adds

The ratings are high sooo the low reviews have gotta be from a bunch of people who aren't on masktok and have no sense of humor. Like they just don't get it. Lights Out is hilarious. It knows exactly what it is and it's good at it. Who doesn't want a golden retriever book boyfriend who's funny af and hot as hell with a little bit of kink? And don't compare this to Haunting Adeline (barf). Josh and Aly are actually mildly complex characters. They're just the right kind of mess and it's great.

It's fitting I read this on the first day of autumn because spooky season thirst traps have been on my fyp for a month already and it's time to officially kick off fall ya'll! Now excuse me I have to go watch 14 more death eater toks and cry over a Dramione fanfic.

This book is the high point of the series. I may not have agreed with the way Rose acts or reacts but her personality is a little more consistent and the author doesn't let up on the cringe-worthy.

There were parts I hated about Tainted. So many times I was thinking, “Rose, wth are you doing?! That is not a good idea and you know it.” But there were redeeming sections that managed to catch me with hesitant hope and suspense.

Reviews are DIVIDED so I was wary going into this one. A lot of people seem to hate how long A Soul to Keep is, but I didn't feel like any part dragged or didn't fit. Some reviews made it seem like Orpheus was nonstop obsessed with one of his previous “captives”, which was really not the case. They definitely came up as a big foil in the plot but it absolutely made sense to explain this Duskwalker's personality and humanity journey.

Now, the only thing that didn't work for me was Reia's dialogue. There's specific world building indicating technology basically froze in what feels like very early if not pre-Scientific Revolution, yet Reia is overly casual and extremely modern in her speech. Almost every time she talked I mentally rewrote her in my head to make it work. I'm hoping other characters in the series are written differently, and I liked this enough to keep going.

I wanted to rate this 5 stars just because I couldn't put it down. It picked up speed and I stayed up until 6 am reading. I had to force myself to walk away and sleep. I'm glad I didn't finish this right before bed. It shocked the hell out of me. Kind of gutted me. And that's why it gets 4 stars (really 4.5). I'm mad at it for making me feel the way I did.
This book played out exactly the way I thought it would, then all of a sudden it didn't. Sometimes love really screws with you and you end up being so unselfish it's actually selfish.

Easily my least favorite in the series so far. Maketes is great. Loved seeing his violent side. Ace not so much. She was kind of a bitch to him for far too long. Even behind his back.

As much as I want the next book I hope the author takes more time with it than what Echoes of the Tide seemed to get.

I totally forgot why I marked this with my catch-all disability shelf and had to look up if I'd made a shelving error. I didn't, as revealed in the prologue. I'll mark my reminder to myself with a spoiler in case anyone reading this hasn't seen the show and wants to go into this book cold. Simon's speech development was delayed and he had a stutter he worked to overcome.

Maybe I need a new guilty-pleasure shelf because I think I liked this more than I should have. Or maybe so-bad-it's-good. It's steamy, or the new phrase spicy, and so is the show.

But what do you MEAN he's a 9 foot tall gator lizard looking alien and the cover is some buff blue human guy?!

I thought Alien Exile was pretty great. Then again, I did skip the first 4 books in this series because they didn't sound interesting enough. I certainly wasn't confused or like I was missing anything though.

This is probably my favorite in the Off-Campus series closely followed by The Deal, then The Mistake, and I honestly probably could have skipped The Score (sorry Dean). While this is an easy read, it's not as fluffy and doesn't quite follow the same format as the others. Tucker is patient and reliable. Sabrina is incredibly driven and focused. Two levelheaded main characters make for somewhat more mature writing. Even the humor was a different caliber and I laughed fairly often and terribly hard at times. Tucker is one of the best book boyfriends ever and I'm glad I know someone a lot like him.

Word candy; prose magic. How do simple letters form simple words that sink into me like teeth and gnaw me raw while I delight in every sublimely torturous shard? I'm high and dazed from the poetry of Leah Raeder's own pièce de résistance. Author, who ARE YOU?! And just thank you for giving us this.

Maise is in that transitory time between a childhood that's seen too much, been stripped away too soon, and the experience and awareness of actual adulthood. She is such an old soul juxtaposed with naivety and youth. We, as readers, are given the occasional conspiratorial hindsight from Maise, adding the perfect amount of suspense and tension.

I happened to have an interesting collection of somewhat fitting music I was going through while reading but I'll just leave these few.
Troye Sivan - Bite
W. Darling - Hunting Happiness
Tender - Belong

I think this is an amazing book. I read it when I was an early teen and it's stayed with me all these years. I never forgot the cover or the confusion, terror, and dread I felt while being riveted. If you feel the first half of this book is a little difficult to get through just keep reading. You will be rewarded.

Since this story is mostly told in diary style from the perspective of the main character there are things we just won't know because she doesn't know or doesn't bother to explain. Mainly why the war happened in the first place. Still, Ann is able to care for herself quite well on her family's farm after luckily surviving due to her location. Even with all her knowledge of gardening, preserving, and farming she is still a 16 year old who is naive about people and the world.

Honestly, I do not understand the male character or his motivation. I can't wrap my head around his choices. The only explanation is he's mentally unstable. He must have cracked somewhere along the way in life. Poor Ann doesn't have the life experiences to listen to her instincts when it comes to a man.

There is a definite religious tone throughout the novel. A pervasive correlation is the story of Adam and Eve. One man, one woman, and an apple tree. To someone who isn't religious it isn't overwhelming or preachy.

DNF at 47%. I just do not care a tinker's damn what happens to these characters. I'm not invested in them at all. I want to be, but I can't because this book is like Swiss cheese there are so many plot holes. It's too distracting.

There would be no plausible reason to have a war over reproductive rights. Wars are fought over money. Strip away all the crap and it always comes down to money in some way. If you want me to believe otherwise about this war then there needs to be sufficiently explained world building. Otherwise, who's making the money off of kids being unwound? Half way into a book it should be laid out how the hell we've gotten to where the story starts so things start to make sense. I still have no idea why the world is this way and I'm finding nothing worth keeping me reading to maybe find out if Shusterman ever sufficiently develops anything. How did we get from Roe v. Wade to unwinding kids in what seems to be just a few decades or less?

People don't want to be forced to keep random ass babies dropped on their doorstep. Society would shift in response to storking laws to say the least. The middle class communities portrayed would probably develop neighborhoods with security cameras and a guard watching them so someone can't plop a baby down at someone's door without getting caught. We already have gated communities where guards patrol on golf carts. But security isn't stepped up in the future in seemingly well-off areas? What kind of America IS this? I can't accept that this is just the way it is, and I think there would be large swaths of people who would never accept this either.

I can't accept that killing off teenagers to use them as transplant fodder is fine with both the pro-choice and anti-choice side of the abortion debate. The book uses the term “pro-life” to try to excuse chopping people up for their parts because the parts never really die, but I'm using the accurate real world wording. The premise of Unwind is interesting. It could be a poignant discussion while still being entertaining, but the reasoning for it is absolute bullshit, and again, there's not enough world building or even decent characters to explain how society has broken down so much. People just go about their normal lives the same way we do today. The suburban American dream nuclear family is happily having kids, until they decide to off them for being difficult teenagers. Just, WTF IS THIS HEARTLESS SHIT?!

Did all the people who gave this more than 3 stars read the same book? Excuse me, SLOG through the same book. It took me almost 8 weeks to finish this. I read 28 other books because I kept putting this down. I almost gave up and DNF so many times.

My feelings for almost every character I had come to like turned meh or into outright hate. Except for Lucien because he was lucky enough to not even be present through like 3/4 of the book. And the Archeron sisters have been annoying in all 3 books so nothing new there.

Other popular 1 and 2 star reviews sum up my disgust and frustration so I can just be done.

If I decide to be forgiving enough to pick up the 4th book and Nesta isn't given an immediate attitude adjustment though I will nope right on outta there.