tkatt20's reviews
99 reviews

I dont really have much to say about this book, however, I do think it is the best book in this series. It was a relatively good wrap up and I really enjoyed the addition of Grima Mod. After absolutely trashing the last book in my last review I think its safe to say some of my opinions have changed. I did notice a bit more maturity in a lot of the characters and the romance between Jude and Cardan was saved for me so I no longer belive it is a horrible match. I did find a section of this book incredibly slow and I thought the ending happened too quickly and easily which is why I didn't rate it higher than the last book. I can definitely see why so many people love this series and these books, I just think the writing style wasn't for me.

Never in my entire life have I ever hated reading a book so much that I genuinely could not put down. I dont like the characters, the plot is weird and half baked, but I can't stop reading it. It's like being stuck watching a car crash when you so badly want to look away. If you really enjoyed this book and love the series, I encourage you to stop reading this review now so you might preserve some of your sanity.

Jude is actually infuriating. She selfish and impulsive and generally annoying. How does someone go from being a scheming mastermind to being so blind she doesn't see the countless betrayals happening right in front of her. With all these years of being trained by Madoc and living in Faerie you'd think she would have learned not to trust people so easily. You'd think a spy would know not to spout off her plans to anyone who would listen. She is the definition of not thinking about the consequences of her actions. One of the only redeeming qualities of this book was Cardans slight character development. I really enjoyed seeing him acting more mature and showing interest in being king and not just being a massive jerk to everyone he meets. It was very refreshing seeing Jude get a taste of her own medicine.

I honestly think i liked the writing in this book less than the first. The big plot twist that would have gotten me was spoiled withing the first few chapters, so by the time it happened I had seen it coming from a mile away and wasn't even shocked. There was also a huge opportunity to really put Judes skills to the test with Balekin but that was over so fast a bearly got to enjoy it. Im beginning to think that the only reason i was able to get into this book so much is because of the training and special skills Jude has. The fight scenes and displays of her skills were extremely entertaining once you get past how incredibly unrealistic they are. But hey, this is a fantasy novel after all. Im all for a good romance but Im not sure you could really call Jude and Cardans relationship that. I know this is a wildly unpopular  opinion but I found it extremely forced and they both deserve better. Hopefully the last book will change my opinion on this.

A part of me really wanted to give this book a much lower rating but I give this book 4 stars. Not because its good, but because I swear it put some kind of spell on me to make me keep reading it and that is pretty impressive. Will I be reading the next book? Absolutely. Will I like it? Probably not.

I am still holding on to a fraction of hope that the last book in this series will answer all of my questions and make me regret every bad thing I've ever said about this book but im starting to think it is pretty unlikely. 

I have not stopped thinking about this book since I finished reading it. The writing style is beautiful and so well done and the world is well developed and the magic system is beautifully written, I loved the characters and genuinely could not put this book down! I was having a hard time finishing books or sticking with a series and when I had picked this up I had figured it would have the same fate, but as I started reading, it quickly became apparent that that would not be the case. This book is set in the modern day United States, with the magical element woven in through witches that have power that corresponds to the seasons. The main character, Clara, is an exceptionally powerful witch that has power that changes with the seasons, unlike her peers. She is extremely insecure about herself and terrified of her powers based off past tragedy and current events, and you get to go along with her as she learns about herself and how to gain back control in her life. Sometimes I find that deeply insecure characters can be extremely bothersome and difficult to read about but every insecurity is well written and justified and I wasn’t feeling annoyed by the story or wishing  the characters would take a different approch to situations at all. This book does an amazing job making the readers feel each emotion as severally as the main character, but not too overwhelmed even with so much going on in the book. This book handles themes about tragedy and loss as well as some mental health and ptsd elements very elegantly and realistically. Even though it was a rather simple read, the addition of these heavy topics, paired with a writing style that makes each page feel like an art piece, made this book exceed my expectations

One of the most impressive parts of this book is how clearly you can tell the author did tons of research for this story. You get a little extra information about weather systems and botany which fits in perfect with the natural and seasonal themes of this book. Sometimes I feel like in order to sound more sophisticated, some authors will add an excessive amount of knowledge on a topic without explanation, but with the characters lives relying so much on the seasons, it is very realistic to have the characters know this information since they are just students, still learning about their powers. My only complaint is that I wish there was a little more insight on the motivation of the “villain” in the book. While they aren’t the main focus of the book or the direct problem, there isn’t really an answer to why they treat Clara so harsh and unfair. While this does bother me a bit, all the things this book does right wildly outshines this problem and I feel like once you get to the end of the book it makes sense why this bit wasn’t really needed to make this an amazing story.

If you like books about magic and nature with well written main characters and a great message, you will love this book. I can see this easily becoming one of my favorites. I will definitely be rereading it in the future and I look forward to future books from this author.

I needed a quick and interesting read and this book delivered. It read exactly like some of my favorite teen slasher films and had me devouring every page as the tension grew. The first 50 or so pages read more like a contemporary romance and was not what I was expecting but I stuck with it and and very quickly realized how necessary it was to lure you into a false sense of security. All of the characters were extremely well written and diverse. Each major character especially had their own trauma and flaws but it wasn't an excuse for the characters to be irrationally rude or unpleasant, which seems to be a trend with YA books I've read in the past. Every character seemed extremely fleshed out (no pun intended) and had their own personality and I was so shocked at how accurately this book portrayed the media and community response to the tragedies that were happening and how screwed up it was.

I highly recommend this book for any horror/slasher movie fans out there. Some other reviews mention that the killer'  motive wasn't realistic and ended up being disappointing but I didnt get that at all. I  was very realistic to me and terrifying since it shows that you never really know what goes on in someones head. There was a perfect balance of heart-pounding scenes and lighter and funnier moments in between so nothing became to over or underwhelming and the writing style was perfect for me. I loved these characters and if the author ever decided to bring them back for future books I would be first in line for a copy. 

After hearing rave reviews, I had hope that I would really enjoy this book, and while I didn’t entirely hate it, I didn’t love it either. At 848 pages, this book is a monstrosity, and a very confusing one at that. I spent the first 200 pages struggling to remember this names of the characters and where they lived since it is all kind of thrown at you very quickly, but once the story started picking up a bit it was much easier to remember who was who and by the middle of the story I found myself enjoying the story and the pacing much more. 

I do have a few grievances with this book. The first half of the book was very hard to follow, I did not understand the motivations of the characters at all and I did not enjoy reading it quite as much as I usually do when reading a fantasy novel. There were also some scenes that I believe were suppose to come across as plot twists but didn’t really fit and seemed like they were thrown in there to move the story along. The quickness made it very jarring and didn’t really allow me to feel any remorse for the characters as they went through loss or other failures. That mixed with the language being very difficult to understand caused me to constantly be pulled out of my immersion in this story and It almost made me put down the book for good. The pacing was very strange to me as well. There were parts that seemed very quick and caught my attention easily but the rest seemed to drag on so slowly that reading it became exhausting. After getting through the beginning, I did start to really enjoy this book, but once I got to the ending I was very disappointed. Somehow the final battle and aftermath was wrapped up in less than 100 pages and it was very unsatisfactory. Not only was it clunky and difficult to read, I also had to look up clarifications to try to understand what happened. It seems like this book is set up for a sequel without the author actually intending to write one.

Even with my gripes about this story, there is some immaculate writing done here. This is a massive world that is being written into one book and the world building is very extensive and interesting. While I didn’t find the characters all that likable most of the time, it added a lot of depth and I was very entertained by each character’s relationship with the others. By far the most redeeming qualities this book has are the different creatures and the magic systems. You don’t meet the animal companions right away but they made the storylines so interesting and the communication between them and their human counterparts kept me reading even when I was frustrated with the rest of the story. When I though the story couldn’t possibly have impressed me more that was when you start to fully get into the magic and learn more about it’s history and how it works. It became a main focus that carried through to the end and that is where you really start to see the character development emerge. The romance in this book snuck up on me but it was very much a side plot and I feel like that works to its advantage and I appreciate that it doesn’t distract from the main plot points and events. This is also one of the first books I’ve read that had some significant character deaths that really fit into the story. It was sad but once I finished the story I realized how necessary it was for the characters to get where they needed to be.

While this book may not have been quite my style, I have never read anything like it and I can see why so many people love it. There is a big part of me that is sad to let these characters go and if there ever is word of a sequel I would definitely consider reading it.

This was such a cute book and I did not want to put it down. I thought the characters were really cute and they all had a really cool dynamic with each other and it sort of had an enemies to lovers thing going which is always a plus. I really liked that the main love interest wasn't painted to be perfect in every way like some romance books do, and the main character actually taking responsibility for her actions made it even better. This book also handle trauma and ptsd very well for a YA book and it showed the struggles that the different characters had to deal with

It would have been a 5 star book for me but I wasn't really enamored by the writing style but it was really cute and made me feel like this story was being told to me by a best friend so it wasn't a huge deal to me. I definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a quick summer read or someone really into romance.

I wasn't expecting to like this book as much as I did. In the beginning I wasn't even sure if I was going to be able to finish it. The whole premise disgusted me and the author does such an amazing job of making you feel what the main character, Gemma, is feeling. It is written in first person by Gemma, to her kidnapper recounting everything that happened while she was with him. Because it is written this way, you're really feeling everything with so much depth and detail I was shocked by how much I was relating with her near the end. Im still so torn by everything that happened I think I flew through the last 100 pages in half the time it would usually take me and I still don't know how I feel. Through the whole book I caught myself thinking about how I would react if I was in Gemma's situation and what I would have done in her shoes but I have no idea. This is easily one of the most intense and real books I have read this year and it breaks my heart knowing how easily this could actually happen to someone. This book will rip out your heart and stomp on it and I will be recommending it to anyone I get the chance to.

I cant decide if i liked this book or not. This is the first book I've read from this author so I didn't have any expectations going into it like many other did that read the more popular We Were Liars, but I found the writing style very unique. The book itself is written backwards, so you know the aftermath of the events before actually knowing what took place and it was nothing like I had ever read before. I was extremely confused at first and it took me a bit to get in to it, but for a book that was less than 300 pages I didn't feel rushed or overwhelmed with information, and after it started to pick up and I started learning more it began to make a lot more sense to me. I do wish it had a bit more information on the characters motives, maybe an extra chapter or 2 on her past to kind of explain why she decided to take this route. I might end up rereading this in the future now that I know what happens, I'd like to see what kind of foreshadowing the author included early on and maybe see if there were any details I missed early on.

This review includes some mild spoilers

After reading a lot of fantasy lately, I wanted a slow-paced contemporary to change things up a bit, but that’s pretty much all this was. I didn’t like the characters, the plot was non existent, and I felt like nothing was resolved in the end. It was unsatisfactory and I feel like I wasted my time.

This book starts with the main character starting college with her twin sister. It’s no surprise that there’s immediate problems when she meets her roommate Raegen, who is older and makes fun of the MC for her interest in the popular book series Simon Snow. The author included excerpts from the Simon Snow series and some fanfiction before the start of each chapter which I did like since it was a bit of a tempo change. The MC is very obviously a huge fan and she’s the author of some very popular fanfiction within the fandom. Right off the bat I didn’t see too many problems, it seemed to start okay and the MC was relatable, but I could not get past her name; Cather. If they had called her Cat I wouldn’t have minded, but Cath was just to hard for me to say/understand and Cather makes me think of medical equipment and I just don’t like it. I can usually get past names I don’t like , but Cath had some very questionable morals. There is some extremely questionable dialogue a few chapters in between Cath and Raegen and I felt gross just reading it. Cath is extremely judgmental and rude and has a very strange obsession with eyebrows and hairlines like that’s all that matters on a person, you could actually play a really good drinking game with how much she mentions eyebrows. Cath also describes Raegen as a heavier person, but also seems surprised at how confident she is, like a heavier person can’t be confident. The whole thing just left a bad taste in my mouth. 

I am honestly not sure if there’s many characters I actually liked in this book. Wren plays a big part for fairly obvious reasons, but she treats everyone horribly. She comes across as stuck up and spoiled with zero empathy for anyone else, and especially not Cath. She is almost never held accountable for her actions until the end, and even then she fights with everyone and it’s extremely immature for someone in college. You meet the main love interest Levi early on in the book as well. Levi is one of the few characters I did like, but he didn’t have much dimension. He just felt like the stereotypical hot "golden retriever" boyfriend that is insanely nice to everyone and somehow falls for Cath even though she’s extremely rude and unpleasant to be around. I honestly don’t know if Cath even thought he was attractive with how much she nit picked his appearance. The guy deserved better. 

This book did an exceptionally good job of dancing around important topics like mental health and learning disabilities. It is fairly rare finding a YA book that includes these topics but it isn’t the main focus so I was excited about that but then they just don’t deal with them at all. The issues come up but the characters just find loopholes or flat out refuse to deal with their problems and I feel that just encourages bad habits for the readers. I also feel like this book didn’t do a great job portraying fan culture, it pretty much just talked about how you’re judged if you’re a big fan of a popular series, which I’m sure many readers can relate to that, I just wish it could have included Cath actually being proud of who she is and what she enjoys. By the end of the story it felt like absolutely nothing was accomplished. There was almost no character development aside from Cath actually standing up for herself at the end. It felt like it ended the same way it started, and any of the big conflicts that happened just didn’t have a very satisfying ending.

The only reason I didn’t rate it lower was that I did manage to finish it and it wasn’t an all around unpleasant read. The middle of the book was not that bad and I did end up finding Cath to be somewhat relatable and I enjoyed the few good role models she had, but I can not see myself reading this book again. I probably wouldn’t recommend this book unless you wanted a simple coming of age story with an okay romance since that’s really all there is going on here.

I find myself let down quite often by the ending of a series if I feel the stories weren’t concluded well or if I have too many questions left unanswered, but this book pleasantly surprised me. I felt like it was an excellent wrap up for all the characters and I am very happy I stuck it out to the end even after my first impression of the series. There was just enough danger that it kept me engaged through the majority of the story and I didn’t feel like getting through it was a chore even though this book is over 800 pages long. I was very pretty shocked about how graphic the violence got but I feel like it did a good job showing how brutal war is and the toll it took on the characters which is something I find many other books tend to gloss over especially in the YA genre. I also liked how things weren’t just immediately "perfect" for the characters at the end, you finish knowing that the characters would have a lot more to get through and I feel like that type of ending is very natural and satisfactory.

One thing I did note while reading, is this book is the most inclusive in the series when it comes to the fairytale crossover that takes place in each book prior. Although I’m not a huge fan of Snow White as a story, Winter included a lot more of it’s classic compared to the others in the series. While I did enjoy it, I do feel like it was a tad too much and part of that storyline was almost completely unnecessary and just made the book drag on. The ending would have been the same without the 10+ chapters the characters spent dealing with this issue. This book easily could have been a 5 star read for me if it wasn’t for the little details like that, and by the end I still feel like there were too many plot holes and a few poorly executed storylines that just weren’t redeemed by all the good this book did. With that being said, I do still think this was a very strong ending to the story and I will truly miss reading about these characters now that I have finished, but I can definitely see myself coming back and rereading this series in the future.