onceuponanisabel's Reviews (1.48k)

Sooooo...the first half was really cute and good but at some point the time travel went absolutely bonkers insane and I started having trouble following the story. Overall, very fun as long as you don’t think too hard about it.

For some reason this one didn’t quite do it for me the way book one did...I still adore the characters but tbh I didn’t really like the Kavinsky plot line and I felt like the amount of time devoted to the gray man was a little excessive

I was honestly extremely pleasantly surprised by this book. Poetry collections aren't usually my thing but one thing that is? Greek mythology. So I thought I'd give this book a try and I really, really enjoyed it. Yes, it's true that a lot of the messages from this book have been said before. But overall, I liked the way Mateer delivered them in a new way. I loved Aphrodite's passages for their revisionism and their feminism and for making me view a Goddess I'd mostly dismissed in a new light.

"They married me off in the stories so they could call me an adulteress, but I brought the god of war to his knees."

As for The Poet, who writes the other half of the book and interacts with Aphrodite in her poems, her story, for me, was slightly less compelling just because, like I said before, it was a story I'd heard many times before, and unlike the Aphrodite narrative, it wasn't told in a particularly different way. However, comparing the two stories was fun and interesting.

The book was also extensively illustrated, and while some of them were a bit Instagram feminist (did I just make up a fun new term?) I do feel like they contributed positively to the book overall.

Just a note, I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley, but the formatting was a bit janky so I don't know exactly how the line breaks were supposed to be. I feel like, because of that, I didn't quite get the full effect of the poetry, but I still really enjoyed it. Take from that what you will.

Yeah I just... I didn’t love the end and I generally had trouble getting through it. I just found Sadie’s inner monologue a little repetitive and not super engaging although the plot was mostly compelling.

You know how sometimes when you read a really good book, you're left feeling kind of empty? Like you don't know what to say about the book, or what to do next? This book is one of those books.

I don't think I've ever read a book that was so devastatingly sad. Sure, other books have had endings that sucker punched me more or that made me cry, but this book isn't like that. It's not that there's one sad death or event -- the entire book is just soul-crushingly sad. So take this as a warning as well: be ready for it, because I think if I'd been in the wrong headspace for this, I would not have been able to handle it.

If you're looking for something quick, lighthearted, and fun, you've come to the right place.

Stage Dreams is the story of two women (outlaw Flor and Grace, fleeing the war) who team up to go on an adventure and execute a heist in the Wild West during the Civil War. This graphic novel is bighearted, diverse, and will make your heart a little lighter. The colored pencil illustrations are beautiful and the story is well-paced.

ARC provided via NetGalley

I wasn't really sure what to expect going into Enchantée because of the pretty mixed reviews I'd read before. Reviewers I like and generally have similar taste as had wildly different opinions on the book, so I guess I'll throw mine into the ring.

The premise of Enchantée? Excellent. The characters? Compelling, for me. For the majority of the book, this was a five star read. I did not have the problem that some other readers had of feeling detached from the story.

I'm gonna talk about the main relationship in the book here, which is definitely gonna be spoilery, so here goes.

Spoiler

I love dramatic irony, and the relationship between Lazare and Camille was RIFE with it. For most of the runtime, they were running two completely separate relationships, Lazare the commoner and Camille the commoner, in love, but then also Lazare the Marquis and Cecile the Baroness, also in love. But! Lazare didn't know the two were one and the same. I just loved that. It was super well done. However, like my main beef with this book, and what knocked it down to four stars, I felt like the ending didn't live up to the middle. Lazare knew all along that Cecile was Camille? Boring, to be honest. A bit of a let down. I wanted a dramatic reveal, dammit!

What knocked this book down to four stars, for me, was the ending. Enchantée had so much going for it. The plot was fascinating, the world was beautiful, the magic was interesting and new, there was loads of intrigue and drama. But that ending, it was just so...predictable? formulaic? I'm obviously not going to spell it out because spoilers but it just didn't hold up to the uniqueness of the rest of the book.

Still, though, I highly recommend to all lovers of YA fantasy and period dramas like myself.

I actually really really loved this book (definitely more than I expected to).

Slow burn romance? Check
Street gangs and high stakes gambling? Check
Steampunk with a twinge of dystopia? Check

It's very up my alley, friends.