shane_the_reading_rat's Reviews (1.21k)

this was lovely at the start, but im struggling so hard with it and  i refuse to force myself to finish. cant connect with the love interests, dont care about baseball. im much more interested in what happens to vince, so i’ll just look up spoiler reviews for that.

this is one of the most adorable books i’ve ever read
Tuva’s story really hit for me, honestly i think this is probably one of the best books about growing up (also translated! and queer!! woo!!!)
also an incredibly cozy art style and i adore Tuva’s dad <3

wendy why did you still love leah she was horrible!!!!

anyway this was def fun and a cool exploration of rainbow capitalism,,, in the form of a very campy zombie invasion. like i said, fun

this book definitely won’t click with everyone, and i can see why. but as someone who has been in online fandoms that have completely consumed me (and then imploded much like the Masaki fanbase in this book), thus giving me a horrific existential crisis, it was a book i needed to read. maybe it’ll work for you too, if you’ve had some of the same fandom experiences as me lol

i’ve learned throughout this series that i prefer the standalone character books to the quest books (with Come Tumbling Down being the exception, as the Moors are my favorite location and i adore Jack), however this one was definitely good!! it picks right up from the last book, which is really nice as it feels like Antsy’s story has a very solid beginning to end (+ it’s essentially a two-book story about cycles of abuse). however, there were a lot of new characters and i definitely had a hard time keeping track (except for emily my beloved).

im so happy for Cora that she finds the door back to the Trenches at the end of this one even though i’ll miss her deeply, she’s been my favorite character in this series and she and Kade were so sweet together

this started out really interesting, but by roughly 60% it was losing me so badly and honestly i skimmed the ending.
the worldbuilding is interesting but also incredibly convoluted and confusing? like theres

a world that kinda exists alternate to earth called Fidelis, it’s like a college town kind of ??? its filled with scholars (these scholars love to party man every time theyre on earth theyre partying lmao) and they used to be able to travel to many different worlds multiverse style but now they cant, because reasons. theres also gods who are really powerful (but can somehow be contained in perfectly normal chains) and the antagonist is one of these gods who somehow looks like a person and she drinks magical childrens blood to stay young. the kid she abused throughout his childhood is the love interest for our main character, violet, whos family’s blood is somehow tastiest and best for staying young for this goddess?

if you read all that, yes its that wild and i didn’t even explain everything.
ALTHOUGH i am a sucker for pretty writing about stars and space and this had that in spades
edit: should add that: im generally a big villain lover. i think villains in fantasy stories, and any story in general, can say a lot about their world and/or be incredibly entertaining. Penelope was not that. she’s pretty much just an abusive parent with godly powers. that’s not a fun or interesting villain to read or think about.

ngl im pretty sure listening to this on audio would’ve worked better for me. nonetheless, this was definitely good and i loved the mixed media aspects :D

i just couldn’t see the chemistry in the romance, which is unfortunate since that’s the main focus. along with this, the fantasy kingdoms really did not need to be made into fantasy versions of ireland and england, as the political commentary was paper-thin and just couldn’t hold its own.
i also found

how quickly rosa’s dad gave up on the duel to be unrealistic, given how intense he had been before

. (also even with niamh being disabled, it was rarely discussed and no one around her seemed concerned at all).just overall really wasn’t my thing.

did not expect to love this as much as i did. great communication between characters ( i loved all of them), + just a lot of genuinely sweet moments that hit pretty hard. i do wish it were longer and that it had possibly gotten a bit more editing, as there were multiple grammatical errors i found while reading. otherwise, really cool book with beautiful cover :D