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notesbynnenna's Reviews (513)
Thank you to the publisher for giving me a free copy of this book! All opinions are my own.
I was already not a fan of wasps, but after reading this book, I don’t think I’ll ever look at a yellowjacket the same way (IYKYK).
I really wanted to read this book for spooky season last year, but didn’t get around to it, so I made sure it was at the top of my TBR this month. And I was kind of surprised that I wanted to pick up another big book after reading an 800 pager last month, but that’s how badly I wanted to read this book!
It is such a good pick for this season. You’ve got a campus novel/dark academia, a very chilling atmosphere, and three young heroines. It’s an excellent recipe and I really enjoyed reading this book. I originally started it on audio and I liked the narrator’s voice. The narrator of this novel is quite cheeky/witty and breaks the fourth wall to address the reader directly, which I loved. It’s a story about a story being made into a movie- it’s got layers!
This was quite creepy. I thought the author did a really great job of creating the spooky atmosphere around Brookhants and I felt that creepy energy coming off the pages. I wasn’t too scared (and I’m a scaredy cat), but did make sure to mostly read this one during the daylight hours, just in case!
It is a long book, but when I was able to read it in longer chunks on the weekend, I thought it read pretty quickly. I would call it a slow burn though and I do feel like the story got a little convoluted towards the end. There are some revelations, but I felt confused and like I was left with a lot of questions. So now I need to go read some reviews to see if I can piece some things together. I also didn’t love Merritt’s character (I found her hard to root for), but I think I did at least understand who she was.
I thought the writing was good and the author really did bring the setting to life. I think I was slightly more drawn to the present day storyline, but I enjoyed moving back and forth between the past and the present. PLAIN BAD HEROINES was unapologetically queer and delightfully unsettling and I liked it very much.
Thank you to the publisher for giving me a free copy of this book! All opinions are my own.
The premise of this book sounded really good, but unfortunately it was missing something for me. Annie’s character felt too one-note to me. She spends most of the book whining about her circumstances, and when she finally stands up for herself, it feels like it took way too long to get there. Also, the inside flap of the book calls it “darkly funny,” but I didn’t really find it that funny.
This book is essentially about a woman coming into her own and realizing her independence. I feel like the right elements were there to make this a great book, but they didn’t come together for me. I wanted it to be funnier or more sarcastic or scarier or something. I think this is a case of having the wrong expectations going into the book though. If you’re looking for a witchy read that’s less about the scary stuff and more about a friendship, then you might enjoy this more than I did!
Thank you to the publisher for giving me a free copy of this book! All opinions are my own.
After finishing an 800 page book, I was in the mood for a light and quick read. And since October was quickly approaching, I was craving something witchy! THE EX HEX was the perfect book to kick off my spooky season reads. I read the majority of it in one day, so clearly I was enjoying it!
This was such a fun read! I thought the author did a good job of writing the sexual tension between Vivienne and Rhys, and they had good banter. I love banter! I also loved the side characters in Vivi’s family, her cousin and her aunt, and the small town vibes of Graves Glen. And the way that Rhys was constantly joking around made me chuckle. He seems like he’d be fun to be around (and he has a Welsh accent!).
The ending was maybe a tiny bit rushed, but overall this book was delightful and I very much enjoyed reading it. I think this book is a great choice if you’re looking for a spooky season that’s more on the side of cute vs. scary!
Thank you to the publisher for giving me a free copy of this book! All opinions are my own.
Let me just start by saying this book was SO good and there’s no way my review can do it justice.
I’d had it on my TBR for a few months. Was I intimidated by the 800 page count? Absolutely. But I’d been hearing such good things and when Oprah selected it as a book club pick, that was the final push that made me commit to reading it.
This was such an epic family saga as Jeffers traces the history of this family over the course of several hundred years. She writes about their triumphs and struggles and secrets and she does it with such skill. I quickly became so invested in this story and reading this book made me want to learn a bit more about my own family history. It reminded me that discovering history can be exciting and difficult and rewarding all at once.
There are a lot of characters in this book and I wasn’t fully keeping track of them, but luckily there is a family tree in the front. I definitely referenced that a lot and that was how I was able to make connections between the characters in my head.
This book gives you a sweeping look at life in the South. I haven’t spent much time in the South, so that was very interesting to me. A good portion of the book takes place when slavery was legal, so of course that was difficult (also, lots of content warnings in general for this book, so I would definitely recommend researching those if you have certain triggers). Reading about the atrocities committed against Black people and Indigenous people was very difficult. At the same time, I felt like Jeffers really wrote this book for a Black audience, which I appreciated.
These characters are so human and I thought the way that Jeffers wove this story together was masterful. She writes about the love and trauma that is passed down through generations. She writes about the history that lives in our bones, even when we’re not aware of it. What a beautiful, beautiful book.
I really love the cover of this book. I feel like it suggests glamour and mystery and intrigue, so I was somewhat disappointed when I was about 70 pages into the story and still not feeling invested. I was enjoying her writing, but there was a lot of establishing of the characters of Elvis and Maite, and I didn’t yet know why I should care about these characters. I felt it took too long to get to the meat of the story.
Thankfully, I thought the second half was a lot stronger than the first. The pacing picked up and the mystery really started to develop. I wasn’t interested in the politics at first, but as I read the book and realized that it is grounded in real events, it was eye opening to learn more about this piece of Mexican history. I thought Elvis was an interesting character, but Maite annoyed me in the beginning, so I was glad to see her develop a bit as the story progressed.
The second half of the book felt more in line with what I was expecting based on the cover and my experience reading MEXICAN GOTHIC (I loved how atmospheric that book was). So overall, this book landed somewhere in the middle for me. I think this particular storyline wasn’t necessarily for me, but I would still read more of Moreno-Garcia’s work.
Thank you to the publisher for giving me a free copy of this book! All opinions are my own.
“A page, turning, is a wing lifted with no twin, and therefore no flight. And yet we are moved.”
This book was on my TBR for a couple years and I’m so glad that I finally picked it up because it was so beautiful.
From the first few pages, I thought the writing was gorgeous. The way that he plays with words, and examines their definitions, and molds sentences was beautiful to behold. It’s the kind of writing that makes you catch your breath. I felt like I was breathing his words in and then sighing them out.
He writes about family, inherited trauma, addiction, the power of words, and so much more. And I know I’ve mentioned it already, but I have to say again that I’m not over how stunning the writing was.
“A page, turning, is a wing lifted with no twin, and therefore no flight. And yet we are moved.”
This book was on my TBR for a couple years and I’m so glad that I finally picked it up because it was so beautiful.
From the first few pages, I thought the writing was gorgeous. The way that he plays with words, and examines their definitions, and molds sentences was beautiful to behold. It’s the kind of writing that makes you catch your breath. I felt like I was breathing his words in and then sighing them out.
He writes about family, inherited trauma, addiction, the power of words, and so much more. And I know I’ve mentioned it already, but I have to say again that I’m not over how stunning the writing was.
Thank you to the publisher for giving me a free copy of this book! All opinions are my own.
I’ve been meaning to read a book by Beverly Jenkins, the queen of Black historical romance, for ages. I decided to start with this one, which is the first book in her new series that’s set in New Orleans in the Reconstruction Era.
It was so interesting to get a peek at what New Orleans would have been like at that time. The book did feel well researched and in the Author’s Note at the end, she even includes some of her sources. As you can imagine, our characters do encounter racism, but that’s not the crux of the book. We get to see Black people living and prospering and falling in love.
I loved that our heroine, Valinda, was both intelligent and independent. And her love interest, Drake Leveq, sounded pretty swoony with his good looks and use of French endearments (he calls her cheri!). I think most of the historical romances I’ve read were set in the Regency era, so it was fun to read something from a different time period. I very much enjoyed this romance and I will definitely be reading more of her books.
