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★★★☆☆ Buddy read with Nana ! Wow, the Kazu Kibuishi's Amulet parallels just keep getting stronger. Except Amulet is good and idek what this was. It was pretty. I'll give it that. The aesthetic is on point. I had no clue what was happening most of the time, but it sure was pretty. I could barely keep track of the characters, and almost everything that happened was pure self-indulgence. It really took me out of the narrative when certain large sea monsters were spouting certain words that sounded like something straight out of a drunk draft of Nevernight by Jay Kristoff. Also, Corvin gives me ACOTAR x TOG vibes and I'd really rather not rn. The weird Freudian crap going on with Tuya is also very weird and very uncomfortable. Overall, this was just a mess and the next one better be good, because the last one was great. But, I must admit, it was very pretty. Buy the book here: Amazon Book Depository Barnes & Noble

★★★☆☆ The only thing this book really succeeded in was reaffirming why I hate snobby people and their ceaseless contrivances. If you like Gossip Girl, reality TV, and don't mind fake-politeness, then you'll probably really like this. I, however, really didn't. This is a science fiction romantic mess about the most convoluted love dodecahedron you've ever heard of. Here's a brief overview: Person A is in love with person B , who is flirting with person C . Person A and C are best friends. Person D is friends with person A and C , and was in a relationship with person E . Person E is also in a relationship with person F , who's dating person G . Person H is in love with person A , and was hired by person C to spy on person B . Persons A , C , D , F , and H are all main characters. And that's not even the end of it. It goes on and on and on and on and I hated it. Oh, and there's pseudo-incest, if you're into that kinda ...

★★☆☆ I received this ARC from Viking via Goodreads Giveaways in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of this book in any way. All quotes are taken from the uncorrected proof and are subject to change. June 4th. 2019 update: I've decided to up my rating from 2 to 3 stars, the reason being that I've just been thinking about this book a lot, and (while I still don't know what that one chapter said), this book really stuck with me, especially after I read the Hobbit, and realized what that weird dream about food was all about.  update over (original review written January 8th, 2019) This book was a bit of a trip. I feel like I spent 99 nights just trying to read it. "During the whole length of the battle, I was scared of hiding and becoming caught. Of running and being hit. Of shooting and becoming a killer. And all my fears warred inside of me, until they massacred one another, so that it wasn't courage that let me fi...

★★★☆☆ Lol what even was this?? When heart and sword meet, there shall be victory. I've only ever read Turned by Morgan Rice before, and it's one of my favorite so-bad-it's-good books, so I went into this expecting the same level of pure garbage that Rice always delivers. And I definitely got that, but I also got a little something more. This book honestly read like a promising but juvenile first draft. There was definitely something there, and I got some feels from certain events and the atmosphere. Ceres was hot headed and ridiculous, and probably the most cliche fantasy heroine ever, but I liked her. Thanos was definitely my favorite character, except he sometimes was a bit of a sexist pig, but it was so poorly done that I wasn't offended. The plot supposedly takes place over the course of like a week, but with every single chapter ending with some grand cliffhanger about how Ceres' life will never be the same, because she's been kidnapped...

★★★☆☆ I hurried around to the garage door because I really had to pee. What an iconic line. Obligatory Summary Alecia is just a regular Korean-American girl living in Seattle -- at least, she was, until she started doing magic. Then she came across a strange creature in an alley and let him eat half her soul. Now she can see and hear Iverog, but no one else can. When an older relative called Grandpa Dan tells her that he's a wizard, he takes her under his wing. But when her ability to see magical objects bring disastrous results, it's up to her to save Grandpa Dan, with only Iverog and a reluctant FBI agent to help her! My Thoughts I'm not entirely sure what I just read. I think I liked it though. To be quite honest with you, this felt like a parody of 2009 MG fantasy, with some very questionable yet humorous choices (as exhibited in the quote above) and a general disregard for resolving plot holes. But I'd be lying if I said...

★★★☆☆ Throwback to that time in sophomore year of high school when we were reading this in English and learning about psychological disorders in health and everyone was saying that Holden was bipolar and I dropped the truth bomb that he had borderline personality disorder and even had the direct quotes from the book and DSM-V to prove it. The whole class was shook. Buy the book here: Amazon Book Depository Barnes & Noble

★★★☆☆ I read this with Nana , my designated buddy reader hah (pre-review) No one expects a princess to be brutal. Actually, everyone expects a princess to be brutal nowadays. If she isn't then she's ~ weak ~ and a ~ damsel in distress ~ (actual review) Finally freaking done with this. I have some mixed feelings. "Someday you will go, and your life will be blessed for it. But it will not fix you—all your troubles will still be here, waiting. First you should strive to find peace where you are, and then you can make the pilgrimage to celebrate that peace." I honestly expected this to be a 4 star review, or maybe even a 5 star if the book gods were willing. They were not willing, unfortunately. They were very much not willing. I'll start with what I liked: the writing. It was spectacular. Very very very well done! I haven't read a YA book written like that in a long time, and it was extraordinarily refreshing. It was, ho...

★★★☆☆ I received a digital review copy from the author in exchange for an honest review. My opinion is in no way influenced by the author, publisher, or distributor. Sort of like Percy Jackson and the Olympians meets Skyrim, this fantasy short story tells the tale of Segree, an assassin for the Egyptian gods who's task it is to hunt and kill minor Greek gods so that his Egyptian employers can escape their prison. This was a fun little short story, and I liked the concept enough, though it tended to feel more like a RPG and less like a real fantasy world, especially where the mythology was concerned. The writing was generally good, though it often read like passive voice (which I'm not entirely sure it always was) and relied heavily on excessive description. Also, Charon, the main opponent whose scene takes up the vast majority of the story, spoke in incessant third person. To give you an example of how often he said his own name, there were 62 instances of the...

★★★☆☆ I received this ARC from Crooked Lane via BookishFirst in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion in any way. All quotes are taken from the uncorrected proof and are subject to change. When the time came for them to sleep through the night, something would be given: the gift of rejuvenating sleep, essential to life. But like every bargain, something would also be taken: it would be another of those inevitable steps away from her and into themselves. Let it go on, she thought, this beautiful torture, the time of sleepless nights. For as long as it will. Obligatory Summary Lauren Tranter is certain that a strange woman wants to steal her newborn twins and replace them with her own, but no one else believes her; not her husband, not her friends, and certainly not the police. Detective Harper, however, thinks there's more to the situation. After Lauren's twins get briefly abducted, things seem to be coming together, but nothin...

★★★☆☆ I received this eARC from Delacorte Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of this book in any way. All quotes are taken from the uncorrected proof and are subject to change. You have always been lonely and you have never admitted it. Obligatory Summary Tiger Tolliver's mother just died and her whole life has been turned upside down. Traded from foster home to foster home, from strangers to family and back again, she mourns her mother. There is no guide on how to cope with this kind of loss, and she's sinking under the sadness. My Thoughts I am honestly so conflicted about this book. I wanted to like it, I really did, and sometimes I did actually like it, but the writing and execution for me were the biggest issues. It was funny sometimes, but also just so strange. I can't really say what I didn't like about it, I just didn't like it. I had a very hard time connecting with...

★★★☆☆ I'm honestly pretty conflicted about this book. The individual scenes and set pieces were fine, some of them even pretty good, but as a whole, this was just so meh . It didn't make me feel anything. The characters I liked in previous books managed to bore me, and those I didn't care for didn't gain any favors. I think the problem might have been that there were simply too many protagonists and that half of them are far too similar in personality to the other half: Percy and Jason, Frank and Leo, and even Hazel and Piper—they all merged together into one giant mess. The only character I genuinely liked was Hedge, because he's a perpetual riot. I didn't even really enjoy myself until Annabeth started actually doing what she'd set out to do the entire book, and went alone to seek out the statue, and that didn't happen until like 60% through. I think it was just too nonlinear of a plot. I had very little to hold onto and they moved lo...

★★★☆☆ I received this eARC from the author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of this book in any way. All quotes are taken from the uncorrected proof and are subject to change. This would be my freedom: not the flight of a blossom nor even the slow decay of a leaf, but the inexorable plunge of a stone cast into the depths. No more would the webs of Unai constrain me. Obligatory Summary Set to be wed to the son of a lord since birth, a girl struggles to accept her role in life, especially when another lord comes to her home to see her fabled beauty and the two fall madly in love. Destiny has other plans, and the three fall victim to a devastating fate. Based on a Japanese legend. My Thoughts I just couldn't get into this. The writing was fine, though it relied too heavily on metaphors and similes, which became pretty repetitive fairly quickly. I liked each chapter being headed by a different season, and I a...

★★★☆☆ I received this digital copy from Doubleday Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of this book in any way. All quotes are taken from the uncorrected proof and are subject to change. Obligatory Summary Three sisters live alone with only their father and mother, cordoned off by the sea and by the rusting fence and the forest. Once, long ago, their home was a restorative retreat for ailing women seeking their special therapy--the water cure--that claimed to heal them of the wearies of a dying world. Now, they are all alone, with only each other as company, performing their water rituals in solitude. But their father, King disappears, seemingly dead and taken by the sea. And then, worst of all, three men emerge from the sea, and everything changes. The Writing and Worldbuilding Every time I think I am very lonely, it becomes bleaker and more true. You can think things into being. You can dwell them ...

★★★☆☆ Original rating: 5 stars Wow, this was way worse than I remembered it being. This series and this book hold a special place in my heart. It was the thing that got me back into reading, after essentially only reading assigned books during high school. It was fun and intense and I really liked it. That was 2 years ago and oh boy have things changed. Maybe I'm a new person. Maybe my 2 years of vigorous reading have altered my literary priorities. Whatever the reason, I found this to be very poorly written, with awkward pacing and inconsistent characterization. Clary's convictions and opinions fluctuate scene by scene; the only consistent idea she has is that Jace is hot. And speaking of Jace, his behavior makes absolutely no sense!! Their "love story" is built on him quoting Wikipedia and standing next to her. That's not romantic in the slightest. Isabelle's character felt contrived and like Clare was trying too hard to make ...

★★★☆☆ The world was dying, and death did not care who mourned. This was such a disappointment. I'd heard it wasn't as good as Cruel Beauty , which was one of my faves last year, but I didn't think it would be this... meh . I guess I should also say that I don't particularly care for Romeo and Juliet to begin with. The Writing and Worldbuilding The writing was okay. The dialogue felt unnatural for the most part; half direct Shakespeare quotes, half incongruously modern-sounding speech. Juliet's dialogue was particularly bad. Mostly because she was always saying things without emotion. So she basically never expressed any emotion that wasn't righteous indignation. But more on that in a bit. The two different plotlines worked for the most part, but for half the book, I didn't care about Paris's whatsoever while liking Paris himself, and was very intrigued by Runajo's but hated her guts. Paris's story got more inte...

★★★☆☆ This book is simultaneously better and significantly worse than the first book. The Good ~ Caraval seemed to have forgotten that it was a fantasy and needed even the bare minimum of worldbuilding, and so all of the worldbuilding was shoved into this one. Granted, the lore of the Fates and the Stars was kinda awesome, and the specific Fates had a great atmosphere. I really liked that part. ~ The world, besides the magical aspects, was finally expanded and I thought it was okay. Not great but, like I said, bare minimum ~ Jacks in general The Bad ~ Tella in general ~ How was Tella supposed to be 15 freaking years old for the majority of the book? I seriously doubt a 15 year old would do all the stuff she did. The only believable part of it was how much of a naivë fool she was, and that's not necessarily a trait of youth ~ Dante in general ~ Scarlett and Julian (RIP their personalities) ~ The atmosphere of the first book was completely...

★★★☆☆ We are our own memory-keepers, and we have failed ourselves. Honestly, I lowkey hated the first two thirds of this. It was dreadful. Dreadful isn't even the right word for it. It was like a soap opera set in a middle school being relayed to you on the cringest tumblr account imaginable. It was a time capsule from 2009. #10yearchallenge to the extreme. There was no personality. The atmosphere was minimal. Not a single character had a personality. The passing of time as imperceptible -- months passed and I hadn't even known it was a new day. The "love story" is almost nonsensical. Their attraction is explained through exposition and the tension consists of the two of them sitting next to each other. How riveting. Just like the 6th grade. It was just a little bit mind-numbing. This was written similarly to Lois Lowry's  The Giver , and while I love most of her work, I admit that she's has a pretty boring style. It works for middle grade but n...

★★★☆☆ January 9th edit: yall I totally forgot to rename this. Here are all the previous books in case you forgot too: 0.5 The Assassin's Blade AKA Celaena Sardothien and the Cross-Country Murder Spree 1 Throne of Glass AKA Celaena Sardothien and the Weakest Love Triangle 2 Crown of Midnight AKA Celaena Sardothien and the Most Mood-Swings 3 Heir of Fire AKA Celaena Sardothien and the Book She Remembered What Her Real Name Was 4 Queen of Shadows AKA Aelin Galathynius and the Sudden Romance With a Previously Platonic Character 5 Empire of Storms AKA Aelin Galathynius and the Horniest Road Trip Ever 6 Tower of Dawn AKA Chaol Westfall and the Book That Was Good Because Aelin Wasn't In It 7 Kingdom of Ash AKA Aelin Galathynius and the Deus Ex Army-Out-of-Nowhere Machina (original review before I read it) What I want to happen: ~Aelin dies and stays dead (good riddance) ~Dorian stops being a gross sexist pig, or dies ~Rowan can die too tbh ~Manon kills her ...

★★★☆☆ Dec 18th, 2018 update: I've been thinking about it more and I'm gonna lower my rating from 4 to 3 stars since tbh this book is trash and really doesn't stick with you afterwards. (The review has been appropriately changed to reflect this.) ~~~ Hope is a powerful thing. Some say it’s a different breed of magic altogether. Elusive, difficult to hold on to. But not much is needed. A simple, easy-to-read novel that's a good thing to shut your brain off and read. It dips its toes into depth but doesn't delve deep, and overall paints a nice enough picture. I found the world not particularly interesting but that's just because nothing at all was fleshed out. There are no info dumps because there was no setting exposition. This book takes place in a proverbial white room. The time period parallels were impossible to figure out, though I'm thinking it's early 20th century or perhaps late 19th. Also...was the "foreign" lan...

★★★☆☆ Me to this book: "Spare me your self-centered teen angst." So this improved on the overall plot of the series but still suffered from plotholes and unresolved and unsatisfying plotlines. The world and people did not feel real at all and the time travel mess only confused the lore without adding any explanations. The climax held no tension; so much happened where Penryn wasn't there to narrate that I once again felt like I was reading only half of the book. Raffe and Penryn's relationship was so wishy washy. Like, one moment, Penryn was like "ooh baby let's get it on" and Raffe was like "sure thing babe" and then suddenly he'd be like "oh wait heck no" even though he's constantly flirting with her (view spoiler) [and KNEW THE WHOLE TIME that Daughters of Men and angels don't make demon babies but never thought to think about the implications of that in the politics of his world for longer than two s...