This entire story was a rollercoaster from start to finish. I was completely delighted by every plot twist. My big issue was that the characters all felt kind of weird and warped, even the ones that were supposed to be perfectly normal. Henry was the shining star though - he's so fucked up and crazy and I love it.

I loved the flashback/novel scenes. The way they were written was so emotionally packed that I couldn't look away. The current day scenes were worse: Jase never apologized for/explained why he waited so long and he never apologized for publishing Emiline's life story without talking to her first, but it was worth it to read their childhood.

For such a long novel it never got tedious. I was fascinated by Addie LaRue, I would read a whole separate novel that's just the years she lived before she met Henry and a whole separate novel that's just her lifetime after they separated. The writing was incredible, the plot never ceased to fascinate me, and the characters felt so incredibly real.

This novel brought forth in me a deep well of emotion. Ana's passion spoke to me and I understood her longing to have a voice. I felt her pain at being treated as lesser for the crime of being born a girl and I felt her joy every time she got to write something and truly create. Her relationship with Jesus was so tender and pure. The fact that he treated her with so much love and respect made me so happy and when he died I was devastated.

"Go in peace Ana, for you were born for this."

I've always been attracted to the stories of women - written by and about. I could tell how much effort went into presenting the stories of all of the women in this novel. There was so much care and respect even in the face of all of the mistreatment and disrespect that the women faced. 

I'm didn't like A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor as much as its predecessor. Everything that made the first book magical and mysterious got over-explained because the sequel had to build on what was set up in the first novel (this was necessary, but also devastating). And although the first novel ended in a cliff-hanger, this felt like more of a sequel than a continuation.

I loved An Absolutely Remarkable Thing because it was crazy and grounded at the same time. It felt relatable even when the characters were doing completely unrelatable things. For some reason the sequel just didn't capture that. 

The multiple POVs spread the story too thin and I honestly think I would have liked this novel better if the Maya/April/Carl chapters were cut altogether. The first half was very millennial feel-good propaganda, the second half was an action adventure, and I think both halves of this story could have been accomplished with just Andy and Miranda chapters. And honestly, Andy and Miranda were the most relatable characters of the novel.

Very strong "Howl's Moving Castle" vibes. Elisabeth is a great protagonist, I have heart eyes for Nathanial, and Silas is beyond criticism.

Really interesting, but the plot wrapped itself up almost a bit too neatly (there weren't really any red herrings - anything that was introduced seemed to be directly tied to the main plot). There also really weren't any side plots which seemed odd. I liked reading it enough but nothing really stuck with me.

I expected this novel to lean into the Lily/Ryle/Atlas love triangle as the main plot; however, I was pleasantly surprised that the Lily/Atlas romance was completely tangential to the main plot. Atlas existed, first and foremost, to be a support system for Lily.

The bit at the end, about breaking the cycle of abuse, was my favorite part of the novel. I loved how it all connecting back to the title. Using "it ends with us" in the text felt very poetic.

I enjoyed reading it a lot but it didn't really leave me with anything. In theory I could have liked the romance between Billy and Daisy but I hate cheating as a plot device so I really couldn't see past how much I didn't want to them to have feelings for each other.

I didn't like this book as much as I thought I would. I just felt like it was a little too mild. The twist ending that Simon killed himself was much less meaningful than if one of the four main characters had actually done it. The saving grace(s) were Addy and Cooper, who both had very compelling storylines. On the other hand, the Nate and Bronwyn romance was so dull and tedious it genuinely made the middle of the book unreadable