First read: September 2012.

★★★★★

I went into this book thinking I would hate it because I don't like The Hunger Games. However, within the first few chapters I was completely in love with it!

Peeta is just wonderful! In the first book, I didn't really care about him, but now I'm so attached!

I'll never love Peeta more than Gale, though. That man is perfection. Go Team Gale!!

All the characters are great!

I love all the plot twists and the anticipation. And I especially love that Catching Fire isn't a rip off of Battle Royale! Bonus marks for that

Second read: May 2020

★★★★★

Read for Medieval-A-Thon: wardrobe, a book that has yellowed over time


8 years later and that last line still felt like a punch to the gut. Goddamn that was good.

I'm so happy that this series has stood the test of time so far. I really didn't think I would still love it this much if I read it again as an adult, but wow I love it even more than I did as a teenager. I liked Catching Fire a lot more than The Hunger Games actually. The political aspect got a lot more heated and that's 100% what I'm here for with this series. I don't give a shit about the romance, which is great because neither does Katniss (not much at least). I can't believe 15 year old me wanted this series to be mostly romance, what was I thinking lmfao. Well, 23 year old me I thoroughly enjoying this series about the dethroning of a monstrous political system and I can't wait to get to Mockingjay

This was such a cute read! I really enjoyed this one, although I do wish it was longer. Every issue that I had with it was due to the fact that it just wasn't long enough and things needed more time to be properly flushed out. I especially felt the ending was way too quick, to the point that it did not make sense whatsoever and completely took me out of the story while I tried to piece together what was going on. But on a positive note, I love love loved the writing style, the characters were really fun to read, and the premise was just *chef's kiss*. Can't wait to read more from this author!

Oh boy that was painful to get through. This just barely made it to 3 stars tbh

Characters are great
Writing style is nice
Romance *chefs kiss*

But world building? Who is she
Logic? Don’t know her
Plot? Don’t even get me started

So what's going on here?
Honestly? I have no idea. 464 pages and I have literally no clue what actually happened. The romance plot was done well, it was good and slow burn. But as for the actual plot, I couldn't even really guess. There were a lot of attempted assassinations, a lot of names being thrown around but no explanation of who they were or why they were bad guys, a revenge plot that felt like it went no where. Actually that's a good summary for this book as a whole, a lot of random stuff thrown together that didn't really go anywhere and just left me confused as all hell. That's about the only plot summary that I can give ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What I loved
I really enjoyed the romance and the characters! The main characters and a few of the side characters who had more screen time all had their own identifiable voices, they felt real and tangible, and they were a lot of fun. I especially liked the friendship dynamic between Lia, Xania, and Matthias. Coin interested me a lot but unfortunately he didn't play a very big role (even though his name is in the title and I spent the entire book waiting for some big reveal that had to do with him... it never came). As for the romance, it was pretty swoon worthy. I mean, they were flirting with lesbian romance novels, how could I not love it? I really liked that they recognized the huge power imbalance in their relationship, and that Xania wasn't afraid to tell Lia when she was being a bitch lmfao. I thought the entire romance was so well done, their relationship was fantastic, and I wish that had been the main focus of the book instead of whatever else was going on

What I didn't love
Pretty much everything else? I'm genuinely surprised at myself for even finishing it to be honest. I forced myself to read the last 200 pages in one sitting last night, because I knew if I didn't finish it then I probably wasn't going to pick it back up. It was just so boring! At first I was really into the political intrigue and the court drama and all that, but when I realized that was what the entire plot was going to be?? Yikes. It was such a snooze. There were no high stakes, nothing to keep me interested, the revenge plot fell completely flat, and basically every plot line that was attempted just got all jumbled up into one confused mess that didn't actually go anywhere at all. Also the time line threw me for a loop; there's one part at the end where I thought they'd been on the road for about 4 days, and then all of sudden someone was like "over the last two months of travelling" and I was SHOOK. So that wasn't done well at all either. Just everything, everything outside of the romance was not done well (for my tastes at least) and it was a struggle to get through

Overall thoughts
I'm mostly just disappointed. I really, really wanted to like this one, it was one of my most anticipated 2020 releases and it just didn't even come close to my expectations. I will definitely read more from this author if there's a strong romance element, but my first impression of her is not great. Oh well, not every book can be a 5 star!

I finished this book about an hour ago, and yet I’m still sitting here in the dark staring at my ceiling, having entirely given up on trying to stop crying due to the sheer joy that this book has brought me.

Full review to come, but I can tell you now that this is a new all time favourite. I adored every single sentence of this, and I genuinely can’t think of one thing I disliked

Update a few days later
I still don't know how to write a review for this book because I loved it so so so much, but I did manage to speak bout it in my reading vlog from this week! It's in the last 5 minutes or so of this video if you don't want to watch the whole thing lmfao

Review to come!

Actual rating 4.5★

Y'all. I loved this book SO MUCH. Oh my god it was amazing. I finished it almost a week ago and I'm still not quite over how much I enjoyed this. It was so close to being a perfect book, and would have been a 5 star if not for one trope that I'm personally not a fan of (miscommunication/making assumptions about how the other person feels without actually talking to them), but overall this was such a stunning book. Also, that cover!! My god *chef's kiss*

If you'd like to hear me speak slightly more coherently about this book, check out my reading vlog from this week!

“KNOCK KNOCK”

EXCUSE ME ?????

Review to come!

WOW

WOWOWOWOWOOWW

This was so good, I’m in complete awe. Girl, Serpent, Thorn is an incredibly lush, beautiful fairytale that captured my attention from the first page

Full review to come!

Ohhhh boy was this ever bad!

I can't believe how bad this was. I'm genuinely shocked that I was able to get through the entire book. There was literally nothing about How to Fall that was enjoyable in any way, shape, or form.

Of all the very many issues that I have with this book, my biggest one is our lovely main character, Jess. She is quite possibly the worst character I've ever read in a YA novel. Every time she opens her mouth it's to say something judgmental. She slut shames every chance she gets, thinks everyone else is dumb, and for some reason believes that she's superior to all because she can quote some of the poetry that everyone is required to read in school anyways. She was insufferable! Not to mention so fucking insensitive. What right does she have to go up to people who recently lost someone they love and go "so did she kill herself or what?" What the actual fuck. Does she not see that digging around and asking all these questions is hurting people? I think it would have been different if the main character had been someone who was close to the girl who died. That would have made sense as to why she wanted answers and wouldn't stop digging until she found them. But this random ass bitch strolling into down and thinking she's entitled to everyone's life story because she's related to the girl who died? Who she never even met?? What a load of shit. The only reason Jess wouldn't let it go is because she wanted to be right, not because she actually cared about finding answers, or getting justice, or whatever other bullshit excuse she gave to other people

Anyways, don't waste your time with this book unless you really like reading garbage characters and laughably bad "plot twists," if you can ever call them that

Read for O.W.L.s Magical Readathon - Transfiguration: read a book featuring shape shifting (see my O.W.L.s TBR video here)

RTC!

Update SEVERAL months later

I forgot to actually review this and now forget everything that I was going to say, oops

Basically, this was great! There isn't a lot of actual substance to it if I'm being honest, but that's not why I wanted to read this. I wanted something light, fluffy, fun, adorable, etc., and that's exactly what I got. If you go into this expecting some incredibly well thought out plot and a sweeping romance, you'll probably end up disappointed. But if you go into it just to have a nice time and look at some beautiful art and cute characters, then you'll most likely really enjoy it