While entirely entertaining and delightful, I wish this was a smidge longer. That things took a while more to be develop and we could feel more grounded onto things.

*Mild spoilers ahead I guess?*

The relationships didn't feel rushed, exactly, but at the same time it felt like Nico should have had more time to be fleshed out and for the three of them to get to know one another; it felt like Ethan perhaps knew a tad too soon how he was.

ALSO, I was sososo interested about hearing more on how Peter felt his connection to Ethan, I wanted to hear more about that, too, since Nico seemed to be very attuned to his feelings and I don't know if that was just his very good hearing, or if he could feel Ethan somewhat. Anyway! Despite there being things I wanted more of, this was still a delightful read, so very cozy, and the island of Casper felt solid and humid and salty, the visuals were all stunning! And! The representation and poly relationship were also a breath of fresh air, I'll surely look into other books by Moon!

i was... expecting something completely different and far worse. this was entertaining, far tamer than i expected and pretty solid. the world building was interesting and original enough, despite the generic tall, dark and handsome of jericho barrons (which is the one character i actually expected more of, after some reviews), i actually quite liked the female lead.

honestly, mac acts exactly how you would expect from a young woman of her age and that was far more refreshing than annoying. it's not that She's Not Like Other Girls, She's Special. she's beautiful and knows it. she likes what she likes and that's more than fine. she lived a somewhat shallow life and aknowledges and misses it in a believable way. i'm surprised myself of how fond of her i am.

as someone who is annoyingly critical of writing and plot points and ambiance, i had hardly any scenes in which i felt that pang of "ugh, why wasn't this scene done more properly", and that is why this is getting four stars. the setting is awesome, every place felt vivid, and except how for a single side character, i had a pretty good grasp of everyone around and their names.

all in all, a fun read, something that would drive me nuts had i read it younger, but just cool enough that i'm probably going to check out the whole series... or at least as long as it holds my interest, lol.

if you're looking for darker fantasy, cool sexy characters doing badass things, and to get yourself removed from your daily life and thrown into some cool alternare universe- grab your drink of choice and buckle in with darkfever. this one quite did it for me.

Holly Black is awesome at writing standalone paranormal novels.
Yeah yeah, this is only the second one, but I can already say she's great at it.
I'm a pain in the ass about books, but at the same time, I can be pretty easy to please.
There was only a single thing that bothered me in this book, and that was that the gay relationship in it felt a little forced to me. But everything else was perfectly good. Black has such an atmospheric way of writing, and I love her female leads!
Honestly, I just plain had fun reading this, finished it in around 5 hours, in a single sit. I for real didn't put down The Darkest Part of the Forest until I finished it, five hours later.
Need I tell you more?

So I started this book with great expectations. And they were all attended.
Seraphina has that intricate writing of fantasy, and it has dragons, and it has layers upon layers of explaining and world building, all that stuff we come to expect out of fantasy. All that world building sometimes can get a little info dump-y, but Rachel Hartman has a way of building that I felt so immersed, it was like being under water.


There were some things that were a bit too much, like the romance in it was like out of nowhere, like things are ending all pretty and nice

Spoiler

and then that nice dude just kisses her and they get to be together forever??? That was really lame, sorry.

But well, I am indeed helpless when it comes to beauty, and this book is filled with that.

His heart raced, but he didn’t know why. His breath was gone like it had been sucked out of him by a cold wind, but he didn’t know why. All he knew was that this felt incredible. Familiar. Right.

3 former-acquaintances to friends to lovers stars

classic jock/nerd, but not going too deep into tropes, Caught Running is about a science teacher and a baseball coach getting together. that's pretty much it. the book is fully character driven and mostly about their relationship itself.

i wasn't expecting it to be this romantic. some parts were a little underdeveloped and the pov switches at the start got pretty confusing, which i guess comes from the two authors.

a sweet read that could've been more sports heavy and explored some aspects better, and it would probably have benefitted from an epilogue as well. not mind-blowing, but pretty solid.

3 i-wanted-to-love-this stars

chase was overwhelmed, i was underwhelmed — why isn't anyone ever just whelmed?