kaitlynisliterate's Reviews (466)

The premise of this book, 19th-century lesbian vampires, drew me in. It delivers on that front with a cast of unique and delightful queer characters. The writing was gorgeous and poetic though certain words (*cough* tuppence) were overused.

However, there is a severe lack of plot or any action on the part of the main character, Poppy. The first third of the book follows the year after Poppy is turned into a vampire where she must remain cloistered away from any humans. This section of the book is mostly dialogue between Poppy and Roisin while nothing else happens. The middle third of the book follows

Poppy who is now living with the Brood (a found family of fellow queer vampires).

Poppy literally sits around and does essentially nothing while Roisin's activities (she actually has a goal, unlike Poppy) during this time period are backfilled in a single chapter. For two-thirds of the book, there is absolutely nothing driving the plot forward. As a result, everything moves at a snail's pace since there is no sense of urgency, no goal, no plan, no motivation, etc. Many pages could (and should) have been trimmed to improve the pacing.

Further, I'm honestly confused about why Poppy was even the POV character since she is absent or a passive observer for most of the action.

For example, when they are searching for a super-powerful ancient vampire, Count Vlad, Poppy is literally assigned the task of moral support. That is not a joke. Everyone else is actively participating in the search in different ways while Poppy bakes and cooks food.

I also remain baffled as to how I'm expected to like Poppy as a character. She treats other people incredibly poorly whenever she gets upset or angry (which is quite often). She deliberately hurts people, including her love interest Roisin, to get an emotional reaction from them. Everyone who receives this horrid treatment either forgives her (despite receiving no apology from Poppy) or even encourages it "because they can take it." She believes that everything revolves around her, a fact that is pointed out multiple times by different characters but is never addressed by Poppy or the narrative itself. 

Finally, the novel spends so much time bashing you over the head with its themes but also drops them on the flip of a coin.

Poppy refuses to drink human blood for the first half of the book due to her struggles with addiction but when put into a situation that forces her to drink human blood, she recovers with no lasting consequences and this issue is never brought up again.

In conclusion, if you enjoy slow-paced low-plot morally-grey character studies, this book is for you. Otherwise, I can't recommend it.

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

Solid dual POV narrative. Marissa’s POV was fine but Avery’s was so interesting. 

Pros
- Very entertaining, especially in the latter half as the plot gets so ridiculous

Cons
- Too many chapters from the POV of side characters considering the main characters are later told what occurred anyways
- Completely implausible. Why does Jennifer not immediately start searching for a job? Or at least begin making plans to move out of that home ASAP.
- Characters' internal monologue is way too self-reflective to justify complete personality changes as "character development"

Miller literally goes from a troubled teen boy lashing out at everyone to a sweet, kind older brother in the space of two paragraphs

Imagine thinking that some women “deserve” domestic abuse

Pros
+ The audiobook narration was fine?

Cons (there are more but I'll just go in-depth with a few)
- None of the characters were particularly compelling. Margot was extremely bland. Krissy had such weak characterization, presumably so the author could have Krissy do anything and expect the reader to accept it. Billy was just confusing.

In the last chapter, he intends to hurt or maybe kill Krissy but accidentally throws his daughter, January, down the stairs. When January says that he hurt her, he gets very mad at her and kills her. Is this supposed to indicate that he has extreme anger issues that apparently don't manifest in any other area of his life ever? Or is it supposed to say that he has a personality disorder that makes him unable to take accountability for anything? We don't know because we literally have no idea who Billy is as a person.

- The non-ending. Is this some sort of attempt to differentiate this book from other mystery/thrillers? The entire book is Margot chasing leads, talking to people about January or Natalie, or dealing with her uncle, Luke. The whole purpose of that is to build up to an exciting finale/resolution. But then we're left hanging. The only other piece of exciting action

Elliot Wallace's arrest

is told to Margot after the fact. 
- Luke Davies.

Firstly, the Luke is Dave plot twist was extremely obvious because we spend too many pages with Luke for him to not be majorly connected to January. But also, we spend too many pages with Luke anyways. Margot is always feeling guilty about leaving Luke alone, Luke is forgetting something, Luke is having an "episode," Luke Luke Luke. Finally, how did Luke not connect the fact that right after he told Billy that he wasn't January and Jace's biological father, January is murdered? Are we supposed to believe that he would let January's murderer get away just to protect the secret of their paternity?

Pros
+ I love the worldbuilding, especially

the people who choose to live without technology and the credit system that they developed (pebs)

+ I love Mosscap so much. 

Cons
- I don't think this had enough going on to be a separate book. It seems like the author wanted to stretch things out for a third book by

stopping before they reached the City.

-

I think they're setting Mosscap up to die in the next book (Mosscap mentions that repairing the broken part just buys a bit more time) and I'm simply not ready.

 

Pros
+ Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss

Cons
- The plot was so predictable because all the foreshadowing was so heavy-handed. Especially the prologue which just reveals the big plot twist right away.
- All of the characters are so unbelievably stupid.

Fern: presented as some sort of mastermind for getting away with murdering her husband and framing his mistress. Fern's husband, Drew: thinks that he's getting away with his affair despite being so obvious. Rory: declares that he's in love with Fern despite them having very few interactions.

- Every POV character does an internal monologue detailing their plans and motivations. Everything is laid out for the reader in the most boring way possible.
- Neither Drew or Fern want to divorce each other despite being clearly unhappy in their marriage. Their explanations/excuses for why divorce isn't an option make no sense. 
- I hated the last chapter that was obviously setting up a sequel.

Greg's plan makes no sense and his justification for suspecting Fern was so flimsy.