So I've heard a lot about The Abyss Surrounds Us. A lot. All of it good. And now I've finally gotten around to reading it. And I can promise you: it is amazing!

The story is about Cassandra Leung, who after training for many years, finally gets send on her first Solo-Mission. It's supposed to be easy, just taking care of a cruise ship, but pirates under the lead of Santa Elena destroy everything she's ever dreamed off. After killing her Reckoner, they force her to help them raise their own beast. Not only could a pirate owned Reckoner easily become a huge threat to ships on the pacific, if there's more of them, they could also destroy the Neo-Pacific eco-system, causing the death of lots of people.

Do you like the sea? Read this book. Do you like well-developed enemies/unlikely allies to friends to lovers stories? Read this book. Do you like Pacific Rim? Read this book. Do you like pirates? Read this book. Are you looking for a fun Sci-Fi novel with a lesbian relationship and action and friendship and character development and betrayal and terrifying sea monsters that can also be super cute but are still terrifying? READ THIS BOOK!

The characters are amazingly well written, full of morally ambiguous characters, some darker, some lighter, but all very understandable. And the character development y'all! Especially Cas' character arc kept me hooked to the story and honestly? I loved it so much! But of course Swift is great as well and I really love her lot, though not so much in the beginning, but her background story and the character development!!! So good! Oh, and the Reckoners are amazing too! Sea Monsters (some nicer than others) that can tear ships apart and are also super terrifying. But great. Damn, I Love Them.

The world building is awesome! The politics of it are very well thought out and there's an awesome map in the beginning of the book. While I would have liked a tad more information about the rebellion that lead to the development of the Neo-Pacific, the rest of it was amazingly well done and I enjoyed every second.

While there are some problems with a bit of info dumping at the beginning of the story, I'll chalk it up to a beginners mistake. And honestly, this world is so well thought out and interesting, set in the future on the sea with amazing politics and so much great world building, I couldn't help but love it.

Honestly, my only real problem with the book was how short it was. But there's always something going on and the pacing is really well done (kind of fast, but I was so intrigued I couldn't put that book down!) And oh my god, there's an evil cliff-hanger at the end. All in all, I think this is one of my favorite books this year and I can honestly just recommend you to read it. And hey, the sequel is also out now, so get on that and read this wonderful Duology!

Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

After finishing the first book, which was one of my favorite books, I immediately dove into the sequel. While it was still a very good book (pretty great tbh), it didn't give me everything I wanted. (I have high standards because of the first book can you tell?). Anyway, the conflict between the main characters felt too dragged out for me, especially the constant switches between love and hate made it really hard for me to like their relationship like I wanted too. But in the end, the promise of equal footing was really well-played out, which was one of my favorite parts of their relationship in this book.

However the writing was a bit better than the first book, and there was also a lot of things going on. There is also a bit more world building, which was super interesting, but it still didn't feel like quite enough. Ugh, I just love this world and I Want More!!!

There are also a lot of fascinating battles even though they sometimes felt too chaotic and it wasn't that easy to keep up with them all the time. Despite this I absolutely adored these action-packed scenes, it was so good y'all!

We also get to know some side characters a bit better, but most of all we get to know Cas brother which was really great. Like in the first book the story was very character-driven and Cas felt even more real, which was great. I do feel really sorry for her because she has a lot of weight on her shoulders in this book as well as a lot of new responsibilities and while you can see that this is hard on her, she manages so well and I Love Her. Another thing that was fascinating were some reveals about Swift and I can promise you that they are big! (Really big. I gasped when I read them. Ugh, so good!). Also, Santa Elena plays a reaaaaally important role in this book and she is amazing. Honestly, she's terrible but amazing and even though I still love Cas and Swift more (cause they are great duh), Santa Elena definitely ended up on my Top Ten List of Love-Hate Characters.

The ending feels like a set up for a new interesting story and while I know this is a finished Duology I definitely wouldn't be opposed to more stories set in this universe! It was amazing!

All in all, this was a very worthy ending, picking up right where the first book left off and if you liked the first book I think you will like this one too. Also if you like lesbian pirates and betrayal and heartbreak and great action and many other good things that I already mentioned in my first review.

Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Krystal and Brianna are roommates and graduate students. Krystal loved Bollywood movies, Brianna loves Star War marathons. They are also best friends and so when Krystal finds out her childhood best friend and ex-girlfriend is getting married in an arranged wedding, she needs to go to the wedding to stop her and Brianna drives her there.

This is a very short story and features a lot of Indian Culture, which was nice. Krystal is also adopted and thus feels quite disconnected from her family (who only adopted her for money anyway) and we get a lot of flashbacks to how Gita helped her at that time in her life. Gita also always hated arranged marriages and so Krystal is very worried about her getting married in one. At first I was worried there would be biphobia (ala she's getting married to a man omg) but thankfully that wasn't there, it was actually just worry about her getting married in a marriage she had always vocally despised.

One thing I really didn't like how Krystal treated Indian Culture. She was really obsessed with it (as she was with Gita) and it just felt a bit weird? There's nothing wrong with appreciating another culture of course, but in Krystal's case, it kind of felt fetishizing and I didn't like it. There are also some gross comments from Krystal in general, as well as stalking.like behavior. Krystal is definitely an unreliable narrator and super unlikeable to me because of her creepy behaviour. And while this behavior is kind of called out, I didn't think like it was called out enough, except by the character who actually had to suffer through it.

The story was also very rushed and we didn't get to know Brianna that all, so the end of the book didn't really make sense to me. All in all, I would have loved this story to be more developed, Krystal's creepy behavior to be called out and more development between Brianna and Krystal. In the end, this was an interesting short story, but it could have been way better.

Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Abby lives a quiet life at a library and even though her life is very uneventful she is okay with that. But when she goes to a big charity auction with a friend of her's, she dances with the Supermodel Gabrielle Levesque and everything changes. Even though everyone warns her about Gabrielle and her reputation as Ice Queen, who doesn't care about other people, Abby can't help but fall for her when Gabrielle turns out to be different. However, as the relationship develops, secrets from Gabrielle's past come to light and Abby worries of the day where Gabrielle will expect to sleep with her. And then there is also budget cuts at her library, maybe leaving her job- and if everything goes well homeless.

Abby is a sex-positive ace. While she doesn't particularly care to have sex, she is also not repulsed by it. In fact, there is a scene where Abby has sex with Gabrielle to please her. It felt very uncomfortable, but they talked about it later thankfully, but if something like that upsets you, be careful. There is also talk about an abusive past relationship/job connection.

Abby is a very likeable and relateable character. She worries about her job, her friends, her relationship. She generally worries quite a bit in the book, but she has every reason too. She is also very introverted and definitely the main driving force behind the book.

Gabrielle is a bit more closed off, a bit colder. She can be harsh at times, but will also want to hang out with Abby a lot and her constant changes between hot and cold are very intriguing. She used to work in theater, but suddenly and rudely changed her career, dropping out just before an important play was to start. Now she's a model, but she doesn't seem to enjoy it much. Gabrielle's background gives a lot of insight into this.

Their relationship felt a bit hurried at times, especially since Gabrielle was often very closed off, but the ending is lovely. The writing is also quite good and so helped make the story lively, despite its sometimes whiplash-y effects. The story, however, is sometimes a bit predictable, but the good writing distracts from it well.

This is also the second book in a series, but you don't need to read the first one to understand. I didn't read the first one and I understood this story well.

All in all, this was a lovely story with an ace MC and if you're looking for something sweet and lovely, this is the book for you, so go and check it out!

Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Mitsuki and Natsuki are the daughters of Noriko, an elderly Japanese woman who after years of needing them to take care of her finally died. The first words of the book are "Today mother died", the translation of a french phrase that reappears various times in the book.

This book stretches over generations. We get stories about the life of the grandmother, stories about the mother's life and stories about the daughters in the present. We are told about how the view on women changed over these three generations in Japan and various suffering they faced and still face today.

This is a very interesting book if you are looking for a detailed insight into the Japanese culture surrounding the relationships between mothers and daughters or the shame a woman might feel when she finds out her husband want to leave her for another woman.

The story is divided into two halves. The first one had Mizuki as the dutiful daughter, recounting how her mother fell ill and then the years spent taking care of her, intermingled with some childhood memories that are very often filled with scorn as her mother preferred Natsuki over her when they were younger until Natsuki finally fell from her grace and her overbearing mother suddenly focused on Mizuki. The second one is spent finally dealing with the fact that her husband has left her for another woman and the fallout of her mother's death.

The characters in this story are incredibly detailed and lively. For example, Noriko, the mother, is an egotistical woman, who always tries living above her own means by buying expensive silk clothes and getting with the high society and not the uncultured families, without an appreciation for western theater and movies. This also makes it hard for her to connect with other people when she's older, as she thinks they are beneath her and so the only people who care about her in her old age are her daughters. Natsuki is a bit less fleshed out since the story is told from Mizuki's point of view and her story is colored by anger at the different treatment she received as opposed to her sister.

However, this is definitely not an easy story to read. It is very long, over 400 pages, full of repetitions and just seems to stretch for ages. Like this, it gives us a deep insight into Mizuki's life, but it still sometimes feels like it's way too long. However the writing is done well and I found myself so deeply invested in the story, so that while I sometimes had to stop and wonder how long this book way, I never really wanted to put this book down for good, even though I had to take quite a few breaks.

It also gives us a very deep insight into japanese culture, the over-aged population, the western influence and the devaluation of traditional japanese culture in higher-class families, how different ranks, classes, and education might affect someone's marriage and familial obligations, the rise of economy and the struggle to finally rise higher than the neighbours and sometimes the subsequent deep fall, and of course family and relationship issues, the good and the bad.

There are some scenes where suicide is discussed quite openly shortly before the book ends, so be careful there, it was a bit hard to read for me, and a side-character has an eating disorder, but that is not given much thought and just mentioned in passing.

All in all, this is a very long (sometimes too long), very interesting, at times very poetic story about families and generations and japanese culture.

Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Grace has just returned home when her mother tells her that they are moving. Again. And this time her mother's new boyfriend's son turns out to be Grace's Ex-Boyfriend, who posted private texts between them on his tumblr after she broke up with him. And then there is that audition for a top music school that Grace wants to go to, but how can she ever leave her self-destructive mother alone? Oh, and there is also Eva, a girl who just moved into town after her mother died. She is one of the few things that cheer Grace up, but of course, not even that is easy.

This story was definitely way better than I expected. I had heard a lot of praise about the biracial LI and the story's treatment of loss, but I was still positively surprised when I read this story and I have to say I adored it a lot. I can't speak about the treatment of biracial characters (here's a review by someone who can), but I found the lesbian and bisexual rep amazing and their relationship was incredibly well written and just adorable.

I also feared that the romance would maybe push the rest of the story into the background or that too much would be going on in the novel, but this didn't happen and so I absolutely adored the story. Everything was well thought out and the pacing was amazingly well done so that I never got bored with this book and was barely able to put it down once I started reading. Also, the romance was so cute, featuring kissing in a tree, late-night trips and talking under the stars and making out on a boat during the 4th of July (I need cute fanart y'all). It is the cuteness overload, that stands opposite to some other parts of the story.

Because there are some parts of the story that are harder to handle. I don't want to spoiler any of you, so I'll just mention them shortly, but you can also skip this paragraph if you want. There's short talk about drug abuse, the MC's mother drinks a lot of alcohol and emotionally abuses her daughter, there is quite a lot of talk about the loss of loved ones and grief and about healthy and unhealthy coping methods with that. There is also a few short scenes that deals with sexual assault, some that were just viewed by the MC, and two that happened to her personally (a drunk man followed her to the toilet while she was a young teenager, but nothing happened + in the other scene her ex-boyfriend is really invasive and it was a bit hard for me to read since I worried about what might come, so please be careful there). All of these, except the one with the ex-boyfriend, are really short if that helps. And of course, there is the relationship between Grace and her mother, which is really messed up, since her mother was absent (physically or mentally) for a lot of Grace's life and yet Grace thinks it is her responsibility to save her mother. If something like this upsets you, please be really careful with this book.

However, all the relationships are incredibly well written, especially the dysfunctional one between Gracie and her mother, and the one between Gracie and Eva. This is a very quiet contemporary book too and if you're expecting action you will be disappointed, but for me, this book worked perfectly. All in all, I have to say this is one of the more fantastic and awesome book that I can just recommend to all of you, please read it.