jaysaysnope's reviews
62 reviews

Spindle Fire by Lexa Hillyer

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

there’s just no reasoning strong enough in my mind for a sleeping beauty retelling to take more than one novel to cover. none whatsoever. the girls have forgotten the ancient texts! (alix e. harrow books) disappointed by the amount of questions left at the end of this book, and by the way poor
gilbert gets entirely shafted by the narrative. all in all, not enough here for me to return for a sequel, and thus, should’ve just condensed two novels into one. we used to be a country.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

adventurous funny mysterious 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

3.75

epistolary novels are so underrated, and i want them to come back in a big way.

this was so much fun. emily wilde's is an imminently fun brain to hang out in, and i'm very much looking forward to the second book in this series. i will say, i found

the bambleby reveal

underwhelming, especially how soon into the novel it was revealed

(as well as how much of a non-issue it was to everyone around them).

however, i suppose there is something to be said for not dragging out a twist too long.

shadow being a faerie creature, though? that i did not see coming.

my only other complaint is that this book whipped by. epistolary novels, by design, only show you fragments of time already, and i felt like i got even fewer due to the whole

being trapped in faerie for over a month

thing. more entries! more introspection! that's what epistolary novels, and furthermore journals, are for. fingers crossed for a bigger page number in ew2.

So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.0

can anyone confirm if signey soto is black? just need to know before i decide to stan /j

this book is so much FUN and makes me proud to be a jamaican-canadian mythology nerd. sequel needs to be in my hands yesterday actually.

The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

I would definitely recommend that you find incunabula_and_intercourse’s review of this book further down the page, as it is everything I wanted to say myself since about 10% through this debut. 

I wanted to like this book so badly, especially due to the fuckery it went through, but unfortunately I think Baptiste was shafted terribly by her publisher. There are the bones of a fantastic story here, but they’re weighed down by clumsy pacing, inane prose (“a seed of sob” will stay with me for a long time), and convoluted world building. An editor who cared would’ve wrangled this into the story it should’ve been, but unfortunately that was not the editor Baptiste got. So much exposition, and yet so many questions unanswered (Why was Janus never taught to brew, considering brewing is so dangerous that it could kill Venus, the family’s breadwinner, at any time? Why does

Nisha use Prospero as the face of the Golden Coin, instead of fronting it herself?

How did Venus not immediately clock the initials

GWMS

? Or that

the only health potion brewer who has a debt to her family and thus would make her a Sacrificium potion would be Brother Glenn

? Or so many other things that Venus doesn’t realize until it’s relevant to the plot.) Unfortunately, this is a miss for me but I hope to see Baptiste’s next novel get the care and love it deserves.

Delilah Green Doesn't Care by Ashley Herring Blake

medium-paced

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

1.75

Any book that stars a lesbian, but refuses to use the word "lesbian" anywhere in its page number is automatically 2 stars or lower to me, like. It's 2024. Be so serious. (The girls who are bisexual loudly proclaim it, though. Way to contribute to the enmity between lesbians and MGA sapphics, Ashley! /s)

Wash Day Diaries by Jamila Rowser

funny relaxing medium-paced

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

3.75

Because this comic is a collection of short stories, it didn’t give me Abrupt Ending Syndrome like most graphic novels I read. The characters were super cute, and their stories were realistic enough that this was an enjoyable way to spend 20 minutes.

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas

dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

1.5

This book is a master class in the dark academia aesthetic. It beautifully encapsulates a time of life that you think you’ll always remember when you’re in it, but that you will inevitably forget as you grow older. And it is elegantly written. Unfortunately, these disparate parts, a good book do not make.

The Circus Rose by Betsy Cornwell

dark hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.75

Impossible not to compare this to TENDER MORSELS, a very good Snow White and Rose Red retelling by Margo Lanagan that I read in high school. The lyricism in this is a nice way to differentiate between the sisters, but because Rosie’s are so much shorter than Ivory’s, Rosie hardly feels like a character to me.

The romance with Bear/Yuliya comes quite literally out of nowhere, like, okay I guess that’s happening now.

The best part was the polycule that we never actually get to see in functioning order. SIGH. 

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
Did not finish book. Stopped at 22%.

eventually i’ll learn that books about men bore me to actual tears. pretty cover, though!

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

this is so well-written, but i am just losing my patience with creators trying to convince us that nonviolent protest will topple violent empires. also, super weird to me that IRL, the laws and public rhetoric about indoctrinating children with harmful ideas have most recently (and aggressively) been aimed at trans people, but there’s not a single mention of queerness in this book, let alone trans identity. understanding the intersections of oppression is more important now than ever.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Violence, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Alcohol

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders and Pandemic/Epidemic