I think this was a great YA that focuses on a lot of topics regarding Jim Crow that weren't necessarily covered in school, in a way for younger readers to understand. I liked how Johnson brought in historical figures and events. I think this did a fantastic job of bringing Calvin's emotions, fears, and anxieties to life. I had to stop and pause at one point to calm down from the tension. The ending did seem to be a bit faster paced than the earlier parts but it was enjoyable overall.

I have mixed feelings regarding Baldwin's writing. I think his prose and writing style are beautiful. I think the stories and underlying themes are important, such as he horror and racism of the justice system. But I think Baldwin's writing is misogynistic and it comes across in every facet of his story, starting with the disconnection between his voice and Tish's, to the way that the female characters are treated, constantly getting hit and it being justified as "comeuppance,' to the treatment of the girl who was raped yet received no sympathy. Trish and Fonny's love story was sweet and I was rooting for them but the rest of the story was just good, and I didn't feel any kind of way about anyone.

I went in for a southern gothic horror/thriller, but I think there wasn't enough gothic atmosphere to qualify. The plot seemed interesting but I think all of the POVs slowed down the pacing of the story and the ending had so much happening that it felt disappointing. The writing was good but there were too many ends with the plot and there wasn't enough horror to me. It felt very similar to The Haunting of Hill House and overall, it was an okay ghost story but nothing new or interesting.

This was a great analysis of white fragility and the intersectionality of race and gender. This contains so much history and I learned the origins of many stereotypes. I found it interesting how Hamad included the experiences of women that she knew or got in touch with before and during the writing of the book, and I enjoyed that she placed the stereotypes she identified in both modern and historical context. I love that she included that class solidarity can't occur without racial solidarity. This is a fantastic intersectional piece of feminist literature and I will definitely be recommending in the future.

This was so triggering, heartbreaking, terrible. Please check out the trigger warnings fist, this very graphically discuses grooming, sexual abuse, drug abuse and trafficking.

Jackson does a fantastic job of making you feel dread and sick to your stomach. Everything came together so well, the characters were well crafted and three dimensional, the plot was fantastic. My only issue is the ending felt like a let down in comparison to the build up. It felt like some of the twists were a little unbelievable and far fetched. 

However, it is extremely important to talk about the adultification and sexualization of Black girls and how systemically Black girls and women aren't taken seriously, disenfranchised over and over and over again. I had to take breaks and several times I thought I would soft DNF because it was so intense. I cried multiple times, I felt sick to my stomach and it almost felt like my own teenage experiences were reflected back, not including the additional misogynoir and systemic disenfranchisement that Enchanted experienced. Enchanted's experiences with grooming are far too common and more attention needs to be brought to the grooming of Black girls. This is an extremely important read.

I feel like every now and then I read a cozy fantasy that renews my interest in the sub-genre and it makes me want to read more cozy fantasies. This was not that. I give up. There were too many plot holes and half contrived plot twists that were out of place. The surface level class reflections and just overall clumsy piecing of plot and world building made it so I won't be trying cozy fantasy for a long time again.

I loved the way Billy's story felt disjointed and disorienting. I think for a novel banned because of anti-war sentiments, it does a fantastic job of showing PTSD. I think that Vonnegut did a great job of balancing the grim reality of war with comedy in a way that didn't feel forced or take away from the sincerity of the story. I think that the themes that are present throughout are still relevant today and I will most likely do a reread to annotate and focus my thoughts more.

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC. All thoughts are my own.

I screamed when I saw I received this ARC. This is one of my most highly anticipated reads for 2025. I loved the original Carmilla and this felt like not just a retelling of Carmilla but an extension of the original story.

My few gripes were that pacing issues made some parts feel underwhelming and that other than Lenore, most of the characters were somewhat one-dimensional, including Carmilla.

Other than those two issues, god I needed another gothic sapphic vampire story. The atmosphere was unbelievable well maintained, the stuffiness of Lenore's life felt pervasive throughout. Dunn did a fantastic job with description, and her prose was so beautiful. I know that it can come off as overly contrived sometimes (cough cough Rachel Harrison) but I think the feminist, female rage aspect felt well done and came across wonderfully. I loved hunger as a metaphor for desire, desire for a life outside of her husband, desire for another woman, it was just 10/10 well done. I felt tense and unsettled throughout the story and I will be buying the physical copy for my collection once it's released.

I can understand why this is banned. I think it was a well done critique of totalitarianism, although I know that people who don't think deep enough think it's a critique of communism. But ! the problem wasn't that the animals took control of their labor and benefited from it (the fall they had only produced enough for themselves to eat, not the surplus that they had needed to feed the humans too) but rather, "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." This is too apparent in American politics right now where corporations are people, people are sub-human, and undocumented immigrants are seen as no more than livestock.

I had so much fun reading Assassin's Apprentice. Like most books I went in blind but this filled the fantasy fix I've been needing. I loved the two different magic systems (Wit vs Skill). I really enjoyed the world building, the prose was eloquent and fun to read and the characters were fun to read about. I feel like the story did a great job at immersion and drawing the reader in. My only issue was that there were some pacing issues, but overall, it was a great start to a trilogy