Jo

This book makes me want to live.

It feels like a reminder. A reminder of the moment I realised that I didn't want to die and the years long journey of reaching a point where I wanted to live.

I had this book recommended to me as an audiobook and that is how I experienced it. I can highly recommend it in turn.

I hated this book. I had to read it for English class and I hated every part of it. All of it made me want to curl into a ball and wretch.
The depiction of heaven sounds like my absolute worst nightmare - hell, if you will.
The only sympathetic character in all this was the mother because I could relate to her desire to escape the whole situation that is this book.
I imagine there will be plenty of people who like this book but the best I can say for it is that even years later it still has he capacity to stir me to incredible ire.

Weird as book. Still a weird as book. The first third reads like a prologue, the second third lays the stage, and the third truly shows the power of exasperated spite as a motivator. The sidekick is the main character and remains the sidekick. His exasperation throughout and him coming into his own are the best parts about this book. Some interesting, though mostly nonsensical world building. Some excellent discussions on deities that distinctly shaped my mind when I was little.

I started this book and found myself needing to surrender to not understanding, to letting the knowing grow in the experiencing of it. It was a feeling and a rising clarity that beautifully mirrored the story itself.
That is the one word I would use to describe this book - beautiful. It was unlike anything I have read before and it was a joy to experience.
Lovely, lovely little story.

Very sweet story and an excellent pallet cleanser if you are suffering from a heavy book hangover.
The story and characters are fun, engaging, and heartwarming.
I felt a bit old for this story. I think 16 year old me probably would have gotten the biggest kick out of it but it's a fun read outside of that age anyway.
I was also amused at the political shade towards recent events in the US and the UK.
Nice, feel-good read. Can recommend.

I really enjoyed this book. The world building is excellent and I thoroughly loved how we learned about it from different angles, people, and cultures to slowly paint a cohesive picture.
The characters feel alive and while I can only claim to like very few of them, I was intrigued by all of them.
The book changes points of view regularly and spans across continents. I was continuously invested in every strand of the story and eager to watch it weave together.
A thoroughly enjoyable read. Also, I liked the dragons :)

I fell in love with this story when I first read it when I was about 12 years old and read it over and over. Now, over 16 years later, I decided to pick it up again. While I am far more critical of some of the content these days, I still enjoyed the story very much. It was a very nostalgic re-read for me.

I was highly entertained by this story and it was just the right kind of lighthearted, trashy romance I needed to unwind after a couple of very busy months.
That said... it's not good literature. Also, the words “squelching” and “frothing” should, at the latest, not survive the editing stage when writing intimate scenes.
Still, a very fun time of fantasy fulfilment from having many male lovers, to intimacy and love, to showing the people from high school that you are living your best life.
I recommend keeping your expectations low and enjoying the ride.

I unexpectedly... hated this book. If you're looking for a cute LGBT+ romance - this isn't it. If you're looking for a likable protagonist - this isn't it. And that's the crux of the issue, I hate Rafe. He is in turns judgemental about everyone, woe is me about being ‘labled', and self-congratulatory about how open minded he is. It drove me nuts! I finished this book in the hopes of satisfying character growth. Alas, this did not happen.

The first third is essentially an edgy ‘Beauty and the Beast' retelling followed by a plot that devolves into mythology/every-fairy-tale-ever bargain with three tasks.
The characters are often frustrating and half the time the ‘attractive' men came off as mercurial (if I am being kind) or emotionally unstable (if I am not).
That said, I read this book in two days. The ending is satisfying and I had a really good time yelling at the protagonist.
All in all I can't in good conscience call it a good book but I can say it was oddly enjoyable to read despite that.

It reads like an epic - a fairy tale - in the best way.
I loved the main character and I loved falling in love with the hero through him.
There is so much heartache in watching the hero grow from boy to man and watching him lose his humanity to his pride, only to be reminded that he is startlingly, heartbreakingly human in his grief.
I was unprepared for the amount of mentioned sexual assault in this story, particularly as the men often treat it as a given and accepted normal reality. Definite trigger warning on that.
I cried my eyes out by the end and there are many beautiful and aching passages in the book. Worth a read.

It's a beautiful story. An odd little story that doesn't tell you where it's going for most of its telling but coming along for the journey is a beautiful, funny, heartaching, worthwhile ride. Perhaps my favourite thing about this story is how human the love in it is. Love in so many ordinary forms, each extraordinary with how much just a couple of lines could touch my heart. Beautiful story. I really enjoyed this.

It reads a bit like a Christmas themed fanfiction. It's a sweet story with warm fires, snow, good food and gift giving. It's cute but has little purpose beyond letting the characters heal a bit and setting up the next book. It was a nice comfort read but it also reaffirmed for me that I am happy to move on to a different series and author for a while.

I enjoyed this book thoroughly!
I kept getting told this book is spicy (and it is) but it is about so much more than that. It's about trauma and healing, about the love of family - both born and found. About the enduring strength of female friendships.
I will always quibble about this series often less than stellar world building but it fades away in the face of how thoroughly enjoyable the stories are.
I loved it! I had a really good time reading it.

I've always loved the concept of ‘‘found family'' and this incredibly lovable cast of disasters has introduced me to a slightly altered version I have been lovingly calling ‘‘found clusterf-‘'. This whole trilogy was made by the characters - all unique, interesting, and many going through incredibly intense character arcs. I enjoyed this very much.

I wanted to like this book. I really did but...
It started off entertaining enough and the action scenes were gripping and enjoyable.
Unfortunately, that is where the praise leaves me. The heroine as well as the love interest feel two dimensional. I didn't so much feel like I was being introduced to her as I was supposed to feel like I could be her. The love interest is... problematic. I enjoyed the ‘bad boy banter' but his actions stretch the term ‘dubious consent' on numerous occasions in ways that are excused because ‘from him she likes it' - and while we know this as the reader, he definitely cannot be sure of this.
Unfortunately, the book is also wholly predictable with every single plot twist not so much foreshadowed as spelled out in neon lights.
Despite all this I actually had a good time reading it for most of the story but the last hundred pages or so just got drastically worse and worse.

Thank you. If I could tell the author anything, it would be ‘Thank you'.
I used to be an avid reader and I have not finished a book in over ten year. But yesterday a friend handed me this book and said, ‘I think you would like this'.
And I bought it because I wanted to be the kind of person that still buys books for joy, that still reads them.
And I did. I sat down and I got drawn in and I kept coming back to it. And I fell a little bit in love with reading it.
I cried reading this story - from joy, from sadness, because sometimes it just aches to finally have words giving name to something previously intangible.
It's a beautiful way to remember how very revolutionary, how fulfilling, it is to live.