amelianotthepilot's reviews
796 reviews

this one was definitely better than the first I think but the plot was still really cliche and nonsensical.

Klara has ended up back in time after defeating Llaw but Callum isn't anywhere to be found and last she saw, he was dying. Thankfully she ends up with Thomas, Callum's best friend who they also thought dead but is not and who is also magic like her. Thomas and Klara don't know what to do at first but they at least get her into historically appropriate clothing before heading to her house-mind you she doesn't live here and no one knows her because she is their great great great great grandchild. This is where it all starts to fall apart for me: why did they go there? what is their plan? why does she immediately trust him so much? Next we find out

Callum isn't actually dead and is somehow now in Edinburgh in a fairie house underground where they're healing him for no reason and we find out he is half-fae???? Then we're introduced to the main villain Malabron who is only in the book for maybe five seconds and isn't really a big deal at all. (he doesn't even make an appearance in the conclusion). It is immediately revealed to us that although Thomas is hot apparently and Klara and him have chemistry supposedly he is working with Malabron and is evil. Then Klara and Thomas are accosted by ?thieves? but then more bad guys show up and beat up the thieves and then kidnap Klara??? what is going on! Klara spends the next three days kidnapped in a tower but I guess since female damsels in distress are an overdone trope Klara is never seen as weak and always fights her own way out or does it with a team and so it never really seems like she is ever in danger. 
Meanwhile Callum has made another bad deal with the hag to go into the past because apparently he's in the future. When he ends up in the past he is randomly claimed by a local minor nobility who says he's Callum's father who abandoned him cause he's part fae.  He now takes in Callum and pays off Klara's captors to free her. Klara, Callum, and Thomas now reunited are attacked and immediately figure out Thomas is evil. They have a few more minor battles before playing dress up and attending a fancy social outing with Callum's new annoying dad where they discover that the people currently in Klara's house are somehow in the know about her and everything's easy and fine. 
The plot gets wrapped up by Klara and Callum ?traveling through time and space? to kill the hag which somehow solves Callum's curse but also stops Thomas and Malabron's evil plot before it's even started and finishes the book.

Overall I don't feel like the love triangle angle really came into play at all. The characters are continually handed everything and random new characters are introduced just to hand them the next plot point. Also, the reader almost immediately finds out

Thomas

is bad so there's no big reveal and the bad guys in general aren't all that threatening. Overall Klara and Callum are both very powerful and never have any struggles or bad things truly happen to them so in both this book and the first the solutions are so easy and simple for them and there's no real stakes

(ie Callum comes back to life after all and Klara and Callum find a loophole to go to the future anyway).

Another big problem with both books is that it breaks a big time travel rule: when u travel through time you can't also travel locations. I know Doctor Who does and what not but I believe a standard rule when writing time travel is that you can only do one or the other unless you explicitly explain otherwise. Klara and Callum are  traveling through time but also ending up across the country which I found confusing and unbelievable.

The story was a really quick read though, and it is definitely full of tropes and silly little fantasy rom com stuff. I thought all the references to modern day fandom stuff was a bit cringey and cliche though. (And also spoiled the plot of Vampire Diaries).

not gonna lie i was really excited to read this one and it didn't wholly meet my expectations.

the story is set in Edinburgh following various people in various times throughout the 1900s around WWII. it was sort of like a series of short stories where each chapter was a different person but they were all connected through living in Luckenbooth which a tenement building that used to exist in the middle of the Royal Mile next to St Giles. The outline of this building still exists today in gold bricks marking the foundation. While that is a fascinating origin for a historical fiction and I found the characters and writing style interesting the book was a bit slow for me. Because each chapter is almost a completely random person in this building, in different flats and occasionally different times, I found it hard to keep track of who was where, when. In the end they all tie together sort of but overall it just seemed like each chapter was a new person and nothing really mattered. I honestly could not tell you any of the character's names or recall how many there are or what each one did.

In general, the story was very queer which was fun and it felt like it was really showing a microcosm of different Edinburgh cultures using slang and different speech patterns but overall I felt lost. It also didn't help that the author is one of those writers who doesn't use quotation or speech signifiers to tell you who is speaking. (I could mostly understand who was talking but there were many times I just knew two people were talking and that's it) I think the lack of standard quotations really affected my ability to connect with the characters and follow the story since I couldn't tell the characters apart.


It also had a magical/demon plot line and a 'Edinburgh's effects from WWII' plot line throughout but it just sorta seemed like too much was going on. I think maybe this would make a good tv show.

The concept is really interesting but overall it was eh and I wouldn't really recommend it.

this short story was fascinating.  

it has everything: gothic horror spooky house, ✨ mushrooms✨ , spooky woods, a remote location, perhaps witches.

all set in the English countryside with discussion of WWII and gender politics. The main character is a nonbinary soldier who comes from a fantasy country/culture where the language uses more pronouns than English does. This was such an interesting and fascinating way to introduce pronoun discussion and show how it is perceived by people. Utilizing these fantasy pronouns throughout the book was such an interesting use of language that really made me think. Meanwhile, the solider utilizes these nonbinary fantasy pronouns because all soldiers are referred to in an ungendered way in this culture. This is only a minor plot point that is happening under the main plot of a spooky derelict house in the middle of the woods with sickly siblings.

i will indeed now be reading everything T Kingfisher has written

this is a cute little winter short story (with illustrations) for the Caraval series following Donatella in her search for the perfect gift for her boyfriend,

Legend

. She is worried about her new relationship and whether or not he is truly in love with her or if any daily choices she might make could end her relationship.

full of winter whimsy in that fun Caraval style

Overall the story is fun but I do think he (

Legend

) is a red flag now.

kidnapping your girlfriend and keeping her captive was sorta hot but also weird

i only read this because it was in the percy jackson podcast, The Newest Olympian, and boy was this book a waste. It's not even written by Rick Riordan and includes a bunch of random Greek myth facts but also some random out of character facts for various characters. 

Not worth the 5 minute read.

this was cute. i've loved both her other romcoms but was disappointed this one was a classic Christmas hallmark romcom instead of her usual Halloween romcom. however it won me over with a ton of very fun tropes and an interesting plot.

this romcom follows the third Penhallow brother, Bowen, who is a recluse who lives in the Welsh mountains and is absorbed by his research. He partners up with Tamsyn, a human who finds magical artifacts for a living. They meet on Christmas eve to begin their business partnership and are both immediately attracted to each other. Through a series of events, Bowen ends up attending a witchy Yule wedding in a mansion that Tamsyn also attends under disguise while she is attempting to steal something. Together they end up thrown back in time and are forced to work together to solve the problem, the heist, and their relationship to end up in their time again.

It was cute and fun 10/10

this book is not it.
idk why this is touted as the bible for young women in my generation but it really fell flat for me.

a posh rich white girl describes her struggles of dating and partying with her friends. all in all she knows in fact nothing seemingly about love and has no good advice ?besides i guess that no one knows what they're doing and to love your friends? i was honestly repetitively disgusted by her life and choices and think she's a shitty friend.

Anne is now an adult and finally marrying Gilbert!!! They move to their dream house in Four Winds Harbor and they meet their new cast of character neighbors.

a great sequel to a book i loveeeeedd

yet again had me punchin walls and kicking blankets it was so cute

Iris's brother stole her from the front to keep her safe but she had to leave her rival turned lover Roman behind. She hasn't heard from him but Iris and Attie continue their work as wartime journalists, reporting on Dacre's frontline movements and heading near the danger but the war is coming to the city.

Meanwhile, Roman has

been kidnapped and brainwashed by Dacre. He becomes Dacre's right-hand man writing propaganda pieces for the newspapers until he starts receiving strange letters from his closet door. Roman and Irish reignite their penpal letters although this time Roman's in the dark and slowly remembering his love.