shane_the_reading_rat's Reviews (1.21k)

finally finished the trilogy!!! amazing end and i love this story so dearly. aaron my beloved roe my beloved lily my beloved i love them all

this is definitely good, and the writing style is lovely, but many of the chapters felt disconnected and disjointed from the rest, much more like just little blips from each characters life rather than a full continual narrative. liked it, but i think others will like it more

i really liked this!! medical fantasy is kind of rare but i adore it every time i read it. the narrative/timeline of this was a little confusing, and i wouldve loved if it were longer, but im incredibly excited to read whatever naseem jamnia writes in the future :D

honestly. i think reading memoirs of queer people leaving highly restrictive religions (or shifting to a less restrictive form) is helping me so much

(also fair warning, Israel is mentioned many times in this book (Sara Glass has family who live there, this book was written before oct. 7th and published after). there is an introduction/note from the author that makes it very clear that she wholeheartedly disapproves of the Palestinian genocide. ultimately i am not Palestinian so it is not my place to say whether that introduction is sufficient or not, but if you’d rather avoid this book for at least the time being because of that that is completely okay.)

sadly this feels like an extremely topical book given how the US elections went this year. the art communicated the emotions of this incredibly well, and i began tearing up at several different points
would highly recommend if you have any interest at all in graphic memoirs or history

genuinely such an informative book. i do wish that the intro had been a little shorter (nearly dnf’ed this because of of that, the intro chapters lasted over a hundred pages), but overall this is super cool :]

one thing in this book didn't age well (a JK Rowling quote), but overall im incredibly impressed by Janet Mock. only ended up picking this up to finish out a reading challenge and am incredibly glad i did.

this was cute but overall just fine. i liked Kade a lot
i found Mel to consistently be kinda unlikeable, she did improve thankfully but i found the

section where she has this wild outburst at an airport worker over calling Kade sir and ma'am

pretty weird? like i would not at all want a cis friend to do that on my behalf. dont be mad at the individual! she was trying her best!! be mad at the institution that makes her call customers sir/ma'am!!!

holy shit that horse was terrifying

this was basically a fantasy-horror book. i can see how it would be very triggering, so definitely read content warnings if youve been through abuse
personally i really really loved it, i love t kingfisher’s work and for most of this it felt like good regency fantasy and then you get the

murderous demon horse

and youre like “ah yes. a true t kingfisher book”.

honestly gang i have no idea what my criteria for ratings are anymore. this could be a three. this could be a four. i dont even know at all
the dark academia vibes were pretty fun, but i didn’t realize it was a carmilla retelling :/ i really like knowing if a book is a retelling going in so i can adjust expectations, i dont like being surprised with it
i think being a retelling honestly limited this book, like even just change the character names and this would be a pretty cool original vampire novel!!