kaitlynisliterate's Reviews (466)

I enjoyed this book a lot and especially the exploration of intergenerational trauma and mental illness (OCD). I thought the descriptions of Annie’s OCD symptoms were incredibly evocative and showed a deft handling of a mental illness that is too often poorly represented in the thriller genre.

However, there were two issues that I had with this book that made me give it a 3.5-star rating. The chapters in this book are really short, especially in Part 1, which wouldn’t necessarily be a problem in and of itself but for the first part of the book, every other chapter is a flashback, a dream, a memory, or a flash forward. The reader is constantly being pulled in multiple directions instead of being introduced to the characters or premise. This is only for the first part of the book as the chapters eventually get longer and the number of flashbacks, etc decreases. I actually quite liked the flashbacks to Annie’s childhood later on.

The bigger issue I noticed while reading was how the main character’s actions and emotions are over-explained. As a reader, it feels like I’m being spoon-fed character development as if I can’t figure out anything on my own. It’s already very clear how Annie is feeling at all times because the reader is shown her emotional state through her words and actions. Instead of showing or telling, the author seems to have opted for both showing and telling, repeatedly, to ensure that the reader could not possibly misunderstand anything. For example, if Annie is having an argument with someone, the text will literally explain that she said something because she was feeling angry or confused. 

Finally, though this is not necessarily bad, it’s also extremely easy to figure out the plot twist early on in the book. Before I had even finished Part 1, I knew who the antagonist was going to be since there were basically no other credible suspects.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Too predictable but fun nonetheless 

Bust out the Latin dictionary for this one.

Wow! This book was quite different from what I expected but still excellent. The book centers around specific hate crimes committed by white supremacists starting in 2008, after the election of President Obama. Lowery uses interviews with the victims' friends and/or family to create deeply emotional and compelling deep dives into the impacts of hate crimes. I really liked the usage of individual stories to tell a broader pattern of backlash to racial progress, even if I had expected something more cohesive.

Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I’m confused but deeply entertained. 

I LOVE the premise of this book. When I studied Early Modern English history in university, I was always the most intrigued by the category of “social crimes” — smuggling, wrecking, poaching, etc. When I saw that wrecking was the subject of this fantasy book, I was so so excited. While I enjoyed that aspect (approximately the first 15% of the book), the truly ridiculous characters, random plot, and clumsy “romance” meant that this book went downhill fast and was overall very disappointing. 

While the main character, Mira’s, goal is extremely clear and understandable: to save her father and Bryn from execution, the way that she sets out to accomplish this is extremely confusing. All of Mira’s decisions are based on her super special secret sixth sense, described in the nebulous language of “feelings.” This is lazy writing because the author never needs to provide any justification or reasoning for Mira’s decisions since Mira can just have a “feeling” to do something.

Even worse, her “feelings” frequently lead her astray with no reflection done on her part afterward about maybe using common sense instead.

To save her father and Bryn, she decides to travel to the coordinates written down by her mother, who died a few years ago, in a secret notebook. Mira “feels” that her mother must have left something at those coordinates that will be able to save her father. What could possibly be left in the middle of the ocean that would save them? Who knows since Mira never even thinks that far out in her half-baked plan.

This gets even worse when Seth, the main “love” interest, is introduced. It’s totally instalove and the reader is never given a real reason to like Seth.

Consequently, I was not shocked when Seth ended up being totally awful. The “backstabbing” and “betrayal” might have been believable the first time but the second time that it happens from the SAME character, it’s so obvious. There is no tension but rather second-hand embarrassment from Mira being too blinded by lust to notice how clearly shady Seth is.

Mira acts in ways that are ridiculous and frankly stupid. It’s difficult for me to reconcile the idea that this is a strong female protagonist, as we are constantly shown in scenes of her being badass when she is so easily swayed by cute boys. Rather than connecting with Mira and being invested in her story, I felt like I was watching a train wreck in slow motion since every “plot twist” was so clearly telegraphed, and yet, Mira is still unable to act with even half a brain.

The writing was also overly flowery with metaphors and analogies being used every other sentence. The dialogue between characters was awkward and completely unrealistic, especially since Seth’s dialogue is all weird foreshadowing, Whenever Mira talks with Seth or Elijah, there always has to be “banter” even when it doesn’t fit the mood. This leads to scenes where they begin talking about a serious topic and then the tone randomly switches to have a few lines of light-hearted “banter” before switching back to the serious topic at hand. It feels so forced.

Thank you to NetGalley and Inkyard Press for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book’s premise is loosely based on Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death.” It’s no surprise then that Seraphina’s POV, where she is trapped inside the castle similar to Poe’s short story, was also the most enjoyable. The pacing of the story was rather slow in the beginning especially since the two main characters don’t meet until the 40% mark and even then, they spend a lot of time doing nothing prior to the villain’s arrival.

There is sort of an attempt at adding political intrigue, considering that Seraphina is pretending to be Princess Imogen and most of the story takes place within the castle, but this subplot seems to be sort of an afterthought. There is never any real resolution and the entire subplot gets dropped as soon as the main plot heats up. 

This leads into the second issue which is how the story builds tension. The political intrigue subplot seems designed to heighten tensions going into the final confrontation but it actually distracts from the main plot by introducing new characters that seem important but never reappear again. This subplot also conveniently negates the main hurdle faced by Seraphina and Nico in protecting the inhabitants of the castle, namely that the King has lost touch with reality and is prone to extreme bursts of anger. Essentially, the story includes interpersonal “drama” for a momentarily tense scene to the detriment of the actual stakes.

I totally understand why they didn’t mention vampires in the blurb since it is written as a plot twist reveal in the middle of the book. However, I think a lot of readers are going to be surprised and then turned off by the introduction of paranormal/supernatural elements in an otherwise realistic world. The vampire element is foreshadowed pretty heavily in Nico’s POV for the first part of the book so I personally wasn’t caught by surprise.

One of the issues that arise when including vampires in a story is delineating which vampiric traits apply in your world. In this book, vampires have no aversion to sunlight (or garlic!) which was pretty disappointing since that is perhaps their most well-known trait and a significant weakness to counterbalance their supernatural abilities. What is kept is the requirement that vampires can only enter when invited into a house that opens up a huge can of worms in terms of plot holes. This is certainly true in this case.

Thank you to NetGalley and Inkyard Press for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.