Anne

DNF at 87%

I tried to finish it, but it got too much. I don't like any of the characters (except maybe Lana? She seems to have brains and a personality at least), none of them have more than one personality trait, Graham is grumpy because the hates tourists, Zoey loves everything about Alaska, Killian and all the other resort people are just rich, and all the townspeople are grumpy but supposedly good people. The main characters seem to only like each other because the think the other is hot and/or cute, they don't have any actual chemistry. And unless there's a big reveal in the last chapter, we don't ever find out why Zoey is so obsessed with Alaska, I don't care about the actual reason, maybe she just wants to escape her small town and thought Alasky would be beautiful or whatever, but give me something. It just seems weird that there's never a moment where someone asks her why she's been saving for literal years and quit her job to come there, since it's clearly so important to her.

The main characters are also so inconsistent, Graham is apparently not looking for a one-night stand but keeps seeking her out because...? She's pretty? She's there but not obnoxiously rich? Zoey is broke and supposedly barely had enough money to eat, but spends a ton on a Brazilian wax at the expensive hotel so she can have sex with Graham?

Also I don't love how violent Graham is, constantly offering to fight people, the weird hitting thing with his friend, hitting the wall when he's upset, beating up some people instead of handing them to the police.

Not the book for me.

This book focusses on characters that are personifications of (boroughs in) New York. I personally didn't really enjoy this book, but I wonder if that is because I'm not super familiar with New York and its boroughs and their characteristics.

The book was paced really quickly in the sense that a lot of action/important things kept happening and there was very little time of downtime. Which brings me to my main issue, which is that I didn't really get attached to the characters because I felt I didn't really get to know them, every time I felt I was getting a feel for a character either we switched to a different one or some action happened.

Just as a note: Manny's sudden obsessive love for the NYC avatar also felt weird and out of place.

It also didn't feel like the characters were making smart decisions, which doesn't have to be a bad thing, but often they talked about what would be a good idea and then would choose not to do that for some reason. Like when they left Long Island to fend for herself when knew they would feel left out and be less likely to work with them (but maybe this makes more sense if you're more familiar with the relations between the boroughs).

The ending also felt a bit contrived, even though some pretty important stuff went wrong, something magically happened to fix it in time to have a positive ending. Long Island didn't want to work with them, so we'll just immediately give up on her, but oh how lucky this other girl that's been helping, just happens to embody this other place that kind of belongs to NYC anyways, so she can just fill that spot and everything's fixed. I like happy endings, but it felt a bit out of nowhere.

I did enjoy the part where they had to heal a city's representative with things that are quintessentially related to their city of origin, I thought that was a fun idea that you could have interesting discussions about.

I'm done, I cannot read another book where the main characters get married after a month of knowing each other. At least she wasn't pregnant this time, but I'm suspicious that that's just because the epilogue was only like a month later than the rest of the book. I like the overall vibes of the books by this author, but I just can't enjoy the endings when they all end up marrying and having babies within a couple months at most of knowing each other. Not for me sorry. I got pulled in by practice makes perfect, which did not have any of that (although now that I think about it they did move in together very quickly I think...).

So fun books if you're looking for a quick feel-good romcom, but if the quickness of the relationships would drive you as crazy as me, be warned ;)

I liked it, but not as much as Ali Hazelwood's other books. I think I was missing some of the relationship developing moments. I do get from the author's note that this was also meant as more of an erotic romance than a romcom, which I didn't mind, but I still would have liked a bit more non-sex focussed interactions in between the sex I think. I did pick it up with the intention of reading a romcom like her other books though, so maybe this is also somewhat on me. Would still recommend it if you like her other books, just be aware of the focus going into it.

The book is nice as a relatively quick cozy read, but it does have some issues that stopped me from really loving it.

The worldbuilding was fine, pretty basic, but it worked well for the story. I liked all the magical creatures, they all had their own personalities and were quite cute. I also liked the side characters, Tanya is such a good (very forgiving) friend and I'm glad she had her partner who seemed very supportive of her (especially since Aila sometimes seemed to forget Tanya had her own stuff going on) and Luciana was great, I'd love to know those two irl. I also really like how supportive Aila's parents were, I kinda wish they were featured a bit more. I would have loved to see a scene where they meet Luciana, both before and after they know about her crush.

My main issue is with the main character. I didn't like how she treated other people. In the beginning I could deal with it, expecting some character development, but after a while, with little to no improvement, it started to really grate on me. I don't think her social anxiety was always an excuse for how she interacted with other people, for example she was quite rude to the unicorn keeper, purely because of some superiority feeling over thinking unicorns are boring. And while I don't think it was an unrealistic portrayal of what social anxiety can look like, it did not make for a relaxing read (I have social anxiety myself, I don't like being in my own head when it's bad, so I don't find reading about social anxiety this bad, without improvement, particularly cozy). I think it would have worked better for me if Aila's improvement started a bit earlier in the book.

I would have like seeing Aila work on herself more (the therapist was shown once, with useful tricks even, and never again) and have some revelations a bit earlier in the book, so we could spend more time on her working through them and her repairing the relationships she'd unknowingly kind of neglected. Including how she saw the zoo guests. While I completely understand the hatred towards the general public in a job like that, some small positive interactions earlier on would have been nice. Maybe a guest asks a really interesting question and actually listens to her explanation, or maybe she sees some people gently interacting with one of the animals that shows they must care about them and she realizes not all people are bad (although the bad interactions were also funny, like that dumb couple with the engagement ring, I'm just saying have both!). Since the crowds were such a big part of her anxiety and one she works on in the story, it would have been nice to see some more of that.

Since it was kinda obvious how everything was going to play out, it was a bit frustrating at some point that they kept Conner around so much even after he was clearly a dick (and a poacher...), instead of clearing the air with Luciana (I get why Aila felt the way she did about Luciana, but it was clearly a misunderstanding, especially since Tanya didn't even seem to mind her even though she's so supportive of Aila). I get that she was anxious to break up with him, but it got a bit frustrating when she went of a bunch more lunchdates even after she basically ghosted him and was ready to ditch him for what seemed like months? (time passing wasn't always clear). I'd rather have seen some more interactions with Luciana, some slow bonding and flirting, and see her make more friends.

For me this was less of a romcom and too much angst. I don't mind a nice slow-burn romance, but I was way too stressed throughout the book for the main character and her love interest to talk and make up, because to me as the reader the problem was really obvious (and fixable) and I just wanted them to have an actual conversation. While I definitely get why they didn't at first, they both seemed to realise at some point that they clearly had different views on their breakup, but still ignored it for no reason or because they were more interested in using their brief alone time having sex.

There were too much (realistic) problems and stressors in the book for this to be the relaxing read for me, but if you don't mind that, I'd still definitely recommend it.

I liked both the story and the romance, but not the happy romcom I was expecting. Both of the main characters went through some shit (slight spoiler if you want to know before reading: the main characters father died relatively recently and she discovered he cheated on her mom while she had cancer, the love interest was abused as a child) and them dealing with that was a big part of the story.

Not for me, the concept seemed interesting, but the book was a bit all over the place and I didn't feel invested in the characters or their relationships. A lot of things got introduced and were either solved extremely quickly e.g. the father of the main character, who immediately got killed and didn't have any other impact on the story or were simply irrelevant e.g. Eli being a werewolf. I would have preferred it if the book went more into the motivations and emotions of the main character, she is in a lot of difficult and emotionally impactful situations, but I never really felt an emotional reaction, were told she's impacted sometimes, but for me at least it did not hit.

Good balance between the plot and the relationship. I liked the characters and enjoyed seeing them and their relationship develop and the tournament was an interesting backdrop. I also really liked Mische, she's so sweet and fun. I thought the relationship between Oraya and her father was also very interesting, with their conflicting sides/feelings.

This book seemed really cute and fun, but is not for me sadly. I really like the concept, but the writing made it hard for me to enjoy, I'd love to read this book after an editor has gone to town on it. The writing style feels quite juvenile to me for an adult book, everything is spelled out to the extreme. The lack of subtlety by both the writing and the characters themselves is why I stopped reading at this point (22%).

This book has a intriguing story and a great environment. This is one of those books where I am very sad I am incapable of visualizing things in my head, because the environment seemed so cool and interesting, with al the weird plants and different kinds of people and the leviathans of course. I also really like the main characters, Ana and Din, both were very likable and had interesting flaws and strengths and their dynamic was very fun. I really liked the story, I breezed through the book, the mystery was interesting and there were some interesting stakes and I'm very curious about the rest of the world. (small spoiler) I also hope we see Strovi again, I was rooting for him and Din when they seemed into each other at their first meeting, glad they got together at the end, so cute.

I actually thought this book was a standalone, but apparently it's a series and I'm very excited to read more about this world and Ana and Din. (The story does wrap up pretty cleanly, so you probably could read it as a standalone)

I've been hearing about his book for a while and I was a bit disappointed to be honest. I was missing some depth in the book, while the worldbuilding was very interesting, the characters fell flat to me. The concept of Antari was interesting, but the actual magic was not that exciting. I was excited about Kell at first, but then it turned out he's quite the dumbass and not actually as powerful as I expected. I did not particularly care for Lila or their relationship, orphan thief who wants power/to be free is one I've seen often and she did not have a lot of other interesting traits. The relationship that seemed to be blossoming between Kell and Lila felt a bit forced. I did like Rhy, I liked his connection to Kell and struggle with being the crown prince.

Not sure yet if I'll continue with book 2, I've heard it gets better and I'm still somewhat curious, but his book did not draw me in as much as I'd hoped.

Just as cozy and adventurous as the first one! Was hoping for a bit more Wendell, but there were still a lot of cute and funny moments between him and Emily. I love how spoiled he is and insists on making himself as comfortable as possible, while Emily tries so hard to resist and tease him until she begrudgingly admits his cleaning and decorating is actually making their accommodation much more cozy. I thought Ariadne was a fun side character, I did not particularly care for Rose, but he served his purpose well.

Happy to see Poe again, being all helpful and cute He gave her his key!. I thought the foxlike(?) faerie was also kinda cute (when not being a vicious, human-eating being), being so excited to be on a quest. The ending did feel a bit quick, I would have liked a bit more aftermath I think, but it's not a huge problem, I mostly just can't get enough of these vibes and characters!

Looking forward to the next book! Very excited about seeing Wendell in his homeland and more of Orga the "cat"

It was fine. I read this with my book club, to be honest I probably would have DNF'd it otherwise. The main problem was that it just did not really capture my attention. The first part meanders a lot and does not have a clear storyline or compelling characters. The second part gets slightly better both the storylines with Clytaimnestra and the one about the raiders picked up a bit, but still there was not enough there to be really invested. I feel like the story would have been more interesting if we had Penelope's POV instead of Hera. It feels like the writer really wanted an all-knowing narrator, but Hera was just complaining about basically everyone else most of the time, which was at times entertaining, but other times too much and trying a bit too hard to be funny. I don't think there were a lot of storylines we could not have had with Penelope being the main character instead of Hera, possibly with some other character POV's sprinkled throughout. And the presence of the gods could instead be shown by characters catching glimpses of them or feeling their presence or something like that.

For me the interesting part of the story was how Penelope was pretending to be a "weak grieving wife" while secretly working behind the scenes with other women to save the island. I would have liked to have seen more of the sceming of Penelope and the women around her. My favorite bit was (not super spoilery):

"Ah," mutters Penelope. "I see. Medon, forgive me. I find myself overcome with womanly weakness and must retire." -"I have always admired the exquisite timing of your weaknesses my lady"

Enjoyable, but not sure I would have continued if I didn't know how many people absolutely love this series, so I'm assuming it gets better in the next books.

I like Lindon, but somehow don't feel particularly attached to him, I do like that he thinks about problems and is not a dumb/running headfirst into problems kind of person.

I also feel like the book either doesn't explains things very clearly or just uses infodumps to catch you up.

I'm curious how the rest of the series is.

Loved it, so sad this is the last of the secret projects, it's been so much fun to look forward to and read these books this year!

Nomad was a really interesting character to follow very cool to see Sigzil again and learn what happened to him since the events of the stormlight archive and Auxiliary is great when he first mentioned the thing about giving his final bit of soul to Nomad to power him up I was already like 'oh no'... It was an epic moment in the end, but also a very sad one... And now Nomad has lost his only companion :(.

The story was fun, some great side characters, and it was interesting to see Nomad trying to figure out the way the planet and it's magic worked and I loved the ingenious ways he used Aux. I love a good story about someone discovering their powers, but it's also so much fun to see a smart character who knows exactly what he's capable of in action. And as always a very satisfying but painful ending.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and have already ordered book 2, but damn if I'm not also very overwhelmed and confused by it.

It immediately throws you in the deep end, because a lot of things are talked about (places, people, things), but never explained until you start figuring (some) things out by context clues later. I also think I got whiplash from the amount of things happening in part 2. Everything happened so quick I felt like I barely got the chance to process any part of it before the next big thing happened. Which, while probably realistic for the situation, does take away some of the emotional impact for me.

Kihrin dying, being in the realm of the demons(or something? Everything that happened there was super confusing), remembering all his past lives, being alive again, going to stop Dead man, killing him, the whole geashes being gone, immediately leaving, leaving Tereath and other person behind, I'm still kinda confused why he had to leave, not to mention all the other perspectives in between. I'm also sad about Galen's dead, especially because he died thinking Kihrin didn't care for him, but who knows maybe he'll come back. I also don't quite get where his shift in character came from or why he thinks Kihrin just left him).

I quite liked the characters, all of them were very interesting. I especially liked Kihrin and Tereath, I really liked their interactions, would have loved more scenes with them together (also totally shipping them).

The pacing was a bit off for me, I thought the way the story was told in part one, with the switching perspectives and timelines was nice, both were intriguing and while I was sometimes annoyed with the switch, the other storyline usually pulled me in again quickly enough. But overall the pacing was a bit too fast for my liking, I would have liked some more moments to sit with the characters, get their thoughts on current events, before the next big thing swept them away. I hope this changes in the rest of the series, but it didn't hinder my enjoyment too much.

Overall I very much enjoyed reading this book and am looking forward to reading the next one soon!

Overall I quite liked the book, the story and the characters were very interesting and I liked the concept of the house. I especially love the idea of the library and Eloura seems so sweet and interesting am I the only one who thought she was the cat? Is it just a normal cat? I mean that'd be fine I love cats, I just really got the impression something special was going on with it. And that garden, I would love to spend time there and Ben seems like a lovely person to spend time with as well.

However I am left feeling just a bit unsatisfied, I feel like some things could have been fleshed out more, or we could have spend more time with some situations/characters/relationshis. Some more of those stories from the library would have been interesting, for some reason I was expecting more like that, more stories and more guests. I also would have liked more time to get to know the Keymaker/Raphaelle and see his relationship with Liddy grow, because it seemed a bit sudden? They touched, she had a vision of them together in a bath (did he see that too?) and now they're in love? Also how old is he exactly, my feelings about this relationship are kind of dependent on that. Immediately followed by how long was Liddy at the house, it felt like days, but that's seems to short for everything that happens and all the relationship development.

I also wonder if Liddy misses her family and if she's planning on seeing them again. She seemed to at least have a decent relationship with her father and she was close to her cousin, but this never really gets mentioned... I might have liked to see her write them a letter at least or mention something about visiting them or inviting them.

This book was not really what I expected, I expected dark academia, but it was more of a dark mystery or something, so that might have influenced my experience a bit.. A lot of people seem to love this book, so maybe I was just not in the right headspace or expecting something too different, but it just wasn't for me. I didn't dislike the book, but it was just not quite there for me. I feel like there were a lot of unnecessary elements (the rivalry between the 2 countries and the north and south, also the drowning was mentioned a decent amount, but it didn't really feel like part of the story for me) that kind of distracted from the main themes that I was really interested in. I also did not love the romantic relationship, I did not feel like they had a lot of chemistry and it seemed to move quite quick and sudden, especially considering Effy's traumatic past. I thought the sex scene was kind of out of place as well, like they had been worrying about the storm (and the second drowning?) and having only a small amount of time to get out and then just decided that that was the right time for a quicky and a nap? Really?

In short: A bit unpolished, but very fun.

I enjoyed reading this book and am currently flying through the sequels. I think the characters and relationships are very good, they are very lovable and especially the relationship between Hadrian and Royce is great. I also like the side characters, especially Myron, he's so sweet. The plot is interesting enough to keep me invested, but there's some info-dumping and in some chapters I started skimming a bit, because I didn't care as much about the current characters we were with or they were a bit long-winded (mostly not when we're with Hadrian and Royce, but in some of the other chapters).

I really enjoyed this book, mostly for the vibes. I liked the writing style a lot, the book really takes you into the circus and all its weird nooks and crannies. It has some interesting worldbuilding and characters, and the story is intriguing, but does not really come together in a satisfying way. I read a review halfway throughout the book that mentioned something about the vibes being more important to the story than the plot and that really helped frame the reading experience and made me enjoy it a lot more, so that's something to keep in mind for this book. I am planning to read more from this author, I hope their other books have the same vibes and maybe a slightly more satisfying plot.