ashley_mrose530's reviews
434 reviews

This one was just really funny. I think it was good for what it was: a comedy about pirate adventures.
Sometimes I did find the sexual innuendos and the overt comments about sex a little too much but I learned to love Avra anyway and I'm glad he was able to find some people who also loved him for who  he is by the end.
I felt like Julian was the only one who really understood him through  the book and I liked that a lot. And I loved that he helped Captain Teveri understand him more too. I felt like they could be a really great throuple.
I will say that the ending was a little bit more ambiguous than I would like. It left a lot of things up to you to decide even big plot points. The whole book was about trying to figure out this secret formula to keep the sea serpents away from ships and

though it seems like they were close to figuring that out completely, they never actually show on the page that they do and that kind of bothers me.

It's fine to leave some things up to speculation but I feel like leaving the main plot up to interpretation shouldn't be one of them.
I think the pacing was a little off too. I remember looking at the percentage sometimes and realizing I had only made it through a little bit but so much happened or the beginning was dragging on or there was only an hour left and still so many things left to tie up. It was just odd.
Either way though, I had fun with it and I would probably recommend it to anyone who wants a good laugh and likes pirate books. 

I've spent an entire 24 hours trying to figure out what I want to say about this book, but the only thing that I've come up with is... it's fine.
I'm largely indifferent to it. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. It was just okay.
I remember being very bored with it for the most part at the beginning and then looking at it and realizing I was almost half way through it. I didn't feel like anything actually happened in that first half. I didn't even feel particularly connected to the characters and their stories. It felt like the book was still just starting, but it wasn't.
It wasn't until the heist actually started that things started to pick up, but even then, because I didn't really connect with the characters, it still didn't really grab me as much as it should have. It was still good and the plot twists did surprise me, but that might have only been because I was too bored to even try to figure them out.
It was a good book to listen to while I was at work. I still liked the characters alright and I particularly liked Arthie and her rage and control, but because of the lack of emotional connection to them and the book as a whole, it ended up being kind of a miss for me. 

This book was super cute and enjoyable. It was fun to watch Evan and Clara realize their feelings for one another and grow closer. They were super cute and were obviously very fond of each other.
I do think that this book had some pacing issues though. I wanted more time with Clara experimenting or grappling with her sexuality. She pretty much realized she might be bi and then only a few hours later she was in bed with Evan. It seemed really fast. Most people don't come to fully accept their sexuality nearly that quickly and I would have like a little more back and forth from her.
I also thought their relationship developed really quickly too. I know queer women's relationships are famous for the U-Haul joke, but this was incredibly fast. They were telling each other they were in love with the other after like a week and had already basically moved in together by that point too. It was just way too fast. At that rate, I'm surprised they waited until their one year to get engaged.
But then there were things that were almost too slow. Like Christmas with Clara's family seemed like it took up too much time and seemed oddly placed in the book. I liked how that helped Evan deal with her past trauma, but it seemed to almost be a completely separate book from the one I was reading before that. This probably could have been two separate novellas if they had been paced properly.
Anyway, it was a super cute book and I did enjoy it overall, but the pacing and disjointed plot points just made it fall flat. 

This is definitely one of my favorite sapphic books of the year. It's right up there with Imogen, Obviously and I read that one like three times last year.
I remember thinking or saying at one point this year that I just wanted a sapphic book that had all of the fluff of a YA book but still had one or two spicy scenes as well. I felt like sometimes the adult books forgo the fluff in order to focus on the spice and that wasn't what I was looking for. This book though, was the perfect blend of both and I'm so glad I finally found it.
Seriously, Noah and Sage's interactions were so adorable. They had me giggling and kicking my feet at work the whole time I was listening to this book. Their dates were so cute. The scene at the top of the parking garage? 😍😍😍 I can't say enough good things about them.
I also loved the growth that both of them gained through this book. They both learned how to stand up to their family as well as set boundaries, communicate, and ask for help when they need it. Both of them were trying to be so independent and strong at the beginning of this book and I was happy to see them realize that they don't always need to be and learn when they need to ask for help. It's something that many people need to learn, myself included, and I loved seeing that represented here. 
I will say that I didn't necessarily like the audiobook version of this story. The narrator for Noah's POV was really difficult to get used to at first. She would emphasize odd parts of words and pause in the middle of sentences where it wouldn't make sense to pause. I could also hear every breath she took while reading. The narrator for Sage's POV was much better, but the voice she used for Noah's dialogue was so odd. They really did Noah dirty in this audiobook for real.
Overall, I would definitely recommend reading this one but maybe in a different format if you can. 

The writing in this book is honestly terrible. It's all cliche, the characters have no dimension, the world building is minimal, and the thing the book was named after - the war - was considered over within the first 30% of the book. I found myself either laughing or rolling my eyes every time the main character and the love interest talked to each other and the rest of the time I was just bored. The first half of what I did read felt completely disconnected from the second half of it too. It was like the war, then it ended, and all of a sudden everything is mostly fine in this one country and they are forcing the two main characters into a marriage of convenience. It was so poorly done, every little piece of it and I just couldn't make it through. The only reason I kept with it for so long is that I felt bad having so many DNFs this month already, but I need to remind myself it's okay to stop reading a book that you aren't having fun reading. 

This was... really disappointing. I feel like this could have been really good and it started off that way, but it really didn't end that way at all. 
I liked the beginning. I did. I thought we were settling into the characters and their personalities and stories pretty well, but then it didn't really go anywhere from there. I liked the dynamic between Stassie and Nate at first. She really didn't like him but when I thought about it, I didn't really understand why. But it was fine, sometimes we really hate someone without a real reason. But then other kings like that started to creep in.
I started noticing that there wasn't much of a plot. First the second rink breaks down so they are all forced to use the same one. Realistically, as someone who grew up on the hockey team, I know this shouldn't have put them in contact with each other very often especially since there was only the boys hockey team (maybe there was a girls team but they were never mentioned), the one set of figure skaters (again I would assume there's more but they were also never mentioned), and the learn-to-skate kids that Stassie teaches for work. This didn't seem like too much to be navigating on one rink, so I was surprised that they were forced together so much just from that.
And then Aaron gets hurt and Nate offers to take his place for the time being. I don't know what hockey player in their right mind thinks they can ever skate in figure skates, but apparently he did, so I was looking forward to seeing him fall on his ass many, many times because he would basically have to relearn how to skate. That toe-pick makes it a completely different motion that you have to do with your feet in order to push yourself forward compared to hockey skates. I know that and we didn't even have a figure skating team when I was growing up. But, though it was mentioned in passing, that was never put in scene and that was really disappointing to me. In fact, most of their training together was only in summary and I thought that was going to be a big part of the book.
But other than that and the Aaron thing, the plot was very stagnant. I think the main issue was that the book is too long, trying to cover too much time. These things would have felt like significant plot points if the book had been edited and shortened, but as it was the pacing was way too drawn out.
We didn't even get very much significant romantic interaction between our two leads besides all the sex scenes. It seemed like the author only knew how to show chemistry and relationship development by having them fall into bed together. The sex scenes were good, don't get me wrong. The spice was probably 10/10, but this was supposed to be more than an erotica. 
I did like how well they communicated their feeling for one another and in general. That was probably the only good thing that came out of Stassie's need to mention the fact that she goes to therapy all the time. I felt like she mentioned it way too much and yet she didn't really show any signs of it. I remember noting at the beginning that she's gone to therapy since she was nine but she hasn't realized that her parents only talk to her about skating so much because they want to show her that they are interested in what she's interested yet? After like 15 years of therapy? That makes no sense. I didn't even need to go to therapy to realize that for myself.
Anyway, I think this book could have benefited from more developmental editing to pair it down more in some areas and build up others. It was a great idea and the plot could have been really good, but unfortunately the overly stuffed prose ruined it overall. 

I truly love all of T. Kingfisher's books but this one was specifically great because of its unpredictability. Her books are all so different so I wasn't sure if I should be believing the paranormal-ness of the story or if I should be looking for an answer that was a little more mundane and that's why this story remained unpredictable throughout.
Kingfisher still has her amazing storytelling and superb imagery to set the vibe and atmosphere of the setting. She does both of these things as if they are effortless and I love it every time.
I also loved the main character in this book. Her voice and personality were funny and relatable and I really enjoyed reading this story through her eyes. I think the narrator of the audiobook, Mary Kowal, also helped with that. She was really fantastic and helped separate each character by voice so it was really easy to keep up with who was speaking.
I will always recommend Kingfisher's books for anyone, especially people who are interested in gothic horror-fantasy books with the perfect atmospheric writing. 

This one was okay. I had fun with it but there were definitely some issues. 
I liked the idea and plot of this book. I've always been fascinated by fae stories and especially what happens to the kids that are stolen to live in fairie. I like how this story gave me that and even showed me two different options for it.
I also just enjoyed the plot. I thought the political side of it - the coup and trying to stop the bad guy from succeeding in the coup - was really interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing how it moves along with the rest of the series.
There are quite a few things that set this book back for me though. The first thing is that there was very little world building. It relies heavily on the reader already knowing some lore about the fae and fairie instead of explaining things in context it didn't bother me too much because I do have a working knowledge of fae lore but for someone who doesn't know anything going into this book, I can see them being really confused.
I also didn't really like the main character Jude. She definitely had the air of thinking she knows everything and her decision-making was really lacking. But these characteristics seemed very on brand for a teenager so I let it go. But I really didn't understand why she wanted to stay in fairie so bad. I could understand why she wanted power, but the fae treated her so badly so I don't understand why she wouldn't have wanted to go back to the human world when her sister offered it. I don't know, I just thought it was weird and baffling.
Finally, this book was very predictable, like so easily too. It was obvious that

Lock was two-timing the twins, that the cruel prince Carden was unbearably attracted to Jude and might not actually be as terrible as he seems, and that their sudo-father was siding with the overthrower. The only thing that surprised me was that Oak was the long lost prince that was supposed to be dead. I even guessed that Carden would be the one to become the king at the end even if he didn't want to be.

So unfortunate none of the big reveals surprised me at all which then lessened my enjoyment of the book slightly overall.
Despite all of this, I still liked it and I do want to eventually read the rest of the series if only for the political intrigue and maybe see if that romance actually develops well. 

This one was just plainly not a good book. The writing was actually terrible. It was all tell and no show so I never felt like I was actually in a scene with the characters and therefore I felt no emotional connection to what was happening.
We were told the thoughts of every single character we came across even if it wasn't necessary and for some reason the dog was personified? Look, I get talking for your dog or like interpreting their looks and everything, I do that with my dogs, but this book took it a step too far for me. It was just weird.
I also didn't like the main character or her boyfriend. I didn't like them together at all. She was dubbed as this strong woman but really she just came off as a "I'm not like other girls" type and was just annoying and he would absolutely not listen to her when she clearly told him what she wanted. And don't even get me started on the white feminism introduction part of this whole book. It was so force-fed and - though it's all true and can still be seen today - because it's a historical book, it could be argued that the author is saying it's all in the past which doesn't sit right with me. 
I don't understand the hype for this book at all and it really could have done with some heavy craft-level editing. 

This just really wasn't working for me. The genre is more contemporary and literary than I thought it was going to be. I liked the characters and the plot was interesting but I ended up being just bored with it. I still have two hours left of the audiobook and I find myself not looking forward to finishing it so that's a good sign that I need to put it down.