Wow. 

Generally - I enjoyed this book, loved the character growth and the believable, but still somewhat idealized teen relationship development. 

Main characters are Maddie (a renaissance fare jewelry maker and seller, grieving the loss of her mother) at a ren-fare that is especially significant to her - BUT things have changed - someone has bought her old special fare and made changes. We also meet Arthur, and awkward but endlessly kind teenager, who also ends up being the son of the people that bought the fare. Hijinx ensue.  They're very cute together - he's patient, she's prickly, he convinces her to be a princess, and she's conflicted. That dynamic worked. 

Some of the subject matter was tough, since it features a young person dealing with navigating grief after the death of her mom, and I'll admit, this is not where I thought this book would go when I read the synopsis - perhaps I was a bit too focused on the idea of "fat girl at the ren-fare" romance when choosing this book, but I'm still glad I did. Because it was that and more! 

The characters were loveable, but they weren't perfect (as people - but I did enjoy how they were written), there were flaws and communication errors, and misunderstandings here and there, but there was also so much growth in both the protagonists - in a way that made sense, but was also sweet and lovely. All within a serious backdrop of navigating the complicated feelings of letting yourself find and experience joy (and potential loss) after such a big life upending loss. I loved the banter between the leads, it was that flirty silly kind of teasing that is kind and funny and entirely believable. 

Bonus points for the bit of magic imbued into the coin, and the description of the ren-fair grounds. 

I appreciated the full bodied characters - they felt alive, and it wasn't just limited to the mains. I felt this one, I was rooting for them, and it was simply such an easy book to stay up reading because I wanted to see how they figured it all out.

I read this courtesy of an e-ARC from Net galley and St. Martin's Press. Thank you!

Lots of new world building, some of it interesting, some of it tedious.

Too much magical breastfeeding content, as a parent, I honestly don’t care to hear about constant nursing. 

Too many points being made at the expense of what could have been a very interesting book. 

I'll admit, I went in to this audiobook having expectations - Shannon Chakraborty wrote one of my favourite series a few years ago (the Daevabad Trilogy), and I've always found it easy to recommend to others. Well, this book also hooked me from the beginning - I loved the middle aged large woman protagonist, former/current pirate having to get the gang back together to do one more heist (aka, search and rescue mission to find the child of a former shipmate.) 

I think Chakraborty does a lot in her books - but I also think she does them all extremely well. It's funny, playful, semi-educational, and told from a perspective that doesn't always get centred. I thought the struggle of being a working parent and feeling both the freedom from and longing for wasn't belaboured, but nicely expressed. I enjoyed the queer rep, the themes of defying gender norms, the magic and the mayhem. The whole story is just very fun and engaging, and I look forward to any future adventures of Amina al-Sirafi. 

Specifically to the narration - I loved the performance of the interview asides, I really felt like I was in the moment with them. I did play this at 2x, but that's my normal audiobook speed. Thanks to the publisher HarperAudio and Netgally for the opportunity to review this title and enjoy it a bit early. 

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride is a beautiful twisty fairy tale within a fairy tale - the story pulled me in, every sentence, intentional, melodic, and woven together with meticulous prose, I felt a sense of perpetual tension, that feeling of not too much, but just enough, throughout the novel, and I was not disappointed with where we ended up. When I stopped reading, it was like I remembered to breathe again.

It is unsettling, romantic, haunting and fascinating. I will be thinking about this novel again and again. 

The novel is told from two perspectives, Azure and The Bride-Groom, and they jump comfortably between the past and the present - telling a story filled with grief, neglect, unreliable memories, the struggles of finding ones identity in adolescence, and the magical worlds children create to escape terrible realities. I found most of the characters complicated and mostly loveable. 

All that said, this story needs a bunch of content warnings. 

Grateful to both Netgalley and the Publisher to have had the opportunity to read it a bit early and share my thoughts. 

I know people love this one, but I just could not connect with the story or the character at all. 

You know, this was just another lighthearted witchy cozy mystery. It's fine. Some body focused commentary, but it wasn't too bad compared to some of the other works I've unfortunately read. 

Very heteronormative as cozy mysteries tend to be, and the thing that was bizarre was

was the "gotcha" that the two antagonists weren't married because the woman kept her own last name? Like people don't do that even when they're not in the middle of a fake marriage scam?

It wasn't enough to not enjoy it,  it was just a bit silly. 

I generally liked this book... but I have some issues with it. And that might be because I think the story itself could be really exceptional - the premise, the science, the characters. I was rooting for Lucía, I wanted to know more about this world that was trying to use alternative energy sources to reverse or stop global warming, pandemics, and had set up unique housing systems where non-blood relatives could cohabitate in a structured way. I am into all of that. 

So I was really excited about the concept, but ultimately, I think the book was too short and too fast. Sometimes faster pacing is fine, I love a fast paced book with more pages, or at least with more world building, and fleshed out characters, but in this case I found it lukewarm. 

It felt somewhat predictable, and maybe it's because this is my genre, but I don't often find myself thinking about layout of plot when reading, but that's what it felt like. Like there was a very traditional diagram of the story arch and the story was going to go there whether it was naturally ready for it or not. The events in the book take place over less than a week, and there are some massive leaps happening that are just too much. 

I got this book for free, but in some ways, I felt too much like it was overtly pulling at my heartstrings in a surgically precise fashion simply to get me to buy more books - and I absolutely love buying books/ebooks, but not if I feel like I'm getting hustled into it. 

The part that gets me, is that I really wanted to love it, because there are just so many good things about it, and I wanted more from it than I got. 

Well, we had a good run but it was bound to happen eventually - lots of body weight focused commentary about a pair of hiking pants she hadn't worn in a while. including commentary about a cat looking at her with derision at her fatness. It'll be the last book in the series for me. 

I enjoyed this one more than the first book in this series, it delivers the escapism I’m looking for.