*1.5

DNF'd about halfway through (don't have my copy anymore so I don't know exactly how far in I was)

I was really excited to read this because a) I love more SJM books than I hate and b) Beauty and the Beast is my second favourite movie of all time so I'm down for any retelling of it. The first couple chapters were really promising, showing Feyre's home life and all that. But then she went to faerie and...... nothing happened. There is zero plot and I didn't like the characters enough to stay invested.

I hated Tamlin pretty much from the get go (apparently this is a popular opinion as of ACOMAF??) and thought his and Feyre's relationship had nothing romantic about it. As the story went on, Feyre didn't gain any personality other than Mary Sue and I started to get annoyed at her refusal to listen to anyone.

The real point where I was done was when the festival or whatever was happening and Tamlin started sexually assaulting Feyre. Like, did people actually ship them after that??

I continued for a while after that but then I put it down one day and never picked it back up. From what I've heard about ACOMAF and ACOWAR, I don't think it was worth me continuing. I hope you enjoyed it more than I did.

DNF'd at 100-ish pages

I've been trying to read this for over a year and haven't managed to get past the first 100 pages so I've decided to give up.

The plot had the potential to be interesting but nothing about the characters or Kendare Blake's writing grabbed me. I also guessed the ending within the first couple chapters.

Spoiler

Katherine and Arsinoe both sucked at their talent so I pretty much immediately figured out that they had each others' talent. And guess what I found on the last page: Arsinoe saying that she's a poisoner.

Fuck it, I'm DNFing this at around 30% of the way through. It's just so damn dull and from what I've seen it doesn't improve, and I have better things to do than finish reading a book I'm not enjoying.

DNF'd at 25%

Normally I would try to get to at least halfway through before DNFing a book, but I already didn't like this and then I read some reviews pointing out the problematic aspects of this book. I'm nowhere near knowledgeable enough to talk about it so look at these reviews if you're curious (one two three four five six)

Aside from the problematic aspects, this book is also just so dull. Even when exciting things are happening, Kiersten White's style of writing is so unengaging and makes everything so incredibly uninteresting.

The characters were equally uninteresting but in a different way. Lada and Radu were complete stereotypes, with Lada being the classic Strong Female Character who is violent, angry and hates women, and Radu (despite being one of the POV characters) is a Token Gay Character who is nonviolent, manipulative and pining after a straight boy.

It's fine if you like it but there is literally no chance of me ever picking this up again.

DNF'd @ 52%

content warnings: mentions of rape, abduction and murder, main plot resolves around a group of girls going missing

I watched the Foxtel mini-series based on this book and loved it, so I decided to read the book it's based on because it's a literary classic and it was only $12. Turns out, I shouldn't have bothered. This book is as dull as watching paint dry.

The plot is about a group if girls going missing in the Australian outback for Christ's sake, and yet Joan Lindsay writes it in the most uninteresting way possible.

The only redeeming thing about this book is how queer it was: on multiple occasions the girls admire each other, Mike and Albert are so attracted to each other it physically hurts, and the words 'gay' and 'queer' are used way to often for it to be an accident.

God bless Foxtel for taking the barest premise of this book and changing literally every other thing, plus making it more explicitly gay.

*0.5
DNF'd at 72%

I got so mad I made an entire shitty video ranting about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r628brqZyII&t=2s

DNF'd at pg. 304

I was so excited when my friend loaned me this book, and I was really into it for the first 40 pages or so. It seemed like it was going to be a zombie apocalypse but with elemental magic.

Then the chosen one bullshit kicked in.

I didn't really care about any of the characters except for Katherine, and this book has some of the worst insta-love I've ever read. It was also just really boring. Even when exciting things were happening, like battles and revelations, the way it was written and my lack of investment in the characters made it impossible for me to care.

I was determined to finish it but it got to a point where I was skimming entire chapters so I can't continue.

*0.5

I originally gave this 3 stars when I read it in 2014 when I was thirteen. Now, in 2018 at nearly seventeen years old, I tried to re-read it and DNF'd it 16 pages in.

I definitely understand why I loved it years ago; I had just read Divergent and The Hunger Games so I was in that dystopian phase and only just started reading YA. But now I've read far better YA (far better dystopian, too) and could tell this wouldn't be my cup of tea.

In those sixteen pages there is far too much explanation of things that could have been more naturally inserted (mostly a lot of forced world building), a lot of telling instead of showing, majority of the characters were already annoying me, and I could see hints of future girl hate (which I've heard is very present in the sequel).

I wish I had've read the entire trilogy when I was thirteen because I would have loved it and at least had good memories of it. I would only recommend this to people just starting to read YA (ages 10-13 mainly) or people looking for a quick guilty pleasure read.