jlreadstoperpetuity's Reviews (309)

My first Phantom of the Opera reimagine and safe to say I actually liked it despite the trigger warnings.

Set in the soulful and home of Jazz New Orleans, we meet the FMC as an aspiring artist on a Opera House owned by the Bordeaux Family - one of the powerful families that owned half of New Orleans (the other owned by the Chatelains). The mafia-esque element played a great role in adding thrill and mystery on the overall story.

Both MCs trapped in their own version of darkness and mental stability made them perfect for each other. The mere fact that both are also patrons of music added a nice touch on how the scenarios are worded. The introduction of classic opera music lulled me in a good way and helped set the tone of each scene (piano scene while overtures are playing on the background, yes please)

Though categorized as a dark romance, it has it's own intricacies and sensibilities that separated it to other dark romance that simply focused on intimacy. With the exemption of the irritating slow ability of the FMC to pick up cues, overall it was a good read.

I am struggling to write a review for this one but one thing is clear, I badly wanted to like to this book and it did not live up to any sensible expectations for me.

A single librarian who chose to look at the brighter side of things and sleuthing at the same time is a concept that held so much promise. What I got is a one dimensional and unrealistic characterization of the main lead, a cop out Nancy Drew story, over explanation of every tiny actions and thoughts, lame attempt to enemies to lovers theme and overall nonsensical plot line.

If only there were word building and realistic portrayal of events as well as characters, this could have made it more tolerable.

I usually don't review books this way as I understand not all books would be my go-to, however, the lack of transitions and attempts to just fill in the gaps in order to produce a book is just too much for me. I could've DFN'd this one to save me a some headache but I promised myself, I will only DNF 1 book per year.

3.75✨️
This is the first Norse Mythology reimagine I read. Most of the time, Greek Myth retellings finds its way to my shelf so this was a treat and what a treat it has been, somewhat.

Everyone is familiar with the Lord of Mischief, Loki (it does help imagining Tom Hiddleston from MCU for this one

4.5 ✨️
Safe to say the last few chapters had me freaking out and obsessing reading the next book Dragon's Promise. I delayed reading this series as long as I could because knowing how EL weaves her stories (like Blood of the Stars), I know I will be in for a fantastic ride that I don't want to end - and I was right!

Started off slow for me and kinda hated Shiori as a lead because of that bratty and prissy attitude with no regards to the people around her. This carried on well up until she was carrying her curse but there was a subtle to full blown character development that made her tolerable to well-liked. The inclusion of well developed side characters helped transition Shiori into one of the most promising characters EL has ever written.

The mythopoeia of the plot which was written intricately along with the right amount of descriptives, made me hover word over word just to get into what will happen next. There were slight falters on the storytelling flow which made it boring and made me skip a few paragraphs but the unexpected twists definitely caught my attention until the end.

The nod of romantic relationship between Takkan and Shiori is so cute - with Takkan being an ideal betrothed that is (eleven yeara of pining for the princess will do that

I cannot, in many words, describe how I dislike the female lead of this book. This is the first for me this year, encountering someone as pretentiously independent yet all throughout annoying kind of character. I am all for female power and all but Emeuri is just the kind of character who is unnecessarily rude, rebellious, overrates her emotions and useless.

The premise of the story and how Emeuri was introduced was so promising. However, once she started joining the other casts, it became pretty obvious that her role on the story is to assume a figurehead of someone who is witty and can think on her toes pretty quick. What she did was to make mistakes over mistakes that honestly, I have to skip paragraphs just to proceed to a scene where another thought/character is involved.

The plot became predictable by Chapter 5 and though this is an attempt to introduce a political theme and the gores of war, the lack of transition variations made it difficult to appreciate the story as a whole. You can only describe blood in so many words and then couple that up with a female lead whose first contribution to the fight is nausea

Let's start by saying this is a nod to the classic Secret Garden so references in terms of characterization and build up is observed all throughout. However, it also combined sci-fi and magical realism creating the wonderful concept of intergalactic relations.

Typical set up includes highschool cliches, workaholic and highly accomplished parents who assumed their daughter would take after them, semi outcast lead establishing unusual friendship with the hotshot of the campus, a room mate who covers for the lead while she is out during curfew and a side kick robot. Given that the main lead is a 12 year old, the writing style is also geared towards young adults so the mediocre character development of the main lead is understandable.

The magical system and the premise on how humans started occupying the moon and other planetary bodies made up for those clichés. The magical system is geared towards science where all students with initial affinity to certain topics learn and practice their magic. Once they passed their practical exams, they get inscriptions tattooed on their body. Our main cast, just got inscripted to a defunct and forbidden magic called Botan; yes, you got it - plant magic.

While all said and done that the concept is interesting and that this is the first book in the series, it's half bad half good. Half bad because the foundation of the premise was not fully established and might make it difficult for some readers to pick up the next one.

Let me start by saying this is a book that you will either hate, tolerate or love immensely. It is very leaded with Shakesperian quotes and was also formatted as a Shakesperian play. The author paid attention to how the setting should look like, how the tone of each subsets are executed. The characters are your typical group of friends who hate, love and eventually think of murderous thoughts against each other - until one eventually was murdered. And you would think the twist would stop there,oh no it was just the beginning. The aftermath of the murder comprised majority of the story which gave puffs of life to the character development of each cast, until it didn't

The immersion of Shakespeare to the entirety of the book made it really cool for those who are not really into Shakespeare. However, it was too immersed that outside this, all characters went south. Removing Shakespeare into the equation leaves a lot of character loopholes and interesting concepts that could have been explored. For one, why was Richard so damn angry all the time? He has been friends with the same group of people for three years so the characterization shift which eventually led to his murder still baffles me. Another is the queer relationship of Oliver and James. While a lot of reviewers pointed out the poignant comparison to that of a Shakesperian tragedy, I disagree. There's nothing tragic about this since it was not explored thoroughly in the first place. The bits and pieces were left to the reader's discretion to connect. Sure, it was sad that they did not reconnect as expected on the ending, but the ending

I loved Addie Larue and the Shades of Magic Trilogy so when this was announced I was so excited. It took me few months before I got into it but I heard comparatives to that of The Graveyard Book and Coraline by Neil Gaiman. With me being an even bigger fan of the latter books, finally pushed me to read Gallant, and I kinda wished I didn't

3.75
Considering this is the second book on this series, the word building and twists are marginally better.

Comparing Payche and Persephone, the former has more personality and can certainly stand her ground. However, characterization for Eros was somewhat under developed though. Eros was presented as a hitman with Mommy issues and then fell in love with a nice young woman. With all the descriptives painted with how he was a monster, he came across as just a possessive Mafia daddy underserving of Psyche's love - and there's mothing wroing with this, except for the fact that there seems to be missing pages to truly explore how he was able to move past his perception of himself and to truly love Psyche.

Fake dating concept is nothing new and it was just tad bit predictable with how steamy the scenes will be. The climactic face off was also underwhelming as I already had this assumption that with Psyche being an influencer and all, the plan to expose Aphrodite is thru livestreaming. However, I did not expect the little twist at the end regarding Callisto.
Since there is a 3rd book, might as well be a good ending to introduce the next installment