evermoreau's reviews
12 reviews

None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell

dark tense medium-paced

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

1.5

the beginning paints a quite interesting narrative that quickly gets abandoned in favor of cheap shock value moments and bad characterisation that pretends to be tense. it did not need to be a nearly 400 pages long novel and it likewise wasn’t necessary for anyone but alix to have a pov (not counting the mixed media bits). i think the entirety of the book after the original plot twist is downright insulting, especially the victim blaming of a 16 year old who “stole” her mother’s boyfriend. being a good father does not make up for being a pedophile 😭😭??? also the whole thing where it is said that he is also abusing their daughter only for the truth to be that he is a guest star on her twitch streams was fucking goofy like this cannawt be a real book… and let me not even get started on the final plot twist of the novel that doesn’t truly add anything of value & which miserably fails at attempting to blow the reader’s mind at the very last moment. that only works when the story leading up to that point is actually good! also from many passages of this book it seems like lisa jewell has some personal issues with women pointing out their friends’ men’s shitty behavior & i just don’t get why the world needs to be subjected to her fantasy where they get proven wrong bc of it

No Place Left To Hide by Megan Lally

dark tense fast-paced

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

2.75

megan lally’s debut novel was one of my favourite reads of 2024, so it is understandably difficult to live up to that standard. this experience was ridiculously similar to the one i had with holly black — the first story i fell in love with, the second story involved being stuck in a vehicle in the middle of nowhere & i found it at best mediocre. all of the plot twists of NPLTH were painfully predictable due to the heavy handed foreshadowing, to the point that the flashback chapters felt slow and redundant very early on, but without them serving as filler the book would have been even shorter, so i don’t know which is worse. the secondary characters were given too little development & depth for the reveal of their true role to feel rewarding or shocking for the reader, and brooke herself was similarly poorly handled, because at no point was i rooting for her since the story begun. it is difficult to make your protagonist both a spoiled brat & an interesting character to follow, and with a plot like this one it should have been a must. the reader’s disappointment/resentment of brooke should have been something gradually built, and maybe such was attempted, but i was annoyed by her almost from the get-go & it only grew with every mention of claire, who is presented as the foil to brooke & is genuinely the only one worth a second thought at all. i loved her when she was supposedly a horrible person & later when the puzzle pieces were fully revealed, which just proves that the author is capable of this duality. NPLTH attempts to do the same thing as the book in my dreams i hold a knife, which is to make the reader so attached to the protagonist that in the end it doesn’t matter what she did or didn’t do, but it fails where IMDIHAK succeeds. i think in the end the author gave up on pretending the protagonist’s journey that the reader was being shown for nearly 300 pages existed as anything other than the set up of a weak plot twist, and that’s why the ending itself is so rushed and devoid of satisfaction 

Heartsong by TJ Klune

hopeful lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

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

3.0

i’m beginning to think wolfsong was a one hit wonder in terms of the author’s ability to introduce the reader to a found family so welcoming they’d feel a part of it themselves by the end. every other book in this series so far has failed to deliver on that authentic heartwarming feeling & the characters who were known & real in at the beginning of the story have by now turned into cardboard cutouts of themselves, with everyone serving as nothing more than the backdrop of the current couple. the stakes have also fallen off drastically — ever since the harrowing deaths of joe’s dad and ox’s mom, nobody has been killed or even harmed in a way that wasn’t magically reversed later, with very few exceptions, even though every book ends with a major battle of sorts. as for the leading duo, i found kelly to be the least developed of the bennett gays so far. i wish there’d been more shown about his and robbie’s bond pre-memory loss but post-getting together, because skipping their entire relationship after 2 books of build up just to watch them try to regain something we never truly witnessed for 450 pages was an odd choice. i still have the same issues with female characters as i did in ravensong — no real relationships or characteristics beyond appearing once every 50 pages to act like a Girlboss and high five about how stupid the men around them are, very distinctly 2010s. all in all enjoyable but i will never think about them again

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

challenging reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

definitely one of the most challenging books i have gotten through, so it’s upsetting that after all that willpower i put into pushing through it ended up being a 3 star unremarkable experience 😭 knowing some historical & personal context behind this novel makes me  more willing to look past its flaws, but it doesn’t change the fact that stephen as a character failed to evoke any kind of emotions in me when i was reading, which is impossible to ignore in a story as character driven as this one. after spending 250 pages in his head i didn’t truly care one way or the other as the final choice of the ending crept closer and closer. joyce’s prose is the only reason i bumped the star rating up from a 2.5

Funny Story by Emily Henry

hopeful relaxing fast-paced

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

3.0

not that funny but that's ok bc it was heartwarming 💙 i typically prefer slowburn ships, so miles/daphne were never going to capital h Hit for me after seeing her describe him as hot pretty much from the get go, but they were charming enough for me to enjoy their unlikely match of a love story. i think the book didn’t exhaust the potential of its premise — peter & petra barely appeared on page and the story wouldn’t have been much different if, for example, daphne had simply moved into a random available room nearby after being dumped, and i think the mutual exes thing was tangled into it all just to be put in the blurb, to make the book sound like it stands out more. i liked the fact that the characters were in their 30s, daphne’s relationship with her parents and miles as a love interest, but the backdrop of it all was something of a nothingburger. overall definitely my favourite of the 3 eh novels i’ve read (funny story > happy place = beach read), but i have no desire to ever pick up a book of hers again

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

one of those stories that amaze while you read it & then stay with you forever. each chapter could be the subject of an extended analysis and each character is an accurate representation of both a real type of person and a singular unit, no matter how briefly they appear. dorian as a character is so captivating it is impossible not to fall in love with him just like everyone he encounters, and even knowing his secret doesn’t make him any less lovable — i would go so far as to say that the paranoia adds to his charm

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.25

lukewarm. i found the concept more exciting than the execution & was particularly disappointed in the limited & repetitive approach to addie's short relationships, because most of them came down to her sleeping with people (kudos for at least making her bisexual ig), it got tired quickly & i would have appreciated a bigger variety in the way she interacts with people. her leaving a mark through artists’ hands was interesting in theory, but it felt equally underwhelming in practice, i think mostly due to the fact that there was more emphasis put on her beauty (the freckles) than anything else — i understand that she gets forgotten, but those rules were self imposed through the plot by v. e. schwab, and i’m saying that the whole concept could have been thought out in a better way. the ending felt cheesy, as did the reveal that the book we’re reading is something of a story within a story, but i enjoyed addie and henry together enough to be satisfied by their conclusion being overly sentimental. luc, on the other hand, was sooo corny it bordered on unbearable & i truly think the only ppl who like his character are the ones who never outgrew their the darkling phase (or whatever ageless shadow annoying man he, in turn, had been inspired by, i’m not sure and i don’t care bc i’ve always hated this character type). if i wanted to witness a man talk to a woman like she’s an idiot i’d have more than enough opportunities for that irl, why would i want to read about that treatment coming from a pseudo love interest 😭 overall this is the type of book i MIGHT have enjoyed more had i read it in middle school, which doesn’t seem like the reaction the author hoped for, seeing as the characters are (body-wise) in their 20s & sex is a topic that comes up often, even though all the scenes are fade-to-black, so it probably wasn’t supposed to feel like a young adult novel

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

adventurous dark emotional funny sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

when i started this book i didn’t expect to be so moved & genuinely impressed by it. i assumed it was just an action packed murder story, the bare bones inspired by which many other books of this type were written, but it ended up being so much more. it’s such a hopeful exploration of what people mean to each other and how far they are ready to go for one another — at first i rolled my eyes at the fact that nearly every single character was convinced they were madly in love with a classmate, despite not being together, but in hindsight it’s clear that this was less an insistence on the realness of their feelings and more an added layer of tragedy, because these kids should have been allowed to keep going to school and falling in love and experiencing youth. another thing i didn’t have high hopes for was the portrayal of female characters, but i was pleasantly surprised by how much focus they received. generally, most characters had at least one pov chapter dedicated to them, by the end of which i usually felt as attached to them as to the main cast. i found the characters altogether delightful, with personal favorites being shinji (you will not beat the gay allegations on my watch boy) and takako. the plot dragged a bit around 3/4s of the way through, but the ending made up for it; i especially liked the symbolism of the epilogue. originally i wanted to read this to decide if i think the hunger games is its rip off, but i lowkey still can’t tell… like in a way yes. in a way no. the basis of the system makes a lot more sense in thg i think but other than that i did see some resemblence i’m just not sure it can be called straight up copying. and i love both

Vengeful by V.E. Schwab

adventurous medium-paced

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

4.0

how have people survived 7 years of waiting for the third book omfg?? i put off reading this for 2 years bc i was told evervale are barely in it but that is literally not true they are still as engaging as they were in vicious + marcella & june are my beloveds as well 😭 this is familia 😭 these 4 should abandon everything and establish some sort of lgbt commune like this is crazy. eli’s plot was so heartbreaking LET GO OF MY MURDEROUS MEOW MEOW IMMEDIATELY!!! i would have loved for sydney to be a bit more present in the overarching story, but the things she had going on alone were fun too. overall i enjoyed vicious more (bc it had the college evervale homoerotic drama) but this was a quick read & a pleasant experience 

Jade War by Fonda Lee

slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

1.5

there is a lot i could say about why i hated the experience of reading this book as much as i did, but i honestly don’t have the energy for it. jade war has taken enough of my time 😭 i will say though that i took half a star just for the treatment of women, because at this point i’m not willing to listen to anyone saying that it gets better as the story progresses. from these two first books it is clear that fonda lee cares more about making her male characters look cool and seem multi dimensional than about her female characters even fully existing in the story at all. here are some random points of annoyance which i noted down as i was reading:

- feeling lan's absence was probably purposeful on the author's part, but i didn't miss him in the way of being sad he's gone because of a hole he left in everyone’s lives but in the way that he was apparently the only one capable of snapping shae and hilo out of being irritating. also i know within the story it’s been years but it’s still upsetting just how little attention he was paid, his haunting of the narrative should have been turned up a dozen notches

- speaking of the time line WHAT IS WITH THESE TIME SKIPS! the story ended up feeling so disjointed because of the constant jumps which weren’t otherwise made clear like it would literally just be somebody saying “it has been xyz months since this happened” and i was left speechless everytime bc damn these characters really don’t accomplish shit in all that time

- narratively speaking shae was punished more for having an abortion than hilo for murdering a woman and kidnapping her child??

- that one time wen was described as being swollen bc in both breasts and stomach bc she got pregnant again while she was still nursing Are you ready to die kaul hilo

- i liked the ending i guess but that is just to say i wasn’t bored to death and constantly annoyed while reading some chunks of it & that might be bc a lot of the focus was on wen and anden MY GOATS

- why is everybody so naive? like seriously why do they never have a back up plan or anything other than hilo being intimidating and crazy? is he gonna crazy his way into killing the pillar of the mountain like he has been “plotting” for two books?? it sent me so bad when the ending just pulled the “we need to back out of this plan” thing twice like omg one thing goes wrong and yall are left clueless

- the ending of book 1 actually intrigued me regarding anden & hilo but it was all for nothing bc jade war blew it. hilo came to espania after 3 years and anden was just like oh ok & his internal conflict was minimally shown. ig it was sad that he gave up his bisexual situationship for the sake of the clan but at that point i did not gaf anymore

- niko better grow up to kill hilo for what he did to his mother i’m so serious