I really wanted to love this but the constant misogyny and reduction of women to appearances was too much for me. As part of one character's personality, I could maybe accept it, but given that in just 100 pages it feels like a pervasive attitude across several characters, it's clear that the book might not be for me.

This one has gone straight to the top of my favourite reads of the year, and my favourite books about feminism. Srinivasan's essays felt truly radical and like a natural continuation of the work of Angela Y Davis, bell hooks, and other feminists of previous generations. She doesn't offer many answers, but rather allows herself to pose questions that occupy the merky grey space in some of the most talked about issues in modern day feminism, and with such an incredible amount of nuance and consideration of criticism of her ideas and others that I was blown away. I was expecting it to be quite a dense book, but actually found her essays surprisingly readable, though I have read a lot of feminist theory before so I was familiar with many of the core ideas already. Usually with essay collections I have a clear standout favourite, but all of these were incredible in their own way and I'll be raving about this one for a while. 

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley I've been able to read Love Theoretically pre-publication and it was delightful. I turned to The Love Hypothesis at a time I needed to be swept away with a somewhat easier read and I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in a funny, recognisable STEM academia context and I enjoyed being back in that scenario with Love Theoretically. Is it the most brilliant piece of literature I've ever read? No. Was it incredibly enjoyable and did I read it compulsively? Yes!

I have never read a book that has suffered from second book syndrome so much. I was looking forward to reading this sequel because Serpent and Dove really took me by surprise in how balanced between plot and character it was, how I really felt I got to know the characters and how time was dedicated to develop the relationship between Lou and Reid. I thought it ended on a good note - not a cliffhanger but intriguing enough for me to want to continue. I fear that Blood and Honey will be the last instalment I read in this series.

Firstly, so many pages and so little plot. Very little happens in the whole book, what little does happen is primarily told through speech, and we end up pretty much exactly where we started

a stand off with Morgane that ultimately results in them getting away but the promise of a bigger battle? How original.

. Pacing-wise it was incredibly confusing - sometimes it would move so slow and you would feel like nothing was happening and then suddenly something would happen and it would be over in the blink of the eye. 

I also found it incredibly difficult to remain interested in the plights of Lou and Reid, because I was being told so much and not shown. I've never really understood this distinction before but boy do I understand it now. As some other people have mentioned in their reviews, their relationship completely 180s, which, given the circumstances (

Reid is dealing with murdering his father-figure after all, and Lou did have a near death experience, again

), is kind of understandable, but their complex emotions and thoughts were too often reduced to simple actions/dialogue and it makes no sense given the development in their relationship throughout the whole first book.

The wider cast of characters should have been interesting to read about but the time wasn't taken to introduce them fully - again, the telling rather than showing mentioned earlier - and integrate them into the narrative.

I regret not DNFing this, because it clearly wasn't doing it for me and I carried on anyway hoping it would get better and because I had spent more money on the ebook than I usually would so it felt like my financial investment should be honoured, and I needed to be reading something on my ereader before bed. Lesson learnt (again) on that one, back to ruthlessly DNFing no matter what!