Reviews with content warning for Hate crime - Felix Ever After

At first, I did not enjoy Felix Ever After. But as I read, I slowly became more attached to the characters, more interested in the plot and the mystery, more excited by the set pieces and the characters. By the end of the book, I was crying. God, I really enjoyed this book. Also, I really like the descriptions of the city, not just the physical descriptions of the city, but the people who live in NYC and how they interact with the city and how it makes a bunch of streets and businesses and crazy people a city.

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catherine_rose's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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jcol's review

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funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

a good book for a ya reader!
I didn't like the whole 100% of it (some parts reminded me of my immortal tbh) but it is compelling and touches many different themes that can help a teen or ya person.

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chardovski's review

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Very moving first person account on finding their authentic self and seeing multiple sides to the characters

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sssssoup's review

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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lindsloveslit's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring fast-paced

4.5

Oh my gosh. If I can convince y'all to read anything/add anything to your tbr, it would be this book. 🥹😭💓 I mean it. 🛑 STOP 🛑 what you're doing right now, go add it to your StoryGraph/Goodreads and then grab it from the library/bookstore!

I read fairly slow, but this was finished within twenty four hours. After the first two chapters I KNEW it was going to be one of my favorite books of the year (so far), and I was right. Everything about it is magic. 🪄 The writing is so vulnerable and clear. The author did an incredibly beautiful job with their descriptions and character development - not only can I see what the MC sees, but I swear I my heart and gut feels what the MC feels on every single page. It's real, it's raw, and it's a must read!

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danny_fox's review

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adventurous hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Alright, I'm finally done with another book and I have completed my reading goal for this year. Awesome, right?

This book was definitely a rollercoaster and although I wish I could give it a higher rating, it's gonna be 4.25 stars from me. Here are things I liked and didn't liked:

What I liked:

- I learned a lot from this book.
While reading this book, there have been a couple of times where it made me think of my own gender identity and/or sexuality. It made me realize some things about myself, as well as understand more on the topic of gender, LGBT, etc. I'm glad I read it, as I have learned quite a couple of things.

- The characters are nicely written.
I'm not a big fan of YA novels because I feel like the characters tend to be pretty simple, generic and boring in these types of books. But, this book had pretty decent characters. They were not perfect and were flawed, made mistakes and some even realized what they have done. I like that! The character development was also okay (sometimes, more on that later)!!

- Some tiny details and throwbacks.
Finding out why the title of this book is "Felix Ever After" in the very last chapter, or the times when a character or a thing from way back from the start of the story would show up, even for a brief second, almost near the end of the book, was amazing. I really love it when writers do that, so that was super enjoyable.

What I didn't like..

- A bit too specific at times.
Telling the reader that the characters are listening to *insert the title of the song here* song while going to *insert the name of the place/city here* by taking the *insert the name of the train here* bothered me a lot. I know it's a very nitpicky thing, but when you don't know the song or have never been to America so all these titles and names mean nothing to you, you feel like you are missing out on something, left out, I supposed. Why does it need to be so specific?

- The resolution to the big mystery was meh (in my opinion)
I don't want to touch on this too much so I wouldn't spoil anything, but if you read the book a little bit or at least read the description, you will know that in the story there is someone being extremely transphobic towards MC and does some fucked up shit to him, like sharing pictures of him before he transitioned, etc. but they are anonymous. Finding out who it was and why they did this left me kinda disappointed and unsatisfied? If that makes sense? I just didn't care about this character (and low-key completely forgot about them) enough to be upset or shocked, and plus their explanation for doing so was kinda weird and didn't really make much sense to me. I was really unhappy about this plot twist.

- The ending..
Like, the last 5 or so chapters of the book made me kinda upset. It felt rushed and I was not big fan of it. I guess I am kinda biased, cause a character I liked didn't get the ending I was hoping for would get, but at the same time, many things just left me disappointed. Felix's character development felt rushed and sudden, and him realizing who he loves and some other things, again, felt too sudden in my opinion. Like, there was not enough build up to him realizing some of this stuff. Again, I won't go too into it to avoid spoilers, but I was really not happy with the ending, and I would have preferred it if the book was even 200 pages longer than it is now if it meant that there would be more build up to the ending and that some things didn't feel as rushed, like the resolution to the love triangle (which bothered me a lot cause I felt like it has been resolved kinda poorly) and Felix suddenly gaining so much
confidence out of nowhere.

Final thoughts:
In conclusion,
the book is worth reading. I would suggest it to anyone who wishes to learn more about this topic and/or is questioning their own identity. The romance could have been done better and story as it is is okay, but I think it's worth the read cause you get to learn some new things and the middle part of the book was pretty enjoyable. I did have fun reading it, and as I said, the characters are really great, which is always a major plus for me. Just wish the ending was done a bit better..

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