obstinateheadstrongcurl's Reviews (1.37k)

emotional lighthearted 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

This was so sweet! I loved Mira and Cole. Each of them were such fully realised characters. These two are so into each other straight away, and I loved their interactions. There’s a long section in the middle that’s just their text messages, and it honestly had me tearing up! The communication was so good. I’m almost scared to read more in the series because I can’t imagine anything topping this!
adventurous dark funny tense 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

Rune has ruined me. What a great hero. His past is so heartbreaking and the way he feels about not being poisonous to Josie is so lovely. These two are so good together, and their stubbornness makes for great tension and banter.
One thing I really didn’t like about this book was the use of Uluru. It was disrespectful and unnecessary. There are Dark Sky Observatories all over the world, Rune and Josie could have gone stargazing in any one of those.
adventurous funny lighthearted 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

The nicknames of the cousins are bonkers, and I love them. I think the names alone would convince me to continue the series. I did find Devil to be a bit too bossy and condescending, but also I feel like this was just a common character trait for MMCs written in the 90s. Honoria is great, I loved how determined she was to keep investigating the murder and would find ways to gather information or when she proved she was more stubborn than Devil. I would recommend reading with your eyeballs if possible as the audiobook narrator didn’t really do it for me. Overall a fun, old-school historical romance.
challenging informative inspiring fast-paced

An excellent guide to prison industrial complex abolition. Kaba doesn’t shy away from the hard questions, examining answers and providing guidance for when even the most extreme harm is done. I see myself going back to this again and again.

Jade City

Fonda Lee

DID NOT FINISH: 23%

Really good but I’m just not that into fantasy anymore.
emotional funny fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
adventurous tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
emotional funny lighthearted 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

There’s a lot about this book that hasn’t aged well (fat phobia, homophobia, slurs, racism) and I couldn’t fully get past most of it. I did love the side characters and enjoyed April’s and Jack’s relationship even more than Blue’s and Dean’s. It was funny reading a contemporary from the early 2000s because fashion and décor are talked about a lot and I could so clearly visualise all of it (and cringe, we were not doing ourselves any favours back then). This is a fade-to-black book, which isn’t my favourite. Overall, a fine read, but I don’t know that I’m anxious to read more by Phillips.
dark emotional hopeful sad 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

I completely understand why this is such a favourite. In my opinion it’s the best of the series so far (and it’s hard to imagine a future book topping it). I liked how tight this was on Kaleb and Sahara, without going into a lot of other character’s perspectives. The plot is exciting and the pace is kept up throughout. Kaleb and Sahara are such great characters, and so perfect for each other.
I love how mean and stoic Kaleb thinks he is but he totally has best friends. I need a short story of him, Judd and Xavier going on a fishing trip or something.
dark emotional tense 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

I liked this way more than the first one. I found Nicky to be a much more compelling character than Dario.
I really loved his relationship with Maddie, that was such a sweet reveal at the climax.
Now give me Lucca and Tomas’s book pretty please!