I am blown away!!! That ending was absolute brilliance. Between the romance (gosh, Rhysand is just to die for), the action, the characters and their development, the world building and various settings, and plot twists (there were so many but all of them were so good!), this book was beyond words!!!
First of all, the cast of this book was just spectacular! We were introduced to so many new characters, and each and every one of them was as well developed as the last. They all had very unique and fascinating backstories and were so easy to fall in love with. In just one book, everyone in Ryhs' Inner Circle has become so near and dear to my heart and I am very excited to continue on this journey with them! Even some of the smaller characters that we only spent a short amount of time with were so well created and memorable. My favourite was the Bone Reader, but the Weaver and Tarquin were also great. It was also very exciting to see more of this complex and interesting world. We got to visit so many fascinating places! Velaris was so awesome and most definitely my favourite. However, the Prison was eerie and intimidating, as was the Court of Nightmares. I also very much enjoyed visiting the summer court with the sea setting and the Weaver's home.
Secondly, Feyre's growth and development was incredibly realistic and beautiful, and inspiring! At the beginning of the story she was silently struggling and suffering so much and Tamlin as well as everyone else in the court was completely ignoring it. Tamlin continued to ignore her needs and lock her in the hose to ensure that she would not get hurt. I liked Tam's character in the first book, so it was really disappointing and frustrating to see him acting like such a jerk. The way that Feyre's PTSD was written was flawless. She had become so numb and empty, losing the will to even live, which broke my heart into a billion pieces. However, as the book progressed and once she was able to escape from Tamlin, she very slowly began to heal and morphed into the most bad-ass, fierce warrior and I was so here for it!!! Who doesn't love a strong female lead? I also love how selfless and understanding she is! When she gave the water wraith all of her jewelry because she didn't have enough money or food, I was SO HAPPY!!! I especially loved that the decision ended up saving Feyre and Amren's lives. I was so curious for the entire book, waiting to see if the water wraiths would do something to sort of repay the debt, and I was very pleased with the way it all played out!
At the beginning of the book (when she was still with Tamlin) the week that she had with Rhysand every month was exceptional! I adored the way that he took notice to her suffering and HE DID SOMETHING! He saw how much weight she was losing, he knew that each night she was haunted by the events under the mountain, and HE CARED! Unlike some people *cough* Tamlin *cough*... At this point in the story, most of his character and motives remained a mystery, but it was soooo interesting to see little glimpses of his true character! Though I must say that my favourite part was when he was teaching Feyre to read and all of the sentences were about himself - it was so funny and typical of him!
My only complaint is with how the romance ended up playing out. The first 500 pages were pure gold to me. I was obsessed with Feyre and Rhysand's relationship!! There was such tension between them and the banter was natural and flirtatious. However, they also had faced a lot of darkness in their past and could relate to each other on such a strong level. It was almost immediately obvious that they were absolutely perfect for each other, but they had a lot to work through before they could begin their relationship. (As a side note, hearing about Rhysand's time under the mountain was heart shattering! I want to kill Amarantha all over again for what he forced him to do. But he is so brave and selfless I can't handle it!)Both of them had their own demons to face and were dealing with a lot of guilt, but I feel like they helped each other work through it, even before they were together. The progression that they made from acquaintances (I'm not really sure how else to describe it), to friends, to lovers was very realistic and the perfect slow burn romance. It was so flawlessly done I'm at a loss for words. All I really know is that is was an absolute thrill to read about and I simply could not get enough of it. However, for me, things got a little screwed up with the mates plot twist. If they had found out that they were mates, or maybe Rhysand had known for a little while but didn't want to make Feyre feel pressured or anything, I think it would have been great. What I HATED was the fact that Rhys had known Feyre was his mate basically forever. Every single thing that happened between them in the first two books had been orchestrated by Rhysand. I disliked how he showed up at the Spring Court to meet her, when all along I had thought it was just a coincidence. All of those things that he did for her under the mountain that I thought he was doing to ensure her survival and the breakage of the curse (and also to piss off Tamlin) was actually because she was his mate. Also, he apparently had visions of her before they even met....? Could we get any more ridiculous or cliche? In all honesty, I feel like this entire mating this as a whole is kind of dumb and I would like it better if it was not a part of the story. Also, the way that Feyre and Rhysand kept calling each other "my mate" was VERY irritating! For the last hundred or so pages of the book it would be like "my mate did this", "my mate did that", and IT WAS SO ANNOYING!!! The mates plot twist aside, this was one of my favourite romances to read and I'm just about dying in anticipation of what's to come for them.
Oooh, also, there were many, many wonderful quotes, but this one has to be my favourite of the all: “He thinks he'll be remembered as the villain in the story. But I forgot to tell him that the villain is usually the person who locks up the maiden and throws away the key. He was the one who let me out.”
As I mentioned before, the ending of the story was phenomenal!!!! So brilliantly and flawlessly put together - truly genius! Again, I am speechless. I also am really, really excited to see Feyre in Tamlin's court again acting as a deceitful spy. I'm so interested to see how it all plays out and also if Lucien will be able to redeem himself from his actions in this book. I very much liked his character in the first book and was quite disappointed in him this time around. I really that he was better than allowing Tam to treat Feyre like a pet the way he did. Especially because I know that he wanted to help, but was afraid to speak up too much - not that I blame him entirely though because Tamlin had seriously gone insane and had become unpredictable.
This is 100% a book that I could see myself reading again and I'm sure I will in the future, perhaps when the entire series has been released....more
The title doesn't lie; this book is CHAOS. I went into the book with very high expectations, and while I did enjoy it, I was left a little disappointed.
Overall, I really liked the writing style. There was a strong balance between the current events of the story and the flashbacks to her life with Lottie and visits with her therapist, which helped give the book a nice pacing. I also really enjoyed the titled chapters, something that I adore but don't see all that often any more. Despite all of the bouncing around between different timelines, the story was clear and easy to follow. I actually loved the flashbacks with Lottie! Her character was vibrant and full of life and it was easy to understand why Ryn was struggling so much without her.
On that note, this story tackled grieving wonderfully. It was often painful and heartbreaking to see Ryn crumbling apart without her best friend, but that's what made it so raw and realistic. Finally seeing Ryn overcome these challenges and face reality on her own was triumphing.
My main issue with this book is how realistic the story actually was. As I already mentioned, I loved reading about Lottie and seeing Ryn grieving and trying to survive without her best friend - that was realistic. However, most of the events that occurred in the airport, were not at all realistic to me. Almost everything just seemed to be a bit too far out: 1) The child genius prodigy, Troy, drove me nuts. His vocabulary was flat-out ridiculous. Absolutely no one, and I mean NO ONE speaks the way that he did. It was incredibly irritating and so, so unrealistic. I honestly feel like his character took a lot away from the story because it was difficult to focus on or take scenes that he was involved in seriously. I found myself rolling my eyes at half of what came out of his mouth. Prime example: "'This is the perfect example of common sense tripping over the frivolity of bureaucratic red tape,; the boy argues. 'I am fully capable of using the lavatory myself.'" [image] It's actually really sad because I feel like if he were made out to be a more normal, realistic person, he would have been a very valuable character. 2) Many of the scenes between Ryn and Xander felt far-fetched. The scene in which Xander sang to Ryn in the airport felt phony, as did the scene where the surfed the train. The whole aftermath of that with the airport security felt weirdly unrealistic to me. 3)Ryn's relationship with the character Siri also felt a little bizarre to me. Siri basically stole Ryn's cell phone after knowing her for only a matter of hours. She kept her phone in her pocket and used it to make phone calls and do whatever else she needed to do with it, which forced Ryn to follow her around and attend the New Year's party. I find it quite difficult to believe that anyone would just take a stranger's phone like that in order to force them to attend a little party. This really took away from the story for me because I could never see something like this actually happening. It's disappointing when the story of Ryn's grieving is so well done, but elements like these make the book feel like a joke. [image] 4) There were too many coincidences. Between Ryn and Xander bumping into each other and having the exact same phone case and the discovery of Xander's true identity, it was a little much and sometimes difficult to believe in addition to all of the other bizarre occurrences.
I was also quite disappointed by the setting of the novel. The Christmas season is by far my favourite time of year, so it's no surprise that I love to read anything and everything set at this time. A story in which the characters are stranded in an airport on New Year's Eve sounded promising, but it fell short for me. The snowy cover, which I adore, sent a strong wintry vibe that made me so excited to dive into the story, but the book itself didn't deliver. I was so ready for a sweet wintry, Hallmark movie type of setting, but it was literally just an airport. I did not at all get the wintry feel that I was hoping for - it pretty much could have been set in an airport at any time of year and it wouldn't have made much difference.
All in all, it's a good book if you're looking for something about grieving and dealing with death, but don't pick it up for the setting....more
A Trick of the Light is a book that I’ve been wanting to read for years, and I’m so glad that I finally picked it up. It was a very well-written, unique, and thought-provoking story. It was down-right terrifying at times, as well as quite eye-opening.
The idea to write this book from the perspective of anorexia was so brilliant and unique. I can’t think of any other books I’ve read that are narrated by something other than a character, although I believe The Book Thief does something similar with death being the narrator. I think that this writing style added so much dimension to the book and made for a very fascinating and entirely unforgettable read.
This is the first and only book I have ever seen that is about a boy with an eating disorder. It’s really unfortunate that this demographic is never represented in literature, because even though a lot of people seem to view anorexia and other eating disorders as things that only girls struggle with, a lot of men do too. According to the statistics in the book (which is a few years old), of the 10 million people in the USA with eating disorders, 10% of them are male. That means that there are one million men in the USA struggling with an eating disorder, and yet you never see books or movies or anything about it, or at least I don’t. That is why representation is so, so important!! Mental illness does not discriminate - it can affect anyone of any age and gender, and it’s time that we start seeing more diversity when it comes to mental illness representation in books.
Furthermore, I liked how short the book was because I was able to fly right through it. However, I feel like the ending was rushed and I would have liked to have seen that part drawn out a bit longer.
A Trick of the Light certainly left an impression on me; this is a story that I will remember for many years to come. ...more
This started off amazing - I immediately fell in love with Sutter and I couldn't keep a smile off my face for the first half or so of the book. But afThis started off amazing - I immediately fell in love with Sutter and I couldn't keep a smile off my face for the first half or so of the book. But after that, I began to lose interest. Don't get me wrong, it was still good! Just not quite as spectacular (no pun intended) as the beginning was. Overall, it was an enjoyable read, but I probably liked the movie a tiny bit better.
Also, for some reason, the song "You May Be Right" by Billy Joel makes me think of Sutter....more
This book was so much fun! I read this book totally on a whim, simply because the synopsis sounded really fun! It sounded like a cute rom-com and hate turning into love is a trope that I love, so this book sounded absolutely perfect for me! This was actually the second adult novel that I have ever read, with the first being Me Before You. Because of this, I was a little nervous because I wasn't sure how it would differ from the YA that I'm used to. Surprisingly, other than older protagonists and a few more mature scenes, it wasn't all that different. I suppose I was expecting some sort of advanced writing style or something, but I found the writing style to be pretty well the same as most young adult books that I've read. I feel like after reading this one the adult genre seems so much less intimidating and I will definitely be more willing to venture a little bit out of my comfort zone in YA.
I adored the setting the novel! I think it would be amazing to work at a publishing company, so it was really interesting to see what it was like at the office. The setting also oddly reminded me of Geronimo Stilton, one of my favourite series when I was younger, since he was in charge if a newspaper publishing company. [image]
I did really enjoy the humour in the story. There was a little bit of witty banter between Lucy and Josh, which of course is a must-have for any hate to love story! They constant teasing and the way they were always trying to out do each other was pretty funny, especially in the first half of the book. And I loved Lucy's computer password! Overall, Lucy's narration was pretty enjoyable and funny. One issue I did have with her narration was the CONSTANT repetition of her height. I lost count of how many times she pointed out that she was only five feet tall. It was mentioned literally every five minutes and it grew extremely annoying very, very quickly.
The beginning of the book was absolutely phenomenal! I was hooked from the very first page and could not stop reading - it was so addictive! The story was super fun and hilarious and unlike anything I've read before, despite the fact that the overall hate to love plot is unoriginal. The amount of hate that Josh and Lucy seemed to have for each other was unreal! They absolutely despised each other, and I could totally understand Lucy's dislike for Josh, but it was so strong that it was hilarious!
I would highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a cute, super fun, and laugh-out-loud hilarious hate-to-love romance novel!...more
May 2016: This was so perfect! I was in the mood for a really fun read, and this book most definitely satisfied that craving. I loved the very dark humor to it, though I felt extremely guilty for laughing at some of the things in the story. If these things actually happened, they would not be something to laugh at. But in the story.... well, I found them to be incredibly funny.
But even better than the twisted humor of it was, quite unexpectedly, all of the lines about being a fangirl and what it truly means. Being a fangirl of numerous fandoms myself, it was very relatable and meaningful to me. The countless books and series, the bands, and more, I just... fandoms are such a big part of my life. It's where I kind of found myself - in this community of people that understood, that felt the same way. So as ridiculous as this may sound to some people, fandoms are really important to me. And while this book sort of poked fun at crazy, obsessed fangirls, (like me) it also held a lot of truth to it. A truth that I could connect with.
(view spoiler)[ On a side note, Apple was awesome! For example, I assumed that all four had snuck into the Ruperts' hotel room and kidnapped Rupert P. I did NOT expect Apple to tackle him in the hallway and accidentally knock him unconscious. And then DRAG HIM BY THE ANKLE to the hotel room! But it had me laughing my head off. I also liked the part when Apple was going to hit Michelle over the head with the lamp. Apple was a fantastic character! She was my favourite of the four girls, though they were all great, and so very different! I also loved the part where Rupert L. and Rupert X. faked Rupert P's suicide note on Twitter (with countless errors I might add) and then threw him off of the roof of the building. It really shouldn't have been funny, but it was. (hide spoiler)]
Now, I could go on and on about how wonderful this was and all the reasons I adored it, but for now, I think I'll leave it. I'll let you read it for yourself. And hopefully, you'll find just as much importance within it as I did, as well as find it to be an insane but highly enjoyable and humorous ride.
I recommend this for anyone looking for a darker humor with a mystery aspect. And most importantly, for any fangirls (or fanboys) out there that hold their fandoms near and dear to their heart. It's definitely something that I'm going to buy and reread in the future. Many, many times over. So thank you to Goldy Moldavsky for creating something that I will forever love and treasure, because as much of a joke this book kind of was, it was also very special to me. I would give this book 1000000000000000000/5 stars if I could, because it is just THAT good. <3
December 2019: This book is still completely unlike anything I have ever read before, and when I say that, I mean it in the very best way possible. I reread this via audio-book, and it was fantastic! The narrator honestly deserves an Oscar for the phenomenal job that she did. She did range of different voices and accents, and she even sang. Her voice acting brought this fun story even more life and made reading an even more immersive, hilarious, and exciting experience. If you enjoy audio-books, I could not recommend this one highly enough. I absolutely cannot wait to reread this for a third time someday!!...more
This book was a little bit underwhelming and definitely my least favorite Sarah Dessen book I've read so far, but I still enjoyed it overall.
This writing style was wonderful, as expected, but the plot and characters weren't on par with her other books, at least not for me. Originally, I adored Macon. He was hilarious, sweet, and genuine, but I quickly realized that both Halley and I had it all wrong. He was a major jerk that tried to push Scarlet to do things that she didn't want to do and never bothered trying to understand her. Halley got on my nerves a teeny tiny bit at times, mostly because of the stupid decisions that she kept making over and over and over again, but by the end of the story, she seriously got some sense knocked back into her and earned my approval once again.
The rather unresolved ending was a little disappointing, (view spoiler)[ as was the romance that fell through. I kind of expected that they would fix it and he would some how become a way better person and everybody would live happily ever after, but they didn't. But then again, I suppose that's the way that life really is, so why should the ending of a book be any different? (hide spoiler)] I also would have liked to have gotten an epilogue or something, just so that we'd be able to see a little snippet of what Halley and Scarlet's lives were life after the baby was born. It felt a little too open ended for my taste, but most Sarah Dessen books a like that, so I suppose I've probably gotten used to it by now.
I would have liked to have seen more of the character Cameron, as liked him quite a lot and found him to be very sweet. I also really liked Mario's boyfriend, Steve. I've always loved the little quirky touches that Sarah Dessen manages to give her characters, which add so much more depth, humor, and interest to the story, while making it seem so much mire realistic. And if I got nothing else from this book, it's how much I really appreciate the strong relationship I have with my mother. Seeing the way that Haley and her mother interacted made me so sad, but also so thankful for the ever so supportive, protective, kind, understanding, loving, funny, and caring mother that I've been blessed with.
All in all, it was a cute, quick, and enjoyable read, but I expected a little better from Sarah Dessen. However, this is one of her older novels and I appreciate the fact that her writing has grown so much over the years to create some of my all-time favorite books, such as Saint Anything and The Truth About Forever....more
This book took me a little while longer to read than I expected considering its very short length, mostly because it was a little bit hard to get into at first. However, as the story progressed, it got much more interesting and easier to read. All in all, the book was just okay. To be honest. I expected a little bit more from it because I've heard such amazing things about E. Lockhart's writing style, but this book wasn't really anything special. Overall, the plot was pretty unique from anything else I've ever read before so I liked having that refreshing change.
One major issue I had with the story was how the way that Gretchen actually turned from a human to a fly and back to a human again was never actually explained. Was it something to do with the celery drink? Was it that random unexplained white goop that she stepped in? Was it the old man? Was it simply just the wish that she made? Who knows? I kind of expected her to put a little more effort into figuring out what had happened, but oddly, she never did. She was just like, "Oh, look! I'm a human again! How wonderful! I'll just make up a big story about how I missed a week of school because I was super sick (and not because I was casually chilling out being a fly and doing nothing about it) and then I'll continue to carry out all of my humanly duties. And maybe try to fix some of the problems I've sort of caused between people as well. But actually to investigate how I became and un-became a fly so randomly? Haha, nah." Maybe the author wanted to leave us confused and questioning, but if that were the case, wouldn't the protagonist be a bit more confused and questioning as well? It's as though she wasn't even bothered by the fact that she was a fly for an entire week. I mean, she hardly even tried to do anything about it while she was a fly in the boys' locker room. This seemed a little unrealistic to me. I mean, if I were a fly I'd be pretty freaked out and doing absolutely everything in my power to solve how it happened and how to stop it. And once I was human again, I would go in search for some answers.
But what really, really, really, really bothered me abut Gretchen's narration was some of the observations she made while she was a fly in the boy's locker room. Particularly the observations about the boys' naked bodies. It was just incredibly annoying and almost made me want to put the book down. And it seemed as though everybody else in the book was obsessed with male body parts too, which was irritating and weird and a little immature to me. That is literally all they would talk about at times. Quite honestly, I think I would give this book an extra .5 of a star if those parts were eliminated.
I found the romance factor of the story to be a little rushed and I definitely would have liked a little more added onto the end of the story, or at least an epilogue if some sort; it was just a bit too open-ended for me.
I also would have liked a bit more explanation as to what happened with the two boys in African Dance. It seemed like they held a bit more significance and would pop up again later on in the book when she was human again, but they never did. I especially would have liked to see if the one in the orange shirt was ever going to approach Gretchen. I did like Titus quite a lot though. I found the way that he stood up to Shane and Adrian when they were being such jerks to be really admirable and I thought his insecurities and lack of confidence was kind of cute.
As I said, the book was just okay and didn't quite live up to my expectations for the author. Nonetheless, I still plan on reading some of this author's other works in the future, such as We Were Liars, which I've heard amazing things about....more
I am honestly so confused about this one - I just can't sort out how I feel. There were many elements that I loved, but also many elements that I was not too fond of.
My favourite thing about the book was most definitely Dante's narration. It was laugh-out-loud hilarious and the humour was slipped into the narration in a very smooth, sly way that usually took me by surprise. His sense of humour was so, so blatantly honest and mean, and I honestly felt horrible to be laughing. But as I said, it was slipped in so well that it would take me by surprise and I couldn't help but giggle (or laugh so hard that I cried). Dante was arrogant and cruel but also hilarious. I am so glad that this story was told from his point of view rather than Charlie's because it was very refreshing as most paranormal romances are told from the mundane girl's point and because Dante was way funnier than Charlie could ever be.
I really enjoyed the first half of the book, mainly due to Dante's painfully honest and hilarious perspective. However, as the story progressed, Dante slowly but surely began to truly care for Charlie. It was obvious that this was going to happen, but I found the change to be too fast and his personality flipped unrealistically quickly. He was still funny, but he lost that hilariously cruel edge that made the book both fun and unique. It was still enjoyable, but not as much as the beginning of the story was.
Overall, I did the like the plot of the story quite a lot. I have read a fair few books involving the Underworld, but this one really stood out from those. The whole idea of sealing souls was very interesting and extremely original. The only issue I had with it was the way that it was explained. I found the world building to be very weak, and the way that soul sealing worked wasn't very well explained. In fact, it was hardly explained at all. I feel like I was forced to do so much reading between the lines and I really had to fill in the blanks at times. On the bright side, there weren't any information dumps, which was nice, but in a paranormal novel, you normally need one here and there. I felt confused at time and had to do too much guess work for my liking to figure out exactly what was going on.
The story had a neat and tidy closure that tied up most of the loose ends but still keeps me interested to pick up the second book. The synopsis of the next book does sound pretty good and it seems that we will be seeing a lot more of Dante's dark side in it, which is something I loved on the first part of the story and dearly missed in the second half of the book. I will definitely be picking up the next books in the series at some point, but they aren't at the top of my TBR at this time.
Also, why is it that all of the Entangled Teen books that I have seen - such as this one and the Lux series, among many others - have such horrendous covers that make me: A) not want to read the book because admit it, we all judge books by their covers, or B) embarrassed to purchase it or tell others that I have read it? I swear that company is cursed with some of YA's ugliest covers....more
Daniella (Reading With Daniella)
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