Character - 10
Atmosphere - 8
Writing - 8
Plot - 9
Intrigue - 9
Logic - 9
Enjoyment - 10

Rating: 9.00 / 5 stars

Character - 10
Atmosphere - 10
Writing - 10
Plot - 9
Intrigue - 10
Logic - 9
Enjoyment - 10

Rating: 9.71 / 5 stars

CAWPILE'd 13/05/2022: it's called a perfect book bitches

Character - 10
Atmosphere - 10
Writing - 10
Plot - 10
Intrigue - 10
Logic - 10
Enjoyment - 10

Rating: 10 / 5 stars

this is it this is my end I'm dead

EDIT 08/07/2021: I'm rereading this currently to finish the series but I want to add a note that when I originally purchased and reviewed this, I had no idea about Rainbow Rowell's problematic behaviour. As a result, I am removing my rating and I DO NOT RECOMMEND this series, or anything else by the author. I won't comment on Rainbow Rowell's behaviour specifically as it's not my place as a white woman but there are lots of detailed posts about it only a quick search away.

---

“He also says I tried to throw him down a flight of stairs that year. Really, we were fighting at the top of the staircase, and I got in a lucky punch that sent him flying. Then, when my aunt Fiona asked me if I’d pushed Simon Snow down a flight of stairs, I said, “Fuck yes I did.”

A bookseller recc’d this book to me as ‘it’s Half Blood Prince, but gay’. I’ve been a shameless drarry shipper for years, and it was my gateway ship into fanfiction, so I was so excited to read this one. Since then, I’ve given my paperback copy to two different people to get them to read it too, which has kind of been annoying because I want to read it again.

Rating: 5 stars

Read it for the:
- Big Drarry Energy
- Enemies-to-lovers
- Interesting and unique magic system
- Gripping, twisty plot

Full review available on from 10/12/19 here on my blog!

Full review on my blog, 29th August 2022: https://inkandplasma.com/2022/08/29/all-the-wicked-games/

Character - 8
Atmosphere - 9
Writing - 6
Plot - 9
Intrigue - 10
Logic - 8
Enjoyment - 9

Rating: 8.43 / 4 stars

--
I requested this one on a total whim while I was on a marathon thriller kick. I’m really glad that I did. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this half as much as I did, and I read the majority of it in one sitting. For all my sins, when I was a teenager I spent far too long on online chatting sites, so the ‘game’ that Rachel and Cleo played was both realistic and horrifying to me. The atmosphere of this book was unbelievably tense, making me increasingly anxious as Cleo tried to find her ex-best friend, the intense feeling of being watched coming through the text in a visceral way. That atmospheric feeling only got stronger as I got further in the book, and it builds to a crescendo in a fantastic way.

ALL THE WICKED GAMES has a past and present timeline, the present being Cleo searching for Rachel and the past being the events that led up to their friendship fracturing event. I liked the way that these were balanced. I didn’t feel like either storyline was being forgotten, and the way that we were fed information meant that I could start piecing together what was going on using both storylines as clues. Even with those clues, I was never quite sure what was going to happen next, and I loved how wrong-footed I felt during the last half of this book. I raced through to the ending so fast because I needed answers before I could sleep.

This is the only time I’ve ever regretted reading one of my ARCs so far in advance – because now I desperately need to talk about the ending of this book but I don’t know a single person who’s read it yet as of writing this review in May. The ending hit me like a punch, and no matter how much I thought I had unravelled of the mystery at the heart of this thriller, it still had more to shock me with. This is a pretty quick read, with all my favourite parts of the psychological thriller genre wound together in an impressive and unsettling way.

This is still the perfect book.

Character - 10
Atmosphere - 10
Writing - 10
Plot - 10
Intrigue - 10
Logic - 10
Enjoyment - 10

Rating: 10 / 5 stars

Character - 10
Atmosphere - 9
Writing - 8
Plot - 9
Intrigue - 9
Logic - 8
Enjoyment - 10

Rating: 9.00 / 5 stars

Character - 6
Atmosphere - 8
Writing - 6
Plot - 5
Intrigue - 5
Logic - 5
Enjoyment - 8

Rating: 6.14 / 3 stars

Character - 8
Atmosphere - 8
Writing - 9
Plot - 9
Intrigue - 9
Logic - 9
Enjoyment - 9

Rating: 8.71 / 4 stars

Character - 8
Atmosphere - 9
Writing - 9
Plot - 9
Intrigue - 9
Logic - 7
Enjoyment - 8

Rating: 8.43 / 4 stars

my aro ass cannot believe how much time ppl spent fretting about romance when there's a fuckin apocalypse on pls