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105 reviews
Not Here to Be Liked by Michelle Quach
2.5
This is long. I am so sorry. . .
Before I begin, I just want to state that I know the target audience for young adult books is usually teenagers, and I am in no way a teenager anymore, but reading this and thinking of young teenagers also experiencing this book, really disappointed me.
I went into this solely for the representation. The main character and author are both of Chinese Vietnamese American descent. And then there’s the enemies to frenemies to friends to lovers trope. Chef’s kiss. 🤌 The feminism rep. . . not so much.
The views on feminism in <i>[book:Not Here to Be Liked|56755542]</i> are something that I would expect in a young adult novel from the early 2000’s. Hell, even from within the last ten years I would have expected this. But we live in the world 2023 (this being published in 2021—so we’ll round down to the cursed year of 2020) and we should not be doing this.
<i>Not Here To Be Liked</i> gives feminism the definition of “ONLY women being in power” and “down to all men”.
This movement is started when ex-jock Len DiMartile decides to run against our heroine, Eliza Quan, as editor in chief for the school newspaper. ((First off, I just want to say that I did not even know that campaigning for “editor in chief” was a thing. I am from a small town, though, where such titles were given to the most qualified senior by the teacher in charge so 🤷. I admit that I have no knowledge on the matter. If they were running for student body counselor or whatever, the campaign would have made more sense to me.)) When Len wins the election, Eliza is steamed and writes a rant report (on the school computer, mind you) venting out her feelings and frustrations against Len and her fellow members of the newspaper.
And then, surprise—because she was writing on a school computer and didn’t close out of the document before leaving—her rant gets published into the next morning’s issue of the paper, titled <b>“THE PATRIARCHY LIVES”</b>. Rookie mistake, but I feel like if you’re going to be writing a rant against your fellow classmates, then don’t do it on school grounds, on a school computer, let alone a <b>DESKTOP</b> computer that you can’t physically take with you.
As a result of the article in the school paper, her classmates turn against her. Going as far as calling her a “Femnazi” to stuffing tampons in her locker, Eliza is caught between being in charge of a feminist movement and being called the girl who cried misogyny.
Are we seriously still using the term “Femnazi” to describe angry women?
Unfortunately, the movement was very much just Eliza throwing a temper tantrum because she didn’t get the position that she wanted. In reality, Len is voted for the part because he gave a better speech and impression than Eliza did—which is very close to how the real world works. If you show up for a job interview with all of the qualifications but dress like you just rolled out of bed and half-ass your interview, then guess what—you’re not getting hired at that job.
But anyway, Eliza loses the election and goes on another rant after her essay is published without her permission. She goes live on the school news (like TV news) and once again lets out her frustrations against her classmates being against her, calls out her school for being sexist for not having a female leader, slanders Len <i>again</i>, and dumps the pile of tampons on the news table at the end of her interview.
Instead of being a good sport and accepting the fact that she lost fairly because she <b>wasn’t qualified for the job</b>, she turns into the villain of the story.
Obviously the principal doesn’t like that so he calls her to his office. But no, nothing that her principal says to her inspires the movement. (Which it honestly should have because “tampons not being appropriate for the school video” would have been enough for me.) There was so much potential between the name calling, the tampons, even just the fact that there hadn’t been a girl (or not that many girls (I honestly don’t remember) in charge of their school’s clubs, would have made a better movement than what actually happened. But no, we have all of this great potential, and Eliza and her team want to form a walk-out of their school because of Len. Because everyone liked his speech better and Eliza thought that she deserved that position over him. Because it’s obviously his fault and not the principal or the school’s.
Eliza’s whole personality was the equivalent of a pick-me girl that claimed she “wasn’t like other girls”. Multiple times she comments on how her sister or other girls are always doing their hair and makeup and dressing up, but she doesn’t. Like, I don’t care. So what. Do you want a cookie or something? She even goes as far as calling herself a fake and not really a feminist because she starts having feelings for Len. Liking a boy doesn’t make you any less of a feminist. What? Just because he won over you in a competition makes you think that you can’t like him or something? And then she even battles with herself for wanting to be known for her brains and not her beauty. Why not both? Can pretty women not be smart too? Can smart women not be pretty?
It took me YEARS before I finally understood what the meaning of feminism actually was. I remember, as a teenager and young adult, thinking that it meant a bunch of angry women burning their bras and wanting men to step down from their jobs so that they could take over. It saddens me that we still have media like this in today’s world. And that the possibility of teenagers and young adults reading this book could be confused or question their own views on feminism. Granted, towards the very end of the book, Eliza does question and reevaluate her views on feminism, but this kind of representation is the last thing we need.
Feminism isn’t about women being in power, or hating men. It never has been and anyone that tells you otherwise is not a feminist.
━━━━━━━━━━☽✰☾━━━━━━━━━━
Before I begin, I just want to state that I know the target audience for young adult books is usually teenagers, and I am in no way a teenager anymore, but reading this and thinking of young teenagers also experiencing this book, really disappointed me.
I went into this solely for the representation. The main character and author are both of Chinese Vietnamese American descent. And then there’s the enemies to frenemies to friends to lovers trope. Chef’s kiss. 🤌 The feminism rep. . . not so much.
The views on feminism in <i>[book:Not Here to Be Liked|56755542]</i> are something that I would expect in a young adult novel from the early 2000’s. Hell, even from within the last ten years I would have expected this. But we live in the world 2023 (this being published in 2021—so we’ll round down to the cursed year of 2020) and we should not be doing this.
<i>Not Here To Be Liked</i> gives feminism the definition of “ONLY women being in power” and “down to all men”.
This movement is started when ex-jock Len DiMartile decides to run against our heroine, Eliza Quan, as editor in chief for the school newspaper. ((First off, I just want to say that I did not even know that campaigning for “editor in chief” was a thing. I am from a small town, though, where such titles were given to the most qualified senior by the teacher in charge so 🤷. I admit that I have no knowledge on the matter. If they were running for student body counselor or whatever, the campaign would have made more sense to me.)) When Len wins the election, Eliza is steamed and writes a rant report (on the school computer, mind you) venting out her feelings and frustrations against Len and her fellow members of the newspaper.
And then, surprise—because she was writing on a school computer and didn’t close out of the document before leaving—her rant gets published into the next morning’s issue of the paper, titled <b>“THE PATRIARCHY LIVES”</b>. Rookie mistake, but I feel like if you’re going to be writing a rant against your fellow classmates, then don’t do it on school grounds, on a school computer, let alone a <b>DESKTOP</b> computer that you can’t physically take with you.
As a result of the article in the school paper, her classmates turn against her. Going as far as calling her a “Femnazi” to stuffing tampons in her locker, Eliza is caught between being in charge of a feminist movement and being called the girl who cried misogyny.
Are we seriously still using the term “Femnazi” to describe angry women?
Unfortunately, the movement was very much just Eliza throwing a temper tantrum because she didn’t get the position that she wanted. In reality, Len is voted for the part because he gave a better speech and impression than Eliza did—which is very close to how the real world works. If you show up for a job interview with all of the qualifications but dress like you just rolled out of bed and half-ass your interview, then guess what—you’re not getting hired at that job.
But anyway, Eliza loses the election and goes on another rant after her essay is published without her permission. She goes live on the school news (like TV news) and once again lets out her frustrations against her classmates being against her, calls out her school for being sexist for not having a female leader, slanders Len <i>again</i>, and dumps the pile of tampons on the news table at the end of her interview.
Instead of being a good sport and accepting the fact that she lost fairly because she <b>wasn’t qualified for the job</b>, she turns into the villain of the story.
Obviously the principal doesn’t like that so he calls her to his office. But no, nothing that her principal says to her inspires the movement. (Which it honestly should have because “tampons not being appropriate for the school video” would have been enough for me.) There was so much potential between the name calling, the tampons, even just the fact that there hadn’t been a girl (or not that many girls (I honestly don’t remember) in charge of their school’s clubs, would have made a better movement than what actually happened. But no, we have all of this great potential, and Eliza and her team want to form a walk-out of their school because of Len. Because everyone liked his speech better and Eliza thought that she deserved that position over him. Because it’s obviously his fault and not the principal or the school’s.
Eliza’s whole personality was the equivalent of a pick-me girl that claimed she “wasn’t like other girls”. Multiple times she comments on how her sister or other girls are always doing their hair and makeup and dressing up, but she doesn’t. Like, I don’t care. So what. Do you want a cookie or something? She even goes as far as calling herself a fake and not really a feminist because she starts having feelings for Len. Liking a boy doesn’t make you any less of a feminist. What? Just because he won over you in a competition makes you think that you can’t like him or something? And then she even battles with herself for wanting to be known for her brains and not her beauty. Why not both? Can pretty women not be smart too? Can smart women not be pretty?
It took me YEARS before I finally understood what the meaning of feminism actually was. I remember, as a teenager and young adult, thinking that it meant a bunch of angry women burning their bras and wanting men to step down from their jobs so that they could take over. It saddens me that we still have media like this in today’s world. And that the possibility of teenagers and young adults reading this book could be confused or question their own views on feminism. Granted, towards the very end of the book, Eliza does question and reevaluate her views on feminism, but this kind of representation is the last thing we need.
Feminism isn’t about women being in power, or hating men. It never has been and anyone that tells you otherwise is not a feminist.
━━━━━━━━━━☽✰☾━━━━━━━━━━
Where Darkness Blooms by Andrea Hannah
3.0
I’m still trying to process what I just read and what my feelings are towards this book. <i>Where Darkness Blooms</i> has been on my to-be-read shelf for quite a while now. Ever since I saw the beautiful cover of the decaying plants growing out of the girl’s body, I knew that I had to read this book. Here we are, almost a year later, and well. . .
I just don’t know.
I certainly liked it, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t know if it amazed me, or wowed me. Honestly, I found it to be quite short and wished it could have been longer.
Our story follows four different points of view with four girls. At the young ages of seventeen and eighteen, these girls live together with no parental guidance. What happened to their parents? Well, I honestly cannot remember if their fathers are even mentioned. As for their mothers, they all disappeared on the very same night. Which isn’t uncommon for the town of Bishop.
People go missing all the time. More importantly, women go missing. One of these young women happened to be the girlfriend of one of our heroines, and as you can imagine, she is still suffering from the losses.
Haunted by the recurring disappearances, and the constant storm, the town has decided to honor the girls’ mothers by hosting a memorial. They have constructed statues displaying their “remarkable talents”. One of the girls, Whitney, gets fed up and takes a stand to speak against the town. She is still upset that no one has tried to look for her girlfriend, Eleanor. But just as Whitney brings up Eleanor’s loss, the storm picks up and sends the statues crumbling to the ground, injuring Whitney in the process.
In the rubble, another one of the girls (Bo) finds something mysterious that raises a lot of questions. What secrets is the town hiding? What is the mayor and his sons hiding? Why did their mothers suddenly go missing? What happened to Eleanor?
I feel like this might have been a fantasy spin on the MMIW (Missing or Murdered Indigenous Women) movement and there was a split moment when something similar is mentioned. But alas, it is never actually said and I’m really bad when it comes to implication. I honestly don’t even know if the characters or author are of Indigenous descent.
The “monster” at the end is never revealed or even explained what it is, so that was another thing that I wished had taken more time to explore. Also the “magic” between the men and women is never really explained either. There was just a lot that was left unsaid and it ended really fast.
<b>SPOILERS</b>
Before you leave and go about your day, I just need to rant about something really quick. Spoilers have already been warned so if you no likey, then you are excused. Have a good day!
So I think what really hit the final nail for me was the reveal of the girls’ mothers. We learn that they are still alive, or at least somewhat. Honestly, I think it would have been better if not all of them were alive. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just used to the tragedy trope in horror, but it just seemed so <i>mehhh</i> that they all hadn’t died. (Not me still wondering where the dads are.)
By the very end of the book, once our four protagonists are finally able to leave the town, they just so happen to come across this shop where the owner just so happens to give a description of their mother’s. Turns out that all three of them were just shacking it up together while their daughters suffered the possibility of being murdered/sacrificed.
And for whatever reason, they couldn’t come back to Bishop. Sounds fake, but okay.
I’m sorry, but if I knew that my kids weren’t safe, I would not just up and leave them in the middle of the night. And even if that were the case, I would be finding a way back to them. What? They couldn’t give the girls a call and be like, “Yo, the mayor is murdering and sacrificing people to the land, get outta there”? Hmmm.
And the girls just <i>forgive</i> their mothers. Couldn’t be me. Nope. I would be holding a grudge so hard like, wow guess I know where I stand. Sure got your priorities straight there, huh mama?
I don’t know. I just didn’t believe it.
⋆⁺₊⋆⁺₊⋆
• 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐢 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 •
✰ 3 ✰ Average read. The story/characters were nice, but I’ll most likely forget about it in a month.
━━━━━━━━━━☽✰☾━━━━━━━━━━
I just don’t know.
I certainly liked it, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t know if it amazed me, or wowed me. Honestly, I found it to be quite short and wished it could have been longer.
Our story follows four different points of view with four girls. At the young ages of seventeen and eighteen, these girls live together with no parental guidance. What happened to their parents? Well, I honestly cannot remember if their fathers are even mentioned. As for their mothers, they all disappeared on the very same night. Which isn’t uncommon for the town of Bishop.
People go missing all the time. More importantly, women go missing. One of these young women happened to be the girlfriend of one of our heroines, and as you can imagine, she is still suffering from the losses.
Haunted by the recurring disappearances, and the constant storm, the town has decided to honor the girls’ mothers by hosting a memorial. They have constructed statues displaying their “remarkable talents”. One of the girls, Whitney, gets fed up and takes a stand to speak against the town. She is still upset that no one has tried to look for her girlfriend, Eleanor. But just as Whitney brings up Eleanor’s loss, the storm picks up and sends the statues crumbling to the ground, injuring Whitney in the process.
In the rubble, another one of the girls (Bo) finds something mysterious that raises a lot of questions. What secrets is the town hiding? What is the mayor and his sons hiding? Why did their mothers suddenly go missing? What happened to Eleanor?
I feel like this might have been a fantasy spin on the MMIW (Missing or Murdered Indigenous Women) movement and there was a split moment when something similar is mentioned. But alas, it is never actually said and I’m really bad when it comes to implication. I honestly don’t even know if the characters or author are of Indigenous descent.
The “monster” at the end is never revealed or even explained what it is, so that was another thing that I wished had taken more time to explore. Also the “magic” between the men and women is never really explained either. There was just a lot that was left unsaid and it ended really fast.
<b>SPOILERS</b>
Before you leave and go about your day, I just need to rant about something really quick. Spoilers have already been warned so if you no likey, then you are excused. Have a good day!
So I think what really hit the final nail for me was the reveal of the girls’ mothers. We learn that they are still alive, or at least somewhat. Honestly, I think it would have been better if not all of them were alive. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just used to the tragedy trope in horror, but it just seemed so <i>mehhh</i> that they all hadn’t died. (Not me still wondering where the dads are.)
By the very end of the book, once our four protagonists are finally able to leave the town, they just so happen to come across this shop where the owner just so happens to give a description of their mother’s. Turns out that all three of them were just shacking it up together while their daughters suffered the possibility of being murdered/sacrificed.
And for whatever reason, they couldn’t come back to Bishop. Sounds fake, but okay.
I’m sorry, but if I knew that my kids weren’t safe, I would not just up and leave them in the middle of the night. And even if that were the case, I would be finding a way back to them. What? They couldn’t give the girls a call and be like, “Yo, the mayor is murdering and sacrificing people to the land, get outta there”? Hmmm.
And the girls just <i>forgive</i> their mothers. Couldn’t be me. Nope. I would be holding a grudge so hard like, wow guess I know where I stand. Sure got your priorities straight there, huh mama?
I don’t know. I just didn’t believe it.
⋆⁺₊⋆⁺₊⋆
• 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐢 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 •
✰ 3 ✰ Average read. The story/characters were nice, but I’ll most likely forget about it in a month.
━━━━━━━━━━☽✰☾━━━━━━━━━━
The Deep by Alma Katsu
3.5
Was not what I was expecting.
First off, I am not a fan of time jumps. Even though there was only a four year difference and it was clearly stated what year we were in, and it was a valid and relative jump, I still did not enjoy it. The main reason I picked this book up was because of the <i>Titanic</i> setting. Sadly, that was the only thing that I enjoyed about this book.
Actually, I can’t say that it was the only reason. The fact that [author:Alma Katsu|3387293] added real life passengers to the story, without making it too weird, was a really nice touch.
A few of those passengers included two third-class boxers who also happened to be lovers. Mister J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line and most notably famous for being the “coward of the <i>Titanic</i>” and rumored to disguising himself as a woman and sneaking aboard one of the lifeboats.
And then we have the amazing Violet Jessop, stewardess and nurse, survivor of not only the RMS <i>Titanic</i> but also the sister ship HMHS <i>Brittanic</i> AND the oldest sister ship known as the RMS <i>Olympic</i>.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆
First off, I am not a fan of time jumps. Even though there was only a four year difference and it was clearly stated what year we were in, and it was a valid and relative jump, I still did not enjoy it. The main reason I picked this book up was because of the <i>Titanic</i> setting. Sadly, that was the only thing that I enjoyed about this book.
Actually, I can’t say that it was the only reason. The fact that [author:Alma Katsu|3387293] added real life passengers to the story, without making it too weird, was a really nice touch.
A few of those passengers included two third-class boxers who also happened to be lovers. Mister J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line and most notably famous for being the “coward of the <i>Titanic</i>” and rumored to disguising himself as a woman and sneaking aboard one of the lifeboats.
And then we have the amazing Violet Jessop, stewardess and nurse, survivor of not only the RMS <i>Titanic</i> but also the sister ship HMHS <i>Brittanic</i> AND the oldest sister ship known as the RMS <i>Olympic</i>.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆
Mom Jeans and Other Mistakes by Alexa Martin
2.0
I honestly thought that they were gonna find out that they had feelings for each other but they didn’t and I found myself not really caring for this.
Like, it’s nice to see a female friendship co-parenting in raising a child. . .
If you can really even call it that.
I don’t know I was just not impressed with this.
I am also convinced that this book is why people hate millennials, millennials included.
Lauren is a single mom, med-school dropout, struggling to raise her five-year-old daughter. Her and Jude, her long time best friend, decide to move in together. Jude is an influencer and daughter of a former celebrity.
When Lauren’s ex decides that he wants to battle for custody of their daughter, Jude convinces Lauren to be a mommy influencer and start a podcast.
I think the main problem I had with this book was the constant queer-baiting. Like, Lauren and Jude's character spend the entirety of the book going on feminist rants and whatnot, but they don't hesitate to call each other their "wives". I absolutely hate it when straight women do this. Even the synopsis should have been a red flag for me to not read this book. They say "I do" together.
Now I need to address something that is a major spoiler. So please, if you are planning on reading the book and do not want to read spoilers, then I advise you to stop reading the rest of this review. Otherwise, if you are perfectly okay with spoilers, then you may continue.
This is your last chance.
I will not warn you after this. . .
Are you still here?
Yes!? Then you must be ready for the spoiler bit.
So here it comes.
3. . .
2. . .
1. . .
Alright. Now that I have your full attention. We can get into detail.
Jude’s character is an alcoholic. Trigger warnings and all that. Like to the point where she is constantly drinking. Like 10 AM drinking.
Lauren has some bitchy soccer mom types in her friend group with her daughter’s school.
And Jude cannot stand these people.
So, one day during a play date, Jude decides that she’s going to mix some alcohol with her hot chocolate to make the day with these moms a little more bearable. Lauren is off at some sort of talk show podcast thingy or whatever with a famous mom-influencer.
If you can’t see where this is going then major trigger warnings ahead involving a child being in danger.
You guessed it. Lauren’s daughter gets a hold of the hot chocolate and needs to be rushed to the hospital.
And then Lauren has the audacity to forgive her. Like, six months later after Jude has gotten herself clean and went to therapy. But still.
That shit, to me, is unforgivable. If someone I trusted were to put my child in danger, I would not forgive them, let alone let them back into my life.
Like, it’s nice to see a female friendship co-parenting in raising a child. . .
If you can really even call it that.
I don’t know I was just not impressed with this.
I am also convinced that this book is why people hate millennials, millennials included.
Lauren is a single mom, med-school dropout, struggling to raise her five-year-old daughter. Her and Jude, her long time best friend, decide to move in together. Jude is an influencer and daughter of a former celebrity.
When Lauren’s ex decides that he wants to battle for custody of their daughter, Jude convinces Lauren to be a mommy influencer and start a podcast.
I think the main problem I had with this book was the constant queer-baiting. Like, Lauren and Jude's character spend the entirety of the book going on feminist rants and whatnot, but they don't hesitate to call each other their "wives". I absolutely hate it when straight women do this. Even the synopsis should have been a red flag for me to not read this book. They say "I do" together.
Now I need to address something that is a major spoiler. So please, if you are planning on reading the book and do not want to read spoilers, then I advise you to stop reading the rest of this review. Otherwise, if you are perfectly okay with spoilers, then you may continue.
This is your last chance.
I will not warn you after this. . .
Are you still here?
Yes!? Then you must be ready for the spoiler bit.
So here it comes.
3. . .
2. . .
1. . .
Alright. Now that I have your full attention. We can get into detail.
Jude’s character is an alcoholic. Trigger warnings and all that. Like to the point where she is constantly drinking. Like 10 AM drinking.
Lauren has some bitchy soccer mom types in her friend group with her daughter’s school.
And Jude cannot stand these people.
So, one day during a play date, Jude decides that she’s going to mix some alcohol with her hot chocolate to make the day with these moms a little more bearable. Lauren is off at some sort of talk show podcast thingy or whatever with a famous mom-influencer.
If you can’t see where this is going then major trigger warnings ahead involving a child being in danger.
You guessed it. Lauren’s daughter gets a hold of the hot chocolate and needs to be rushed to the hospital.
And then Lauren has the audacity to forgive her. Like, six months later after Jude has gotten herself clean and went to therapy. But still.
That shit, to me, is unforgivable. If someone I trusted were to put my child in danger, I would not forgive them, let alone let them back into my life.
Knot Again by Kwana Jackson
2.5
I’m not gonna lie.
My perverted mind thought that this was going to be about different kinds of knots. 👀
But no, it’s just about knitting. You know, the perfectly pure and normal kinds of knots.
Not those knots. . .
Ahem.
So anyway, I really don’t know why I didn’t like this book other than my disinterest. And no, it’s not because of <i>that</i> reason.
First off, I didn't know that it was part of a series. I'm sure that it doesn't matter which one you read first, but that stuff always throws me off.
I felt like Lucas and Sidney’s backstory between each other wasn’t properly explained. They weren’t even in a relationship before going their separate ways but there's still this unknown tension between them. And all it is is that they both liked each other back in high school but both were too dumb to act on it. Sidney left town, got married and had a kid. And now she's back in town taking care of her grandpa while going through the backlash of a divorce.
And Lucas is. . . Well. I’m not exactly sure. He's a part time firefighter, local hottie, and runs his family’s knitting shop.
There just wasn’t enough plot for me to care so I ended up not finishing at about 70%.
⋆⁺₊⋆⁺₊⋆
• 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐢 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 •
✰ 2.5 ✰ Listen. I didn’t hate it, but I also didn’t like it. I got through it, but still just a meh book.
━━━━━━━━━━━━☽✰☾━━━━━━━━━━━━
My perverted mind thought that this was going to be about different kinds of knots. 👀
But no, it’s just about knitting. You know, the perfectly pure and normal kinds of knots.
Not those knots. . .
Ahem.
So anyway, I really don’t know why I didn’t like this book other than my disinterest. And no, it’s not because of <i>that</i> reason.
First off, I didn't know that it was part of a series. I'm sure that it doesn't matter which one you read first, but that stuff always throws me off.
I felt like Lucas and Sidney’s backstory between each other wasn’t properly explained. They weren’t even in a relationship before going their separate ways but there's still this unknown tension between them. And all it is is that they both liked each other back in high school but both were too dumb to act on it. Sidney left town, got married and had a kid. And now she's back in town taking care of her grandpa while going through the backlash of a divorce.
And Lucas is. . . Well. I’m not exactly sure. He's a part time firefighter, local hottie, and runs his family’s knitting shop.
There just wasn’t enough plot for me to care so I ended up not finishing at about 70%.
⋆⁺₊⋆⁺₊⋆
• 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐢 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 •
✰ 2.5 ✰ Listen. I didn’t hate it, but I also didn’t like it. I got through it, but still just a meh book.
━━━━━━━━━━━━☽✰☾━━━━━━━━━━━━
Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison
2.75
This had so much potential and it just flopped.
Too much family drama, not enough werewolf.
Honestly this shouldn't be tagged as horror, because there is absolutely nothing scary or horror filled in this book. The scariest scene in the book is how awful our main character's mother is and how she allowed for all of her boyfriends to sexually abuse her daughter. Which, this is brought up only a handful of times and serves no real purpose to the story.
Rory's character is described as this "cool" woman that goes out and fucks a bunch of men and has one night stands. And I was like, "okay, now that she's a werewolf, she's gonna need some sort of meat to eat, so let's just eat all of these douchebaggy dudes that hit on her". (Or, you know, go after her mom's douchey ex-boyfriends.) No, that would have made the story interesting. And then we would have had a decent werewolf book.
Too much family drama, not enough werewolf.
Honestly this shouldn't be tagged as horror, because there is absolutely nothing scary or horror filled in this book. The scariest scene in the book is how awful our main character's mother is and how she allowed for all of her boyfriends to sexually abuse her daughter. Which, this is brought up only a handful of times and serves no real purpose to the story.
Rory's character is described as this "cool" woman that goes out and fucks a bunch of men and has one night stands. And I was like, "okay, now that she's a werewolf, she's gonna need some sort of meat to eat, so let's just eat all of these douchebaggy dudes that hit on her". (Or, you know, go after her mom's douchey ex-boyfriends.) No, that would have made the story interesting. And then we would have had a decent werewolf book.
I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea
2.5
Actual Rating:
2.5✰
So I really liked this all the way up until the middle.
What I Liked:
• The cover is beautiful!! I have an obsession with creepy girls
• Bisexual main character!!!!!
• The demon/god/monster
• Killer (literally) ballerinas
What I Didn't Liked:
• It was verrrryyyy slow
• The story just fell flat
• I just didn’t understand . . .
Some things weren’t clear
I don’t know if I just skimmed over these parts, or if I blacked out while reading. Maybe they weren't even mentioned at all.
So Laure attends a ballet school and she's clearly still underage. Is the ballet school also an academics school? Is there another school that she goes to? Does she just not go to school?
We (we is me) just don't know.
Laure holds a very hard grudge against her father. And is a runaway from home? First off, are there no child protective services to ring this girl in? Why is she just allowed to run away from her parents? Why does her dad not do anything? Who’s taking care of her? Does she live with her "friend"?
We (we is me) just don’t know.
Why did we just forget about Josephine? I thought she was going to be a more important part of the story and then she just . . . wasn’t there.
Also, I felt that the god/demon/monster should have been more bloodthirsty. Like, Laure basically sells her soul but it’s all fine and dandy as long as she completes a task? Last I checked, gods/demons/monsters aren’t sympathetic. Where is the supernatural gang to gank this SOB?
We (we is me) just don’t know.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆
𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐢 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬
✰ 2.5 ✰ Listen. I didn’t hate it, but I also didn’t like it. I got through it, but still just a meh book.
━━━━━━━━━━☽✰☾━━━━━━━━━━
2.5✰
So I really liked this all the way up until the middle.
What I Liked:
• The cover is beautiful!! I have an obsession with creepy girls
• Bisexual main character!!!!!
• The demon/god/monster
• Killer (literally) ballerinas
What I Didn't Liked:
• It was verrrryyyy slow
• The story just fell flat
• I just didn’t understand . . .
Some things weren’t clear
I don’t know if I just skimmed over these parts, or if I blacked out while reading. Maybe they weren't even mentioned at all.
So Laure attends a ballet school and she's clearly still underage. Is the ballet school also an academics school? Is there another school that she goes to? Does she just not go to school?
We (we is me) just don't know.
Laure holds a very hard grudge against her father. And is a runaway from home? First off, are there no child protective services to ring this girl in? Why is she just allowed to run away from her parents? Why does her dad not do anything? Who’s taking care of her? Does she live with her "friend"?
We (we is me) just don’t know.
Why did we just forget about Josephine? I thought she was going to be a more important part of the story and then she just . . . wasn’t there.
Also, I felt that the god/demon/monster should have been more bloodthirsty. Like, Laure basically sells her soul but it’s all fine and dandy as long as she completes a task? Last I checked, gods/demons/monsters aren’t sympathetic. Where is the supernatural gang to gank this SOB?
We (we is me) just don’t know.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆
𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐢 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬
✰ 2.5 ✰ Listen. I didn’t hate it, but I also didn’t like it. I got through it, but still just a meh book.
━━━━━━━━━━☽✰☾━━━━━━━━━━
Hide by Kiersten White
Hide takes places at an abandoned amusement park where contestants compete against each other in game of hide and seek. Only, don't get caught. The goal is to stay at the park for a week and not be found; the winner will receive a cash prize of $50,000.
I was really starting to enjoy this book all the way up until the competition started. The buildup was interesting and was giving me Squid Games vibes and I was excited. And then the game starts and literally it's just these characters doing nothing but hiding and reflecting on their past.
Slowly, people start disappearing one by one and we don't get a reveal until the very end. It felt so hard to to connect to these characters because they were all assholes and maybe that was the point, but I did not feel anything for them. I didn't see a need for a romance to happen in the middle of this book, but it was painfully obvious in the first few chapters what was going to happen.
Unfortunately, Hide was quite literally like an amusement park, but we spent the whole day waiting in line and once we got on the ride, the roller coaster stopped halfway through the ride.
2.5
"Fourteen competitors. Seven days. Everywhere to hide, but nowhere to run."
Hide takes places at an abandoned amusement park where contestants compete against each other in game of hide and seek. Only, don't get caught. The goal is to stay at the park for a week and not be found; the winner will receive a cash prize of $50,000.
I was really starting to enjoy this book all the way up until the competition started. The buildup was interesting and was giving me Squid Games vibes and I was excited. And then the game starts and literally it's just these characters doing nothing but hiding and reflecting on their past.
Slowly, people start disappearing one by one and we don't get a reveal until the very end. It felt so hard to to connect to these characters because they were all assholes and maybe that was the point, but I did not feel anything for them. I didn't see a need for a romance to happen in the middle of this book, but it was painfully obvious in the first few chapters what was going to happen.
Unfortunately, Hide was quite literally like an amusement park, but we spent the whole day waiting in line and once we got on the ride, the roller coaster stopped halfway through the ride.