Ash

If 13 Reasons Why and Gossip Girl had a less violent and much gayer baby. As with most YA main characters though, I found Chloe petulant and self-obsessed. Of course I wanted her to end up with Shara who was equally self-obsessed, but I would have cared more about this book as a whole if it was just about Smith and Rory. I liked the scavenger hunt aspect. Georgia deserved better throughout this whole book. I think this would make a great mini-series. It was just ok for me.

Classic romance. I love the little ridiculous but perfect things that authors throw in when writing romance. Hunting for a safety-pin with a metal detector, silly nightgowns, scared of cows, crazy corgi ladies and their nude paintings and knitted sweaters. I liked that Hannah was accidentally funny and Jack was giggly. It's an adorable read.

I accidentally predicted the whole plot early on, but it was still an enjoyable read. I feel like Drew could have been edited out of the story and it would have been just as good. His investigation into Joey and May could have had more suspense and we found out about Joey too soon. I hate moms like Ruby. It kept me interested the whole way through even though this isn't my favorite genre.

Um. I wanted to like this book way more than I did. Luli was insufferable and I get it, she viewed herself as a cold and monstrous thing, but she was really just self-centered at the end of the day. Not unlike any other person starved for fame. The symbolism wasn't lost on me, but the fantasy elements were so weird that I didn't appreciate them in the way the author intended. Her experiences were going to be specific to not just being a woman trying to make it to the silver screen, but a queer Asian actress. If it was stripped down to Luli's climb through old Hollywood and her romantic encounters, I would have liked it more. I just needed it to either tilt into full fantasy or tilt all the way to historical fiction. The magical realism in this instance was not working for me. Henry and Greta were great. Emmaline's negative character arc was great and I was glad that Luli ended up happy with Jane. I liked it, but I didn't love it.

This book had me at “Bigfoot Erotica.” My favorite part about Emily Henry is her nightmare brain. I laughed so much through this book and already knew my rating for it early on. I kept repeating, “don't mess this up for me” over and over while reading. I aspire to be as funny as Henry's characters (I'm already as frigid and shark-like). Charlie was perfect in the least annoying way possible. I was worried that Libby would come off as petulant or naïve, but she surprised me. Well rounded and hilariously smart characters in a romance novel is my favorite of all book tropes. Ugh I love this book! I think this is my favorite of the three books I've read by her.

This book was as fluffy as Nadia's cupcakes. Great for fans of fade to black romances. Both of the main characters were refreshingly not annoying in any way. The banter and inside jokes were adorable. I feel like the “doomed from the start” trope is tricky to get right. I loved Hunter, Doug, and Pops. The magic of the town reminded me of the show Good Witch. Fluffy magical vibes. I really want to try the date idea of picking random things for entertainment and food. When Nadia's cakes were mentioned I thought it was coincidental that there was another one in Minnesota, but then I googled it and Abby Jimenez is the same person who opened the Palmdale one I went to when I lived there a decade ago. Small world. I have a few more of her books on my shelf, so I'm looking forward to reading more.

The reason I keep going back to O'Leary's books is because she makes me fall in love with her characters. Not just the male lead, but all characters involved. My favorite story to follow was Jane's and I'll admit, it took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize Joseph was the same guy. I didn't read the full synopsis before going in. The way each character saw him and their different relationships with him made it seem like different guys.

This book was a roller coaster. I'm not going to pretend like all of my Norse mythology knowledge hasn't come from God of War and the Marvel movies, but this book made me want to look into more of it (from more reputable sources). I love a villain redemption story. I loved and hated Angrboda and Loki. Jormungand and Fenrir deserve their own book with a rewritten happy ending. I loved them the most and they just had the worst time. This book ended on such a high note that I'm willing to overlook some of the dragging moments.

I generally hate stories involving cheating, but I hated Cory so much that it made this tolerable. I loved Jane. Merit was incredibly annoying, but I wanted Jane to be happy. I liked the way their friendship shifted over time, though I had issues with the way the author was basically insisting that these were two straight women who just happened to fall in love. That felt yucky. I know my review is making it sound like I didn't actually enjoy this book, but I did. I fell for Jane when Merit did and I felt just as trapped by Cory and the basic “okay” memories they shared.

I'm not going to lie, I picked this up solely based on the assumptions I made looking at the cover. I thought it was going to be an adorable romance with a deafblind male lead. Yes, all of those things were present, but it was also so much more. There were moments that I cried, moments of intense anxiety, of mystery, and moments where I felt angry.
I loved the point of view shift from Arlo to Cyril. I loved the flashback scenes and being able to read with the asl sentence structure. I loved how vehemently CyriI advocated for Arlo, even to his own detriment. I felt like this book was so crammed full of experiences that the deafblind community goes through that it was almost too long. Almost, but not really. I'm torn because I really wanted and appreciated the variety of instances as there is such a lack of representation in any of the other books I read and media I consume.
I think the details about the day to day moments and the flashback moments were well thought out, but there were aspects of the story I didn't love. I think Brother Birch was a weak (if not completely quintessential) villain. Molly had a redemptive moment, but her reasoning pissed me off. I know people like Brother Birch and Molly exist, I just am sick of them being the bad guy archetype for every story. I also don't think the ending was thought out very well. It felt rushed and was obnoxiously convenient compared to the struggles Arlo went through just to get to New York. I'm glad he got to advocate for himself, but the fact that Shri's plan worked perfectly and they all ended up happy with almost no consequences was frustrating. I think this is a good book, but the ending and overarching conflict could have been given more time and attention.

It was okay. I loved The Sun-Down Motel, but this one didn't do it for me. It felt slow even though it wasn't really. I kept falling asleep while reading it. The flashback scenes with Lily were the best part. It had moments where I was speed reading because I was scared. I don't understand why the title was chosen. The blog had barely anything to do with the story and it was one of the cold cases. The Lady Killer or The Ugly Greer Mansion would have made more sense. Like I said, it was okay.

As much as I couldn't relate to Piper, I found myself actually relating to Hannah. Also, the “taming the rake” trope is my favorite. The chemistry between Hannah and Fox was wonderful. I loved that Hannah had a song for every moment and feeling and Fox started to communicate to her in that way. I loved the humor and the nod to the importance of communication and mental health in a relationship. The epilogue was adorable. It was a good read.

Most of my favorite books have taught me something significant. This is one of them. The stories Meilin tells Renshu throughout their travels and how they correlate to Renshu/Henry's life was written beautifully. I was scared that the ending would also be a tragedy like most of the stories told, but the author tied it in perfectly with Meilin's version of Peach Blossom Spring. It was easy to visualize the scenes in this book. I wish we had more of Meilin's older years with Lin-Na. I felt most connected to Meilin. I also was hoping that Julie would somehow be Lifen's daughter because Wenling and Lifen actually made it to Hong Kong, but it's supposed to be realistic historical fiction. This book is beautiful and I hope Melissa Fu writes more from the WWII era in China and Taiwan.

This book was slow. It stunted my reading plans for this month. It's definitely more mystery than fantasy. So many bad things just kept happening in a row that I didn't want to keep reading. The resolution was good enough, but I hated how at some point during the story, you don't trust any of the characters. Yes, they all end up being good except for Peter, but still. If it were a morally gray moment, it would have been good. If I lose trust in a character, it's hard to bring it back. It was just okay.

This book was not at all what I expected it to be and I don't know how to feel about it. I loved Six-thirty and Walter. I liked the show and the relationship between Mad and the priest. I don't think I formed enough of a connection to Calvin to feel anything about his death. Elizabeth Zott was frustrating at times. I think it's weird that there was more about rowing in this book than chemistry... This book was marketed as funny, but with hard-hitting issues. I feel like there weren't any funny moments though. There were sad moments and rage inducing moments, but the humor wasn't there for me. The quirky aspects written in were more cringey than funny. So many bad things kept happening in succession and sprinkling a snarky neighbor or a genius daughter in isn't enough to bring that around. Elizabeth also was shut down for the whole book to the point of being a robot until she said something awkward or spieled about injustice. I feel like I'm still searching for the plot. Maybe if everything except Suppers at 6 was edited out I would have liked it better.
If we could all agree to stop writing unnecessarily descriptive SA scenes in books that are supposed to be “funny feminist reads”, that would be great.

This book was going so well for me until the “you're beautiful and you don't even know it” trope reared its stupid head. Literally everything else was fantastic. I love Sam and Charlie and Delilah. Percy is ok. I love the slow build and flashbacks. I could picture Barry's Bay and the cottages and the lake. It was a good summer read.

For what? This book was this long for what? There was not nearly enough story to warrant this many pages of boredom. The etymology aspect was fascinating. The history and anti-colonialism was gripping. I didn't like how the 4 main characters were written though. I feel like they were shallow and one dimensional. I couldn't tell you much about them outside of their one personality trait. Letty's white woman tears, Robin's cluelessness, Ramy's disdain for the rest of the group, and I couldn't even pinpoint Victoire's personality (and she lived the longest...). Robin has a complete personality shift in the last book, but he just took the one personality trait from Griffin. It was frustrating. The magical aspect with the enchanted silver was interesting in concept, but felt corny in this setting. If this could be rewritten as just historical without the fiction, it probably would have been better for me. Or I would have much preferred to read from Griffin's perspective within the Hermes Society. This is clearly a historical period the author has studied tremendously. I don't know if she has studied character writing as thoroughly.

The storytelling in this book is fantastic. So many characters to follow, but you're never confused and none of it could have been edited out. There were several moments in this book that brought tears. Some of the sad, some of them outraged, and some of them touched by the story. It reminded me of a Miyazaki movie. Poignant plot lines with plenty of adventure, but also serious environmental and social issues sprinkled throughout the whole way. I loved this book.

The people who gave this one star because of the joining, have not been paying attention to the series as a whole. The joining has been on the horizon since early on and the impending intimacy for the three mains is not in the least bit surprising. It was done well and could have been like 3 chapters longer for me tbh. The ending of this one was fantastic. It's not my favorite of the series, but I'm not mad. This is classic for the genre it belongs to. I can't wait until the next one is released. Also, for those that are putting down middle-aged women readers, we are the market babes. For almost every genre of reading. It's us.

When books are written around a mass tragedy that happened in real life, I always feel conflicted. I remember some of the news coverage after hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and hearing about the giant power outage that to this day has differing reports of how long it actually lasted. I purposely searched out reviews of this book from actual Puerto Ricans that went through hurricane Maria and both of the ones I read showed that they were upset about this book.
Olga and Prieto are such strange main characters. They are written with the purpose of showing the struggle of being part of the diaspora and stay true to the values of your community and the urge to assimilate into the corruptive rich white societal practices. All of their most negative traits come from this urge, but the author paints their mom, who was an activist for the liberation of Puerto Rico turned radical, as the most evil character. She is a very one note villain. It's confusing, to say the least. All except one of the characters in this book was written in a way where you hate them more than you like them. Matteo was really the only one that wasn't compromised. It's not even worth mentioning Dick because of course he is trash. He is a member of the only true monolith in this world: the old, white, and corrupt. I really hated every one of his POV scenes. I felt like this book was a lot, but also wasn't enough. I don't know how else to explain it.

If you are looking for a coherent review of this book...this isn't the one. I'm so mad. My heart hurts and I'm so mad. I knew it was sad, but I prepared for the wrong loss. I finished this on Christmas and WEEEEPED!! ON CHRISTMAS!! I had to explain the whole premise to my husband while blubbering and he hugged me until I calmed down. This book is excellent. It's honestly so beautiful and I would torture myself by reading it again. I loved it so much. The first part of the book is obviously my favorite part. I love Max. If you feel like crying, go read it now. I'm still mad though. Too many emotions.

Sera is decidedly more petulant and annoying than Poppy, but outside of that they are interchangeable. I was really excited about this book before reading it. I love the Blood and Ash series, but I wanted more contrast between the two storylines. At this point I feel like I'm just being picky, but I'll keep reading this series as the books come out.