tkatt20's reviews
99 reviews

After reading The Nature of Witches, I had a feeling that Rachel Griffin would become one of my auto-buy authors, and this book solidified that. Griffin continues to craft the most unique and wonderful magic systems, expertly weaving it into a story full of love, hope, growth, and heartbreak. I genuinely am at a loss for words to express how much I loved this story. Just trust me when I say that you will not regret reading this. 

I think this has become my new favorite fairytale retelling. I was on the hunt for something beauty and the beast inspired and every list or recommendation i found online had this book on there. While I was skeptical at first based on the 3.89 star reveiw on goodreads, I gave it a shot and I am so happy I did. This was exactly what i needed and everything i had been looking for, I loved literally everything about this. The characters, the writing, the plot, I cant find a single thing about this that I didn't like and if you know anything about me, that's extremely hard to for me to do.
 If you'll allow me to gush about this book a little more, ill provide some more reasoning as to why i love this so much, other than "i loved it". Starting with the characters, every one of them were interesting and they each had depth to them that made it very easy to love reading about them. They all had very good and nice personalities, but I didn't find it boring. Usually, in the typical YA fantasy, you'll have a character that ends up being a villain and often times end up hating that character, but that wasn't the case here. That may not make a lot of sense but I felt like this story needed this to portray the message that the author wanted. And it works. I wasn't bored reading about them for even one minute, each interaction betweem the MC and each side character makes sense. There's no unnecessary diolouge or scenes, and while having a majority of good characters may be boring to some, I think it helps break up stereotypes and make this story unique compared to other Beauty and the Beast retellings. I thought the pacing was perfect for a slower story even up to the end where I usually find the endings of YA standalones to be rushed and convenient, but that wasn't the case with this one. Sure I predicted a few things here and there but there were some amazing parallels between the beginning and the end that you usually wouldn't find in a standalone. Plus, because this story had a slower pace to it, it allowed the writing style to really stand out, and for a story with such beautiful writing, it just added another thing to my list of everything I loved.
 Overall, I was so pleasantly surprised by this. I can see why some may not love this as much as I did, but if you want something thats slower paced with an amazing message, then look no further. But in the meantime, im off to buy every edition of this book that I can find. 

OMG THIS BOOK. I do not even have the words to describe how much i loved this book. I have been in a slump for so long and this pulled me right out, I already want to read it again.
This is not my first book by this author so i had an idea of what i was in for, but that could not prepare me for how much I loved this book. The characters are amazing, each one had their own personality and quirks and were so fleshed out, they all felt like real people to me. And I loved how much insight we were given into the competitive skating world and getting to see how both characters dealt with the immense stress they were under. This is a longer romance but it didn’t feel like it with how lovable the characters were and how entertaining the situations they were in were to read about. I loved the extra added layer of family drama we got. It helped break up the focus on their skating and allowed me to see more insight into the main character’s life and her personality while also showing a bit of what drives her to succeed and what effects her mood throughout practice and in her day to day life. We were also given some feminist undertones and that will always be a plus for me.
My only negative for this book and the reason I dropped it down a to a 4.75 is the writing style; more specifically the wording. I found some scenes, mostly in the beginning, didn’t feel very natural and the wording in some descriptions were a little out of left field and pulled me out of the story. This is such a minor grievance and these instances were very sparse and didn’t effect me as much as it could have which is why I didn’t rate it lower. Otherwise I genuinely enjoyed this story to the very end.
I could gush for hours about how much I loved this but I’ll leave it at that. This has quickly moved to the top of my favorites list and I can’t wait to read more by this author.

This was a beautiful story. It was short and fast paced, but it kept me completely entertained the whole time. It is a beautiful take on the classic Arthurian legends and it is definitely worth the read!

This was so cute and I loved the set up and pacing. It was a super quick read and I would have loved an entire book about Mara and Liam. The ending "situation" was a little strange and could have used a better build up since it seemed like it all happened a little too quick so I didn't give it a full 5 stars but everything else was perfect. All in all, if you like Ali Hazelwood's writing, you'll love this.

This was SO GOOD. The characters all have such interesting personalities, and sunshine falls reminds me a lot of gilmore girls. I thought the premise was so cute and I loved how it poked fun at classic romance stereotypes without coming across as haughty.
    I related so heavily to Nora and the work/life balance she has, and I tend to come across as extremely cold and unattached in person much like how people described her in the story. I loved watching her evolve and grow and learn that its okay to be openly emotional and show that you care about things. I absolutely adored the ending, it was honestly one of the most heartfelt and emotional endings I've ever read, and I was putting it off so much because I didn't want it to end. The writing in general was phenomenal and so beautiful, im going to be thinking about this book for a long time.
    I only had a couple drawbacks which is why I gave it a slightly lower rating. I found libby to be irritating at times, much like Nora did, where she just wanted to help but couldn't get an answer out of her sister. I also found it to be pretty slow paced which i don't usually like for romance novels, but I definitely would enjoy that more if I read this at a different point when I want something slow.  I think a big reason for the slowness is that the relationship evolves fairly quickly so youre not stuck waiting around and pining with the MC. Its pretty apperent that the characters like each other and they start a physical relationship very early on. Because of this, I didn't feel like I needed to binge read in order to get to their relationship. This also means that we get a family heavy plot, which isn't bad, its just weird that romance isn't the main focus or plot for a good portion of this romance book. 
   Overall, any of my issues with it were completely overshadowed by the story, setting, and characters. I loved it and it is perfect for someone looking for a quick and fun read.

Advanced warning, this will not be a good reveiw so I encourage anyone who's thinking of reading this book to wait and form their own opinion before reading this review. 

     This book was such a letdown. After forcing myself to finish, I figured I'd give myself a couple days to cool off before writing this reveiw, but the longer I waited the less likely I was going to actually write something and it became apparent that there really wasn't anything I liked about this. The pacing was weird, the characters were unremarkable (and frankly insufferable), and the ending was okay? I honestly feel like this was a waste of time. 
      I had such high hopes for this book. I was expecting something that was on the humorous side that maybe poked fun at the slasher/horror genera, or even something that was serious that focused on this supposed "support group" (which disbanded in the second chapter by the way), but this is more on the serious side and follows our main character as she tries to find out who's killing her friends. The plot takes on quite a few side "quests" which I think is supposed to help you get to know the other characters a little better but it messes with the pacing and makes everything jumbled and confusing. I could never really pinpoint a reason to care about the MC considering the only bits we got was her inner monolog about her paranoia and how she isn't being careful all the time. Her battles with her PTSD and other mental illnesses were very present in the first few chapters, but practically disappeared later on. Im not sure if it was to show just how unhinged she was becoming or if it just wasn't as important to the story, either way it made it feel like I was reading an entirely different book.
      The best part of this book was the action scenes. There wasn't many other than the beginning and the end, but the first one really pulled me in and kept me entertained. And while I dont see why this has gotten rave reveiws, it is definitely the right book for someone so I would definitely encourage anyone who's at least interested to at least give it a shot.