I’ll be honest after an ensorcelling beginning that had me swirled up in its world for the first several chapters I did not love the middle of this boI’ll be honest after an ensorcelling beginning that had me swirled up in its world for the first several chapters I did not love the middle of this book and found it tough to keep going through some of its more witchy and slightly twee parts where we were doing a few too many winks to the camera for us in the know for me on top of that but OH MAN from the first page of Part II to the end it was so so fucking good! Like sucked into a vortex read the rest in twenty-four hours good. Stay in it for those last 100 pages WHAT a payoff. ...more
It’s really so much better when I don’t hate the FMC. Like, she is a little annoying in another immature way just like the first book but we’ve come aIt’s really so much better when I don’t hate the FMC. Like, she is a little annoying in another immature way just like the first book but we’ve come a long way so it is a slightly more understandable annoying. It’s still immature as fuck tho and I still did want to scream at her a lot. We need to get a whole lot more places before I want to stop shaking her but I’m on board for going all those places now. Especially now that Blake is going to be there no matter what.
Oh also: hello complicated secondary characters. Often promised, rarely delivered, I love a ton of you. And as long as we don’t go full Tamlin on Callum’s ass I am ok with the turn we are most certainly taking in book three. Which I would like nownownownow please....more
Man the beginning of this was awful. So stiff. So bad. So cringe, as the kids say. But also… so not what it ended up being!! Around the 25% mark or soMan the beginning of this was awful. So stiff. So bad. So cringe, as the kids say. But also… so not what it ended up being!! Around the 25% mark or so a very interesting character was introduced and things started looking up. Then another complicated one was introduced and that also helped. Then the FMC stopped being insufferable and it got GOOOOOOOOOD. I get now the beginning was a character growth choice but I still think there must have been a better way to go about it bc I almost gave up. So glad I didn’t bc then I got Outlander the werewolf version and I was INTO it. ...more
I loved Freddie in this, loved his sister, loved James and Ellis, loved the mom, loved Cricket… I did not love Anne. Not until the last twenty pages oI loved Freddie in this, loved his sister, loved James and Ellis, loved the mom, loved Cricket… I did not love Anne. Not until the last twenty pages or so and even then it wasn’t long enough to settle in with her. The martyrdom and self righteousness about what she did was A LOT and the judgy way she felt about Freddie was worse. I get that it’s obviously tainted by bitterness and regret and needing to feel right but man I wanted more from her. I also wanted her to be less morally in the clear, it’s better that way and makes her kinder in the novel when she is conscious of her errors not a saint of forbearance- that is not what she was in the book. I liked her less for it. The Theo thing also felt less than compelling and also less gross than it should have been in the end, the dad less of a factor than he should be, the favored older sister kind of an important missing element. It did make me want to re-read the original again though and I do love that....more
This was a book about two actually nice, funny, smart, compassionate, mature adults falling in love in a believably slow, gradual way that was a pleasThis was a book about two actually nice, funny, smart, compassionate, mature adults falling in love in a believably slow, gradual way that was a pleasure to read. Honestly it was such a relief after all the possessive dark enemies to lovers crap that is just saturating book spaces online these days that I keep trying and keep being at least half disappointed by. This was great. More lovely humans who love each other and don’t need to be the center of the universe mode beautiful best at everything to be loved or to love and who don’t have sexual trauma as a necessary precursor to them being a romantic lead. They literally talk frequently about how lucky they are to be unimportant.
There was some politics and some fight scenes here too and a bit of overdone eeeevvvillllllll that was a touch over the top for me (and under motivated/under character drawn hence subtracting a star) and it looks like book two is gonna be a lot of that and I just hope that we keep the focus on lovely people being lovely just as much. Bc that was her strength. I would read ten more books of that. ...more
Ukrainian Soviet-coded harsh dark academia landscape where grammar and linguistics are magic and it’s all a metaphor for learning and growing up. I wiUkrainian Soviet-coded harsh dark academia landscape where grammar and linguistics are magic and it’s all a metaphor for learning and growing up. I will admit I thought that this dragged in the middle and the metaphor went on a bit too long and could be rather heavy handed at times but it got really good as it rushed towards the conclusion. Reminded me of my best students at so many points. The celebration and elation in breaking free and expanding one’s mind was poetic and lovely. Ended on a great cliffhanger. ...more
Oh man this was some good shit. It’s all the worst, most toxic, most addicting parts of being a theatre kid. It’s the most melodramatic, overwrought, Oh man this was some good shit. It’s all the worst, most toxic, most addicting parts of being a theatre kid. It’s the most melodramatic, overwrought, what you think in the high fever of adolescent hormones acting and acting people will always be like. It got my heart racing in ways I have been trying to recover from since I realized I could not take the behind the scenes of theatre in college- the toxic, but swirling deep emotions that got me in so much trouble before I worked on myself, but which I sometimes still miss today, as bad for me as they were. I miss loving something and being obsessed with something so deeply and being surrounded by people who felt the same- or dreaming of that. This is what I always tell people about how I can’t be anything else after being Catholic, it’s what Graham Greene said in Brighton Rock about what is right and wrong when you have tasted good and evil- it’s that red meat that is so bad for me and I still get a high from when I find it. It is like the Secret History for Shakespeare nerds and theatre kids and I mean that in the best way possible in the sense that I never fell for it with the deep love some people have for that one because I did not love Classics in that way and thus I saw all the flaws you see when you don’t get swept away by the passion as the characters do. But I DO love Shakespeare that way. And so. My Shakespeare devotees, my former theater kids, my former goth princesses and emo kings, gather about this book, and let these lovers and madmen who apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends lead you to understand how all the story of the night told over, And all their minds transfigured so together More witnesseth than fancy's images And grows to something of great constancy; But, howsoever, strange and admirable....more
I liked this and found it sweet and of course an Important Topic and well observed about the layers of morality and shades of morality , especially amI liked this and found it sweet and of course an Important Topic and well observed about the layers of morality and shades of morality , especially among disempowered people or those who feel they are so. I don’t love it like other people but I liked it. ...more
I did not fall in love with this the way everyone else seems to have done. It seemed rather saccharine, rather Hallmark special, dragged out beyond whI did not fall in love with this the way everyone else seems to have done. It seemed rather saccharine, rather Hallmark special, dragged out beyond when the “mystery” was clear. I did not have an emotionally inscrutable (as the author terms her in the acknowledgements ) formal Swedish grandmother and so did not attach to Tova beyond simple human sympathy for her situation. I found Cameron the self-hating fuck up by far the most compelling character, although of course Marcellus actually drew the most tears from me because thinking about what we do to captive marine animals even if they are fed and well treated was gonna tear jerk a river from the Free Willy loving second grader who lives inside me no matter what. The end was lovely even if it was saccharine and pat and I did get a little glow from it- and hey we need that these days so I absolutely cannot knock it. I don’t understand the extreme love and hype- but I can’t find it within me to hate on it either. So I’ll leave it at lovely and fine, but just fine. ...more
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