This book is bittersweet in the best way! My heart wanted to fly out of my chest. So many times I wanted to put the book down and immediately call a loved one, A) just to tell them I love them, and B) to tell them that I see them in this book. It's such a human book, full of grief and friendship, misunderstandings and happenstance. Definitely the lowest and the highest feelings: Our time is finite, but it's never too late to take a chance/start anew/find yourself/trust in love in all its forms...

My only quibble is that this book didn't have enough octopus XD XD XD. Marcellus is suuuuuch a great character!!! I easily would have read a billion more examples of his snarky antics.

I hope this book gets made into a movie one day soon, it's MADE for it! Exquisite!

Equal parts silly and moving; a definite Princess Bride meets Galavant vibe! (I even pictured Mallory "Madalena" Jansen as Catherine de Medici). So much heart - and of course history lends huge scoops of intrigue and danger! I love that My Contrary Mary managed to connect back to where it all began with My Lady Jane!

But my feelings!

I wanted to like this book, because representation matters. But the more I read, the more frustrated I got, until I was mentally screaming at the book. In caps lock. This book treats FEELINGS like they are the most important thing in the world. Yes, everyone's feelings are valid. But your feelings do not give you the right to harm other people, or to overlook/override the feelings/experiences of others. And the narrator (slash author, because the author admits this is a semi-biographical story) treats HIS comfort level as the most important thing, more important than regicide, patricide, genocide, terrorism, grand-theft-dragon... But no, everyone should apologize for shouting around Wyatt because he's uncomfortable! Boo freaking hoo! There is definitely a threshold where comfort has to make way for safety. Wyatt is a danger to everyone, sometimes self-deprecatingly, but mostly spitefully and unapologetically. Know what they say about two wrongs not making a right? I know I sound like the jerks during Black Lives Matter who said rioters had it wrong; I'm not trying to argue against an oppressed person standing up for themselves. I am arguing against the global levels of sympathy and pity the author expects Wyatt to receive after acting like a jerk. He murders his parents, and his sister consoles HIM, Wyatt never apologizes for taking HER parents away! That's messed up! Briar tries to banish all Fae to a realm with feral Fae ready to slaughter them, and Wyatt doesn't tell Emyr, his best friend, a prince of the friggin' fae, she just leaves him to find out on his own, because it FEELS AWKWARD to tell him what her human friend did! And she keeps the secret of Briar's witchcraft, even though it will lead to a Fae genocide, because it FEELS BAD to share a secret........ No! No no no! You don't get to harp on about how oppressed you are and then enable/machinate the deaths of an entire race of people! No!

Getting off my Murder > Feelings soapbox; I think this book is just bad queer fiction in general. EVERY conversation is "Hey, what label are you?" "Hey, when did you know your label?" "Hey, what's your level of sexual experience?" Everyone's personality is wholly watered down to their gender. There isn't a single character who says, "Eff you, I don't owe you a label or a brief history of my sexual awakening. How about you ask me a real question, like whether I like live jazz or not?" The characters are not characters, just walking pride flags who exist to make Wyatt feel better.

Lastly, I don't think this is a good work of fiction, period. The twists are sensational, not earned. The messages and metaphors are forced in and over-explained. It's repetitive, the characters don't really grow, and as I said before all the characterization clashes with the disingenuous motive they all share of wanting to make Wyatt feel better.

There is better representational fantasy out there. Skip this emo self-pity fest.

There is a great gothic fairytale hidden in this book, but it's buried under heaps and HEAPS of hyperbole and mixed metaphors. This book needs a thick, black, editor's sharpie taken to it, Victor Vale style. If all the excess were deleted, there would be a beautiful and tragic story underneath, with many homages to ballet and the theater woven together.

However, the line between Homage and Derivation gets blurry. While Parts 1 and 3 made heavy nods to Phantom of the Opera, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, and The Firebird in a way that felt thematic and appropriate....Part 2 felt like a straight up rip-off of A Court of Thorns and Roses, which itself is highly derivative of Disney films and classic fairytales. Death was like a Tamlin-Rhys combo with practically zero personality; the occasional act of aggression or devotion but no banter, no heart. And his duplicity of Grace in order to keep/gain a kingdom is clearly ripped from Tamlin's motives. Also, the descriptions of Death and his secret, beautiful kingdom, where darkness is many-faceted and even comforting, is a clear ripoff of Rhys and Velaris.

Also....has this author seen Princess Tutu?.... Because I have. And the end of the book, where Grace realizes Death and Sleep's feud over Catherine IS the plot of the ballet The Little Bird, and our hero Gracie is completely irrelevant to their story, but chooses to fight with her art regardless....That feels A LOT like the ending of Princess Tutu. "Hey, I might not be in your story, I might not be destined to get the prince, I might just be a little duck...but I won't let evil win! I will Art my heart out, until Evil is driven back!"

I also got Pan's Labyrinth vibes from the final chapter. Our hero becomes the new royal ruler of the afterlife, all the creepy fairytale beasts she encountered were just people in disguise, and in reality the hereafter is beautiful and bright and all her loved ones are there, and it's ok that she's dead! The End!

So, if all the excessive elements were stripped away.... And all of the stolen elements were stripped away... There IS still some original writing here that's good... But it needs a massive rewrite. More Showing instead of Telling. More dialogue and character interactions instead of Grace Explains It All. More characterization of the brothers Death and Sleep. More character growth... A story can't be told in metaphors and homages alone, there has to be a core that people care about, and that core starts at the heart of the characters. I don't feel like I know Death. I don't really pity Sleep. And Grace is vain and dramatic, somebody I want to see humbled; pride goeth before a fall and all that. Give the audience someone to root for, pass or fail.

But that's a bitter pill. Saying "Your book would be amazing, if you completely changed it" is not a ringing endorsement :/. I hope, with editing, this book comes into its own, because it really could be something amazing if given a chance to refine.

This book is a masterful retelling of Jane Eyre! It's so true to the core of the original, but it improves in certain places in nuanced ways. The Ethiopian folklore, religious iconography, and history pairs reeeeally really well with Andi's (Jane's) journey. All her struggles with classism; surviving abuse; striving for piety, dignity and independence while wrestling with desire, jealousy, and a yearning for comfort and validation, are all VERY much present, and even more poignant coming from a PoC. Magnus (Rochester) is just as poignant, with his intense mood swings, and privileged flippancy. There was nothing lost in making the story properly paranormal, all of the heart and themes are still there.

The book did sort of lose me in the last quarter, when it largely focused on Andi's relationship with her mentor and father-figure. I think the book had a lot to say about generational trauma, or learning to forgive/let go/choose to live with love despite traumas endured... but the final chapters dragged, and repeated themselves, as Andi tried to force family therapy sessions and confessions of love out of Jember.

But all in all, I love the representation, and the powerful, genuine voice of Andi. I am so thankful that Jordan Ifueko positively reviewed this book, because I might have believed the dissenters and missed it otherwise! Thanks for the bump, Jordan! Haters gonna hate, this book is great!

The first book was fun because it was so obvious to everyone but Poppy that she was in a vampire-infested warzone. But this second book is just played straight, and it loses a lot of what made it fun and interesting. There is no genre-saviness, no twist on vampires, no... heart. It's /just/ an angsty vampire romance novel. Misunderstandings abound which shouldn't, but our hero the empath keeps refusing to use her powers to pry. Vampire boi is overprotective, possessive, domineering, withholding, evasive, overly aggressive, and downright rapey, all of which is supposed to be hand-waved as romantic because he has a heart of gold.... Siiiiigh. Ladies, gentlemen, enbies of all shapes and sizes: A few notes on consent... Ahem...
1) Your partner doesn't get to assume how you feel. You tell /them/ how you feel. They don't get to counter by rejecting your feelings. "Nah, you like it, come on...." No.
2) You and your partner have to be honest about boundaries, protection, safe words, etc, before indulging in a rape fantasy. Asking if someone is okay /after/ is not enough. You should be performing aftercare AND outlining expectations and precautions beforehand.
3) Consent can be revoked at any time, for any reason. If you feel overwhelmed, stop. Your partner does not get to force you to continue, even if they /think/ they're being pleasurable or kind. Stop means stop, no means no, respect the red light!

Say nothing of the fact that Casteel victim-blames her for not violently retaliating against her abusers or their enablers. Or gaslights her, by denying Poppy her literal freedom and her free will but then outlining his thinking as "I won't force you...but here's my thinking, it's right, you'll agree with me, I just cut to the chase." Or condescendingly laughs every time she, rightfully, has a question, or feels insulted, or feels frightened. OR, mistakes lust for consent and imposes himself on Poppy as if he knows better than her; spoiler alert, lust doesn't trump feeling disrespected or afraid, and instead of alleviating the former maybe he could try a little harder to alleviate the latter!!!!

Yeah, Casteel is a piece of work. I could not, and did not want to, get lost in this fantasy.

But ignoring the Vampire by Numbers story, the rest... Is just a weird tapestry of other YA. Poppy and Casteel read equally as Genya/Darkling or Alina/Darkling fanfiction. Cas takes Poppy to a secret field of flowers, a la Twilight. Cas and Poppy were both trapped by abusive royalty, mistake each other for enemies or plot coupons, then realize they're fated mates, a la Rhys and Feyre from ACoTaR. Cas and Poppy do a lot of politicking and "pretending" to be in love by day, and they endured trauma which they relive in horrible nightmares by night, resulting in the two consoling each other and coaxing each other to remember what's real and what's fantasy, a la Peeta and Katniss in Hunger Games. WHERE IS THE ORIGINALITY?!?! I hate that instead of a sequel to FBaA, I'm just getting a tour through Armentrout's personal library!

AND FINALLY, the book has a biiiig setup about Poppy and Cas trying to get their brothers back....which it doesn't even deliver in this book! 558 pages of angsting and absolutely 0 pages of plotting!!!! Efffff me!!!

Not impressed. X_X

Soooooo BORING!!!!

A witch who won't use magic and a vampire who won't drink blood avoid the plot by doing mundane cozy things like yoga and wine-tasting. The plot tries to sneak up on them, so they run away to go horseback riding in France. The plot again tries to sneak up on them, so they run away to a cozy farmhouse in upstate New York. A combination of prophecy, time-travel, and fated mates syndrome, inform the duo that they're married now, after knowing each other only a few weeks. Lots of Bibles and old philosophy texts get quoted to defend their fated love, often times in dead or foreign languages, so the audience only understands what they're reading half the time. But despite fate depicting them as equals, our witchy heroine is content to be a sack of potatoes, carted around unconscious by her vampire knight. She spends an inordinate amount of time napping or drugged into oblivion, sometimes even compelled to sleep by her vampire.

If the main character feels like sleeping all the time....guess what this leviathan of a book made me feel like doing....

This book could have said something AMAZING were it's biracial couple ACTUALLY biracial. But instead, it's about two, extremely privileged, white people making broad assumptions about the genetics for race and temperament being linked, and the importance of minding who we marry or procreate with because it could pass down that temperament. Calling an entire race of people aggressive, or prim, or wild is just....well...racist! XD This story does not read well. Despite the interracial couple at the forefront, it still feels like a defense of eugenics.

There were a couple of odd phrases that stood out, and I wondered after awhile where the author was from. I read her bio...and then realized that this book is just a self-insert fantasy for her XD. The witchy scholar of history, science, and the occult, who enjoys food sciences on the side... THAT'S THE AUTHOR!!! Just goes to show, that just because someone is a genius in a field of study, doesn't mean they make the best writer about that topic. I imagine that half the things that were meant to be inspiring or romantic in this book, echoed with HER, but not the average reader.

Does not live up to the hype. If you were hoping for The Da Vinci Code or National Treasure, but with paranormal magic, you will be heavily disappointed. This is a thick, cozy book of the quiltiest order. Use it as a pillow while you read something else.

Overrated

For every good message this series has about grief, self-empowerment, and found families, it has an equally toxic message about the same. The characters swerve jarringly between pitiable and disgusting, self-effacing and arrogant, and the tone flip-flops just as badly between depressing and horny. I just can't stand the whiplash.

I get that this series has a theme going, showing the more visceral sides of a fairytale, so of course Happily Ever After is more like Seasonal Depression and Art Therapy Make Things Balanced, Neither Happy Nor Unhappy. BUUUUUT who asked for this Direct to DVD Christmas special of a book? The needless shopping scenes were sooooo taxing! An entire novella just to bridge the ending of the orig trig with any future books, instead of letting either set of books stand on their own denouement/introduction's merit! And THIS book largely rips up any of the good the previous books did as far as showcasing grieving characters who grow. Every "hero" is arrogant and petty in this book. Anyone not in their inner circle is treated as a pariah, even though they have been through the exact same events, same trauma. Why shouldn't Tamlin, Lucien and Nesta resent Feyre's Happily Ever After? Why does Rhys or Feyre or Elain need to knock any one of them down further?! The toxic message here seems to be "Yeah yeah, everyone's got baggage, everyone's depressed about something... but if you're a person worth caring about, you'll turn yourself around! Wallowing in depression is selfish, fix yourself so that others don't have to endure your unpitiable, odious life choice." ..... Depression is not a choice. It is a legitimate bodily response to trauma. And you can't just snap out of it to make other people happy. Eff this book. Eff this series for not living up to its promises. Eff any future plans to torment these characters further. Enough already.