koelkat

In the book she has to adopt a cover story of being a jewelry thief and that backstory fits her waaayyy better than being the best assassin in the world. Also also, are you telling me the ‘world's-best-assassin' doesn't know not to take candy from strangers? She just gets up one morning and sees a box full of candy and decides to eat half of it without thinking that it might be a part of the killing spree happening! Really??

The only good attributes this book had was the worldbuilding and character banter. Other than that, it felt like the bare bones of a story like the author was just making sure all of the plot points were checked off instead of thinking about a story to tell. By the way, the book was too long for my liking, major ‘this-could've-been-an-email' vibes from me around the 300 page mark.

Everyone I know has been singing its praises, but I just didn't like it. I'll continue the series to find out what people mean when they say it gets better. But overall, this book just did not do it for me.

Oh and it gets two stars instead of one because there's a book she picks up called ‘The Walking Dead' and that made me chuckle.

Thx for reading <3

Even if you aren't a fan of classics, you should definitely give this book a try. It has a slow beginning, but it really picks up. I loved Jane as a character, though there were times I didn't understand her obsession with the love interest. I think that the romance could have been built a little better because I didn't understand why she liked Rochester, but he did eventually grow on me a tad.

I absolutely loved this book! The pacing is fast and the action is on point. It's basically an action/adventure movie with supernatural creatures and a slow-burn romance. There are twists and turns with too many close-calls to keep you on your toes the whole time.

The romance was on point too. I loved the chemistry between the main couple. I appreciated that the mental illness was not romanticized and was taken seriously. Yes, there is a little bit of spice. I can't wait to see how their relationship evolves throughout the series.

I honestly cannot wait for the rest of the series!

I was a little wary of it being an older book with language, but it ended up reading pretty clearly. As this is my first mystery book, I didn't expect it to finish in little over a day. The characters were surprising and with each chapter the questions grew larger and larger. Fun fact, I was actually supposed to read this in school, but quarantine hit. If my class did get around to reading it, I definitely would've read ahead of everyone else.

Even though the ‘twist' was a tad bit predictable, the story had me hooked. Jackson's voice as a writer never ceases to amaze me, straightforward and blunt but also unnerving and uncomfortable. This book is one of those I'm going to have to re-read to catch all the little subtle details that I missed on my first read-through.

3.5 stars

This seemed like one of those books where the beginning and end were really good, but the middle was bad. During the middle, it was very ‘go-to-the-place-do-the-thing'-esc. The friend group and main couple would go do ‘x' and instead of using the scene to develop relationships within the group or romance; it would be over within three pages almost.

I really wished to see more of the friend group. Tom seemed like the spokesperson for the group, which is realistic but leaves out everyone else. Like Drew, I can't tell you a single thing about him except that he's Vietnamese, and he's an electrician. The only other friend we get to see often is Alex, but even then she's stretched a little thin. No one in the group seemed to have a distinguishable personality.

The romance wasn't all that convincing. In fact, whenever Diana and Emily had a conversation, it sounded like dialogue from a kids' movie or two aliens trying to appear human. Their relationship wasn't steady in the slightest. Conversations fell flat; feelings seemed artificial. Diana seemed more fleshed-out than Emily who seemed to go out of character for plot reasons, not because she arrived at that conclusion herself.

I did like their characters though: I could relate to Emily's fear and Diana's anxiety, but their chemistry and romance seemed very lacking in depth. However, I think what really bothered me was how it was written dual-pov: a thought would go through Emily's head written in full, only for it to be repeated word-for-word later in conversation in either a few pages to Diana or in the next chapter.

The idea for this book is a good one. I think the location of a small, progressive town draped in beautiful scenery is amazing. Maybe it would've done better as a novella or a straight up erotica since the only scenes written well were the spicy ones.

Thx for reading

DNFed @ 54%

This book commits three atrocities which I have put into a cute little list:

1.) This book is over 600 hundred pages long. To put it in perspective, Pride and Prejudice is ~350 pages long, depending on the version and copy you're reading. They were able to make a 6+ hour mini series of Pride and Prejudice and covered everything in the book. I got to page 343 of this godforsaken book. All that happened so far in the story could be summed up in a 14-minute Youtube short film.

2.) Why so much headspace? That's what all this book was: characters having a little dialogue to only be interrupted by several paragraphs of thought and feeling often being repetitive information. How many times do I have to know that Charlotte's grandmother was president? Clearly not enough for the writer to put it in countless times. Not only that, but whenever there was a conversation and the author thought it necessary to put in a few pages of thoughts and feelings etc, I could only imagine the other character staring at them like they're on the Truman Show.

3.) Sutton, conceptually. I actually related to her a little bit in the beginning. I kept thinking that she was one of those characters that seemed shy at first, but shows off confidence once the relationship grows. But she wasn't. Even when things were clear as day, she still was blind to it and reacted negatively because the author told her to. She constantly worries about adding stress to Charlotte and then PROCEEDS TO ADD STRESS TO CHARLOTTE. Such an annoying character to read. There wasn't even one hint of development in the 343 pages I read - that goes for both her and Charlotte.

Anyways, sorry for yapping. Thx for reading!

literally could not care for anything in this book. All the characters felt flat, the plot was so weird, and the romance was extremely forced. I would've liked it better if the story was focused on Bear and Janessa instead of Autumn and Callie that had no chemistry whatsoever. By the way, if you were looking for a spicy holiday novella, this is not it there was one scene that was a little beyond vanilla at the very end Also I'm not sure why Biscuit was in the book-he hardly had any scene time.

I don't normally read nonfiction. Most of the titles in the genre I was either forced to read or dnfed bc they were very boring. But this book is different because it is written like a thriller and keeps a fast pace—everything coming in punches, one after another.

The only thing I didn't like was how real everything got and it made me a little queasy.

Thx for reading <3

I love the story as much as I love the characters. Finding out the riddles of the puzzles is always fun to solve with the characters. Yet, I still find the fight scenes to be confusing and the sequence of events that happen offstage that are explained later for the plot are just as confusing as well. But I did enjoy the book and will be reading the next one!

Even though the writing was inconsistent, the stories really did show how cats change our lives for the better. The section breaks between scene changes and povs were a little confusing, but I liked the cat's inner monologue and how each story was connected someway.

my rating for each story:

1. Sea of Words: 2 stars

I really liked Miyu as a character and looking into her life. But I don't understand her character arc involved with her cat or why the ending was so abrupt.

2. First Blossoming: 4 stars

Loved Reina and Mimi's relationship and how their lives mirrored each other. In my opinion, the best story in the book.

3. Slumber and Sky: 3 stars

While it has a good theme and an interesting premise, it was a little forgettable. The whole bracelet thing was very cute and portrayed depression and grief in a realistic way though.

4. The Temperature of the World: 3 stars

I really wanted closure for this character because i was empathetic and invested. But her journey with her cat fell short and is more focused on her nephew if anything.

thx for reading <3

This book had a lot of interesting premises and inclusiveness, but I found most of the stories really lacking any horror. Saplings and Hags were probably my favorites out of all of them.

By the way y'all, I'm so brain-rotted because the legend of Tam Lin was mentioned in Saplings and my first thought was ‘TAMPON??'

I feel conflicted. The writer part of me likes this book: solid plot, excellent world, and great pacing. But the reader part of me isn't a fan: no characters to grasp onto, multiple info-dumps, and plainly unenjoyable. Though, I did like the subtle romance in the book.

Even though I enjoy science fiction and fantasy books, I can tell this book isn't for me. The world was always changing and reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut's “Galápagos”. Even with “Galápagos” I enjoyed it. So why not this book? I have no idea.

Maybe it's just one of those books that I just don't like. To be honest, I skimmed through a lot of the ending. But it's not a bad book, just not a favorite.

okay so this book is a political fantasy. I didn't know that going in or else I would've never picked up the book. Now I could go on and on about how the story was just one surprise after another with barely any breathing room, or frankly any explanation, but this book has already caused a reading slump so I'll just sum the plot up:

-Something unexpected happens

-Hesina: I'm confused

-Someone random casually infodumps about how it was done and calculated

-Hesina: I should've seen this coming!

That's it.
That is the whole book.

I have to say, the twists the book took were very surprising and could've been done well if things were different. But as for world building and characters...I don't think I'll remember anyone's name by the end of today. Which is another point: what the hell is a sooth? I get that they can do magic and shit, but their magic is never explained and the descriptions are not descriptive at all. In fact, they're extremely vague and this description problem can be applied to literally any fight scenes. In fact, I would just skim the fight scenes and move on because what happened would be explained better in conversation afterwards anyway.

-sigh-I'm tired so tl;dr a political fantasy with so many plot twists I got vertigo and am now just confused

The character was so passive...and the plot didn't make any sense. Instead of being determined and filled with grit in a competition, the protagonist decides to just wing it. It would've made for a great character arc if she put on this forefront of a determined character while dread and doubt was still inside, and she learns to become more brave and determined to where she becomes more independent and strong. There was even one time where she was asked what she wants and she can't even answer it!

The romance was so...stupid. Stop talking to Pretty Boy, we need to get the tea leaves and win this competition! A good book would either put romance in as a crucial part of the story, work romance organically into the narrative via sexual tension/similarities, or will have romance be like a cherry on the cake. All of these do not get in the way of the narrative. This romance does. It was infuriating and sometimes it felt like she cared more about Pretty Boy than her DYING SISTER.

Basically, this book had no character, no payoff to the promises in the set up ( i.e. a thrilling championship), and a magic system that needed to be a hard magic system rather than the author's attempt at a soft magic system.