ashley_mrose530's reviews
434 reviews

I'm so glad that Ali finally decided to change things up a bit!
I want to start off with the "villain" character.

Though it was still a close friend of the main characters who turned out to be the bad guy, I feel like Florence had a lot more gray area in her characterization than many of Ali's past villains. There were times when the reasonable doubt of why she did the things she did was actually pretty plausible.

I liked seeing that change in her writing and I hope she continues to develop her villains more.
I also really enjoyed the deeper side to this story with Eli's grief and Rue's issues with food insecurity. It added a lot of debut as well as character flaws to both of them that I think Ali kind of lacked in her previous works. Though I wish it had been shown a little more throughout the story, I thought it was still really good to see in general. 
Finally, our main characters. I loved them so much. I loved how they communicated their flaws to each other right away with their little terrible stories. I loved that Eli was Down Bad for Rue immediately. I loved that Rue can be thought of as neurodivergent but the story doesn't center it and Eli loves her exactly as she is even if she thinks she's too awkward or unsociable. They were such a cute couple and I was giggling and kicking my feet so often for the fluff in this book. They were so funny and charismatic and I loved watching Eli protect Rue. And the spicy scenes were so good!
But I think my favorite part is that

Rue actually did the big gesture and fixed things and declared her love for him after she semi-ghosted him for a week. It was definitely needed and I've seen so many romances use the big gesture scene but still have the man do it even when he wasn't the one in the wrong. I'm so glad this one was done right.

Anyway, I loved this book. If you were like me and were getting tired of Ali's cookie-cutter plots, then definitely pick this one up. 

Let's be honest, this is basically like trash tv. You know it's bad, terrible writing, no world-building like at all, filled with cliches and regurgitated scenes, but you still have a good time consuming it and enjoy the journey. That's exactly what this book was.
There were so many flaws and I saw all of them while I was listening to it. Almost every line from the big confessional and romantic scenes was cut together from many well used and cliche lines from other books. It was so bad that I was basically finishing the sentences before the audiobook was. That's just terrible writing. 
The world-building was nonexistent, worse than the first book honestly. They brought in the idea of other ordinary people that live in other cities where there were never elites but for some reason they don't have this probably made up disease that's going to weaken elites? Why not? And if the elites are so powerful, why haven't they tried to take over all of these other cities? I think human greed is pretty consistent in that they would have definitely tried to do that, so it should be at least mentioned why they didn't and chose to isolate themselves instead. And then they brought in the idea of like half elites which is also so confusing and not even hinted at until that moment, not to mention Kai's sister is the same thing. None of it made sense or even connected to the first book at all.
And that ending? Completely out of left field. I understand wanting a surprising twist to end the cliffhanger on, but you have to at least foreshadow it a little bit. The scenes with Kit were just atrocious honestly. They basically gave us nothing except that he was planning something and we could have guessed that much. Definitely should have been more foreshadowing in those scenes. He doesn't even mention Peyton in any of them. They felt completely unnecessary until I got to the end and realized what the author was trying to do with them but it just didn't work at all.
But despite all of this, I still enjoyed the book, once I stopped thinking of it as a romantasy at least. This book is a straight up romance book set in a fantastical world not our own. The elites were completely out of the picture for a majority of this book even, so you could probably think of it as being set in our world if you wanted to.
I do like the enemies to lovers troupe here and Kai and Paedyn's banter is really good so I enjoyed their chemistry and the push and pull of their relationship. This helped me enjoy the book overall despite its terrible writing. I do think you could almost read this one separately from the first one with only minimal confusion honestly because you can barely tell these two characters knew each other in a whole first book. You can tell they have a history, but you don't necessarily need to know their history to read this book. And I say that as someone who did read the first book but barely remembers any of it because I have such a terrible memory haha. 
Anyway, if you just want to have fun reading something and can ignore any questions about the world then book is set in, you might enjoy this series. If not, definitely stay away from it. 

This was such a good follow up to Godkiller. I thought the pacing was well done and the world building was still solid. Plus the author did a great job of portraying grief that was true to the two main characters who were feeling it (Keeping it vague to avoid spoilers from the first book). They each took it in different ways but definitely in ways that their characterization accommodated. I was so glad to see that they didn't sacrifice all of their characterization from the first book. In fact, their flaws and ways of thinking were more pronounced in this book because of how their grief as affecting them. I truly can't wait to see where the plot and the characters end up in the next book. 

As a romance book this one was... not good.
I didn't feel a connection between Shireen and her ex, Chris, and I felt even less of a romantic connection between Shireen and Nieve (audiobook, idk how it's spelled). I felt like all of the romance between Shireen and Chris was in the past, there was next to nothing on page in the present of this book. I thought Shireen was actually really rude to Chris throughout most of it actually. I don't know how Chris was still interested in her after it all.

Shireen literally accuses her of sabotaging her cake with no proof.

I understand that there's history between them and if I was Chris, I probably would have let it go too,  but to us as readers, that doesn't make for a very good romance story, especially when we don't see the two of them happily falling in love in the first place.
And then the whole thing with Nieve just confused me so much. I didn't feel like anything they were doing was considered flirting? I thought the whole time that Nieve was just trying to be friends. The instance of Nieve sitting basically on Shireen's lap at the first party was the closest thing we got to a romantic flirtation and that didn't happen until after Shireen's friend Fatima berated her about being too flirty with Nieve. Plus Shireen was like not texting her back and just flat out ignoring her most of the time. If Nieve was trying to flirt with her, I would have thought she would get the message by that point that Shireen either wasn't interested or just wanted to be friends. I don't know, that whole thing was weird to me. 
But I enjoyed Shireen's journey as she grew throughout the story and learned how she was treating people was not okay and also learned to apologize as well as forgive. Her characterization and growth was great throughout this book and I really liked the representation for black Benghazi people as well as fat sapphic women. She was ultimately a really great main character to follow, I just don't know if I would classify this as a romance book. 

This was creepy, gory, mysterious goodness! It was so fascinating to read and definitely had me on the edge of my seat. There were so many moments where I could not control my ick face because the imagery was so wonderfully detailed and the plot was so interesting. I could not tell where it was going to go until the end.

And then Madeline started talking about the fungus as if it was a child??? Nuh uh, that shit was freaky! She willingly let it infect her and slowly kill her??? Damn.

Anyway, go read this book if you have any interest in the horror genre. It's a must for sure.  

This was a really good fairytale retelling.
At first I didn't see how the story was going to relate to Snow White. I saw a Queen that loved her daughter and they were both trying to save their kingdom from a wizard who was very cruel to everyone he granted wishes to. It was so vastly different from the Snow White story we all grew up with. But then the magic mirror was brought into play and I started to see glimpses of the original story but it was still so different that it kept me from predicting where it was going to go and I'm so glad for that. I loved learning things along with the characters. 
Eve was so stubborn and headstrong, ready to jump into a fight at any point at the beginning of this book and it was heartbreaking but beautiful to watch her grow as she learned that she wasn't invincible and sometimes she can't protect everyone.
We lost a few great characters in this one and I was so sad to see them go.

Mekhi was especially hard to see because he was mostly sacrificed for Eve's character growth which is always difficult to grapple with, but I think it was necessary here because she needed a wake up call. I don't think she would have grown otherwise.

I thought the interweaving of multiple fairytales was so interesting here. It kept the story new and exciting and I loved the moment I realized that the Knight was Rumpelstiltskin. I will say that it got a little repetitive at the end though. When Eve was going over Rumpel's story with Maeve and Clio they were basically rehashing that she was related to the girl he made his great mistake to which we already knew. I'm not too sure why that had to be added to the end. Like she learned a little more about who the girl was, but that wasn't the thing that was pointed out in the exposition of that part, it was only the "omg we're related to her" thing and I thought that was weird.

I will say that this story started off a little slow as it was trying to set everything up. Because there wasn't an immediate connection to the original story of Snow White, it had a lot of world-building to do to start off and it didn't draw me in as much as I wish it had. But once I started seeing the Queen hiding something from Eve and the mirror was brought in, it started to pick up.
I would definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys fairytale retellings. 

This was a really good book! I thought the whole magic system was really different and so interesting. I loved how it connected to Greek mythology. I didn't see that coming at first and it added a cool little twist to the magic system.
The beginning plot felt so reminiscent of my real life that it was actually insane. Briseis inherits a huge plot of land with a house and everything is paid for but you have to decide if you're going to go live there or not? Meanwhile your family is currently living in a rented apartment that is way overpriced and living paycheck to paycheck? It was literally deja vu for me. Plus the cleaning of the house? I think she copied my life exactly front the last three years. So I thought that was pretty funny and definitely kept me interested in the book more than I already was.
I liked Briseis as a character. I liked that she was trying to find answers for herself and she had the bravery to go looking for them. I also liked that she just wanted to find someone who wasn't her parents that she could trust with her secrets. We all struggle to find good friends sometimes and I liked seeing that struggle reflected in this book.
I will say that I found the plot to be a little predictable.

I pretty much saw the Connor and his mom betraying Briseis thing almost right away. He was too conveniently there and helpful and took the news of her powers too easily. Same with his mom. I also guessed Marie would be immortal because of the heart plant as well.

But the one thing that I wasn't sure about was how this was going to become a duology. It seemed like it was on track to wrap everything up and leave us with no questions at all until the very end when everything hit the fan.

I did guess that Celine would come back because they kept hinting that she had only gone missing, not that she was found dead, so I thought that could have something to do with it, but I didn't think that was enough to warrant a completely new plot line for a mother book. But then Briseis' mom died and Hecate showed and I was just blown away.

I can't wait to read the next one and see where this all goes!

This is a really good book about internalized homophobia, who someone really is with or without their labels, and finding yourself and who you want to be.
Rafe's struggle with all of this throughout this book is so poignant and something that all queer people struggle with. You don't want to be seen for something you're not, but you don't want to be seen only as the "gay one" either which is why we have so many people who don't want to have to come out with a public statement or label themselves today.
There are so many queer people that just want to be seen as people, but because the world we live in is so heteronormative, you can't do that without everyone thinking you're completely straight.
This book makes you think about that which makes it a great book for both straight and queer people and I would definitely recommend it to everyone. 

This was an incredibly well-written book. It made me feel for the characters and love them all so much. The way the story was told was fascinating - weird but fairly easy to follow even though I was listening to it rather than physically reading it. The time jumps weren't jarring but seemed smoothly transitioned throughout, same for the POV shifts. I also really liked that we slowly learned more and more about what happened surrounding Vivek's death.
I don't usually gravitate toward the contemporary genre, and of those that I've tried, I usually didn't like, but this one was truly beautiful. I think the only thing I didn't really understand or get why it was included in this book is Vivek's blackouts. They seem to be brought up for a little while and then completely forgotten. They didn't seem to be connected to his mental health or anything like that, so I wasn't sure what they were or why they were important enough to include in the story. 
Either that is a small thing and didn't hinder my reading experience too much and I loved the book otherwise. Would definitely recommend for anyone looking for more trans reading rep. 

This was a fantastic book. The world building, the character development, the pacing all perfect. The plot was so fascinating and I loved the characters.
Kissen's back story is so good and makes so much sense for her character. She wants revenge against all of the gods but she has a huge heart and when she lets people in, they stay there.
I love that there's a found family aspect here between them all. Found family is probably my favorite troupe and I think it's done so well here. The bonds are created slowly between them all and you just see small pieces of it.
The world is so interesting. There are many gods and all are developed by humans feelings and desires but the government has banned anything and everything to do with them. So there's no way to completely get rid of gods but yet the government is forcing people to stop worshipping them. It drew me in right away.
And I love the writing style. It's so direct and forceful when it needs to be but can be simple and small as well.
All around a great book and I can't wait to read the next one.