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tkatt20's reviews
97 reviews
Broken Flames by M.K. Ahearn
2.0
Im not finished with this one yet but im about 90% through and don't have the energy for it. It had potential but just didn't hit the mark for me. I picked it up because it was pitched to me to be "perfect for those who wanted Zuko and Katara to get together" and while i absolutely see the inspiration, it just needed some overall work to be a better story for me. The writing is a bit all over the place, the characters are very interesting and there's some mild world building, but I feel like there was a lot of telling when it came to the characters thoughts and emotions, so much so that I didnt actually connect with any of them because it wasnt set up in a way that made me connect with their emotions. Futhermore, they were so back and forth on how they felt about each other that I didn't even get the enemies to lover vibes that I thought I was getting. Don't get me wrong, the premise itself was very interesting, it's definitely different enough from the inspiration that it's a completely different story, I just need a bit more polishing and structure in the fantasy that I read.
Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-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? No
3.0
I don't know how to feel about this one. To say it started out rough would be a severe understatement. I was one instance of second hand embarrassment away from putting this book down and never picking it back up again, but I'm always a sucker for fake dating and this book was under 300 pages, so I pushed through. It did get a little better as it went on, but I'm still shocked that it's rated as highly as it is.
To start off, this is classified as YA, and it is entirely possible that I am too old to enjoy this book, but I'm honestly not sure if teen me would have even liked this either. The writing was not very imaginative, I think the worst part of this for me, was the character descriptions. When a character is described as a "pudgy white guy" it really breaks my immersion and honestly doesn't give a lot to go off of, plus, all the character descriptions are like that, and we absolutely see some stereotyping going on here. I can usually look past character descriptions once all the main characters are introduced, and we start getting into the meat of the story, but it doesn't help when a majority of the characters are pretty annoying and/or dull. Our FMC, Riley, makes so many questionable choices and spends the entire book lying and taking advantage of her family. I appreciate that she isn't like that with her friends most of the time, but I can't say I lied to my family this much as a teenager. I mean, the whole reason this book happened is because she stole her moms car and drove to see a musical WITHOUT A LICENSE. Like come on. And then halfway through the book she's like hmmm maybe I should have asked my dad to take me. Girl, you could have killed someone. And all her parents did was ground her for a few weeks and make her work at her dad's store. Her dad, by the way, was actually really cool and didn't deserve half the treatment her got from the Riley and her mom. Yes, he wasn't perfect, but her mom was far from perfect herself, and it seemed like she was trying to turn Riley against her dad the whole time. It doesn't help that Riley goes through some mild hypocrisy too when she gets mad at her dad for not showing an interest in her hobbies when she spends the first half of the book adamantly against his, but I digress. I will say her mom does come through when she's really needed, but I still think she should have taken a step back to look at herself before placing the blame on Riley's dad. This is more of a personal complaint, but do all musical theater kids sing this much? The middle of a DnD campaign to sing a full song from a musical is not the time or the place in my opinion. Maybe all my DnD groups have been on more of the tame side when it comes to the role play part, but I very viscerally cringed every single time that happened.
In all honesty, the FMC isn't all bad. I appreciated how driven she was and for the most part she didn't just bail on everyone when she started having relationship problems. There was definitely a good start to a strong female lead, she was just a bit too independent for her own good. I also did really like her relationship with the MMC, I could absolutely see those two working it out long term. I also really liked all of her friends. There wasn't a lot to separate them from each other, but I still really liked that she had a supportive friend group.
Other than that, the story had its cute moments and I obviously did like some aspects of it to make it go from an almost DNF to a 3-star book. I think with some polishing and a little work on the writing, I probably would have loved this one. YA romances were always good palette cleansers for me, but I think I need to accept that they may not be my cup of tea anymore. Either way, it was cute, and I'm happy I did read it.
To start off, this is classified as YA, and it is entirely possible that I am too old to enjoy this book, but I'm honestly not sure if teen me would have even liked this either. The writing was not very imaginative, I think the worst part of this for me, was the character descriptions. When a character is described as a "pudgy white guy" it really breaks my immersion and honestly doesn't give a lot to go off of, plus, all the character descriptions are like that, and we absolutely see some stereotyping going on here. I can usually look past character descriptions once all the main characters are introduced, and we start getting into the meat of the story, but it doesn't help when a majority of the characters are pretty annoying and/or dull. Our FMC, Riley, makes so many questionable choices and spends the entire book lying and taking advantage of her family. I appreciate that she isn't like that with her friends most of the time, but I can't say I lied to my family this much as a teenager. I mean, the whole reason this book happened is because she stole her moms car and drove to see a musical WITHOUT A LICENSE. Like come on. And then halfway through the book she's like hmmm maybe I should have asked my dad to take me. Girl, you could have killed someone. And all her parents did was ground her for a few weeks and make her work at her dad's store. Her dad, by the way, was actually really cool and didn't deserve half the treatment her got from the Riley and her mom. Yes, he wasn't perfect, but her mom was far from perfect herself, and it seemed like she was trying to turn Riley against her dad the whole time. It doesn't help that Riley goes through some mild hypocrisy too when she gets mad at her dad for not showing an interest in her hobbies when she spends the first half of the book adamantly against his, but I digress. I will say her mom does come through when she's really needed, but I still think she should have taken a step back to look at herself before placing the blame on Riley's dad. This is more of a personal complaint, but do all musical theater kids sing this much? The middle of a DnD campaign to sing a full song from a musical is not the time or the place in my opinion. Maybe all my DnD groups have been on more of the tame side when it comes to the role play part, but I very viscerally cringed every single time that happened.
In all honesty, the FMC isn't all bad. I appreciated how driven she was and for the most part she didn't just bail on everyone when she started having relationship problems. There was definitely a good start to a strong female lead, she was just a bit too independent for her own good. I also did really like her relationship with the MMC, I could absolutely see those two working it out long term. I also really liked all of her friends. There wasn't a lot to separate them from each other, but I still really liked that she had a supportive friend group.
Other than that, the story had its cute moments and I obviously did like some aspects of it to make it go from an almost DNF to a 3-star book. I think with some polishing and a little work on the writing, I probably would have loved this one. YA romances were always good palette cleansers for me, but I think I need to accept that they may not be my cup of tea anymore. Either way, it was cute, and I'm happy I did read it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gaslighting
Moderate: Toxic relationship and Medical content
Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
I don't think I could come up with a better way to end this duology. It was paced perfectly, I was a little worried about half way through that I didn't like where it was going, but it ended up being exactly what I wanted in the end. 10/10 these books are going on my favorites shelves
One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Sometimes I find that when I really like a book I don't have a lot to say review wise, this is exactly one of those cases. I finished this a couple of weeks ago and waited to do a review because I thought the words might come to me, but they never did. The writing was solid, I loved the characters, setting, magic system, everything. This is honesty all I want in a YA/New adult fantasy. For my Teen Wolf fans, this book reminds me of season 3 with the nogitsune, to try to give an idea of the vibes between the FMC and the "Nightmare", which was my all-time favorite season btw. This was def a vibe read for me and I loved it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Child death
Moderate: Death of parent and Abandonment
Minor: Sexual content, Vomit, and Alcohol
Gilded by Marissa Meyer
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Rhapsodic by Laura Thalassa
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Yeah so I have thoughts about this book. First off I want to apologize to the girls in my book club for recommending this as our book for this month, I promise I have better taste in books than this. With that being said, let's get into the many reasons why I didn't like this book. Full warning, this will not be a nice review.
To start off, the pacing was horrendous. A good 75% of this book is fluffy filler of the main characters agonizing over one another with not an ounce of communication in sight. The other 25% had the potential for some plot with a good storyline, but was so overshadowed by the googly eyes between the two. Like if we had spent a little more time on world development and filling out the characters this could have been a solid romantasy novel, I mean the idea is there, the execution not so much.
Speaking of characters, these characters were so cliché. I mean, a broody fae king who's hundreds of years old and rules the "dark" side of the fae relm and a 23ish year old girl (also 16 through half of it but ill talk about that later) with magical powers and a tortured past. I think we've read this before, no? We had the makings for such a badass main lead but did we get that? No. Instead we got a girl who's so codependent on the mmc she couldn't have any other successful relationships for 7 YEARS while he was gone. Which by the way, they met when she was 16 where she took one look at him and become obsessed and he didn't have enough will power and morality to tell her how inappropriate it was, and actually fed into her obsession with him by teasing and making suggestive comments to her for the next year as we're told by the far too many flashbacks. If that doesn't smell like grooming I don't know what does.
By the time I got to the end I was so over everything I actually laughed at the speed of which the fmc actually put together the clues and found out who the villain is. For being a PI she certainly doesn't pick up on much and that so just so disappointing. Dont act like a strong female lead if youre just going to lay there and play damsel in distress. The ending was so sloppy and thrown together I felt like I blinked and it was all resolved. Im sure that there are more answers in the later books but im not even sure I care to keep reading im so disappointing by this. It gets 2 stars for the very few things I did like in this book, I mean it wasn't the worst I've read, but I'm just so frustrated by everything that I can't even come up with something I like right now.
Also, I have also decided that I can't do Urban Fantasy because if I read another half baked Harry Potter reference I'm going to scream.
To start off, the pacing was horrendous. A good 75% of this book is fluffy filler of the main characters agonizing over one another with not an ounce of communication in sight. The other 25% had the potential for some plot with a good storyline, but was so overshadowed by the googly eyes between the two. Like if we had spent a little more time on world development and filling out the characters this could have been a solid romantasy novel, I mean the idea is there, the execution not so much.
Speaking of characters, these characters were so cliché. I mean, a broody fae king who's hundreds of years old and rules the "dark" side of the fae relm and a 23ish year old girl (also 16 through half of it but ill talk about that later) with magical powers and a tortured past. I think we've read this before, no? We had the makings for such a badass main lead but did we get that? No. Instead we got a girl who's so codependent on the mmc she couldn't have any other successful relationships for 7 YEARS while he was gone. Which by the way, they met when she was 16 where she took one look at him and become obsessed and he didn't have enough will power and morality to tell her how inappropriate it was, and actually fed into her obsession with him by teasing and making suggestive comments to her for the next year as we're told by the far too many flashbacks. If that doesn't smell like grooming I don't know what does.
By the time I got to the end I was so over everything I actually laughed at the speed of which the fmc actually put together the clues and found out who the villain is. For being a PI she certainly doesn't pick up on much and that so just so disappointing. Dont act like a strong female lead if youre just going to lay there and play damsel in distress. The ending was so sloppy and thrown together I felt like I blinked and it was all resolved. Im sure that there are more answers in the later books but im not even sure I care to keep reading im so disappointing by this. It gets 2 stars for the very few things I did like in this book, I mean it wasn't the worst I've read, but I'm just so frustrated by everything that I can't even come up with something I like right now.
Also, I have also decided that I can't do Urban Fantasy because if I read another half baked Harry Potter reference I'm going to scream.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Rape, Adult/minor relationship, and Sexual content
Moderate: Mental illness, Gore, and Murder
Minor: Child abuse, Alcoholism, and Death of parent
Godkiller by Hannah Kaner
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I picked this book up on a whim and I ended up being genuinely surprised by how much I liked it! I was a little worried after reading some of the other reviews that I would also find that it was too slow paced and that the amount of characters were overwhelming, but I actually feel the opposite about it. It was a tad on the slow side in the beginning, but after finishing it I feel like it was necessary to really set up the world and the story without being overwhelming. Even when it did lag a bit, the last 20% more than makes up for it and actually solidified that this was a much better book than i was giving it credit for. Plus, a majority of the characters that were introduced I can absolutely forsee making a huge difference in the rest of this series as it continues. Other than that, the writing was amazing, there was great representation, and I love love loved the characters. So, take my recommendation and read this book!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Blood, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Death, and Gore
Moderate: War and Gaslighting
Minor: Sexual content and Religious bigotry
Butcher and Blackbird by Brynne Weaver
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Please for the love of all things sacred, read the Content Warnings before reading this book. You'll thank me later.
Okay I did not think this was going to be as good as it was. Yes it was seriously dark (it's literally about 2 serial killers, what do you expect) but the banter was sooo good and I genuinely enjoyed every character. Im even excited about the rest of the trilogy which never happens for romance series set up this way. I do wish it spent a little more time explaining how they ended up the way they did, what the police know about them, their.... "process" ...., you know, the important stuff. It felt like there was quite a bit of jumping around and the pacing wasn't quite where I wished it had been, but it certainly wasn't bad. And even with those things knocking my rating down a bit, i still liked it enough to rate it 4 stars. Also, the audiobook was amazing, like actually the best of I've listened to in a long time, so I highly recommend that. But now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch Dexter and Criminal Minds again
Okay I did not think this was going to be as good as it was. Yes it was seriously dark (it's literally about 2 serial killers, what do you expect) but the banter was sooo good and I genuinely enjoyed every character. Im even excited about the rest of the trilogy which never happens for romance series set up this way. I do wish it spent a little more time explaining how they ended up the way they did, what the police know about them, their.... "process" ...., you know, the important stuff. It felt like there was quite a bit of jumping around and the pacing wasn't quite where I wished it had been, but it certainly wasn't bad. And even with those things knocking my rating down a bit, i still liked it enough to rate it 4 stars. Also, the audiobook was amazing, like actually the best of I've listened to in a long time, so I highly recommend that. But now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch Dexter and Criminal Minds again
Bring Me Your Midnight by Rachel Griffin
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0