elianacox's reviews
115 reviews

Bride by Ali Hazelwood

4.25

Weird contemporary fantasy novel that it takes place current day, but has humans, vampires, and werewolves.

I love Hazelwood's writing and I don't know why. This book made me seriously question my taste in romance novels. At the end of the day, I enjoyed myself and I liked the plot. Kinda cringey but I wouldn't have expected otherwise.

If I Have to Be Haunted by Miranda Sun

3.0

Overall a pretty mediocre read. The plot hovered around Middle Grade for me. It almost read like a choose your own adventure novel but you aren't making any of the decisions. The very few PG-13 scenes between the main characters make it a YA for me.

It was fine and I was moderatly entertained enough, but I'm glad I listened to it as an audiobook and did not physically read it.

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

4.25

This was a really great story. A very solid 4 star read for me. I'm not a huge historical fiction person, but I throughly enjoyed the way the story was told and despite feeling like it was slow to start, I thought it was a very captivating read.

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi

3.75

Solid book, I don't really have much to comment on. The plot was alright, not really in my usual vibe, but I thought it was good for what it was. Really just a solid mediocre read.

Mad About You by Mhairi McFarlane

4.25

This book was really good aside from the epilogue.

I feel like a good chunck of the plot was centered around the fact that the main character didn't want to get married. So much so that she says multiple times that she doesn't want to, so to have the novel finish with her wedding just didn't sit well with me. It almost invalidates the main character's argument that any amount of pushing her won't get her to budge on marriage.

But the majority of the book was really good and I did like it.

Nightbane by Alex Aster

4.75

This was great. Like truly I don't have very many, if any at all, qualms with it.

I wanted her with Oro. He's like the light to her. Her warmth. The good in the world. Pushes her to be the best she can be in the most positive of ways. 

Grim on the other hand is a very dark soul. It's hard to dislike his character since you see him fall in love with her. You get the "I hate everyone but you" trope and it's such a good trope. 

Both oro and grim are the "touch her and you die" type. You see her love both of them. I'll admit we got more Grim than we did Oro in this book. A lot of the flashback scenes kinda shoved their way to the forefront and ultimately I feel like we kinda lacked some really good Oro/Isla scenes. 

But all that to say, I'm interested to see where this goes. We left off on a cliffhanger (suprise suprise), and I wouldn't dislike it if she ended up with either Grim or Oro. I do think I lean more towards Oro though if I had to route for one of them.

Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

4.5

For Hazelwood's first YA novel, it was done well. From an author that writes adult romance, I was hesitant to put too much faith into her YA debut. It can be challenging channeling the younger perspective while having a story stay relevant and not reading like your mom wrote it. I find to be increasingly rare these days to find that balance in a contemporary YA books (in other words, most YA romcoms are hella cringey).

However, the biggest concern for me was how Hazelwood would navigate the YA genre without relying on explicit scenes to aid the reader's connection. While the book is a little more forward than other YA books (

the main character has sex a few times throughout the novel and the reader is aware of that fact, but nothing is graphically described

), there's nothing in the book that a teenager doesn't already have knowledge about.

The plot itself was nicely done. While I was wanting more from the last chapter (

the person who loved the TV show The Queen's Gambit in me really wanted an epic chess match finale

), the epilogue partly makes up for it. I have some gripes about Oz's character and the way Mallory is treated. The way emotions are delt at times pissed me off slightly. However, it doesn't hold me back from mostly enjoying this book.

All in all, another good book from Hazelwood. I realize she's not everyone's favorite, but she's popular on BookTok for a reason. A lot of people really enjoy her, and what can I say, I'm one of those people.
 

The Ones We Burn by Rebecca Mix
Did not finish book. Stopped at 45%.

I can't with this book. I don't ever DNF books, but I seriously don't give a shit about the plot, the characters, the magic system, the romance, literally any of it, and I tried. I listened to the audio book until about 45% of the way into it and I knew I was done for when I thought I definitely had to be at least 75% done.

The character motives make little to no sense, the plot has taken forever to develop, I don't find any of the characters likeable in the slightest, and the protagonist's internal struggle is cliché and poorly executed. It's just a terrible book that lacks the ability to hold any sort of interest with the reader. It's not unique. It's very copy and paste with the "I hate these people but now they are my friends, so who do I stay true to: my 'family' or my newfound family?" and it's just not done well.

A Curse for True Love by Stephanie Garber

3.5

I hate to say it, but I'm disappointed. Queue the dramatic sobbing. Seriously though, there was a lot of hype surrounding the release of this book. The popularity that Evangaline and Jacks have surmounted on social media is almost a feat to be admired for YA right now. There's a lot of pressure to follow up two really good books with an equally great third book that wraps up the series. It just did not deliver. 

The plot was lackluster, and the motives behind the villains were very poor. The book almost strikes me as a first draft that should have been heavily reworked and rewritten. It's a shame that Apollo ended up being the primary focus of the novel. This book lacks what the first two do so well in the fact that this was painfully predictable. It's hard to see a series that encorperated deception so well be let down. 

Arguably, is it fair to judge this book based on what came before? I say yes, but as a standalone it still has all the same issues (predictable, missing angst between Eva/Jacks, wtf is happening with these "villains" and their "I'm evil because I'm selfish" attitude). Give me a good motive mixed with strategic sabotage. We know Garber is capable of doing it, see LaLa's actions in book two. 

I didn't hate the book, but it struck me as very similar to her writing with the Caraval series (which I also did not enjoy). It's definitely worth reading to wrap up the storylines, but keep your hopes low and know that the best has already come.

Cruel Illusions by Margie Fuston

4.25

I'm shocked. Again another book that I didn't think I'd like but grew on me. I started off listening to the audiobook, but got maybe 3 chapters in when I realized I actually wanted to pay a little more attention to the book than I was giving it. I ended up listening to the book as I followed along with my physical copy. I got the book through Fairyloot and wanted to chip away at my ever growing list of books that I've gotten from them, but have yet to read due to lack of interest. The magician aspect of the book definitely reminds me of Caraval (so I can see why they've been compared) but I would definitely say have drastically different vibes. Conveniently for me, a great book for October. The book definitely falls more into magical realism than it does fantasy. There's the classic vampire trope going on, which I didn't think was done in any way that uniquely stands out. The touch of magic was a nice plot element. I really liked Ava's view on the world. I liked her inner dialog and I definitely saw myself in aspects of her character. The love triangle was done alright

since I have the Fairyloot edition, it's really easy to pick out who she ends up with

. I would say my biggest nod comes down to the fact that the author wrote this as a standalone novel. Sure it may be a chunky book, but with so many authors stretching barely there plot lines into 3+ books, it's extremely refreshing to read a novel that has a good arc all in the entirty of the one novel. I'd definitely recommend it to the right person as I think it did a lot of things well, but understandably isn't for everyone.