Emi

This book actually started out okay but it after I realized how childish the MCs were at handling conflicts...and I'm still waiting for the main characters to have actual chemistry....

Also there's so many reviews calling this a slowburn? Like what? Did we read the same book?

If your name is Bonnie, please just scroll past this review. Thank you.

3.5/5 stars“I don't actually care if you break my heart, Sebastian. I went into this knowing it could happen and I gave it to you anyway. But I don't want you to break your own. You have so much space in your heart for your church, but does it have space for you?”
Let's just start this review with a disclosure, shall we?

A main theme of this book is the Mormon/LDS religion. Now I am a very proud, tapir-loving exmormon, meaning I was raised and baptized in the LDS church before realizing that the venn diagram of my beliefs and the LDS church's beliefs were two circles on opposite sides of the universe. Sprinkle in some historical inaccuracies and sketchy and unacceptable 1800s drama Mormons try to keep hidden, I decided to go through the uber-complicated process of removing my name from LDS records. Seriously. It's complicated. Technically, I had to use a lawyer. But to get to the point, I have very negative and vocal feelings about the Mormon church. If you ever wanna hear them, I will tell you. However, this book doesn't shit on the religion, so I feel like I shouldn't either. I wanna be as respectful as possible. So I'm going to try my hardest to keep this review as objective as possible and keep my personal bias out of it, but it's gonna be hard. I like putting a little of myself in reviews, so there's a 100% chance I'm gonna fail. So if you are a practicing Mormon, maybe steer clear of this review. My apologies. I really am going to try.

So I read this book.

I liked this book. Rated it four stars.

I put this book aside and moved on to other things.

My mind, however, decided to focus on this book more than it probably should have. And upon furthur review, I realized that I didn't like this book as much as I thought I did. It had it's ups and it's downs and it's dose of instalove and fuck ups. So I lowered my rating accordingly.

So this book follows Tanner, who is bisexual and nonreligious, who's parents relocate him to Mormontown, USA and encourage him to hide his sexuality until he graduates and goes out of state for collage.

If you don't know anything about the Mormon religion, they don't really like people who aren't straight and male. They don't consider being gay a sin, but what is a sin is if you “act on your same-sex attraction” and marry/date someone of the same gender. So Tanner being bisexual isn't really accepted in Utah. Him falling in love with another Mormon boy, (enter Sebastian, who'll we'll discuss later) is a huge no-no to the Mormons.

Let's get seemingly off topic for a little bit. It will come back full circle in the end. I promise.

The other day, in fact the same day I finished this book, I was driving home from the library when I noticed a billboard on the side of the road. It was one of the electronic ones that change the ad about every ten seconds or so. I normally don't pay attention to billboards-usually I'm too busy jamming to T-Swizzle or something as I drive which was exactly what I was doing but this one caught my attention.

A little background knowledge: about two weeks ago, the Mormon President/Prophet died. It's quite a tragic thing to the Utah population. His death was the front page story in the local newspaper. Despite the fact that most Mormons have never met him, they really liked this dude for some reason. I;m not gonna blatantly state my opinion of him, but if you read this book I think you too can have a revelation and guess. Or maybe go read this obituary the New York Times wrote.

Anyways, this billboard contained a picture of the late Mormon President. It stated the year he was born and ended with 2018. The words, Rest in Peace, was written in big white letters. And I was instantly befuddled that someone out there, perhaps the Mormon Church with their member's tithing money or perhaps a LDS stranger, put up money for that billboard to be there. I found this extremely weird. However, 60.7% of the population of Utah probably don't.

Because that's the percentage of Mormon's in Utah. 60.7% of 3ish million people. And the heart of Mormon culture? Provo, Utah. Where 88% of the population (~100,000 people) are Mormon.

I feel like I'm doing a school report, googling these percentages to make sure their accurate. Gross. Let's move on from less mathy things.

So you know what else is important about Provo, Utah? It's the setting of this book.

So in this book, Tanner's parents are written to be the cool parents. The kind of parents you can confide anything too. The kind of parents that will talk to you about blow jobs at the dinner table. However, they also move their LGBTQ son to the heart of Mormonville and tell him to hide his sexuality. Then they are upset at him for wanting to date a Mormon. Statistically, 88% of the people who goes to school with are Mormon. This ain't cool with me.



But, like I've mentioned, Tanner meets super LDS Sebastian in this novel-writing workshop class of his. Sebastian is a year older, a college student, and only in the class to be a TA and help other students write an entire novel of their own. Which, by the way, seems impossible. An entire novel? In one semester? Okay... And it's literally love at first sight. When Tanner first sees Sebastian, he's instantly obssessed.

Eventually, the stars aligned for Tanner and him an Sebastian start a relationship. But Sebastian is, obviously, Mormon and his religion prevents him from accepting himself for who he is and who he likes, and angst ensues. There's a lot of breaking up and getting back together. Also add in the fact that Sebastian's parents are sooo typical Mormon it's scary. I can't even tell you how many people I've met in my life that are exactly like them. So sweet and so shitty at the same time.

I think you can either guess the rest of the book or go read it to find out.

Now I'm gonna be honest here. I wrote all that up, and I have no idea what I wrote. What points I touched on and what points I didn't. It's currently 12:05am and I'm more attentive on the episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians so I don't really feel like rereading it. To make sure I mention what I like and what I didn't like about this book, I've composed a list.

What I Like:
•Accurate portrayal of Mormons, at least the mormons I have met in my life. which is in the hundreds.
•Your religion shouldn't control who you are and who you like
•Characters were great
•Romance, when not too instalovey, was super cute and interesting
•It took place in Utah and for once I understood exactly what the characters were doing and where they were at and the cities they talked about. That's kinda cool
•it pointed out the flaws of the mormon religion without insulting it. i wish i had that self control
•but i don't oops. but that's important. the author very well could have destroyed the religion, but they realize that it is important to some people and respected it
•It kept me very entertained during a slow day at work. made the eight hours fly by much quicker.

What I Didn't Like:
•That one scene in the middle of the book that was COMPLETE BULLSHIT
•and was sooo super dramatic
•Like one character didn't go to school or answer their phone bc of it
•but then other character shows up at her house afterwards and they were like “hahaha never mind I ain't mad”
•and that concludes that
•EXCEPT WHY DID SHE MISS SCHOOL THEN
•Tanner's parents were competely shitty moving Tanner to Provo
•There's literally a very nice towns twenty miles or less away from Provo that are a lot less Mormon
•BUT WHY EVEN MOVE YOUR SON TO UTAH TO BEGIN WITH YOU ASSHOLES
•yoU GUYS HAD NICE, REASONABLE JOBS IN CA
•ASSHOLES
•also that whole “write an entire novel in one semester” class like wtf how is that even possible
•I can barely write this review, how can you expect someone younger than me to write a novel????
•Tanner's BFF Autumn
•She was annoying and unimportant. she didn't add anything to the story.
•I'm all about platonic friendships, but her relationship with Tanner was werid
•Also INSTALOVE
•I hate instalove



Anyways, this review has gotten way out of hand. Perhaps I should have written it when I was more awake. Whatever, who cares. You get my point. If ya have any questions about the MoChurch, I'll answer them for ya if ya like. I might be a little bias though. shrug emoji

Have a good day, y'all.

There's a reason why I'm obsessed with every single one of Victoria Schwab's books. Maybe it's the unique stories, or the amazing characters, or just the outstanding writing. Whatever it is, A Gathering of Shadows is no exception. Like all of Victoria's books, it is 500 pages of pure, creative writing that blew me away at each word.

Ever since I finished A Darker Shade of Magic in November, I have waited, quite impatiently, for this book. And every second of free time I've had since the moment, on Tuesday, when I ran to my mailbox after arriving home from school, has been spent invested into the beautiful world that Schwab has created. That ending has left me craving more, and I don't know how I am going to wait until the next book. I need more Kell. I need more Lila. I need more Rhy. I just need book three.

More like a 3.7. It was going so good, but went downhill a little past halfway into it.

Haha, 2015 Emi is such a liar. Ignore everything she said above. She was fresh out of reading Harry Potter and so obviously her views of literature were scewed.

Luckily, we have 2018 Emi here and she is happy to tell you that These Broken Stars is amazing and cheesy and everything she loves in a book. And that ending is weird AF but A+++.

She just really loves this series, okay?

update:
2020 Emi here just dropping by to say that this book is even better than I remembered it being. 10/10. would recommend.

I want to type a review about how much this book broke my heart, how much I loved it, but I don't know how to find the right words.

I've known about this book for years, but never pictured myself reading it. Historical Fiction is a genre I tend to shy away from, but lately I've heard a little more about this book and I gave up resisting it. I bought it about a month ago, and I picked it up as soon as I had the chance. Going into it, I knew almost nothing about this book, just that the main character was a young girl living in Nazi Germany. And going in to it knowing nothing was part of the reason I enjoyed it much, much more than I thought I would.

This book is truly a masterpiece. And I don't know how else to put it. I don't know what words can be written to express my true feelings, to convince you to pick it up if you haven't already.

7.31.2021 Update: I wrote a really cheesy review about this book back when I was freshly 18 and you can read that below but ohmyfucking God this book is even better than I remember. Someone please run me over bc I will never find love.

Original Review:

10/5 stars

“My soul sees it's equal in you.”
How the hell do I review a book like this? How am I suppose to give it just five stars, when it deserves all the stars in the night sky? How do I search through the language I've spoken since birth to find a string of words that could possibly describe my love for this novel?

I'm not good at writing reviews, I am the first to admit that, but I see myself growing better with every book I do take the time to review. I can easily put together a few casual words to place my feelings before me, let others know what I like and what I disliked about what I just read. Yet, with the Wrath & the Dawn, I am speechless. I don't know how to process everything I just read and put my emotions and thoughts into words. I don't know how to take the words I do somehow create and place them into paragraphs that together will somehow make sense. I just don't know.

I finished this book yesterday, and my mind, my body, my soul still aches for the story even as I trudge non-stop through the sequel. The characters seemed so real, every time I forced my eyes away from the whimsical writing, I could see Shahrzad and Khalid in front of me, talking, kissing, smiling. I felt Shahrzad next to me and her hatred of Khalid evolving into love. Never in all my years of reading has it ever been so easy to imagine the characters, to feel as if I already knew them.

These characters quickly became my friends. I rooted for them throughout their adventure together. As they slowly fell in love, I rooted for their romance. When they finally came together, when they found something in each other that no one else could see, when they perfected each other in a way no one else could, I rejoiced for them, celebrated their love as if it was my own.

I went to sleep, and thought about this book. I let my mind wander through slumber, and it dreamt about this book. I woke up and yearned to read just a word from this book.

Everything about The Wrath & The Dawn was perfect.

More then perfect. It was impeccable. Flawless.

It was a read I'll never forget.

After five years of sitting around on my bookshelves, I figured it was finally time to pick up this book and omigod every bad review of this book is wrong. I mean, there is no plot and all the characters are awful people, but I survive off of drama and this book has given me more energy then my daily naps ever will.

Though parts of this book seemed a little far-fetched, overall I enjoyed the story. To me, Everything Everything wasn't a romance novel, but a story of a lonely girl who dreams of seeing the world, but is stuck inside her own home. Watching her try to live life for the first time, trying to decide if her life really is a life, throughout this book really broke my heart.

I still enjoyed the romance, however. In some reviews, people seem to complain a lot about how it's very instalovey, and I do agree with that. Usually, I despise a book that contains such a overused trope, but it worked for me in this book. Madeline has been isolated her entire life, and Olly was pretty much the first person her age she's ever met. Of course she's going to fall in love with him.

A solid 4 star book, but one I'd still recommend.

1.5/5 stars

I hate how there are questions that I will never know or understand the answer to. How does someone as perfect as Harry Styles exist? Where do broken hearts go? How do airplanes fly when gravity exists? How the fuck did this book get published???

There was nothing redeemable about this book, especially our main character Bree, who is not like other girls. I hope she goes broke when she inevitably has to pay for a divorce lawyer.

0/5 stars 5,000/5 stars

“Still, the image haunted his dreams throughout the night: a lovely girl gazing at the stars, and the stars who gazed back.”
warning: anything marked spoiler is a spoiler for the entire series. so maybe beware or something if you are that one person who hasn't read up to Empire of Storms okay? there may also be some unmarked spoilers bc this review is 3,000 words long and i'm too lazy to read through it a thousandth time.

So even though I am certified trash™ for the ToG series, and will actually die for any SJM book even if they have the most fulgiest cover I have ever seen cough tower of dawn cough , this rude elf decided that I remembered absolutely nothing about the series and roped me into a reread.

Which was probably for the best, considering it's been two years since I first read Throne of Glass and all I remembered going into this book was

• Celaena gets her period
• There's a dog
• Talking doorknob aka bae
• Celaena dies and is overtaken by some snowflake named Aelin
• Rowan is the worst thing to ever happen to me

And after rereading, i realize now that only two of those things even happen in this book. I know, I know. I am such a fake fan. but considering this book is so unnecessary to the rest of the series, who hasn't forgotten a detail here and there????

And I was promised a talking doorknob and the fact he isn't in this book is so insulting. THe only reason I agreed to this reread was for him and i'm mort-ified rn. Sarah J Maas will be hearing from my lawyers any day now.

I'm also suing because not once is there a throne mentioned that is made out of glass. the title is misleading and i'm triggered. What is next? Are you going to tell me there are no crowns made out of midnights???

things that did happen in this book that I totally forgotten about:

• Dorian having a brother? like wtf since when?
• Kaltain??? i swear she wasn't in the book the first time i read it
• the castle is actually made of glass.what kind of architectural advances are in this regressed society? also that can't be safe? one dropped item and the entire castle is broken. how do you even get enough glass to make a castle? Like i understand maybe an accent wall of entirely windows but an entire building? that would be like a giant pain in the glass??? Also is there any privacy? what happens when feyre and rhysand visit and need some alone time? everyones gonna see them get naked.
• there's no manon and i'm still crying over that
• cain and how obvious it was that he's the villain. honestly the entire book you are like “cain is acting really suspicious, it is way to obvious that he's the bad guy” and guess what? he is.
• mort the doorknob doesn't show up until book 2 and i'm still upset
• there was a time when celanea was a normal human being who wasnt' magical at al
• i would literally predict this series to go in any direction except the direction it went.

but those things actually happened and I'm still in shock? It's only been two years since I first read this book and I can't believe how forgetful af I am. What did I forget in the later books? Am I imagine things? I am really such a fake SJM fan. Is there even a talking doorknob at all or did I just make him up????



URgh this book is so cliche and tropey and so predictable why am I such trash for it? Since this review doesn't already have enough lists, here's another to get you through the day.

This book contains the following:

• long lost princess Celaena who is both beautiful not like other girls
• the amazingly young and single and hot bachelor prince Dorian who is not like his tyrant father
• the young and successful and hot best friend guard prodigy Chaol with family issues
• the mean tyrant king who is so unimportant to the plot SJM forgot to give him a name but he's mean and hates life
• a love triangle bc all YA fantasies published in 2012 need a love triangle
• also bc it is 2012 and we are trying to leech off the success of the Hunger Games probably there is a lot of weapons and archery and “will she survive” stuff going on
• the beautiful princess, Nehemia, who's somehow still a princess even though her country was overtaken like five years before that seems to have ulterior motives but we also need her bc friendship
• The main character is a strong independent women who don't need no man so obviously she needs a man
• Forbidden magic bc that's such a game changer. never before seen in a book ever.
• ALso smart, beautiful rich girl is also a really big bitch



If this book was written by anyone but SJM I would probably just shrug it off and be like “nope” and forget it even exists but of course it's SJM and her writing and stories and characters are addicting af. I want rattle the stars tattooed on my forehead and i cry everytime i hear the words “will not be afraid” and will probably ship Celaena and Sam until the day I die. #SamDeservedBetter

this book is the absolute worse don't read it

I love this book. How could anyone ever give it less than five stars??????

I mean i did consider giving it 0 stars bc I was misled to believe mort was included in book #1, but then I remembered rowturd doesn't exist yet in this series and obviously, that is the greatest thing ever and I'd give it a billion stars if I could

Let's discuss some things I just don't understand for a minute, okay? I tried my hardest to either ignore these things or pretend they make sense but I can't let it go. They all make absolutely no sense.

1. Dorian, the Crown Prince of Adarlan, travels in person to Endovier go recruit Celaena to be his champion. He abandons all his princely responsibilities to make the long trek to a concentration camp to personally invite a notoriously dangerous criminal that could very well have died months prior to compete in a tournament thrown by his asshole of a father. Obviously, this is a ~great~ idea.

2. Also, who's brilliant idea was it to recruit a notoriously dangerous criminal to compete? It only took your country years to capture her, so why not? All that time and money and effort that was spent trying to arrest her will be wasted, but it's not a big deal right? Honestly, thank god Dorian ends up being run out of Adarlan in book five because he'd be a horrible king

3. The king may be a horrible man throughout this entire series, but at least he has some heart in between prequel and series to not murder the infamous assassin that has been wreaking havoc on his streets like any intelligent ruler would and instead send her to a concentration camp where she won't die instantly or else we'd not have any series to be trash over

4. Chaol is like 19? 20? in this book, but somehow he is able to snatch the highly elite job of Captain of the Guard. I'm sure he's great and all, but what about Joe or Frank over in the corner who's been working at the palace for twenty plus years, has a family of five to feed, and learns that they lost their promotion to some inexperienced teenager????

5. The entire love triangle thing why even waste the words when rowturd shows up in book three and ruins everything

6. Also Celaena agreeing to serve as the king's champion? This man killed your entire family and overtook your country. Just kill him in his sleep and get the hell out of that castle you idiot. don't just stand there and take his orders HE MURDERED YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY GET YOUR REVENGE

7. The book kept on mentioning that Sam is dead????? Sam isn't dead. He's alive. The events in The Assassin's Blade never happened. He was never killed. He's happy and alive.



But anyways, let's ignore all those for a second because I haven't even started talking about the plot of this book. Which is soo innocent compared to the rest of the series. Like what do you mean this fire breathing bitch queen was once a small naive girl who liked puppies, cake, and books??? What do you mean her only issues involved beating a bunch of boys she was already way more talented then??? Where's the evil fae queen tryign to kill her? where is some old ass white boy who needs a haircut proclaiming he's her mate????? where's the awkward sex on the beach????

If you somehow don't know, which I strongly doubt, this book starts out with the infamous Celaena Sardothien imprisoned in a concentration camp bc of some shit that went down in books prior. Then she's rescued by Crown Prince Dorian and Captain of the Guard Chaol in order for her to compete in this competition to become the king's personal assassin. Both boys eventually fall in love with her. Someone's killing off other competitors. If you haven't read this yet, ignore all the obvious tropes and go read it bc don't judge a series by its first book.

Let's talk about characters now shall we?

“My name is Celaena Sardothien. But it makes no difference if my name's Celaena or Lillian or Bitch, because I'd still beat you, no matter what you call me.”

Celaena Sardothien.

Like, Aelin Ashryver Galythinus who? I only care about Celaena.

having her entire family murdered by the dude she's competing for

When I first read this book, I was pretty quick to guess that Celaena was the long lost Queen of Terrasen bc it mentioned A) she's 18 B) her parents died when she was 8 and C) The royal family of Terrasen were killed ten years prior. Also it's a YA book.

But during this reread, I was actually shocked about how obvious SJM makes it without explicitly stating it. For example, there is a quote on 37 pages into the book that left me so shook.

Magic was dead, the Fae were banished or executed, and she would never again have anything to do with the rise and fall of kingdoms.

Dorian Havilliard.

I know he gets magic in book 2 but that still doesn't add much to the plot tbh

August 16, 2022 edit:

“You look radiant, he said. “And you look radiant as well, Chaol.” He winked at his friend.

Chaol Westfall.

Sam Cortland.

Nehemia Ytger.

Honestly I can't look at her the same after that one scene from Empire of Storms. Like stop your lying girl. You know Celaena is Aelin. You know you are gonna die in a few months. You probably even know Rowturd is gonna show up in book three and ruin everything.

She didn't deserve to die in book two and I will never, ever be over it

Nox.

Sam.

Manon.

The King.

it takes way too long into the book series for him to finally die

Duke Perrington.

Still waiting for him to die....

in conclusion...

I have read this series and discused it with so many people and yet I still don't understand how we go from infamous assassin who likes puppies to fae warrior fire queen trying to take down a country and marries a bird

3/5 stars

I guess going into this novel I was expecting something more. I knew I would get fluff, romance, a focus on the protagonist's family. Which was definitely in this book, but it just wasn't enough for me.

I like to start out with the positive, so there are things I did love in this book. The family dynamic was great. I enjoyed seeing the way each sister cared about one another, and how their father fit into the big picture. I also enjoyed how simple the story was, that you can just go in and have a fun time reading it.

I had problems with every character. The book constantly mentions how when the sister's mother died, that they had to grow up fast, but I didn't feel as if that is shown in the book rather than told. In fact, in my opinion, Lara Jean was very immature for her age. This entire book could have been avoided if she wasn't so impulsive, and took a second to think before speaking. Through her actions and voice, I had to keep reminding myself that's she's 16, not 12. And how they constantly refereed to their parents as “Mommy” and “Daddy” got old really fast.

Kitty was annoying, mostly because of the fact that half the time she acted like a 5 year old, and the other half she acted as if she was a teenager. I did like Margot, but she was only in the book for a few chapters. The only redeemable character for me was Josh, who had so much potential that got tossed to the side. The author kept on focusing on Peter, who, to me, was just a giant ass.


I'll probably pick up the next book soon, mostly because I'm curious how this story can expand to three books.