Started reading this on holiday and soon switched over to audiobook, which was also the way I managed to finish it.

It was a lovely setting and an intriguing premise and I was waiting to see how the story would finally wrap up, but it was slightly underwhelming and based on circumstance more than actual motive.

I understand that Chet wanted revenge, but how could he know that the girls would give him the perfect opportunity to make them vanish? Unless that was never his intention and all he wanted was to simply make Emma seem guilty for the first vanishing all those years ago

Unfortunately this one has the cutest cover and this is what lured me in, but other than that I didn't really enjoy it.

I feel my biggest issue with it was the writing. 400+ pages but I could narrow down the significant events to 250+ pages. The dual POV didn't really help cause most of the times we ended up rereading events. Adding to that, we got scenes that were identical with th biggest example being the Christmas holidays, where we got the exact same restaurant/ex scene for both Anastasia and Nate with minimal changes.

There was a big cast of characters that didn't really make sense.

It had an awfully cheesy, perfectly wrapped up ending which was slightly unrealistic and I could see it coming for miles. Because everyone reading this is a multimillionaire that ends up getting married two years out of college, have a baby and live in a beach mansion.

Again, I will return to the writing, cause a lot of scenes read like fanfiction.

Did we have any clue that Aaron was into Anastasia before nationals? No. Did the fact that Anastasia fell into a frozen lake have any impact apart from the fact that it made them say "I love you"? No. Did we ever see two athletes that apparently won a gold medal and a Stanley cup ever actually train? No. Did we ever understand why everyone was so enamored with Anastasia the moment they met her? No.

 
Did it try to tackle a miriad of topics like anxiety, an ED, toxic relationships, hook up culture, etc and somehow kept it surface level? Yes. Did it glorify unprotected sex? Yes.

All in all, I know what this book tried to do, cause I've seen the same scenes in other romance books time and time before. Unfortunately, it wasn't my cup of tea.

That was literally the sweetest thing I've read! Representation was spot on, but my absolute favourite thing has to be the art work!!

insightful to say the least. whatever your opinion on him is, you have to respect all he went through to protect his family.


**I do not rate memoirs

I think at this point, I will read anything Talia Hibbert writes ✨
At the same time, this wasn't one of my favourites, probably because the protagonists were teenagers, but nonetheless it was so sweet and wholesome that I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Even though I loved the first one, this one fell so flat for me. Lila Bard has to be one of the worst / most insufferable characters I've read in the longest time...

I'm not sure what I expected going into this and somehow I don't think I got what I wanted from it (???)

First chapter had me in a chokehold, it was much more graphic than i expected and it made me flinch, which was LOVELY

After that, especially when we got to the "5 running in the bushes" incident, instead of the book going UP, it went DOWN. I wasn't expecting a car chase type of thriller, but at the same time, this felt like a huge slice of life book and I wasn't really interested in reading something like that 

I just couldn't, it wasn't flowing AT ALL

This is a difficult one. It certainly made me uncomfortable a lot of the time, but at the same I don't really feel like I've gained anything from it? I don't know, some parts I liked, some parts I hated, mixed emotions.

If "Mexican Gothic" has taught me anything, is that as soon as a fungus enters the chat you need to bolt.

All jokes aside, this was marvelous. I loved the writing style, all the characters and what especially intrigued me was the conversation about pronouns/gender, which was subtle, yet poignant.