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

Jessie can't believe that her coach hired Fran. Of all players that annoyed her on the field, he has to pick the one who managed to get on her nerves so badly, that Jessie lost her temper on the field and was suspended. And even now, when they are on the same team, Jessie is not sure if she can stand Fran.

Jessie is a hardworking woman, who wants to excel in football and in her personal life. Her opinion about romance is shattered, when her parents split up after nearly 30 years or marriage. And whatever weird thing she has going on with Fran makes everything even more complicated.

Fran is the silent type. She smokes and she sleeps and she deals with her past addiction as well as struggling to keep her grandfather's bar up and running. Most of the time she's distant and silent, but she also has her softer moments.

Jessie was pretty easy to love most of the time. Personally, I thought she overreacted a lot to the news of her parent's divorce, she's a grown up after all and doesn't depend on them and I found it really weird to read about her going on and on how it was the worst thing to happen to her. I can't imagine that it would change that much for a grown up child whose not living with their parents anymore.

I had a few problems with Fran. I really wanted to like her and I normally do like the Troubled Girl, but she lacked Depth. Now she has a tragic backstory and she has a lot of stuff going on in her life, but I never really felt like I could connect with her. She has all these things going on, but she kind of lacks the emotional depth. I also have a hard time imagining how a hard-core smoker and a generally not very healthy lifestyle, is supposed to have the condition to become a top-notch football player.

Generally, there was a lot of telling in this book and very little showing, so I already had a hard time connection to most of the characters and sadly this didn't change throughout the book.

I did however really enjoy the parts where Fran talked about her addiction. I can't say how truthful it was, but it felt very heartbreaking. Some of her descriptions were hard to read, but it was definitely a very interesting point of view that she had.

All in all, I have to say I liked this book, but it was not groundbreaking, and I still have some problems with it as detailed above. But it was still a nice read.

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

I have to say I picked this book up because it's cover really reminded me of Alice: Madness Returns and in this aspect, I have to say I wasn't disappointed. There were zombies and lots of gore-y fights and post-apocalyptic distress, all while still having lots of hints at the original Alice.

Alice Carrol and her sister Dinah live in a fortified sector. Their father Lewis Carroll walked out on the family when they were still children, their mother died when the zombie apocalypse started. Dinah was about to finish her nursing degree when the apocalypse started and so she is one of the most medically qualified people in the city. The two girls sneak out sometimes to get medicine and books from the library. But on their last run, Dinah was bitten and she will turn into a Momeraths if Alice doesn't find the cure. And so she makes her way into Wanderland where there are more dangers than just zombies.

I was immediately pulled into the story and the story has a fantastic pacing that kept me excited until the last page. The connections to Carroll's classic characters were also amazing, with Dr. Abbot as The White Rabbit and the Queen of Hearts as the leader of a post-apocalyptic camp and Matt Hatter as the scientist who caused the zombie apocalypse.

Alice was a great main character. She was likable and grew a lot over the course of the book. She went from a scared little sister to a badass fighter.

I also loved how adoption was treated in this book. Not as a sad thing that people only do as a last option, but as something great and how it was also shown how strong the bond between Alice and Dinah was.

A thing I didn't really like was how the only non-white character in the book, Dinah, barely got any action herself. She was infected right in the beginning of the book and then she spends most of the book away from the storyline. I would have loved to see the sister together a bit more as well. But Alice was really the most dominant character in the book, which made it easy to love her, but hard to feel anything for the side characters.

I was also worried for a while as it felt as if there was a love triangle coming up, but while there are hints at it, romance takes a backseat in this story and so there is no real love triangle in this book yet (thank god).

And while I really love Alice as a character - as already mentioned - a lot of times she felt a bit like a Mary Sue. She went from not knowing how to hold a gun to the best machete fighter ever. There are other plot twists directly about her that make her very special. And while I was rolling my eyes at this sometimes, most of the time I didn't care as the story doesn't spend time waxing about how awesome the main character is, but instead, a new important plot point comes up immediately.

There is also an easter-egg in the formatting of the book, but as the formatting was generally weird in this book it didn't fully work for me and acted as a distraction rather than a great surprise.

All in all, this book is a fast-paced, action-filled retelling of one of my favorite fairy tales ever. It will make you hold your breath and pull you fully into the story. But sadly there were quite a few parts that annoyed me about this book as well and so it doesn't end up on my favorites list.

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

This book had a really interesting start and I have to say that the world building was amazing. I really liked the idea of the quell that provided magic to a chosen few and how it had gotten less over time causing a bit of a panic in magic circles. I also adored the descriptions of the forest in the Coquells, I absolutely understand Tristys' fascination with them.

I also really liked Calyssa, she was amazing and a great character and I wish we had gotten to know more about Telia because she also sounded fascinating. I also really liked Salice, another side-character, who I'd have loved to know more about.

However, these are sadly the only things I enjoyed.

The main characters Tristys and Rami were... mostly annoying. Tristys was... okay I guess. He changed a lot over the novel and not always in ways that made sense, so reading about him was really confusing sometimes since his personality changed quite often, but he was still an interesting character. I have a bigger problem with Rami. He's supposed to be the love interest and... I just don't really see it. He is rude and says hurtful things and he's just really not a character I could imagine falling in love with. But then a lot of Tristys attraction seemed to be based on looks, so there's that.

Now to another part, I didn't like. Their relationship. I really wanted to like their relationship more, but due to the constant will-they, wont-they, the cheating, and my dislike for Rami made it hard for me to really enjoy it.

There are some parts of the novel that don't really make sense to me. (What kind of teacher in their right mind would let a student believe they killed someone for years? Why didn't they just talk to each other? (oh, and you can apparently go deaf from a silence this loud. Not once, but quite a few times actually) A letter that somehow got delivered to an island that no one knows exists to a guy that no one knows is there? Yeah, not buying that) A lot of plot points just seemed dragged out for drama.

I was also a bit annoyed in the end of the book since it spends so much time talking about the limits of quell magic and then? it suddenly? doesn't matter anymore? What?

There are also some problematic aspects of the book, that I absolutely hated.

There is a fatphobic comment in the book right after we are supposed to believe in a happy ending for our characters. But good to know that Rami will always love Tristys. Unless he gets fat. Because fat people are unworthy of love. Yikes.

And another comment about how terrible same-sex slavery would be because the female character just isn't into women that much. Yup, the bad part about same-sex slavery is the same-sex part, not the rape and abuse. If this comment wasn't right at the end of the book, I'd have probably stopped reading at that point.

Also, of course, the lesbian character doesn't get a happy ending and also gets fetishized by the ugly homophobe, but she's sooooo nice and puts up with him. Apparently, that is not at all uncomfortable for her. Seriously, what the fuck?

Oh, and a throw-away comment about agoraphobia, as if thats not something that people struggle with heavily.

All of them, every single one of these comments, could have been taken out easily. They are at most a sentence long. They didn't need to be included at all. But they were and it really ruined my reading experience.

There's also a load of homophobic slurs and homophobic violence going on in the story, but they are at least challenged in the story.

So yeah, all in all, it's an interesting story, great world building, okay characters, awesome side-characters, but sadly also a lot of terrible micro-aggressions and plot twists that make little to no sense at all.

I had heard a lot of good things about this book, but also a few bad ones and so I was kind of torn when I picked this up. And now that I'm finished I have to admit that I still am torn in my opinion about this book.

Personally, I really enjoyed the world building, but it was just not explored enough to really work. We got some hints at its history here and there, but far too little to really build a real story. We only find out why Denna has that power really late in the book and until then you are left wondering. And even then there is no explanation for her being so special. I would be more satisfied with the world building if there was be a sequel or something, but like this, it sadly only hints at its full potential without ever reaching it, which is a grave disappointment because the idea is super interesting.

I did really like their relationship after they got over their initial dislike for each other, which was more based on how other people perceived them than how they perceived each other. I also really liked that we got quite a bit of commentary on arranged marriages like this and how true love is very unlikely to be found there. I definitely also understood why they didn't just come out with it and tell everyone, it could have easily put them at danger at court. Even though the court wasn't openly homophobic, Denna was to marry the prince and having been raised for that one thing definitely wouldn't make it easy to simply tell everyone about their love, when even without the added danger of magic it could easily end up with them banished from court and shunned by their families. I would have liked fo this dilemma of duty and love to be explored a bit more though.

I liked Denna and her struggle with magic and what her heart wanted versus what her head told her was her duty. I also enjoyed her relationship with Ellaeni, but I wish we had seen more of her.

Mare was also a character I liked. She is a very tomboyish girl, loves riding, stealing out of the castle and she is definitely not your typical princess. But unlike other not-your-typical-princess types, she manages to pull this off without constantly hating on girls who do like pretty dresses and who want to get married and who are your typical princess stereotype and this made the trope much better to read for me. But despite half the novel being told from her perspective, she didn't really have a lot of depth, when the potential would have been there.

In the end, this book has a lot of great ideas, great relationships and nice characters, but their full potential is never explored and this is really frustrating. All in all, it is an okay book, but definitely didn't blow me away.

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

Katie is pissed. All she wants is for this evening to finally be over, or to go home with the cute bartender, but for now, she is still stuck with the drunk - and getting drunker - band that she is supposed to film for a music video. But as bad as the evening might seem, the next day somehow actually manages to get worse, despite a great night in between. And in between a crime investigation, bothersome ex-girlfriends, and mothers who just can't wrap their head around their daughter actually wanting to be with a girl, Katie and Zay find themselves in a fake girlfriend situation.

And oh my god, was it good! I'm a big fan of fake-dating and it really worked out well with these two. They had great chemistry and they obviously enjoyed sleeping with each other, but friendship and love actually developed much, much slower, which was awesome. Zay was also super supportive of Katie, when all the terrible stuff happened, and I loved that. But I also would have liked for Katie to be there a bit more for Zay too, especially with her ex-problems, since you could see that this really hurt her, but Katie seemed mostly pre-occupied with all the terrible stuff that was going on in her life at the time. This is totally understandable in those circumstances, but it still bothered me at times since it could have made their characters even more lively.

The only thing that bothered me a bit, was the intense amount of drama that was going on in this book. Next to the will-they, wont-they, the fake-dating, the my-ex-is-terrible-but-i-should-still-help-her, the crime stuff, the are-you-cheating-on-me, and so on, it sometimes got a bit overwhelming and so their relationship sometimes felt a bit forced to me, which took away from my enjoyment quite a bit. I also wish we would have gotten to see more of Zay and her family, or just generally Zay doing something that didn't only focus on Katie or Perry.

Trigger warnings for violence and a short instance of anti-Muslim racism as well as mentioned (past) drug use from a side character.

All in all, I have to say that I quite liked this book, the writing flowed well, the characters were likeable, there was a bit too much drama for my liking, but the romance was (mostly) nice and I actually really liked it.

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

Will has tried really hard to forget everything that happened in his teens. But when a new horror movie comes about, he soon realizes that parts of his life are reflected in it and he goes on a journey to reclaim his past.

This book partly deals with the horrors or conversion therapy and the experiences of 16-year-old Will, but also with Will as a grown up traveling back home to deal with it. It also deals a great deal with family.

Will isn't really a likable character. This can definitely be partly ascribed to his traumatic past, but mostly he just doesn't feel very alive. The jumbled storyline and the constant back-and-forth certainly strengthened that impression for me. So I had a hard time feeling something for Will.

I really liked his relationship with Zeus, but it could definitely have been explored much better. It is probably one of the best relationships in the book (except for Will and his mother), but it is still quite shallow and takes a backseat in the story. Most of the other relationships are even less fleshed out, even those in his childhood. Now I know part of this is planned, but it really didn't help to make the side-characters seem more like people.

The most interesting part of the book is definitely Will's time at the camp, both during that one summer and in the now-time, where he realizes how much has changed and yet stayed the same. It was definitely 16-year-old Will who felt most alive and whose emotions I could understand the best. Torn up from the death of his mother, the loss of his best friend, the disapproval of his father and placed in the hands of two people who tell him they can cure him.

Trigger warnings for homophobia (obviously), the f slur, the q slur and the t slur (used against a trans man) and child abuse. There's also one instance of sexual assault where an older character tries to force himself onto a teen, but "comes to his sense" before anything really happens (it was gruesome to read), as well as the use of ableist words and incest jokes by a side character.

My biggest problem is certainly the fact that the story sometimes veers off course quite a lot and when you're then thrown back into the action so to speak, it is hard to follow along with all the new information you just received.

All in all this story was interesting and the premise definitely interested me, but sadly neither the main character nor the writing could really pull me in as far as I would have liked.

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

This book is the first novella in a series of four prequels leading up to Bittersweet Dreams, set in a school for people with a really high IQ. I have to say this book mostly caught my attention through its cover, which I find to be gorgeous. I do also adore V.C. Andrews writing, but this can't be compared to her own work imho. I tried not to let the author name influence my opinion on this book, and I'm glad I did or I would have been gravely disappointed. 

This book is a very quick read with only 50 pages and in it, we meet Corliss. She is very smart and can't help herself blurting out random facts. Of course, her classmates feel as if she is showing off and they don't like her and think her stuck up. When they offer her drugs and she refuses, they spike her drink. This night changes some of her reputation. 

Corliss was definitely an interesting character. While her constant reminders of how smart she is can be a bit annoying after a while, I truly enjoyed reading about her as a character. Her life is not only influenced by her being incredibly smart, but also by her family's poverty and the lack of education she is offered. Seeing her struggle with that was interesting and good to read.

What I didn't like was the relationship she had with Jackson, their relationship was really flat and didn't pull me in, and how they ended their relationship was also super weird. Don't expect a love story from this novella, it isn't one. 

All in all this novella was interesting, but sadly a bit rushed. It only focuses on Corliss and we don't get to know any of the other characters at all, which makes it hard to really see how they fit into the story. However, I'm excited for the next novella and I will definitely check it out, as well as the other two.