I had the opportunity to download this book as a digital ARC from Avon and NetGalley.

I'm a nerd girl at heart. So I love to reading about people who are nerds and have nerdly interests. One thing a lot of nerdly people do is write fanfiction. Funnily enough I've never read or written fan fiction, even though I know the lingo, but I adore reading books about people who do. And that was the case here.

Almost everything about this book was completely adorable. The meet cute that was done both online and the real world. The fact that both April and Marcus were huge fanfic writers. The way they genuinely cared each other before even knowing what the other looked like and then how it grew when they met each other. The body positivity that April had throughout the book was inspiring as well Marcus's acceptance that his learning disability didn't make him any less intelligent than anyone out there. It wasn't as apparent when I was reading it but now, thinking back, one thing that set this book apart is that the journey of self-love was as important as the romantic one. Both Marcus and April still had work to do in that regard a lot of which came down to having to set boundaries with their family members. It is a hard thing to have to do.

Here's your warning that slight spoilers are ahead:
The one thing that did strike me is that a lot of their snags and pitfalls came from a complete lack of communication or not setting the proper expectations. They also let their past hurts have a lot to do with how they interpreted something that said by the other person. This happened more with April than Marcus with her understandable sensitivity to talk about food and not requesting to not be left alone when they visited her parents. And yes Marcus should have been honest about how they met but honestly, the thought of violating an NDA is terrifying, no matter how much money you make.. And someone as smart as April was should have known that. Yes in the moment she was hurt, and it was a rightful anger; but still....as pragmatic as she was, the Logic part of her brain should have chimed in harder. I will admit that this may have knocked off a star if that lightbulb hadn't turned on in her head at some point.

No more spoilers (heh sorry not sorry for that):
Ultimately though they realized they both messed up, they made their apologies and were able to move on. Marcus loved April just the way she was and vice versa. They bonded over mutual interests but also let each other have their own and encouraged them in that. They were also fiercely protective of each other to the point of acting as buffers between their respective parents which sometimes is more of a testament to love than one would think. This read had it all; a sweet and steamy love affair as well as self-love and realization that we do not have to change for anyone even our parents. . Five out of five....would recommend.

Like the dessert that it is centered around, it was sweet and cute read. It's a cozy so it's not to heavy handed on anything, not even the mystery. It as one of those that the victim was so disliked it really could have been anyone that we got introduced to. Even knowing that the who and especially the why, which we really don't know until the very last page, were done well enough here I didn't feel it was a twist that we didn't see coming or too predictable.

One thing that was well done was the point of view we had. Since a majority of her family members didn't tell Win anything about the victim or his relationship to her family, we didn't know either. We got feed the same information when she did so the mystery really unfolded with her. I feel the author did this well without making it seem hokey or obvious.

I loved the relationship Win had with her family as well. I felt that those were the best relationships in the book and that there was a strong bond with all her family members. The closest of course was her grandfather but the others cared about her just as much. I feel that if this series continues the author would do well to focus on that rather than any other relationship. Which leads to some of the criticisms I had about the book.

We're introduced to Win's two BFFs and....I'll just get this out of the way; I did not like Maisie. At all. At first it was cute but as the story developed and her impulsiveness lead to situations where they were in legitimate danger, or let specific people around them know information ahead of time....it got a bit much. There were more than a few points where I was like “Why are you still her friend?” We didn't know much about Riya except she had a temper and that when she went all rage-y people just got out of her way. So I can't say much on her since we weren't given a lot of substance on her.

I also disliked how little Win was there in the first few days of the business being open. I understand she was trying to clear her father's name and that the shop had been in her family for decades but still...she was gone a lot those first few days considering how successful she wanted it to be. And the fact that when O, another character, showed her all the females around her were like “Ohh he likes you jump on that.” And it's like “Madams! She just opened a business....do not try to get her entangled with a man right now.” That got old very quickly.

That said it was a enjoyable read and everything you would want or expect from a cozy. If you're a fan of that mystery type I do recommend it. Just give it grace since, being the first in a new series, it is a bit rough.

Wow. This book was just....wow.

First off just to clear any doubt about here I stand on this, it is a thriller. It's a social commentary thriller but it's still a thriller. While I don't feel that everyone saying it's not one is just because it is written by and about a PoC, I do feel that a good majority of the naysayers do feel this way. In theory it could be because they can't see themselves in the position of either Sydney or Theo (who is a white man btw) for whatever reason and so it didn't thrill them or scare them which is why they don't consider it one. But guess what? Just because you can't relate to it does not negate it from being a thriller. Not everyone say themselves in the position of what's-her-face in Gone Girl or wanted to. But it's still classified as a thriller.

I digress.

I was highly anxious reading this book. Like at some points I had to make myself put it down because I was getting so anxious and angry. Because I could see something like this happening in a marginalized community. I mean, it's happened before to be frank so it stands to reason it could happen again.

It also plays with the idea of the only type of unreliable narrator which is one who may be unreliable but not on purpose. It's like they think they're remembering and relaying correctly but they're not. It did a fine walk on that and I appreciated it. Also I saw a lot of myself in Sydney, even though I'll honestly admit it took me awhile to warm up to her. I'm not as confrontational as she is, but I have the same anxiety, the same paranoia, the same crushing feeling of the weight of the world. Theo grew on me too although that took longer. One thing about being in his PoV is that you saw his unconscious biases rear its ugly head BUT you also saw him recognizing that he had that. Which is growth. It may be a baby step but those are still movements.

There are so many levels and undertones here and things that are still accurate today. Such as someone claiming they're not racist and having a picture of Michelle Obama in their living room (which was trifling as hell btw) but use slurs on PoCs and threaten to call the police at every perceived slight (not threat). Or the person who is in an interracial relationship and has biracial children, but is still willing to commit all types of atrocities towards marginalized people. Someone could write countless papers on it and I could seriously see this being a study in sociology classes in the future. As well as it should since damn...his was a good book. It's not going to be for everyone though and some people will be very uncomfortable reading it. Hell, you're suppose to be. But it was still a damned good book and worth the wait for me.

CW/TW for racism, cheating (off page), vermin and bugs (yes there should be warnings for these).

There's a reason this book is still important across all types of fiction and stillread even 50+ years later. It's beautifully poetic and tragic and it wrenches your heart. I liked the Audible but I think I want to read it in book form at some point as well.

While it started off slowly, it quickly picked up the pace and kept at it for the duration of the novel. I'm sure a lot of that had to do with the week timer that the Mila and the other girls had before they returned to the grave but I will admit at first I thought that waiting for the time that the spell could take place would take up a good chunk of the first part of the book.

I think it did a good job of capturing all aspects of teenager-dom. The feeling of being somewhat of an outcast no matter which clique you're in. Not knowing exactly how your actions affect someone else until it is right up in your face. Not being sure how to process grief at such a young age because, in my opinion, losing your best friend at roughly 16-17 is still considered a tragedy even in this day and age. I also like the somewhat off the cuff commentary on the performative aspect of grief. Because I think that is something our society expects a lot of and when people don't react the way you think they should when someone close to them dies, there is either judgement r concern. I also like the revelation that Mila had that not everyone was out to get her and people outside of Riley did care about her and want to get to know her.

I wish there had been more of a developed sense of Riley and Mila's friendship from when Riley was alive because, to be honest, undead Riley was not a favorite of mine. I felt she was too belittling of Mila for the majority of the book and while the reasons for that do come to light a bit at the end, it was still annoying. June was the typical mean girl exterior nice-ish girl interior for most of the book. Dayton was actually my favorite undead girl out of all three since she reminded me somewhat of a friend I had in high school; flighty but still intelligent. Kind of naïve in how her actions had affected others when she was alive and genuinely sorry to realize the hurt that she had caused. And she was the first one to show genuine concern for Mila whenever they were in danger constantly reminding her that out of the four of them, only Mila could really die.

This also had the thread of bittersweet in it since honestly none of these girls deserved to die. They weren't perfect people, not even Riley, but they all had their lives ahead of them and they all got cheated out of it. They never got the opportunity to be better people so all anyone apart from Mila would remember them as were the mean girls and the outcast. Dayton was the one who had the most visible reaction about this when she realized that she would never swim or sing or see her brothers and sisters again. Everyone made peace with the fact that this was how it was, but they also grieved for it while they were back on earth.

This is really more of a 4.5 stars but since we don't do half stars here, and it wasn't quite up to what a five stars would be for me. And a few of the reasons for that involve the ending including the big revelation and how that resolved itself. However I still enjoyed how other aspects of the story were resolved and the realizations that Mila had. I could definitely pick this one up again and re-read it in the future.

Rating is 3.5 stars but since we don't do half stars here....

I'm of mixed feelings about this book. Like I don't necessarily get, the extreme love or hate for it and maybe a re-read in a year or so would change my mind one way or the other. The first thing that set me off on this shaky path had to do with my own assumptions that Boy was Black, not white. While it was never called out one way or the other, and one could guess based on the synopsis she was, it wasn't apparent to me until the job opportunity for her that called for a blonde girl. I had to readjust my thinking after that.

Then as I read through the first part, her distaste towards Snow seemed to come out of nowhere and be based on how others treated her. She seemed to harbor an underlying feeling of resentment towards her because Snow looked white and was treated better than Boy who was white. Or she was worried on some level that kind of treatment wouldn't set her up properly for how people would treat her in the real world. Or maybe she was just a psychopath. Either way reading her sections were a challenge because Boy wasn't very likeable.

Bird was a bit more but at least her nature made sense because she was a child who had been born into a family that treated her differently because she as dark-skinned. She knew her mother loved her and would fiercely defend her against anyone even her sister which, truth be told, as really Boy's only redeeming quality. I enjoyed the letters between Snow and Bird since it helped to develop their relationship even though they didn't seem to mingle a lot when Snow came for the holiday. It showed ho similar they were even though they didn't grow up together.

The last section seemed almost unnecessary. I would have liked to have heard things from Snow's point of view but maybe that was one of the points since in other re-tellings of Snow White, which I believe this was, it's all about Snow. And with this we heard from other points of views which was nice. But this section served no other purpose except to have a tense reconciliation between Boy and Snow. The insert of the rat catcher served no purpose. Without getting into spoilers, it seemed like a twist thrown in for shock value. It did nothing to further the already convoluted plot of this story.

Again, I didn't hate or love this book. I enjoyed it and there are snippets from it that I feel I will randomly think about over time. I did enjoy the consistent thread of mirrors and how they play part in a person's development. I think it would have been stronger if we had a little section from Snow, outside of her letters to Boy and Bird and that the part about the rat catcher could have been cut completely. Quite frankly that character could have stayed in the first section and never been mentioned again and it wouldn't have had any bearing on the story.

This is a book that would be good in a high school AP or college class because I think if I had discussed parts of this with other people while reading it, I would have enjoyed it more. Which isn't to say I disliked it. My feelings towards it are very neutral.

Loved that I ended my month on this hidden gem. I really enjoy this author's take on the vampire lore as well as ones for fallen angels, witches, and werewolves. It doesn't fall into the trap of info-dumping like other fantasies do, be they urban or otherwise.

The humor in here is excellent as well as the unfolding off everything. While some things were obvious I still enjoyed the ride and my own vengeance desire was sated. I also believe it is a stand-alone or the start of a new series so you can jump in without worry about having missed something in the past.

It is a relatively short read but nothing felt rushed to me. It all played out over the span of roughly 48 hours and at a believable pace.

Looking forward to more by this author.

This was a cute, sweet, short, romantic read. I enjoyed it and it didn't take me long to get through. There were times I wanted to shake the character's for their actions and I think that's more to do with the fact that they were young fresh out of college twenty-somethings and I am not. By any stretch of the imagination. Still, it was a sweet read. I loved Rayanne's passion for the elders and how she as always concerned about them and that was her driving force. However she also had to be
reminded that she couldn't control everything or people.

Henry's path was a bit more muddled but he did make some growth throughout the story. Because if there is one thing I can't stand it's a story where no one learns anything. His relationship with his mother was interesting and I would have liked to know more behind that besides the snippets that we got but that is probably something expanded on later in the series since the author went around to a few more PoVs in this one than just the main couple.

It did take a bit to find its footing though. And there were many parts that it felt jumbled and rushed. Some of the character personality seemed a bit inconsistent at times but maybe that something that improves with the rest of the series. It's not a cliffhanger for the main pair's story, but there are things that are left unresolved at the end, which the author does warn about.

It's also primarily a 'fade to black' romance and doesn't get too explicit. That's not necessarily a deal breaker or maker for me but I think it's good to know going in for habitual romance readers. I feel that to get a more well rounded sense of the overall story you would have to read the rest but this will not leave you unsatisfied.

Wow. This was a delightful story. From start to finish it was endearing and oh so sweet. It's the perfect holiday romance. It perfectly straddles the two that take up America's focus for the last two months of the year.

I loved the slow burn between Darcy and Elle and how they realized their love for each other.. To me one thing that is always a testament to how people care for one another is how quick they are willing to defend them. And both Elle and Darcy were quick to defend the other against any of the naysayers. From when Darcy stood up to Elle''s family at Thanksgiving to when Elle showed up at Darcy's apartment with exactly what she needed to turn her day around? *chef's kiss*.

One thing that stands out to me is when both parts of a couple accept what is different about their partner. That may seem silly but it's true. They may not always see eye to eye on things but they acknowledge and accept the other's differences and, in some cases and this one, it makes them love each other more. that acceptance is amazing because honestly some of us don't even get that from our own family.

It took me to roughly 85% to realize it was a P&P retelling but that was on me. And, even though I don't love the original P&P (I know I'm a bad English major), I adore the retellings and variations on it. And I am completely enamored with this story.. Everything about it was sweet and wonderful and just what I needed at this point in my life. I fell in love with both Darcy and Elle and was cheering them on while reading my Kindle Paperwhite. And the grand gesture at the end? *sigh* You'll never look at cilantro the same way again.

The steam factor is fairly mild but the slow burn is oh so delightful. And the love realization comes at a believable pace. Would definitely recommend this book to fellow book lovers.