Iara

I'm giving it four stars but I do think if I had read it instead of listening to the audiobook the rating would be way lower. Most of the characters I either didn't like or didn't care for, but I loved the voice acting and I think it's an original way to tell a story. Though, again, it only worked for me as an audiobook. I feel like reading this would be tedious and you wouldn't connect to the characters at all. All in all, I liked The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo way more and I acknowledge I went in expecting more than what I got with this one, but I enjoyed it and I'd recommend the audiobook to anyone who asked.

I honestly feel like the ending was rushed and Kuvira got a way too soft punishment. I know she's a fan favorite, but I really felt she deserved a harsher ending for all the stuff she did.

I honestly can't remember how I got to the book, where I heard of it or if someone told me about it, but I am so glad it happened. I started reading it and literally could not stop. I said to myself ‘I will just read the first couple of chapters to see if it's something I'd like' and I found myself reading way too late in the night. I couldn't put it down.

I love how the characters feel so real. They're not perfect. They make mistakes. They do things that aren't good. They hurt people. And yet, you can't help but love them. They are written so very human.

I will certainly check more books by Taylor Jenkins Reid because I fell in love with this one.

While I enjoyed the talk about religion and how being queer doesn't go against that and they can co-exist, I felt like everything that happened after a certain point was too extreme. It's probably something that can happen, I guess, but it felt unrealistic and like the author was trying to play up the drama so that the characters who had been ‘mad' would get over it and intervene. 

I do like that both Hannah and Baker are somewhat called out for what they do, even if they were in pain, but I also feel it's not enough. Same happens with Clay. I don't think anyone would be that forgiving after what these characters do to some of their friends.

I think I would have enjoyed this more had I read it years ago. It was still enjoyable but it felt lacking. Though I do think it's an important and interesting conversation to have.

I'll be honest, when I picked up this book I wasn't expecting it to have an asshole turns nice because he falls in love plot. Had I known, I wouldn't have read it. I like the worldbuilding, I like the characters just fine (even though I do think they're not all that developed and you can tell it's the author's first book), I liked the plot idea... and yet it took me almost a month to get through the book because of the poorly written romance. It's not only poorly written, rushed and forced. It also makes no sense to me why the author would choose Inan as Zel's love interest when 1) romance isn't needed at all for the plot and 2) Amari and Roën exist. If the romance had been a slow build up one, with them falling for each other through the books and not in this one then I would have accepted it, but it's unrealistic that they want to murder each other one day and the next they're in love. And no, Inan wanting to destroy magic but still save Zel isn't romantic. Stop with this horrible trope of assholes will turn nice if you love them enough. Stop.

PS. I hope he's dead for real so that Zel can either have no romance or hook up with Roën/Amari in the next books.
PS2. With how Amari talked/thought about women all through her episodes I was actually surprised the author decided to give her a romance with Tzain. Then again, heteronormativity. I guess. I was sure she was in love with Binta.

Just by how long it took me to read this book we can guess how much I liked it. I feel like I finished the book equivalent of one of those tumblr posts romantizising mental illness and excusing people's horrible behavior because they're sick.

What's sad is I thought I was going to love this book. How wrong was I?

I overall enjoyed the book, but some stuff wasn't needed. And with this I mean the pirates. They add nothing to the story. And I mean /nothing/. The story would have been the same without them there. Less sex scenes and romance, but that's it. They didn't need to be there. They didn't help in the resolution of the story at all. Iwish they had not been added tbh.

I also have to say, as a bisexual girl myself, that as much as I appreciated the calling out of the sexualization we suffer, I did not appreciate the backtracking on Sosie. Being hesitant to be in a relationship could have happened in any of the idk how many f/m ships in the book, but it had to be the maybe-bi character that's not sure? I would have preferred it if it had not been teased at just to be taken back.

And before someone says it, I know questioning people exist, but having the supposed to be bi character be the one hurting the lesbian because maybe they're actually straight is a Bad Trope.

Those were really my two biggest problems with the book. I do also feel like the commercial breaks were fun at first but boring as the chapters went by.

I decided to read the book because the movie comes out in a week and I have time, so why not? I enjoyed it overall, but some of the characters just didn't click. And no, it's not Lara Jean the one that makes me say this. Reading other reviews, she seems to be the reason for low scores, but I actually liked her.

Funnily enough, my problem are the romantic interests.

We're introduced to Josh as this perfect guy but we don't see much of him besides when drama is needed for Peter and Lara Jean. Everyone's problem seems to be Lara Jean liking him because it's her sister's boyfriend, but the three of them had been friends for years before he dated Margot and Lara Jean liked him before he did so I don't see a problem with that. The problem is him flip-flopping between sisters, it makes me question if he ever loved any of them at all. Actually, Lara Jean herself wonders if they're all interchangeable to him. Will he try and date Kitty next? Who knows.

Then there's Peter, who has a 50% chance of being a jerk or a sweet guy. And, to be honest, his good moments were eclipsed by the douchey ones for me. Plus, he still seems into Genevieve. Every time Lara Jean confronts him about her he's like ‘it has nothing to do with you' even though it does considering she's your girlfriend now.

Margot getting angry at Lara Jean for her feelings, which cannot be controlled, was also not my cup of tea and made me dislike a character I had liked at first.

Anyway, maybe I'm just too old for teenage drama? Sigh.

Honestly, it's not 5 stars because of that one scene. You know the one. The football field one. I hated that scene.

I also think they got together way too fast? As in, we have Nick sad af and drinking and idk just feeling terrible and suddenly he's... dating Taylor so that Leah and Abby don't feel bad about dating, I guess. I think I would have loved the book more had it been set on their first year of college and having Abby break up with Nick because distance and their friendship growing (instead of making up that they were friends before???) and then evolving into romance.

Either way, I really liked Leah with all her faults and f ups. I wish we had gotten to see more of Abby and I would love to get a book from her POV. Also HOW CUTE ARE SIMON AND BRAM????

It's not that I didn't like it, it's that I don't care for most of the new characters. If I care about any. I was here for Percy, Annabeth and Nico so you can imagine I wasn't too interested in many of the POVs in this book.

I'm not rating it as high as I should because the start was really slow and I'm personally not interested in reading about how people battle, but I enjoyed it a lot overall and will continue with the series.

I just wish she could find someone else to disturb the peace. Unnecessary to bring the Darkling back. Very unimaginative, in my opinion.

I would have loved to see all the things they talk about actually happen, instead all we get are conversations between two men (sometimes 3) either before or after the exciting things happen. There's also no women through most of the story, which is not something I like even if the book is old.

Sally Rooney is definitely not my cup of tea.

I'll be honest, I took one star off because the use of Spanish in this book is abysmal. It would have been easily fixed by having a native speaker read the book over before publishing. Won't even get too into how not realistic the use of random Spanish words in the middle of sentences in English is for non native English speakers. The source is myself, whose first language is Spanish.