tanouska's Reviews (589)

Cute story, cute art ^^

I have series and authors where I can't wait for a new book, but then when I have it, everything needs to be just right before I can start it, leading to unnecessary delays of sometimes months.
This series is one of those, but I managed to trick myself into reading it soon by opening it on my Ereader on a moment when I couldn't read yet, but then when I did have time to read, the book was already open so I couldn't postpone as easily, and just started.  I'm so glad I did because I really enjoyed being in Sophie's world again and seeing her grow in this installment ^^

I really love when contemporary books use media in their storytelling, and this book has plenty of that. There is texting/chats, tweets and even illustrated photo's to accompany them. It adds such an extra layer to the characterisation and storytelling!
 
 The story itself was great too, in (fan)fiction I love the soulmate trope (and subversion of it)  and while this was another approach, it still made me want to read the book :D I loved how the relationship between AB and Matthew developed, and how the story handled both their types of fame and the consequences of it.
 In the beginning the fact that there was a summary of the magic system at the start of the book was a bit intimidating, it sounded like a lot of info to have to take in right at the start, but the way it was written (as a sort of magazine article, with distribution stats and history tidbits) made it easy to read and absorb ^^
 
 I really liked the worldbuilding and the magic system that the author created. It felt well thought out and complete ^^

I loved that the bonding ended up being something that they had to choose and consent to, and not something that just happened.

I received a free copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Anyone who wants to read a perfectly soft, sweet, cute holiday story full of cookies and donuts and spices, needs to read this. I finished it in one evening, when I should have gone to sleep on time, it's one of those.

Sure, the plot is perfectly improbable, but I don't want real world depressing realism in my fluffy december reads, puh.


Even better: I only now realised this was a (stand alone) part in a series, and what I've seen of the side characters here, who are the main characters in that other book, makes me think I need to get my hands on that one before the end of the month too!

I received a free copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Reading this book, I could really tell that the trans woman main character was written by a trans woman. There are lots of tiny and not so tiny details that make it read as very genuine and real. I was also happy to see the author/publisher made use of a sensitivity reader for the Black main character ^^
In the plot there was of course some mis communication/ secrets being kept, and that's sometimes just irritating, I felt there was good motivation for why the characters made the choices they did in this book, and that makes it so much better.