Jelena

Dissent: A Five-Course Meal (With Suggested Pairings) by AIMEE OGDEN -  ⭐⭐.75
In the Beginning of Me, I Was a Bird by MARIA DONG - ⭐⭐⭐.5
Up Falling by JENDAYI BROOKS-FLEMISTER - ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
In the Cold, Dark Sea by JENNY RAE RAPPAPORT -  ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
On the Ship by LEAH CYPESS -  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 
An Address to the Newest Disciples of the Lost Words by VANESSA FOGG - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Cale and Stardust Battle the Mud Gobblers of Hudson Valley by LINCOLN MICHEL - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Give Me Cornbread or Give Me Death by N.K. JEMISIN -  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐  

My first ever Agatha Christie book. I read this book kinda back to back with my sister because she wanted someone to talk to about it since she rarely read books. I was intrigued enough after her description to pick it up and it delivered on all fronts. I loved all of the character interactions and the way the plot was developing - giving you a very small piece of the puzzle in every chapter, but in a way that it makes you think of new possibilities and theories.
The only reason why this isn't a true 5 star -  I found that the Tommy & Tuppence's relationship kinda hit out of no where and seemed a bit too rushed at the end.  

I found this book so formulaic. I read the previous book recently and this one hits the same beats as previous one but with a more Christmas theme. It introduced all characters like you never read any of the previous books. It's just so frustrating when you read them close together because the 20% I read was almost a copy-pase from the first 20% of the previous book. The character even has the exact same scene of going through town in her car where she meets characters along the way with introductions and recaps.
For now, I'll be pausing this series at least until I forget some so that I might enjoy it.

I had a draft of this review from 5 days after I read the book and it basically just said how forgettable the book was and how I could not remember a thing about it.
It's now 4 months after reading it and I can't say anything much more than that. The book was predictable and very much like many other fantasy-romance books I read. If you are new to the genre maybe this one could be a lot more enjoyable for you.

If you plan on reading this book without re-reading the first book in the series, you better look up a summary. I read the chapter by chapter summary of Skyward before and it still felt a little jarring with the use of jargon and the places and names mentioned. I found that the first couple chapters weren't enough time to get us familiar with the story and the characters again. Characters took the backseat in this one. It's all just world expansion in the 50% that I read. I don't care for the new characters that are being introduced and since I'm not grasping all of the new information that got introduced in the beginning (because I don't remember much from the first book) I found it hard to care. So, I'm going to stop reading it since it's not enjoyable anymore. Maybe one day I'll decide to binge the whole series to give it the best possible shot.

Sadly, this book did not work for me. And if I'm completely honest, I'm not sure I can pinpoint a specific thing that bothered me, it was just average overall. 

I feel like the focus of the book was all over the place. It was trying to straddle the line of serious discussion on trauma while still having a happy unserious tone and it just didn't work for me. I felt like the magic was under-explained, the whole family situation was a mess and so awful that I have no words. The friends were there as plot devices when the FMC needed them to show up in the story. Arguments were happening so often, and it would all resolve in the next chapter despite them saying some awful stuff to each other or other side characters. 
Also, the whole conversation where she admitted who MMC was to one of her bff but let the other one believe an assumption without correcting her (for absolutely no reason) is just wild. Also, I can't be the only one who finds it weird when her friend makes her sleepover at her house to keep her from going home with MMC while drunk, but not even once tries to shield her from the abuse her mother is having on her every single day. All of the parent-child relationships in this book were pretty poorly handled tbh.

And despite all of this, I wouldn't say it was badly written or that nobody would be able to enjoy this, but I just don't think it handled any aspect of the story very well. If you are looking for a quick story for when you are in a specific mood with the right expectations, I could see people liking this more than I did. 

I picked up a Darcy Coates book on a lot of recommendations from some booktubers I watch because it was pitched as cozy horror. I've wanted to try horror for the longest time but as someone that can't watch horror movies, this sounded like it would be a great starting point. 
After finishing the book I looked at some of the reviews of the booktuber mentioned and most of them gave it 3 stars, which tells me that this book is probably great for some newcomers to this genre and her style, but not really original for her avid readers.

I really enjoyed every aspect of this book. After the first few chapters, I thought this was gonna be some atmospheric(gothic) read with a lot of setup for the second half of the book, but noo... once the action started it just went like a snowball down the hill. It definitely went a bit out there in the end but it was so unique and unlike anything I've read, and it worked for me. I really enjoyed this one and can't wait to read more from this author.

This book is just a complete step down compared to the first book. 

I absolutely hate the Jinx character, and the fact that she got even more page time definitely didn't help my enjoyment. I was even procrastinating reading it at the start because I didn't want to read her chapters. And even Quan and Kayl didn't really get great development by the end of the book. 

Plot had a really bad case of middle book syndrome. There was a lot of meandering. I felt like Quen's and Kayl's relationship suffered the most for it. The first book was focused so much more on those two. And even the plot point with her best friend at the end really rubbed me the wrong way. I just didn't find it believable. And most of the ending to be completely honest. I just think that the book completely broke my suspension of disbelief and the small fault I had with it kept pailing on and I just was able to take any of it seriously.

Also, I found the Gods communicating through the heads of the main characters less and less believable as the book when on. Throughout the whole book, I was questioning why a certain God was able to hear this thought but not some other one. 

And at last, the writing. This is where most of my issues lie. It was just so juvenile at times while trying to deeply convey some very dark themes. All the swearing was so random, and the amount of time that Jinx said ‘cunt' was just baffling. I don't remember that I minded swearing in the first book or if there was any, but the fact that I noticed in this one says something.

I really wish I liked it more. The first book in the series was a 5 star read for me. But this one was just such a disappointment that I don't know if I wanna continue with the series. I will probably wait to read some reviews for it before I decide.

Really loved this book. Although I found the marketed tropes to miss some key plot bits, I still liked how the story developed. 
The whole King and Sullivan sub-plot felt very out of place IMO. It felt like it was just a tease to keep reading the series to find out more. I do see how that history could affect other teased relationships in other upcoming books, but as a plot point in this one - it felt very out of place and random.

I will definitely pick up other books in this series because I like a lot of the side characters and the teased pairs for upcoming books.

If I was rating this book based on the first chapter alone this would have been a five star read. I would absolutely agree with almost all of the reviews of this book - this is a Hallmark movie but in a book, with all of it positives and negatives. It has all of the Christmas charm, the well loved grumpy sunshine trope and the enemies to lovers trope (the 2 chapter enemies kind), found family and a bit of magic. With the classic stilted dialog and under development relationship that somehow always seemed to happen off page leaving you feeling like you missed something. The author wasted a lot of time on developing the magical part of the story, and I felt that the character growth and character relationships suffered for it.
But with all of that it was a fun time and a nice Christmas read worth checking out.

 Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. 

It took me 4 months to read this book. Clearly something didn't work for as well as it did in the first book in this series. I think it might be the pacing that slowed down in the middle part of the book or the romantic sub-plot that bored me to tears.
And with all of that, this was still a 4 star read.

While I did enjoy this book very much, I could definitely see all of the criticisms this book was getting all this time. I'm not the type of a reader that picks up on the problematic things in the book, I'm picking it up to enjoy it not to look if the author has enough representation in it. But the way every female was described was so overly sexual that I was unable to block it out. Every one of them had a description of the size of their breasts. Every one. To couple with that the fact that the plot kinda lost some steam at the halfway mark, and my rating kinda plummeted. I was honestly thinking this was gonna be a high 4 or a 5 star for me until the halfway point. 
I'll probably still pick up the second book in the series to see if the writing improved because I really did enjoy this world and politics.

I think this book is a great bridge book for those coming from YA genre into more adult fantasy. 

I personally wanted a bit more depth and a little less hand-holding in this book. While a lot happened in this book, I found that a lot of scenes in the middle part of the book could have been cut or replaced and the ending still would have been the same so it left me feeling like a lot of it was filler. There were scenes that furthered character bonds without actually furthering the plot and vice versa.
I still really like the world and some side characters in this to pick up the next book in this series as soon as it's released.

I will preface this review with that I didn't read the novella before picking this book up.
I didn't really get why Tristan was suddenly so interested. I just didn't feel like all of the scenes after the first one in the club, when he was so offput by it, got me to believe that he will get to a point when he is begging Mark for it.
I also needed more development in the second half of the book with Tristan's and Isolde's relationship.  It felt just like when you pick up a book that is advertised as hate-to-love but the hate is only there for the first 10 pages. I just needed more angst and development from it than what was there on the page.

Did I guess the killer by the middle of the book? Yes.
Did the ending go a bit wild and kinda unbelievable? Yes.

But boy did I have fun. I absolutely loved the tone differences between the written book vs the real story. I found the character believable and I understood her actions which is half the battle in thriller books for me. If you don't mind your triller going a bit on the campy side you are gonna love this fast paces thrill of a book.

I really enjoyed this one a lot more than I expected. I've been trying to get more into horror books this year and this one seemed like a pretty popular slasher so I decided to give it a try and see if I'd enjoy it. Since writing this review I've read a few more slashers and I can confidently say that it's definitely not gonna be on a short list of my favorite horror sub-genres. 
I didn't really care for all of the characters that were getting killed, which probably isn't the point since all of the reviews mainly mention the way the kills were happening but I just don't think I'm ever gonna be able to give a book in this genre more than a 4 star because of it.

But that being said, I really appreciated all of the setup of the characters and their motivations at the start of this book. It definitely had me creeped out at certain points and guessing who the killer was the whole time. Also, I really enjoyed how fast-paced it was and the length was perfect IMO.
I had a fun time and I'm happy I gave it a chance.

As someone who read this Wattpad story many years ago, at night, under my blanket to hide the light(probably the reason why I wear prescription lenses now), I'm really happy to see this story published.

But, my taste has changed a bit since then. I found the dialog very cheesy and so different in tone from the rest of the story. The whole situation with her best friend frustrated me to no end. I really hated that part. I found that I had a bit of a hard time separating Death from David and as a result when Faith and Death started getting a bit heated at the end, I felt like it was very sudden since we spent the whole first part of the book setting up a romance with another character that behaved totally different to Death. I really liked the worldbuilding but I just felt like a lot of the plot points felt very sudden instead of having any buildup to them.
I'll probably still try the next book hoping to see some improvements in writing.

When ever I put the book down i didn't feal the need to pick it back up. The plot basically had no development at 50% mark and the characters were acting so differently then I remembered them behaving. And all of that combined made this book a tough  read for me, so I decided to stop reading and DNF.

Dead Winter follows Crista going on to the Rocky Mountain retreat with her boyfriend, while they get stranded in the middle of a snowstorm with the other passengers on the bus. 

I loved the atmosphere, you could not help feeling the cold described and the endless white of the snow. The horror elements were really good and kinda unexpected with some of the gorry descriptions since I had the impression that Darcy writes cozy horror.  While I really enjoyed this book, something that bothered me enough to keep it to 4 stars was that it took me about halfway point to get invested in the story. I think it didn't need to be this long also since the kills became kinda repetitive at one point.  That said, the mystery was interesting. I predicted some stuff and was shocked by other staff. I think the ending was great and thrilling until the end. 

If you want a horror with an isolated winter setting where you suspect every character in the story then this one could be great for you.