I'll admit it, this was a difficult book for me to read, and it's also a difficult one to review—not least because I feel that the things about it that made me struggle might be other readers' jam. For instance, the way it's written made me feel like I was reading a memoir rather than a fictional novel, except it was a memoir of a fictional person, and something about this discrepancy constantly pulled me out of the story. I do feel that for many other people, this style on the contrary can make the book more immersive. I also felt that some sections were really overwritten and could be made more impactful by tightening them up. But I'm also not sure if that's genuinely true, or if it's just my preference to more genre prose speaking. 

I did learn a lot of new things from this book—about life in the Appalachians and about the opioid crisis. I related to a lot of the commentary about class and how rural people are looked down upon. Plenty of moments made me emotional in different ways, and I enjoyed the balance of utterly heartbreaking parts and the more hopeful ones, as well as the injections of dry humor in both. The depiction of poverty here is among the most powerful I've ever read. The book is really voicey, too, with a strong recognizable style, and that's definitely a strength—it's just that for me, personally, that voice was a miss for some reason. 

I have to admit this is my least favorite part of the series. Where the first book was a fun humorous adventure and the second an unhinged adventurous romp, this one kind of... lags, I guess. I was also not a fan of the romance, much as I'm always here for some ace rep. But in this case, well—I guess my problem is Dave. As a POV character, he became even more childish than he was in the first novel, to the point where it was getting frankly ridiculous, and I'm so done with the portrayal of asexuals as these big children. There's nothing inherently immature about being asexual, FFS. Being ace also isn't something that mainly happens to shy, sheltered people—looking at you, Simon. Why the stereotypes?

That said, I did enjoy getting to know Simon and figuring out the secrets surrounding him, although I might have felt the foreshadowing around all that was a tad heavy-handed. There were a lot of nice moments in the book that made me smile: some were adorable, some hilarious, and some managed to be both. And there were dragons, too, all those awesome dragons! Babies! I wanted to cuddle them all.

It was also great to see some familiar faces. I really enjoyed meeting Loth and Quinn again, and seeing their relationship develop past their happy ending. I also appreciated that this book, unlike the previous installment, felt very much like a full-fledged sequel rather than a side story. So many things were rooted in Red Heir's original plot, from the main conflict to smaller things like the details of life in the royal castle seen through the servants' eyes.

Honestly, writing this review and recalling all the nice things I enjoyed about the story is making me bump up the number of stars a little. Yes, this isn't a favorite of mine, but I did enjoy reading it!

It's been a while since I read the first book, but Signs of Spring did a very good job stirring my memory of it. It picks up pretty much where Long Winter left off—the tiny gap is negligible—and for the most part, I would describe it as "securing that happy ending." There's a lot less tension here, and what the summary presents as the central part of the plot is only a part of it, and it doesn't even happen until a good way into the book. For the most part, this is a quiet, slice-of-life story about family and belonging and picking which parts of the past to leave behind and which to preserve. I very much loved it.

Even though there were some worries on both Lance's and Robbie's part about the longevity of their relationship, somehow I never had a doubt that they'd pull it through, and not just because of the HEA promise baked into the genre. It's more like, I felt they'd already done all the work to secure that HEAD, and this book was more about figuring out the specifics and tying up the loose ends of what came before. I liked the presence of Lance's Chicago friends in the plot, and how he was growing closer to Nora and Alice, and the more active inclusion of Robbie's brothers. The non-linear storytelling sometimes got a bit hard to parce—there were occasions when the jumps between timelines felt unnecessary and not quite fluid. But that didn't really detract from my overall enjoyment of the story.

Oh, and one more thing I just have to commend: the strong sense of setting. Whether it was the ranch with all the animals and the snowy roads around it or the Chicago scene, I always felt present wherever the characters were. That's always a cool feeling.

Books like this tend to be my guilty pleasure: stories about bad people doing bad things for bad reasons, about toxic relationships presented exactly as such. I don't know what it is exactly what drawns me to such stories. Perhaps it's the safe way to explore the darkness. Perhaps it's the same thing that makes it hard for some people to avert their eyes from bloody accidents. 

Anyway, I was incredibly excited for this book because it promised from the start to be exactly that thing I'm after. And for a while, it had me hooked quite a bit. The prologue was intriguing. So were the budding stages of Paul and Julian's codependency. But the longer I read, the less immersion I'm sorry to say I felt. Paul and Julian both were just too pretentious and not complex enough for me; there was that illusion of complexity, but mostly, they were just made of flaws with no redeeming qualities. Like I said, I do sometimes love reading about awful characters with too many flaws, but what usually makes the experience meaningful to me is seeing glimpses of some could-have-beens here and there: moments that show me that the character could have been a better person if they didn't take this or that turn. Moments where I get to believe that maybe they can make a different, better choice, that show me they're capable of it, but still they choose to turn to the dark side. Moments that show me that they're human and hurting. This book... wasn't exactly empty of those moments, but whenever they happened, they fell flat for me.

I did appreciate a lot of things about this novel. The dark academia aesthetic, the way the tension was executed in some later parts, the depiction of both boys' families. The way it was Paul who turned out to be a bigger monster and not Julian, whereas usually it's the "new pretentious friend" in such book who turns out to be the worse bad guy, corrupting the "plain boy drifting through life." There were some really poignant depictions of anger and grief and the way they co-exist and feed on each other. There were plenty of clever turns of phrase. I suppose it's the characters' personalities mainly that didn't work for me, and unfortunately, that aspect, subjective as it may be, is what tends to make or break a book for me.

Oh wow, this book! It took me a bit to get into the writing style (third person past tense isn't my favorite), but once I adjusted to it, I was absolutely hooked throughout. It's been a while since I read such awesome hurt/comfort outside of fanfiction. Whisper and Julien absolutely melted my heart, and there were so many little moments that made me feel like this book was written for me. I loved the way they were growing closer through the secrets, Whisper's inner turmoil, Julien's kindness, the D/s overtones in the bedroom, everything. I kind of want to forget this book and read it again, to get all the feels afresh.

I also greatly enjoyed the supporting cast—so many colorful personalities and great people. A lot of the characters didn't get a lot of screen time, and still they left a very distinct impression. I'd love to read a book with almost any single one of them as a more prominent presence. I also really liked the worldbuilding. It's a combination of "a lot packed into it" and "broad strokes"; there are all those politics, assassin orders, different types of magic, dragons, magical drugs, cats with superpowers, and each of these cool details just makes me want to dig deeper into it. 

The setting is also completely queernorm: no one assumes that a marriage necessarily involves a man and a woman, there's a lovely casual mention of a character being trans, etc. I remember not so long ago fantasy queer romances (especially the ones with royalty) used to have all the homophobia-induced drama, but nowadays, I keep seeing these wonderful queernorm worlds where the characters are free to have and sort out problems that don't have anything to do with their orientation.  I'm absolutely digging all these beautiful fantasy worlds.

Back to the book: the one reason I'm not giving it a full five-star mark is that one twist at the end, the one with the betrayal. I feel like it simplified the conflict and the solutions to it. There might have been ways to get to the happy ending without that, too—though admittedly I would probably fall off the edge of my sit if the author went with some alternate route. :D But, yeah. Not really a fan of that specific character turning out to be a manipulator. Very much a fan of absolutely everything else in this book, though!

A friend recommended this book to me as a "YA historical," but I think it's more of a... post-Arthurian fantasy with no magic. The vaguely medieval England is steeped in Arthurian legend, not actual history (and oh how I loved the characters poking fun at all the staples of the Arthurian myths!), and the characters behave in a rather modern way—and all of that is without a doubt part of the book's charm. I very much enjoyed this story with its quirkiness, queerness, and focus on found family. I also found myself way more immersed into this fictional England's politics than I expected to be. Mostly, though, I was invested in the characters.

In the early chapters, Art and Gwen made me think about one of my favorite childhood animated movies, Princess Swan. As I read about their recollections of their childhood shenanigans, I swear I had This Is My Idea playing in my head! :D Though unlike Dereck and Odette, when these two meet again when they're older, they don't immediately fall for each other. Instead, they catch each other being decidedly non-heterosexual with other people and strike a pact: "Let's fake being nice with each other so our parents leave us to our own devices."

Now, enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, and fake dating are all among my favorite romance tropes in the world. But apparently, I also love it when they're all mixed together and given a non-romantic spin! This was so refreshing and fun to read. I also loved how these two's arcs mirrored each other as they both struggled with the expectations their families and society placed on them. I think Gwen's way was more relatable to me, but Art's was more interesting to read about... though at some points of the book, it was kinda vise versa? Honestly, both of them are so relatable and interesting, and I can say the same for all the other characters. Sydney in particular absolutely stole my heart, and my one regret about the book is that Gabriel didn't get any POV chapters.

An awesome read, definitely one of my favorite books of the year. I'll be looking out for more novels from Lex Croucher now!

It's kind of hard for me to judge this book on its own, because it so distinctly feels like one half of the story for me. I got that feeling even before I reached the ending, which definitely does NOT fulfill the typical romance genre promises.  This isn't uncommon for duologies, I suppose, but it does leave me feeling like I've only read half of the book and shouldn't yet judge.

But this story IS published as a complete book, so I suppose here goes. In many regards, it's super fun, in that way total emotional roller coasters tend to be! I love how trope-y it is: there's arranged marriage, enemies to lovers, only one bed, it's got it all. I love how it mixes a distinct bodice ripper vibe with slow, slow burn. The setting is in many ways creative and engaging, although I was a bit thrown by the intermixing of made-up trees, birds, and animals with regular ones like boars. I enjoyed following the culture clashes between the two leads, and I appreciated how utterly queernorm the setting is, regardless of the culture: same-sex marriages are commonplace, there's a nonbinary character everyone easily accepts for who they are, and it is even acknowledged that ace people exist.

Perhaps my favorite thing is the secret behind the marriage and parts of how it was handled. We get some information about the hidden plot early on, which injects extra tension into the tale, but the details, the specifics, and the reasons behind it all only get revealed later. Funnily enough, this is also the most frustrating thing. That initial injection of information was great. The last few chapters where everything came into the open, with the tension and the action and the fallout, were the best. I couldn't put the book down for a second when I reached that part! In the middle, though, there were a lot of missed opportunities to feed the reader some disjointed crumbs of information. I mean, there were SOME crumbs! But not nearly enough, and perhaps that's why a lot of the time, the pacing seemed to bog down. Or maybe it was just because some scenes ran entirely too long while adding nothing new. Or maybe a combination of these factors. In any case, I felt there were a lot of opportunities to pad the feels and drama with extra sociopolitical excitement, making the relationship development more meaningful,

I did very much enjoy the eventual conflict (un)resolution and all that promising drama in the end, and I'm definitely going to be reading the second half book. The best thing for me about the place where the book left off is that Cador is explicitly sorry for doing THAT to Jem, while Jem is mad that Cador would do THAT at all. That's the type of conflict that I love—the one that's not so much about the specific action the romance leads took when they didn't even know each other, but about their entire ethical values systems, who they are as people, and if/how they're going to find a way to meet in the middle.

In many ways, this was an amazingly cute and witty YA romcom. I smiled and got emotional so many times while I read it. The characters grew quickly on me, especially Dylan, and I enjoyed reading about their very different family lives: Dylan's for that great family feel where a bunch of people are genuinely loving and supportive, Theo's for the glorious mess. There was a lot of cozy foodie stuff, a lot of interesting cultural details about Singapore, and the mutual pining-fueled fake dating trope was executed so well. I feel like the part of the story that focuses on Dylan's grief was handled sensitively and relatably.

However, there were some problems here and there that broke my immersion sometimes. One of them was how injecting all those interesting cultural details was handled: a bit heavy-handed. I guess all those mini-lectures made sense, since Theo was explicitly looking to learn about his heritage and Dylan was helping him. But they still often felt like mini-lectures inserted into the narrative instead of a genuine part of it. 

Another was the approach to the whole class difference things. Some aspects of it were definitely glossed over, and sometimes people like Dylan's family just acted like the problem was entirely in Dylan's head and he should simply embrace the romance with Theo. Despite the fact that Theo is just throwing money at problems left and right, and Dylan's family is struggling. Though this brings me to another point: I feel like the story might ring better if Dylan was just average, not struggling. Because the struggles get brought up when it matters to the plot, such as when Dylan should get to swoop in and save the family's business, and the rest of the time Dylan and his cousin are all, "Trendy haircuts in salons! Favorite band's concerts and merch!" without any of it being a problem, or a reason to then cut back on something else, etc. That... doesn't match my own experience with major we're-about-to-lose-everything financial struggles.

Finally, something that detracted from my investment in the boys' relationship was Theo's friendship with Adrian that harder ever wavered despite all the shitty things Adrian did. I wish the shittiness was acknowledged and dealt with better, instead of sweeping a lot of it under the rug. Although the more I think of it, the more I kind of understand why Theo holds on to this friendship like this and treats Adrian's shittiness like this. It makes sense for the character, but I wish there was still a bit more focus on how this isn't okay.

All in all, though? Lots of cuteness, very tropey in a good way, awful rich people problems are amusing, and it was great that no matter what messes built up around the two leads, homophobia was never part of the equation. A nice and easy summer read to finish off June.

Pretty sure this is the scariest book I've ever read by T. Kingfisher, and that has nothing to do with all the spooky parts of the worldbuilding. It's all about the situation at the heart of the plot. Marra's sister stuck in that awful abusive marriage; their mother impassively watching and letting it happen because politics; the implication that plenty of nobles, guards, and servants in the Northern Castle were quite aware of what was happening, were all right with it, and Kania's happy ending involves staying among them and working to be seen as someone as ruthless as her husband... I don't know. All of that just sent chills down my spine. Especially that happy ending. Because while the quest is successfully finished, Kania is saved, and the bad guy's gone, nothing has really change. The world is still the same place it has always been, where all the same things can happen again and again, and people keep playing by the same rules.

Maybe I missed some details. Maybe the odd mood I was in influenced my perception of the book. But really, it just felt so heavy and unsettling and for the most part lacking hope. There were trickles of it, sure, mostly in the scenes focused intensely at Marra and how Not Okay she was with certain things—not just her sister's situation. And there's lots of interesting worldbuilding here, a compelling magic system, one of the best, most original adventuring parties ever, and a very good bone dog. So many things to love! And I did love those, but it was difficult to do so for all the above reasons.

First of all: the art! Wow, so gorgeous! I spent ages just looking over some pages, taking in all the beautiful details. It's just out of this world.

As for the stories themselves, I enjoyed the overall approach to these short fairy tales, some of them incredibly loose retellings, others more like... original stories built upon familiar tropes. All of them felt original and fresh and gave me some food for thought. Curiously, almost all of them also felt decidedly incomplete. They kept ending right when things got really, really interesting and I wanted to know what came next! The only two exceptions for me were The King's Forest (the very first story in the collection) and New Name. The former had a very open ending, but the kind that felt right and actually finished the protagonist's arc. The latter just felt right all around, and honestly just touched me so deeply. Definitely my favorite of the bunch.

There are quite a few other stories I found memorable. The version of The Goose Girl here has some interesting ideas going for it. The central twist of Sweet Rock is incredibly fun and promising, and I keep wishing it was just the beginning of the story, not the entirety of it. Pretty much the same thing can be said about The Fish Wife and The People's Forest (that last one also has a MC with such an interesting inner conflict, as well as fantastic nature imagery/metaphors).  There was also Hsthete, the one story that left me a bit confused with how it played out, and probably the one I would most love to read the non-existent "full" version of. Give me more trickster gods and weird mishaps! 

All in all, a very interesting collection, and I just need to say this one thing one more time: THE ART. It's so, so lovely.