I went into this book expecting something with the same vibe as the author's Adam Binder trilogy, but high fantasy (and given that the more high fantasy-ish, parallel worlds bits of the Adam Binder series worldbuilding are among my favorite aspects of that story, I was very excited). Unfortunately, this turned out to be a disappointment. :( I did love the worldbuilding here! The world is so dark and rich and evocative, with its dying gods and Greek mythology vibes and scary paladins and strange mazes and ghost-infested cities and more. Everything else, though, I found sadly lacking.

Honestly, the more I read, the more I felt like this story should have been a videogame. Everything about it begged to be interactive. That wonderful setting? I would have loved to see actual visuals, to get to wander around all those dark, threatening places, click on things, find loot, get into fights, figure out escape routes. The plot that had a series' worth of material packed into a single average-sized novel? It felt like a tangle of quests to be tackled in whichever order the player prefers. Pick a faction, have some adventures, discover lore, piece it all together. Get engaged by interaction. Also, despite the overwhelming amount of stuff going on, every twist and plot point felt so transparent and like something that would be fun to experience in-game but often frustrating to follow as a reader. Even the characters felt weirdly videogame-y. The two mains—Raef with his street smarts and grief for the murdered goddess he worshipped, Seth with his struggles to belong in the rival god's paladin-like order and religious guilt—technically had interesting conflicts and personal deals, but felt sort of flat. Like they were archetypes, semi-blank slates waiting to be filled in as the player behind the screen goes through dialogue options, chooses quest order/outcomes, and fills in the gaps in their own head. All the other characters kind of had an NPC feel to them. 

I don't even know if I'm verbalizing it properly, but seriously, I keep thinking that everything that felt like a flaw for this novel would have been an awesome feature if it were some kind of Bloodborne/Skyrim/Pillars of Eternity hybrid videogame. And hey, in a way, that made for an interesting experience, and I'll definitely be thinking about this book more, trying to dissect what makes for this effect. But I didn't enjoy it much as a book.

I completely forgot about this series of royal romances that all take place within the same two weeks leading up to the ball that celebrates the big anniversary of a fictional European country, because obviously that's the best time for five royal siblings to get engrossed in personal melodrama and find their happy endings. With a premise like that, somehow I find trouble taking any of the books seriously, but at the same time they can be a fun distraction while I do boring things. So when I stumbled upon this one scrolling through my audiobook collection, I hit play.

The first two books in the series, despite being about different couples and having different authors, felt kind of like the same story, so Throne Together was a nice change. Instead of a prince/commoner pairing, there are two princes, and the story, while staying focused on the feels, still delves a lot into the intricacies of being a modern royal, to the point that the chapters that are built around the characters' princely obligations read almost like a workplace romance. It provides more insight than the previous books on the Rosavia politics and status, as well of that of the equally fictional neighboring kingdom of Thedes. I was even finally able to pinpoint where both would be on the real world map! Which of course led to too much overthinking on my part, because apparently my brain can't just accept "alternate world" without trying to recreate the entire history of how Rosavia and Thedes came to be, what their roles/situations must have been during WW2 and WW1 before that, which empires they're the shards of, and, and, and. Come on, brain! This is just silly fun!

The romance itself was cute, though honestly, the amount of miscommunication drove me up the wall. I just had trouble reconciling the life-long "I know you better than I know yourself" friendship with the whole "let's freak out and not talk for four years before we finally pick up right where we left off" premise. It was entertaining, don't get me wrong! But. SO MUCH miscommunication. Just so much. But also a lot of sappy romantic fun, especially when they finally start explaining themselves to each other. And it was fun to see this story unfold against the tangible backdrop of all the other drama that Jules's brothers were getting up to. The writing was pretty nice, too, full of humor that ranged from giggle-inducing to silly eyeroll-inducing. Also, cats! Cats make everything better.

Oh, and I didn't expect Jules to be so clearly on the ace spectrum. It was a welcome surprise. I wouldn't call the representation perfect, but I did enjoy its presence.

Why ever did I take such a long break with this series? It's so fun. Granted, this particular installment feels a bit like a side-quest: on one hand, Murderbot is still trying to get more information to help it figure out the Dr. Mensah situation... on the other hand, it's *still* trying to do that. While it already did that in the previous book. I certainly hope the next novella is going to bring more overarching plot development.

That aside, I greatly enjoyed spending more time in this cyberpunk-ish universe and to delve into all the complications of the relationships between its AI and human denizens. Given that we now live in a world where the word "AI" is no longer anything out of a sci-fi novel, some of these themes are feeling more relevant (in vaguely frightening ways). I appreciated seeing Murderbot get a bigger and bigger sense of independent selfhood, found myself cackling more than one at its deadpan narration, and found it only a little unsettling just how damn much I relate to its experiences with human interactions. Seriously. Some of its thoughts about humans had me withdrawing from the book so I could have an emotion.

Kind of found myself missing ART from the previous book. Milo wasn't anywhere nearly as entertaining and honestly more than a little unsettling, but I suspect I was mean to be unsettled by this bot's whole deal. Also, the action was really fun, but mostly, I was here for the character growth and the interactions, and I got plenty of that. Definitely going to pick up the next book much sooner!

A fun little romance story that, to me, would have benefited greatly of being a full novel rather than a novella. The characters and the premise were just so interesting! Ending up having to "co-parent" an adopted dog is such a fun situation. I loved the parts at the beginning where Janelle and Andre were trying to kind of upstage each other in terms of who's going to be a better dog mom/dad, and I would have loved to see that low-key rivals-to-lovers dynamic to last longer, with them being competitive but also consistently teaming up in the doggo's best interests. I would have enjoyed a deeper delve into each of their past's, too. Basically, the dynamic of these two characters was so promising, but this being a novella, it just had to be squeezed into something way simpler and insta-lovey. Alas.

Still, I loved the characters and how adorably nerdy they were, each in their own way. Despite not being a fan of the fast development, I still rooted for them and felt they were so good for each other. And they're also just, you know, the kind of people I would love to hang out with, or just follow online and appreciate their respective art and dog pictures. Also appreciated the awesome fat representation: both leads are plus-size and not only is there no fat-shaming, but their fatness is outright treated as sexy and appealing. 

And of course Zeus, the awesome doggo, is a character in his own right here, and he's endlessly charming! Favorite dog character, 10/10, would instantly adopt.

Whew. Finally, I am done with this series!

It was really a weird experience throughout: this book, but also the entire trilogy, because I kept having these huge gaps between reading each installments and debating whether I maybe want to unhaul the rest of the series altogether. But something still kept pulling me into continuing. Probably the part where if someone just described the main plot points and the character archetypes and such to me, I would always say, "Yes, yes please, this story is exactly up my alley," but the actual execution of all these concepts just kept making me so mad throughout.

This particular book sat better with me than the previous two, most likely because of the POV changes that made for some excitement. Also, because there was so much Wen and she turned out to be basically the real protagonist of the story, just like I hoped/expected. I wish I could have read this entire tale in her POV, it would have been so much more interesting. I'm very happy with her storyline and outcome, and the twists and turns were objectively fun. It's just that I once again was supremely frustrated by how they were handled. Oh, cool, Gal and Ettian were unreliable narrators all along! Then why, in their literal first person POVs, did they outright lie to themselves all the time? Why did I spend so much time reading about them angsting, having emotions and inner monologues about things they knew were not true? That's not even really an unreliable narrator, that's... I don't even know. A deluded narrator, maybe? A narrator who doesn't know what's going on in his life? A narrator who's way too good at compartmentalizing and needs urgent help? If you're going to write it that way, at least set the story in a universe where both of their thoughts and feelings are constantly monitored by some telepaths, then I'll buy it and praise them for being so smart (and still want them to get urgent mental health help after the entire ordeal, but genuinely).

Just like in the first book, the twists, while fun, were both visible from the get-go (if I took a kind of bird's eyes view and looked at the events and plot points, not how they were presented) and came completely out of the left field (if I let myself get immersed into the characters' experiences). Just like in the first two books, I wish the narrative did a better job at acknowledging Gal and Ettian as borderline villain protagonists. Honestly, I could go on and on about all the numerous discrepancies between what the book said and how it said it. But I do acknowledge there was a lot of fun stuff here. It's just that how it was handled/presented never sat well with me, sadly.

I feel like this is among the least romance-like romance novels I've ever read, even though all the beats are technically there and the leads do have interesting chemistry. But still, their romantic story feels like merely connective tissue for their respective character arcs, and those make the book as a whole really shine.

It took me a while to warm up to Eli and start truly enjoying her chapters. At first, she came off as sort of darkly self-absorbed in a way that I could understand and empathize with given her history, but she was a tad too unlikable to be compelling. It changed during that one scene when she encouraged and supported her roommate while also experiencing and acknowledging her jealousy over the opportunities her roommate was getting. That made for an interesting mix of emotions that instantly made her more relatable to me. I guess that's the key to my heart: the character can get away with anything as long as they do occasional nice things for others, even (or maybe especially) if they don't do it for conventionally/socially acceptably nice reasons, lol. With Wyatt, I was more intrigued from his earliest POV chapter, because he struck me as someone trying hard to be a good, moral person but hiding a fair bit of darkness underneath that facade, and I enjoyed what I saw as the story progressed.

While I didn't feel super invested into the romance, putting most of my focus into the individual arcs instead, I appreciated how the romance made those arcs intersect, each of them mirroring the other in interesting ways. On the surface, Eli and Wyatt had a lot in common as addicts in recovery who had to go no contact with their family. And then there are the aspects of their respective stories that are practically polar opposites in ways that become clearer and clearer as the story progresses. I really liked the build-up to certain reveals about their pasts, and the general theme of reconnecting with your past in order to keep moving toward the future.

There's a lot more to this book that really stuck with me: all the relatable thoughts about making art, vivid New York descriptions, Eli's relationship to her religion and being part of the Jewish community, great trans representation, prose that pulled me in, and so much more. While this wasn't the romance I was looking for when I picked up the book, I did enjoy what I got. Definitely recommending this to anyone looking for complex, flawed characters dealing with the consequences of their worst moments and building themselves and each other up, or for narratives about coming back home and facing all the ways you've changed.

This book is a perfect combination of some of my very favorite fantasy tropes. Coming out of retirement for one last job! Getting the gang back together! A badass older protagonist who is also a parent! Naval adventure! Female pirate captain! I seriously adore all these, so of course I had to read this book and, quite predictably, I liked it a lot. 

Admittedly, it wasn't super easy to get into; I think the first 100-120 pages took me longer than the rest of the book combined. The prose here is rich and evocative and voicey, but in a way that took me some getting used to (might be an ESL thing?), especially combined with the historical Arabian peninsula/Indian ocean setting. It's a part of the world I admit I know little about, and what I do know is filtered through the lens of European history. Yes, that's something I certainly want to rectify! But for now, figuring out the feel of the historical period + all the fantasy elements + the prose made for a combination that stalled me a bit. I think that maybe, a bit counterintuitively, it would be easier for me to get immersed if the action started earlier and I could absorb everything else through it. But the set-up here certainly took a long time. Fortunately, eventually the pacing picked up and when I got all the promised adventure, I couldn't stop reading.

There's a great balance of characterization, plot, and worldbuilding to be found here. All the elements blend together to create a truly exciting fantasy story. I loved Amina in particular as the protagonist: she has the kind of dominating presence I would expect from a woman in her position. Her struggles to balance her past and her present, her history and her burning love for her daughter, her womanhood and being in the position of leadership in a cutthroat man-dominated world, her religion and the kind of things she does/lets others do as a pirate and the people she surrounds herself with—all of that was super well-crafted and never turned overdramatic. I adored her crewmates, as well, in particular Dalila and Majed. Especially Dalila. She's my venomous favorite.

I also appreciated how gradually the secrets of the past resurfaced, adding to the plot one by one and merging together, and all the quests within quests that formed the larger adventure. In some ways, the plot reminded me of a well-crafted tabletop campaign, and that's definitely a compliment. 

I do feel that the beginning could be made a bit tighter for a better effect, but overall, this definitely goes on my list of my favorite 2024 reads!

For over half of the journey I enjoyed this book so, so damn much. It's written in such a fun way! The banter and the characters' inner thoughts made me laugh out loud all the time. I really liked how, at least at the beginning, both leads were pretty self-aware, except for when they were each other's blind spots (and except for when Bradley very relatable avoided considering specific things that caused him anxiety). I liked how Celine unapologetically owned her flaws while also trying to balance them with her need to succeed and being willing to listen to other people and learn about them. Even more so, I liked Bradley: his personality, his conflicts including his super relatable writing angst, the way his OCD was handled. Very often in YA, if there's a character with mental disorder, their arc is largely built around learning to handle it, so I expected something like that. Instead, Bradley comes into the story already pretty well equipped to manage his condition. There was that one highly relatable scene where Celine expected him to break down after encountering a trigger and he instead talked himself down, employing the same tricks I use to manage anxiety and emotional spikes, loved how that played out.

There were also a lot of cool side characters who, while at large they didn't get much page time, were all believable and interesting. The chapters that dealt with the Explorers program were my favorite because of all those characters and interactions the leads had with them, in addition to the fun camping stuff. But I also enjoyed the leads' families and how they interacted and how Celine and Bradley perceived each other's family life. Honestly, the parts of the book that were more pure YA than romance ended up my absolute favorites.

As for the romance, wellll... At first, I was hooked. While these two were in their enemies era, they were endlessly entertaining together. Besides, best friends to enemies to lovers is my favorite dynamic in the world, so I had high expectations from the get go. Up until they struck an uneasy truce and started talking about what transpired between them years ago, I was eating it up. But afterward, their dynamic started changing in ways that kind of made me feel they'd be better off as friends. Perhaps not even super close ones. Like, keep talking it out, sure. Then maybe drift comfortably apart pursuing your own goals, but keep in touch and keep reconnecting now and then. The egregious miscommunications and the third act break-up really didn't help me ship these two. There was also this overall mismatch between the way their individual character arcs and the romantic arc played out. Like the romance practically stood in the way of each of these kids from working through their individual challenges and succeeding at their individual goals. So that wasn't very shippy to me at all.

On the other hand, like I've said, the YA/coming-of-age novel parts were super well done, the humor was awesome, and the characters themselves were super fun to follow. So this book gets a high mark from me regardless.

I read the first book in the series what feels like absolute ages ago, way before this one was even out yet, and I absolutely loved it to bits. Still, once The Liar's Key came out, I've spent ages being weirdly intimidated to start it. I can't even explain it, it just felt like an intimidating read somehow? And I guess it turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy, because for about 1/4 of a book, I didn't have an easy time. I very much appreciated the "Story so far" section at the beginning and various hints at past events and outright reminders scattered throughout the first chapters. That sure made it easier to get reacquainted with this fantastic world and its characters. However, it still took me way too long to find my footing in it as a reader.

Looking back, I think I would've had a very different impression if I binge-read the books back to back. Because what apparently caused me difficulties was that the status quo here was very different from the get-go, compared to the first book (understandable!). But still, the characters seemed to be kind of... emotionally a step behind the changes, still embroiled in the pre-change events to some extent even as they were already plotting their actions going forward. And similarly, the narrative/structure/the book itself kind of played by the old rules despite the situation being so different, some of the secrets that drove the plot of the previous books being out for the reader to see, etc. Then gradually everything came back together and the plot once again turned into this intricate mechanism where all the details were in sync. If I read the books back to back, I think this transitional period would have felt like a cool feature, really helpful for characterization in particular. But the big gap between books caused me to feel mildly disoriented instead.

Overall, this is very much the second book in a trilogy: halfway dealing with the fallout of the previous events, halfway setting up the stakes and the game pieces for the conclusion. Of course, there are still a lot of developments and changes that are interesting to follow on their own, not just as part of the big whole. I adored getting to know the city of Nadezra even better, in all of its ugliness and splendor. The more small worldbuilding details are revealed, the richer this place becomes. The character arcs are top-notch; I especially loved reading Grey's chapters. His arc gets more and more fascinating as it develops. Ren also continuously held my interest and never stopped being fascinating, and there were so many other characters who continued to capture my heart, especially Tess and Donaia. I also loved how all the themes of secret vigilante identities were handled, and the layered politics and mysteries. In terms of complaints, I'm maybe a tad disappointed with some aspects of the romance storyline / how it played out once the beautiful slow burn phase was through, and I still harbor hopes for my OT3. Still, overall, after the rocky start, this was a great experience.

Now, note to self: don't wait THIS long before reading the third book!

Such an absolutely lovely story! The art here is just plain gorgeous. So many pages had me gasping audibly and lingering on them for ages just so I could take in every awesome detail. And the story itself is so cozy and nice, despite the Porta Bella Magiculinary Academy not being devoid of problems at all. I love how it comments on serious issues, like academic pressure and burnout and class disparity in an elite institution, while staying largely whimsical and life-affirming. That's a difficult balance to strike for sure, and the author did so well! 

Basil and Arabella are a delightful couple to follow. Their relationship is the perfect blend of contrasting to tropes: friends to lovers + academic rivals to lovers, instant crush + slow burn. I loved seeing how they lifted each other up and helped each other be the best they can be, and the growth of trust between them. Also, all the scenes with the Tomato puppy! And whenever they cooked together, especially late in the story! I also really liked Basil's friend group and how easily and warmly they took Arabella in.

A couple more things I'd be remiss not to notice: 1) how the story treats everyone with compassion, even the mean characters, without justifying the bad things they do; 2) how beautifully, wonderfully diverse the setting is. Both of those really warmed my heart.

The one thing that was a tiny bit of letdown was the ending. On one hand, again, super cozy and heart-warming! On the other hand, I feel like the changes in Arabella's Mom's outlook and the Academy were kind of too rapid/spur-of-the-moment and they didn't feel truly genuine because of that. Especially the latter. I would have enjoyed it more if the earlier chapters included some tiny mentions of reflection on the state of things from the people in charge, as a lead to the otherwise very welcome change.