casstalksbooks's reviews
254 reviews

to say that i loved this book would be an understatement. the structure of this book (split into sections for each husband & the embedded news articles) got my attention straight away.

evelyn hugo, the polarising marilyn monroe-esque protagonist. she’s a bad bitch and she knows it, but she can also be mean and a liar

monique grant, the bland (in my opinion), magazine writer who is tasked with writing evelyn’s story, which tragically affects monique in personal ways.

this book kept me guessing, it kept me on edge, and it was tragically beautiful until the very end.

this book just brings me a lot of joy. sherlock is so casually witty, and watson’s narration always captures the right things. while some of the stories in here confused me, most of them were entertaining and humorous so i enjoyed this book a lot

PLEASE read the trigger warnings before reading this book!!

trigger warnings for this review: mentions of suicide

hanya yanagihara: someone who doesn’t believe in trigger warnings and thinks that “living” is not always the answer to people’s problems.

i just wonder what the point of this book could possibly be when the author holds such beliefs?????

i think it is so harmful to perpetuate the idea that death by one’s own hand is the only solution :/

the prose was beautiful and i am so indescribably attached to these characters, but i just don’t understand why writing this was necessary. at all.

look, this book was okay.
did i have any clue what was going on? not really.
was that because of the overwhelming amount of info dumping that naomi novik did? absolutely.

i didn’t get attached to any of the characters, i didn’t find the plot to be overly interesting, and i found the prose to be boring at times.

however, there is a good friendship towards the second half of the book that i enjoyed and ALSO the very last sentence of the book????
not me disliking the entire book but then being mad that i don’t have the answers to the cliffhanger at the end UGH

oh well, i guess i’ll never know ✌

ONCE AGAIN I AM BLOWN AWAY BY LEIGH’S WRITING

i just love kanej i just really really love kanej

there’s love. there’s heartbreak. there’s mourning. there’s awkwardness. there’s anger. this book took me through every single emotion and im not even mad about it.

being able to understand more of both kaz’s and inej’s backstory made it all the more emotional during every single scene they were in together. DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE BANDAGE SCENE OR I’LL CRY

anyways, point is, you should read this. it’s fantastic and beautiful and just- kanej. that’s all.

(4.5 stars)

that was a lot. a good lot, but a lot nonetheless.

this complex story follows several different storylines. the main part of the book (ship of theseus) follows a man named S. who is being hunted by a merciless and dangerous group of individuals and is trying to find the woman he so deeply loves (Sola). S. finds himself stuck on a ship where time passes very differently than on the shore and every time he leaves the ship, Sola is different and has aged differently.
^ if my summary of this is completely wrong i’m so sorry (

Firstly, a trigger warning for this book: in the first part, the MC deals with suicidal ideations.

Note 1: I would like to give a massive thank you to Rebellion Publishing and Tom Beckerlegge for allowing me to access an ARC of this book!! I appreciate that I was given this opportunity.

Note 2: I DNF'd this book at around 30%. However, from what I read, I would rate it three stars.

The Carnival of Ash by Tom Beckerlegge has a brilliant premise: A City of Words, run by poets and filled with libraries. That was all the knowledge I went in with as any novel that sounds remotely dark academic has me going all in!

The first part of the novel follows Carlo Mazzoni, a young poet sent to the city of Cadenza to make amends in his father's name and showcase his poetry for the town. Characterised as slightly arrogant and temperamental, Carlo encounters a lot of trouble when he first arrives, especially as the city's poet leader has just died. He is told early on in the novel that his poetry is childish and needs to be reworked before it can receive any acclaim in the city. As the synopsis had presented Carlo as the protagonist, I became slightly disoriented by the multiple points of view that followed in the subsequent parts. I understood how both Vittoria and Lorenzo fit into the story, but I was confused about how it all linked back to the novel's plot. Beckerlegge absolutely writes brilliant prose and is a talented world-builder, and he was able to draw me in with the first few lines. I became invested in Ercole and Carlo's friendship, until it had been so long since the characters had been mentioned, that my investment began to wane.

My two critiques of this book, and what caused me to stop reading, are some of the terms used to describe POCs and the, in my opinion, relentless male gaze. Firstly, some of the terms used within this novel could be viewed as problematic. In one instance, Carlo refers to a non-white character as 'exotic'. While I don't believe the author used this word to mean any harm or to have a negative connotation, it is not my place to decide whether or not the term is offensive. However, I do know that the term is viewed as a microaggression by many POCs as it is a term that typically describes animals. Therefore, I thought that there could have been a better word choice in this scenario.

Secondly, I must discuss the aforementioned male gaze. While it was not necessarily a negative aspect of the book, the continuous descriptions of certain female characters just left me feeling a bit uncomfortable.

Sadly, my high hopes for this novel were not met. Majority of the prose was brilliant, the world-building was great, and the premise was spectacular, however several aspects of the execution were disappointing to me. Nevertheless, if you are a lover of historical fiction, dark academia, and complex world-building, give this book a shot! Our opinions could differ entirely.

i read this book a couple of years ago and i remember really enjoying it. i, too, fell into the spiral of trying to sympathise with Ty and i really wanna read this novel again to see if my stance has changed !!

check trigger warnings before reading this book!

woah

at the start, it was quite slow and i didn’t really enjoy the world building but oh my god, from like page 150 until the end, it was so wild and fast-paced and i loved it. THE LAST FIFTY PAGES OH MY GOD

alex stern, i’m in love with you. that’s all

woah- i read this in one day, it was good!!

it does start out as your typical YA ‘teenage detective solving the local crime’ story but it turns into so much more and left me guessing the entire way through!!