probablyaster's reviews
144 reviews

An amazing continuation to what I consider one of my favorite new YA series. Just like I did with the first book, I adored all of the characters, and the historical accuracy that is often ignored by many others (not everyone in Jacobean England was white and heterosexual), and this book felt even more queer than the first. Not so much in the sense that it was made a larger part of the book, but more so that it was normalized within the group of Shakespearean players. On that note, one of the aspects that I was most anticipating throughout the novel, and something I wrote in the review for the first book (which I also received as an audio ARC back in April– this is certainly a first for getting them both) was the potential for polyamory as opposed to a love triangle. I’m not going to spoil anything, but I was more than happy with the way that that plotline developed in the book, although there was still some fun relationship drama that was resolved fairly quickly to spice things up.

I read the first book through audio because of how excited I was to access a copy– it was actually the second audiobook I have ever read– first if you don’t include the reading of Shakespeare’s the Two Noble Kinsmen, and now I ended up reading this book in the same voice as the narrator, which is an equally new phenomenon, and I did not realize how many names I was spelling wrong in my head.

Overall, read the book it’s amazing and better than the first, and I cannot wait for book three even though I do not want to leave the characters.

Content Warnings

Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk

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dark mysterious reflective tense

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

4.0

When I requested this book, I was hoping for a short, strange, gothic read that was sexy in a kind of gross way (I mean bloody and murdery). I was not at all disappointed by what I got from this. There are going to be a lot of comparisons of this book to a Dowry of Blood by ST Gibson (one of my favorite books), and I do think that the two have a lot of similarities, but with our main character having centuries more personal agency under her belt, and her conquests not being solely chosen by a man, which was something that I liked.

Importantly, neither of the characters are really selfless people, and I really enjoyed that neither of them were demeaned by the narrative for it, although they’re not necessarily bad people for it either (debatably)

Before the Devil Knows You're Here by Autumn Krause

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dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced