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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
A wild ride and a very creepy novel. I enjoyed the writing style and the pacing. One of the things that drew me into the novel where the descriptions of characters dancing and the processing the emotions behind ambition and dreams.
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Abandonment
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
read for the tarot readathon 2025: ace of wands (read a book by a new-to-you author or in a genre you haven't explored)
read for july noir 2025 (saint treme graveyard): book with body parts
this is one of those books i really thought i was going to love. i love horror, especially horror written by black authors and i’ve had such good luck with ya horror in the past. everything about this seemed like it would be a five star read for me but honestly it just wasn’t.
from the very beginning reading this felt like a chore. i never wanted to pick it up. i kept trying to convince myself i was enjoying it, mostly because i’d heard such good things and didn’t want to believe it wasn’t working for me but i kind of gaslit myself into thinking i was liking it. the truth is i didn’t want to be reading this at all and i should've dnfed.
what really dragged this down for me was the pacing. it’s a long book but not in a way that feels rich or layered just repetitive. it felt like the same beats kept happening over and over again,and instead of deepening the tension, it just made things feel stuck. nothing ever felt urgent or clear. and some plot points weren’t explained and not in a mysterious, spooky way, just in a confusing way.
this had so much potential. it talks about how exclusive and damaging the world of ballet can be. how it privileges whiteness, wealth, and thinness but it doesn’t really go there. same with the racism. it’s acknowledged but not examined with the depth i wanted. the ideas are there but they’re not fully explored, which made the whole thing feel a little surface level.
that said there were things i liked. i appreciated that the main character is bisexual as a bisexual queen myself and there were some genuinely eerie, gory moments that really landed. i did also find the whole god/demon/monster element intriguing. the ballet backdrop was also compelling at least in theory. i liked the aesthetic of it, even if the execution didn’t quite work for me.
in the end, this just wasn’t the book for me. i wanted to love it. i was ready to give it five stars. but it felt slow, muddled, and emotionally flat. maybe the second book in the duology builds on it in a stronger way but i don’t want to continue. i wish this had lived up to what i had in my head because it really did have all the ingredients. it just never fully came together.
read for july noir 2025 (saint treme graveyard): book with body parts
this is one of those books i really thought i was going to love. i love horror, especially horror written by black authors and i’ve had such good luck with ya horror in the past. everything about this seemed like it would be a five star read for me but honestly it just wasn’t.
from the very beginning reading this felt like a chore. i never wanted to pick it up. i kept trying to convince myself i was enjoying it, mostly because i’d heard such good things and didn’t want to believe it wasn’t working for me but i kind of gaslit myself into thinking i was liking it. the truth is i didn’t want to be reading this at all and i should've dnfed.
what really dragged this down for me was the pacing. it’s a long book but not in a way that feels rich or layered just repetitive. it felt like the same beats kept happening over and over again,and instead of deepening the tension, it just made things feel stuck. nothing ever felt urgent or clear. and some plot points weren’t explained and not in a mysterious, spooky way, just in a confusing way.
this had so much potential. it talks about how exclusive and damaging the world of ballet can be. how it privileges whiteness, wealth, and thinness but it doesn’t really go there. same with the racism. it’s acknowledged but not examined with the depth i wanted. the ideas are there but they’re not fully explored, which made the whole thing feel a little surface level.
that said there were things i liked. i appreciated that the main character is bisexual as a bisexual queen myself and there were some genuinely eerie, gory moments that really landed. i did also find the whole god/demon/monster element intriguing. the ballet backdrop was also compelling at least in theory. i liked the aesthetic of it, even if the execution didn’t quite work for me.
in the end, this just wasn’t the book for me. i wanted to love it. i was ready to give it five stars. but it felt slow, muddled, and emotionally flat. maybe the second book in the duology builds on it in a stronger way but i don’t want to continue. i wish this had lived up to what i had in my head because it really did have all the ingredients. it just never fully came together.
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
If you take a girl born into poverty, raise her with apathetic parents in a toxic ballet culture, and then introduce a bloodthirsty supernatural being, you really can’t complain when you get what you get.
We enter the story knowing our main character isn’t a nice person. How can she be? She’s a product of her experiences and environment. There is no heroine here. This is a villain’s journey. That’s what makes it such an interesting story. It reminds me of the song lyric, “If I have to stay in hell I want the throne.”
This story questioned my understanding of beauty. It reimagined friendship and loyalty when emotional ties are absent. It introduced romantic love in which even a kiss is ill advised. It drove home Rumpelstiltskin’s old adage that, “All magic comes with a price, dearie.”
We enter the story knowing our main character isn’t a nice person. How can she be? She’s a product of her experiences and environment. There is no heroine here. This is a villain’s journey. That’s what makes it such an interesting story. It reminds me of the song lyric, “If I have to stay in hell I want the throne.”
This story questioned my understanding of beauty. It reimagined friendship and loyalty when emotional ties are absent. It introduced romantic love in which even a kiss is ill advised. It drove home Rumpelstiltskin’s old adage that, “All magic comes with a price, dearie.”
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes