Bianca

I liked the story and its flow very much. There were twists which weren't expected (for me at least). The characters are likeable and understandable in their actions, which isn't always given.

The thing I struggled with, was the language. It's not a bad writing style (I think it is quite beautiful written), but as english is not my first language, I kept looking up words every second sentence. This really ruined the reading flow for me personally.

I'll really recommend this book if you don't struggle with erudite english language.

Keep in mind,I received this novel from Story Cartel in exchange for an unbiased review.

Oh god I hated this book. Due to the fact the other two books weren't good for me, I expected to like this more. The beginning was good: Half french girl? Check, so we have a person that can speak french in the School of America in Paris. A not so stupid love interest with interests I could understand? Check. Possibly more logical girl? Nah.

But after 60 pages it all went down the river.

I had real problems when Josh and Isla were in the finish art exhibit and were super jerks to the artists. Ok, I get that not all art is pleasing for everyone. Did they (including an artist) being so jerky? nope. At this point (1/5 of the book) the “artist” characteristics of Josh died for me. A few chapters later, Isla and Josh are talking about La Louvre and other famous old art galleries and are admiring the heck out of them. Ok, old art is, also in my opinion, more pleasing than the new, abstract art. But then the scenes in Barcelona. Gaudí is an artist in the catalonian modernism. It sound so pretentious that he like one art without reasons other than it's beautiful and hates on other art. I don't get it as an artist myself.

At the point of Barcelona and the shocking not so shocking effects of it afterwards, I almost threw my ereader across the room. Due to the fact that I didn't had my physical copy with me, I switched to my computer so that it was harder to throw.

I feel like Kurt, the only sane person with a brain in this goddamn book. The more I read about him and Isla, the more I questioned why they were even friends.

Other Problems I had:
- even the mild stalking is stalking
- Isla is praised as being smart but she's almost as dumb as Anna
- I didn't understood Kurt's mental health issues as they weren't shown to us. I was not convinced that weekly activities like pizza oder sushi night would make a overly structure
- The french: I am an almost native french speaker since my grand-père is french. So I noticed a few weird sentences. Some were more like textbook or translation french but this one urks me to no end:

in chapter 22: “mon bébés” -> mes bébés it's called plural. If you write french, make sure it is grammatically correct. Or the editor should know french. -.-

- Isla's impulsiveness:
also chapter 22: “It's a freaking soap opera.” Like your life isn't one.

- Unbelievableness:
chapter 25: Yeah, totally realistic given the acceptance rates of these both universities are the other way around. Also: If Isla doesn't know what she wants to do in the future for what did she apply for? In France especially Sorbonne, you need to know your “major” before applying. We still don't know what she wants to do in the end of the book as for her major!

- The ending: it was rushed given the 50+ pages of Isla ignoring Josh. The redemption wasn't there. For neither of these characters

- The “couples coming together”: I felt that Lola and her boyfriend weren't depicted as they were in the previous book and it was weird

- The constant mentioning of Étienne loving Anna: I felt like this was done to “improve” the not spoken out reasons in Anna and the French Kiss to give reasons for Étiennes behaviour. So why wasn't this in the first book? It doesn't redeem the fact what happened in book one.

- The ironicness of the use of the term “happily ever after” in the middle of the book

I'm done. I love Stephanie Perkins short stories but I find to much flaws in the full length novels.

3 stars.
This was quite enjoyable altough I had my problems with the book.

- Anna was naive and judging. All. the. fucking. time! She assumed things about her friends and family (or more like Étiennes family) without asking or knowing them a bit. This combines with the next point drived me nuts and I put the book down for the last 50 pages.
- Show don't tell. Despite a few conversations there wasn't much ‘evil' doing from his father. He was mean but not as mean as told.
- Miscommunication of doom.
- The bullying aspect was unnessesary and not resolved at all. The little help Lola gave wasn't really a good measurement to give a good lesson except ‘bullying is bad'.


The cheating aspect wasn't my issue. Since we only saw Ellie like.... 10 pages? For me, it felt like Ellie wasn't even there (despite the fact that Anna lost her own head over her like every third page).

Lowering my rating to 2 stars because in contrast to Lola and Isla, Anna had a serious case of double standards (slutshaming, I'm not like other girls syndrome, egocentric behaviour towards her own friends, etc.).

– DNF at 80% –

Back in 2009 I got this book as a birthday present in german. I began it and laid it away after two or three chapters. I wasn't captivated by it and blamed it on my reading habit back in the day (which was mainly time travelling and sci-fi). So it began to gather dust on my bookshelf until a month ago. I picked it up und began to read all over. But I didn't get far. Three quarters in now I am so frustrated with this book that I will stop it now and plan on never take it in my hands ever again. Here are the reasons why:

I can not stand the main protagonist. She behaves sometimes like a 5 year old, sometimes like 12 years old but NEVER according or near her age, which is 16 almost 17. She's naive, dumb and changes her world view every two sentences, particularly in the middle of the book where she is thinking about who she can and who she cannot trust.
The love story was predictable and very weird since Gwendolyn has no steady thoughts and changes between girly-oh-my-god-boys-are-so-cool-mode and i-am-not-interested-mode back and forth (at least up to the point where I have read).
Also the writing style was not my cup of tea. For me it's a weird mix of easy and complex words and sentences which kept my stumbling over the words although I am a native german reader. It felt quite... forced. The jokes are, in my opinion, as stupid as hell and also quite forced. Even in passages where explainations are done there are always jokes interspersed which took out the seriousness of the topic for me.
I tried to read the english translation and must say it fits the theme better than the original german version, at least in my opinion.

If you haven't read many time travelling books and do not mind having a supernaive protagonist, then this could be for you. But for me, it ends here.

dnf after 20%

this not witty this is petty and dumb. no character I meet in these pages is likeable or funnily unlikeable. The main character is so infuriating noisy and full of herself, I asked myself what is wrong with her or myself.

I am now debating if I ever will want to read any book of this author.

3.5 Stars

Oh man this was a ride. A bumpy ride.

The first half was good young adult fantasy with a dash of romance. Then it straight up went to steamy romantasy teritory and the last third was just a whirlwind of plot.

The plot had so many inconsistencies: how can Xaden fall of his saddle if every rider except Violet doesn't use one? how can a group of students be missing for only a day if the flight between the post and the academy takes 10 hours one way (so 20h of total flight time)?

These inconsistencies nerved me to no end which soured my enjoyment of the book immensely.

I loved the character progression of Violet and will at least read the next book.

It's a rollercoaster of stupidness. The maicharacter is so indecisive and naive, it hurts. Character growth? It flies out of the window every second page.
The first third was good. And then we switch between a sex descriptions/ sex talk and actual relationship.

It's not hate to love, it's not slowburn. It's just a ditzy stupid blonde with miscommunication

I don't see what people like about this book. The main character is neither lovable nor consistent in her actions. Every plot “twist”/ direction could be seen from a mile away.
Part of it reads like a young adult with a “nothing can go wrong” attitude and the next scene is trying to hit heavier topics.

I don't understand what was tried to achieve with this book.

Ah a light, fluffy asian romance? Sign me in. Did it meet my expectation? Nope.
Izumi is annoying and does only improve for a few sentences for then to go back to stupid behavior. The romance wad very flat and the cultural references where sadly very basic (I hoped for more out there references or more discourse about tradional vs modern japan).
Even for a fast language learner, Kanji is not the way to start.

I love random facts since I was a child. So naturally I read a few books about them.
This one still surprised me. The illustrations were interesting and unique and most of the facts were new to me. The facts are grouped in parts i.e. science, nature and history. Each fact or facts to a certain theme (like frogs) are distinguishably designed and illustrated.


Thanks to Netgalley for providing a copy in exchange of an honest review.

Okay. This book made me angry and pushed me in an almost month long reading slump.

I hated the romance. I hated the plot since I saw almost every plot twist miles away (since it is quite formulatic). It made me even hate Chaol and Yrene more.

With every redeeming thing Chaol had done, he does at least one non redeemable thing. The back and forth of the romance like a broken lightswitch got on my very nerves and didn't help my enjoyment. Also not everything needs to be a mating thing.

The writing was good as always but that doesn't help the problematic ways the story uses Chaols “disabilty” being curable through magic, love and a little bit of self reflection got over my head.

I pushed through because I had a similar feeling it would be like Queen of Shadows were I liked the ending but it would be a rocky ride there (snd almost everyone loves this book). It wasn't.

3.5 stars.

The beginning was good but the last two to three chapters had given of a different tone than the previous chapters and I didn't like the shifted tone as much as the beginning. Don't get me wrong it is important to talk about grief and lost and handling emotions but the messages conveyed here where not as impactful and unique (in a sense of not as often portrayed/ seen in other books).

3.5 Stars.

Okay this is a tough one. I loved the book in some aspects and hated it for others. As a book and as a continuation/companion to Fangirl, this didn't live up to my hopes and expectations. But as a fanfiction it is quite nice and I'm going to treat it as such.

I loved:
- The writing
- the romance (that's what we were here for)
- the overall plot

I hated:
- the way the story was portrayed (so messy and all over the place; I'm fine with jumping into the middle - or more the end - of the story not knowing anything but most plotpoints were predictable as hell)
- the girls (Agatha got on my nerves on the first page she was on, Penelope got dull over the course of the book; So my reading was slowed down. Everytime I had a Penelope/Agatha chapter coming I couldn't really bring myself to read it. So the good old “just one more chapter” lie was not going on here...)
- the ending/epilogue (I mean what's so super duper great about this? It's a nice open ended epilogue but it still feels.... off. I would have wished for either anouther outcome or more description in the epilogue)
- the super jumping perspective switches (one sentence, next person is not a good and fast paced structure; for me, this ruins tension and plot building)

This book was just ok for me. The plot and characters were nothing breathtaking as I found the story quite troopy and sometimes overexaggerating. The world building is done nicely but still remained a bit flat (It doesn't always have to be otherworldly breathtaking but describing a world like ours with just a few twists and emphasizing that it's not our world, bugs me a little bit). I didn't particularly like how the time flew... or rather jumped while characters remained mostly static. The “torture” is not as brutal as I tought it was going to be and it was more of psychological mind games to me than real torture itself.

The main character is so driven by a, for me, exaggerated reason and given her revenge, she was just average. Not the whiny, naive protagonist, I give her that, but also not groundbreaking. I liked other characters such as Latha more. Vic's thoughts are so irritating and made me hate her a quarter into the book.



I received this book as an e-arc from netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

1. The Blood of Imuriv by Renée Ahdieh - 4.5/5 stars
   2. Jack by Ameriie - 2/5 stars
   3. Gwen and Art and Lance by Soman Chainani - 4/5 stars
   4. Shirley & Jim by Susan Denard -3.5/5 stars
   5. The Blessing of Little Wants by Sarah Enni -3.5/5 stars
   6. The Sea Witch by Marissa Meyer - 4.5/5 stars
   7. Beautiful Venom by Cindy Pon - 4/5 stars
   8. Death Knell by Victoria Schwab - 4/5 stars
   9. Marigold by Samantha Shannon - 5/5 stars
   10. You, You, It's All About You by Adam Silvera - 3.5/5 stars
   11. Julian Breaks Ever Rule by Andrew Smith - 1/5 stars
   12. Indigo and Shade by April Genevieve Tucholke - 4.5/5 stars
   13. Sera by Nicola Yoon - 3.5/5 stars
   
   Overall: 3.6 stars