I've started this review a few times and inevitably descended into lots and lots of spoilers for the entire trilogy. So instead of listing my entire jumble of thoughts, I'll be brief. This is a wonderful conclusion to the trilogy, unexpected in the way only inevitable things can be. It's got plenty of blood, sharp twists, sharper wit, characters fluent in deadpan snark, beautiful moments of pathos, horrible depictions of deaths, interesting worldbuilding, and, of course, vengeance. The book made me laugh a lot and cry at least four times.

Also, early on I thought the author was being too quick with revealing a few things the previous two novels were building up to. But the way he then twisted those reveals, and how much more exciting stuff he built upon them? Perfection.

 Read for the following October 2020 readathons:
- BooAThon: Blood
- StrangeAThon: Finish a series
- Sbooktober: Fantasy Costume (Fantasy)
- Gothtober2020: Female protagonist

This felt less like reading a story and more like reading someone's worldbuilding notes (written in beautiful poetic language). Which, I suppose, has its charm. :)

I got about 50% in and realized it's just not holding my attention. It's a fun-written book, and in the beginning I connected with the MC, but the further I got, the more I realized nothing surprised me or interested me. Just too generic to my tastes, but will no doubt appeal to many other readers!

I know, I know, this is the spookiest month of the year, and all those readathons I've signed up for want me to read spooky/gothic books... but I was in the mood for something fun and fluffy, and this book looked to be a perfect fit. I'm so happy I finally picked it up after keeping it on my TBR for ages, because asdfsjlkj I LOVED IT. It was the perfect emotional rollercoaster: laugh out loud funny in some parts, having me almost sob into my pillow in others, giving me plenty of opportunities to go AWWWW out loud, touching on some really deep themes between making me smile and making me rage. Probably one of the best new adult romances I've ever read. I loved the story, I loved the characters, I loved how, in figuring out Henry wasn't exactly what he thought, Alex also figured out that he wasn't exactly what he thought himself, either. I loved the secret service agents. I loved Shaan. I loved that entire part by the lake—if you've read it, you know the one. I couldn't get enough of this book, and the one thing I hate about it is that it's over and I've gotta get by somehow without reading another chapter whenever I have a small chunk of spare time. <3

  Read for the following October 2020 readathons:
- Gothic Readathon: Bloody Good Romance
- Gothtober 2020: LGBTQ+ Rep

This read like a mixture of a well-crafted political thriller and a murder mystery. I rarely expect such total page-turners from non-fiction. So glad a friend recommended this book to me.

A lot of the events depicted here were familiar to me already, but Holly Tucker digs deeper into the nuances than any other author/historian I've read. I loved the vivid portrayal of all the historical personalities here; they were truly brought to life on the page. What's more, I couldn't get enough of the author's depiction of historical Paris. From the halls of Versailles to the streets around the Court of Miracles, the city felt like a character in its own right. A great work of historical true crime; I hope this isn't the only book Tucker has written, because I want more!

 Read for the following October 2020 readathons:
- Gothtober2020: Foreign Country

This was a quick and pretty fun read. I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed all the other books by Drew Hayes that I've read—the epic Super Powereds saga that I followed religiously as a webserial, and NPCs, my favorite "it's like D&D but in book form" novel. I did enjoy it quite a bit, though. It's a classic "ordinary guy stuck in the middle of extraordinary things" tale, or rather, a collection of short stories with a loosely overarching narrative. The worldbuilding is fun and quirky. The characters don't seem to be very memorable to me, but they were fun enough to hang around with. I wish each story didn't start with a recap of the previous one, though. I haven't checked, but I suspect that maybe the author first published this online in an episodic format and that's why the recaps were necessary. But I think it could have been a good idea to edit them out when transferring the story to book format.

Read for the following October 2020 readathons:
- Spooks and Tea: Paranormal Creatures
- Gothic Readathon: Bloodsuckers
- Gothtober2020: Undead Characters

You know those artsy European movies? The really atmospheric ones, usually set in small towns and involving either a murder or some psychological mess or both, filled with the general sense of foreboding. They usually provide you with a really great picture, in really cold colors more often than not, created with a lot of attention to details. Sometimes, the camera work can be deliberately shaky. There's usually an amazing soundtrack, too, increasing that sense of foreboding, not memorable enough to stand on its own in many cases, but fitting the picture perfectly. The lightning is normally such that every actor looks way to pale to be healthy, and every line is delivered either in a deliberately casual way or in a manner that seems specifically designed to pull at heartstrings.

Some people really love those movies, swear by them, say that those movies really pull them in, make them feel like they were there in the middle of the tense, slow action. I'm not one of those people. I like to see movies like that now and then, for purely the aesthetic pleasure. I like watching gloomy, beautiful pictures accompanied by gloomy, beautiful music. I usually do something else while those movies play in the background, though, because the plot and the characters pretty much never engross me.

You may be wondering why I'm talking so much about movies in a book review. Well, that's because this book left me with the same feeling as those movies. I kind of liked it for how big parts of it were crafted. I acknowledge that it's pretty atmospheric. But it left me feeling detached. I never connected with a single character, and while there was a lot of tension to the plot, as befits a supernatural murder mystery, I never felt pulled in the middle of it. I just kinda... watched from the sidelines.

It's not a bad book by any means. It has plenty of things I normally love in books: lots of very well-researched witchiness, Celtic gods, a conservative small town, queer characters, complicated people having complicated relationships, neurodiversity rep. But while all the elements were there, they kind of never came together for me.  Perhaps it was the writing style, or maybe it was the sheer number of POV characters combined with short chapters that never let me stay with one character long enough to really get them.  I suspect it was the latter.

  Read for the following October 2020 readathons:
- Spooks and Tea: Featuring Witches
- Gothic Readathon: General Sense of Foreboding
- Gothtober2020: Red Cover
- Sbooktober: Book with Magic

Wow! This book was an incredibly emotional journey that encompassed everything I love about contemporary YA. Or, in this case, kinda contemporary? Near-contemporary? I just can't bring myself to feel that 1980s were long ago enough to call a novel set in late 1980s historical. Which may have something to do with my age. Let's not dwell on it.

The story is set at the height of the AIDS crisis, and AIDS plays a big part in it. It influences how the characters interpret the world around them and their own relationships. There's an important side character serving as a mentor to the teen MCs who's dying from AIDS. And with all that, this is quite probably the most life-affirming book I've read in a while. It feels like every page is urging the reader to live, to walk forward, to make connections, to make history. It's a celebration of youth, queerness, self-discovery, of choosing life and love, no matter the circumstances.

Beyond that, it's simply a beautiful coming-of-age story focusing on all the important things: messy crushes, complicated friendships, redefining relationships with parents as kids grow older, and most of all, figuring out who you are. I'm incredibly happy to have stumbled upon this book, and I'm looking forward to reading the author's other works!

 Read for the following September 2020 readathons:
- Monsterathon: BIPOC Author
- Coffee Readathon: Middle Eastern Author

Well, this was... certainly different from The Goblin Emperor, which happens to be one of my favorite books ever.

I did know, going in, that this was a Sherlock Holmes retelling. I figured that maybe, since it's been years since I last cracked open a Conan Doyle book, my recollection of the specifics of the crimes would be dim enough for me to still enjoy the plot. Apparently, my memory functions are faring better than I thought. Even with all the supernatural twists and the addition of an overarching storyline connecting the familiar investigation, the plot was incredibly predictable and I had trouble focusing on the plotty bits. Er... on most of the book.

I did enjoy the moments that were focused more on character interactions. Addison's version of Moriarty is now officially my favorite, and Crow—the Sherlock stand-in—is a compelling character, as well. Most of all, I enjoyed the parts that explored the setting. As I said in one earlier review of another book (The Bear and the Nightingale), the setting alone isn't enough to carry the story for me, but in this case, combined with interesting characters, it at least held my attention. I strongly feel that this version of Victorian London with all its angels and vampires and hemophages and hellhounds deserves a book with  its own original plot that focuses on fully exploring what this world has to offer. I hope to read it someday.

My favorite moment was the conversation that revealed the characters' queerness. Like some reviews I've seen state, it did come pretty much out of the blue and it didn't influence anything much. However, that's precisely what I loved it. I always enjoy stories where queer characters get to just, you know, exist and do stuff and not have parts of their fictional lives turn into educational pamphlets. There doesn't have to be a point to a character being queer any more than there needs to be a point to a character being straight. If you don't ask questions like, "But what was the point of X being cishet? It doesn't add anything to the story!", you shouldn't ask these questions about characters who are trans, or ace, or gay, or queer in any other way. That's my hill, I'm prepared to die on it. :)

Overall, however, I'm sad to say I didn't enjoy the book very much. I did enjoy the parts of it that belonged to Katherine Addison's imagination and not the one that came from Conan Doyle's stories. I'll say it again: this world and these characters deserve something uniquely their own.

Read for the following September 2020 readathons:
- Monsterathon: Mystery

Another early Choice Of interactive novel, this was a really fun one. Much better than Choice of the Dragon that I re-read and reviewed recently (and quite liked). Most of the choices were pretty tense and quite of the times I fully expected to fail because of the options I picked. Instead, I got almost a happy end eventually. Career-wise, at least. There was a pretty tragic romance on the side. Maybe I shouldn't have been so persistent in choosing those "duty above feelings" options closer to the end? Maybe there was a better chance? But alas, that's what my character would do! :D