gxuosi's Reviews (390)

2.75, rounded up to 3 stars. this book had a lot of things going for it; a diverse cast, plot twists, creatures both big and small, unique magic, and a gorgeous victorian house. i really enjoyed where the story went narrative wise and through often prose-like descriptions of the settings (especially in the manor itself and in dream sequences). not one, but two plot twists managed to catch me off guard which is hard to do for most cozy fantasy series. what the book didn't have and i personally found lacking was character depth. this isn't to say the cast didn't have flaws, positive traits, motivations, fears- they did and we learned all about them. but the dialogue often felt rushed and like it was an after thought to the plot. because of that, i rarely felt like i had time to connect with the characters. this is true for mat most of all, who fell into the backdrop as stronger characters like frankie, august, helena, and dimitri happened to him while the plot unfolds. it was an easy read, a decent length, and a heart warming story, but i wanted more from it than it was able to deliver. overall i did enjoy reading it and would in fact recommend it to cozy mystery and lgbtqia+ lit fans.

edovard my sweet angel boy. i was hoping for something more dynamic for his character arc and struggled pretty significantly with how we glossed over the dubcon cum blackout romily suffered at santanos’s hands in book 1 only for santanos to be the romantic lead in this book. **review edit after ive slept. given that the interruption conversations between the extended foxily includes the comfortable connection of romily and santanos, it implies there’s been absolution for what happened. so i don’t have it in me to be mad if romily isn’t. i do now however wish we had gotten better characterization out of julia and co.

just absolute batshit nonsense. a ketamine and speed cocktail of story telling. i love this goofy ass series so much lmfao

these books are so fucking fun. stupid as hell nonstop fun. after being let down by the lack of addressing romily's sexual abuse at the hands of santanos in previous books, i appreciated there being a fair amount of conversation and plot addressing bellamy's kidnapping and torture.

thank you to creature publishing and dori lumpkin for a signed copy of antenora!

i lost a little piece of myself to this book. this book was a gift unto itself, seemingly written for me full of all that i enjoy. i have a little space in my heart carved out for stories dealing with appalachian horror, religious trauma, repressed homosexuality, and rage incarnate—antenora delivers them all. told through a seamless winding narration of the present and past, abby-girl and nora's lives unfold in a sweltering heat, a continuous pressure building up ready to snap. despite abby-girl telling us everything after the fact and resigned to her regrets, there's no relief from the increasing anxiety of what has happened already and yet to be said. that in a calamitous instant, everything might change for the better or worse. nora's presence, no matter what she does, is a rising tide; a wave threatening to wipe out everything in bethel... and there is no amount of prayer or deliverance that can stop her... and maybe she shouldn't be stopped.

the most infuriating bat shit thing i’ve ever read. you cant just keep putting sex scenes after kaden and ayla fight. that’s not healthy. doesn’t matter though cause kaden is a piece of shit and i hate him. and WHY are we giving jordan a redemption arc??? he has been cruel from the start and then was ayla’s would-be-rapist. “oh but the sun witches were controlling him” I DONT CARE. NO REDEMPTION. and no kaden trying to fucking execute him isn’t right either.

it sure was a book!

actually yeah that was fun as hell. i still HATE jordan and kaden, get that shit straight. but a book full of all the side characters i enjoyed from 1-4? slay.

a soul crushing disappointment. i really really wanted to love this and instead i was trapped in a downward spiral of some of the most fruitless writing ive ever read. an incomprehensible cyclone of religious exaltations, psalms, pov swaps between paragraphs, time skips between sentences, inner monologues in the middle of a conversation.

okay hear me out lmfao. this was SO BAD. this was just less than 70 pages of sad swamp sex. it was rushed, super short, plotless porn, and somehow still managed to be repetitive. the dirty talk and dialogue in general was so lifeless and poorly done you could have told me this whole novella was AI. this was honestly awful, but it was so jarringly bad that i couldn't stop laughing. i had SO MUCH FUN reading this slop. so yeah 3/5 lmfaooooooo