Poor Julia has had such a rough life and lost so many people.  I really feel for her! I hope her life is full of love and safety going forward.

That was a wild ride though

I honestly LOVE how T. Kingfisher writes their main characters. They all have so much personality. She's such a great writer and has definitely become one of my all time favs. The horror in this book was creepy, not horrifying, but I loved it nonetheless.

The first 3/4 of the book was difficult for me to get through because it was so sad. But the last quarter was wonderful! I loved that trans women dragoned too, proving to everyone that Trans women are women, no question! 
Very uplifting book! 

It was okay. I think I have some friends who would be really into this,  but i definitely wanted more alien politics and first contact stuff more so than gender discussion and theory. It went pretty slow to me because of it. 
I also have no interest in raising children so that also fell flat for me.  But, I did like the alien designs and lore. 

It was pretty silly to immediately enforce gender theory and pronouns on an alien society. 

I was really drawn to the original title of this book "Medievally Blonde," the idea of which sounded so cute! But it mostly fell flat for me. It had read as a very young adult book, I think it should be geared more towards young adult in general, because it may read better. I thought the writing was pretty clunky, and I struggled through a good amount of it. It feels way longer than it should be.

I didn't find myself really liking any of the characters. The whole story seems pretty vague in areas that are important (how Clia is improving at anything) and too detailed in some of the world-building, where I found myself not caring much about.

I also thought I'd be way more into the Irish names than I was. As being that I don't speak gaelic, I STRUGGLED with knowing how to pronounce things and I was miserable just accepting that I'm saying it wrong in my head, lol. But that's a minor complaint and more about me than the book.

I feel like it's a fine little fairy-tale like story, that's a cute reimagining of Legally Blonde, with very low risks and uncomplicated-feeling romance. It's just okay.
The cover for the book is beautiful, though!

I loved it! The lore, the descriptions of the

Sirens

, the ending was very neat. I would love a sequel, honestly!

Pretty good alternative reality story! The world with the willows was very interesting! Not bad.

Magical sword boyfriend?  Sign me up.  This rocked! 

I loved it. Fantastic dark fantasy story!