading some contemporary aus fiction and then I read this fiction book about this bitch who lives like 10 mins away from me who was going through the same sort of problems I'm going through and it lowkey broke me😭😭 I started listening to this audiobook in the evening and I kept listening until I finished it at like 4-5am. I think this was one of those right book right time situations. I think I needed to read this when I read it but it also lowkey ruined my life. after finishing this book I didn't really read for like over a month cause this called me out in such a personal way that I am both grateful for and deeply insulted by. not that my reviews are ever objective (although sometimes I try), but I don't think that I could give an unbiased book review for this because I feel like this was my memoir. anyway. 4.5 stars 

 oh wow. I don't say this often but the movie I think did it better! I was very excited to read this and get into the creepy vibe but I found this to be incredibly bland. there was a shocking lack of emotion in this story and I didn't feel connected to coraline at all. like honestly I just don't have a lot to say cause this was a bit of a nothing burger. maybe just watch the movie, 2 stars.

 girl... I read this on recommendation from my grandma and lowkey I already forgot everything that happened😭😭 this is about a guy who goes to a boarding school and it just follows him throughout his life as he like does stuff? idk😭😭 this was  when I was starting towards my I hate reading era I did not really process this book. unrated, sorry to this author I'm sure this book is great😭😭 I wouldn't know ig😭😭 

 okayyyyy!! this was cute! I think if you're a people pleaser and you just want someone to take care of you sometimes but you lowkey don't think you deserve it (you do btw) I think you will get a lot from this book. this is about typical older sister college girl haley who breaks up with her long time bf and realises that she doesn't really have friends. it follows her on her journey coming more out of her shell and finally putting herself first for the first time ever. hockey boy henry falls head over heels for her and they become friends and then more :)

this was really really sweet and if you like wholesome romances where you can genuinely feel the friendship between the two characters I think you would enjoy this! I think a lot of women will unfortunately relate a lot of haley (me lowkey😭😭) and they all deserve a henry in their lives! lowkey I did think that it was a bit unrealistic how quickly he fell for her especially cause he's not really a relationship guy before this but whateva ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ also miss hannah grace lovesssss to make her characters communicate which I like but her characters also tend to be overly self-aware about their vices and ways that their trauma affects their every day life to the point where it's a bit on the nose, unrealistic and doesn't really give the reader the chance to make their own connections (ie instead of showing how haley's family treats her like a third parent and then show how this affects what she thinks her friend expect of her, haley will just explain it in therapised language exactly how all her past experiences affect her daily life choices in a way that's a bit too informed (if that makes sense)). honestly this wouldn't necessarily be a problem to have a character like this but every single protagonist in every single hannah grace book is like this😭😭 babes like where's the subtlety. where's the room for audience interpretation. also the dialogue wasn't really realistic. at the end of the day that doesn't matter though cause I still ate this the fuck up. love. 4.5 stars 

 oh girl😭😭 I have been meaning to read this book for YEARS and was so glad when my friend natasha (a frequent ellaellaellaetc. recommender) book a beautiful edition of this book and allowed me to borrow it! unfortunately this sucked. really horrific and cringe and had me constantly rolling my eyes. natasha sweetie it's not you dw. 

this is about evangeline and the love of her life secret bf randomly stops liking her and gets engaged to her step sister (who she doesn't get along with). in this world you can pray to fates so she asks the prince of hearts (or something) to stop the wedding and he does so in exchange for 3 kisses (he can choose 3 random people for her to kiss at any time) also if anyone kisses him then they die unless they're his true love.

however, him "stopping the wedding" is him turning the entire wedding party into stone and the only way to reverse it is to drink a potion that turns HER into stone. she feels bad and drinks it and she wakes up like 18 days later for reasons I can't remember and then she is celebrated as this matyr who saved her family (no one else knows she made the deal in the first place) and then she goes north with her step sister to court the prince of the north or something. idk, it was convoluted. this was a book that really felt like it was making random things up along the way in order to get to a very specific ending; like it didn't feel like natural story progression at all. random things would happen for kind of no reason and the characters would just go along with it.

speaking of the characters omg they were so boring!!! each one was the different archetype and I didn't think any of their relationships with each other really made sense/were interesting/original apart from the relationship between main girl and the step sister but even that wasn't even that interesting. 

ugh I just don't have anything good to say so I'm not gonna say anything. in summation, this was just extremely juvenile and not in a good way (you know I am a middle grade girlie fr!!!!) but this was just not it. sorry natasha I still love you. 1.25 stars