dododenise's reviews
405 reviews

This book was incredibly close to giving me everything I wanted yet not quite getting there. I still loved this book. And I think that is why my expectations were so high and I kept waiting for it to just give a little bit more. 

This world is consuming. It made for an interesting pace of reading. On the one hand I wanted to keep reading. On the other hand I wanted to slow down and really sit in it for a while longer. In the end it didn’t quite hit the right spot with the pacing and it was a bit too slow for me. I think if that was more to my taste it would’ve gotten the full 5 stars. 

I think this is basically what I want a fantasy book to do. It has amazing world building. Good world building doesn’t immediately mean that I am interested in it but in this case it does. And then there is a big cast of characters that bring their very own air into the story. There were definitely storylines I was more interested in, particularly Will and James’s. But I could still get into the others. There often is no clear right or wrong and that makes for such interesting motives. The positioning of the characters to each other is so complicated and that makes it so glorious. 

I would have wanted more character moments. The ones we had were SO GOOD. Yet the story is really focused on the plot for the most part. I wouldn’t have minded a lot more Will and James yearning. 

This book was so thrilling. I cannot believe I still have to wait an unknown amount of time for the next book. I just want to continue now.

I had to read this for a bookclub, knowing that I do not enjoy thrillers. And yes, I also didn’t enjoy this one. 

The mystery wasn’t all that interesting to me. Perhaps that’s what makes thrillers so uninteresting to me, the mystery is never intriguing. 

The characters were mostly annoying. They didn’t even grow to be better, which is usually how YA characters become very loveable. The only ones I could somewhat stand were Dean and Sloane. I also just lacked the diversity that I usually have in the books I read. This was painfully white and cishet. 

There was so much boy drama?? Why was most of this book boy drama?? 
The book combines many tropes that I don’t enjoy in YA. Don’t get me wrong. I love YA to shreds. But this one combined the things I don’t like. A main character with serious main character syndrome. She waltzes in, immediately expects that the boys she is interested in are also interested in her, expects everyone to open up, even though on page they’ve spent like 2 minutes together, and I could go on. The other characters are also just archetypes. I’ve seen those characters a million times before and it’s not like the book even tries to do anything interesting with it. 

The book tried too hard to seem smart. It’s an easy hole to fall in when you write about characters that are unusually smart, like a sherlock holmes character. The book tries to make it seem realistic, but idk, I’m a forensic psychologist, I’m not convinced. Especially the reasoning we do get about her conclusions are just weird. 

When I read or watch media where they have those weird programmes and a bunch of people breaking protocols it’s so annoying to me. Those protocols exist for a reason. Usually ethics. And the program in this book is not ethical. Get those kids a therapist. Please. 

At least it was a very quick read. That way I didn’t have to push myself for too long. At the same time I think could’ve done with more fleshing out. Give the characters more moments to really create that “found family”. Give us more of that mystery, more details. 

This was a very sweet book. It had a gentle energy about it that I really enjoyed. While short, it paints a beautiful picture of the two main characters. Even though there was not enough time to truly dive into their relationship, their sweet and gentle energy made me care about them. 

Thank you to Frances for giving me a copy of her book. 

I was so excited when I heard about this book. A nonbinary and an ace main character in a romance novel? I sounded like heaven. Yet, I didn’t enjoy it all that much. It left me feeling lacklustre most of the time. 
Also as a personal aspect, identifying as both of those labels, Maeve and Loncey’s experiences were different to my own, so sadly it missed that piece of representation for me personally. But that is always a risk with these identities since they’re such a broad spectrum. 

The book is quite hypocritical. It keeps stating how Maeve doesn’t want her sexuality to always be the point, doesn’t want to keep explaining her sexuality, how she doesn’t want to make it this big important thing in this sex obsessed world, which is a feeling I heavily related with. But guess what? That exactly what the book did. It almost felt like an educational book on asexuality with all the conversations on what it is and is not. Most of Maeve’s characterisation and development is about her insecurities about being ace. I wouldn’t even be so bothered about it if the book didn’t also make a point out of how annoying that can be. 

The characters were kind of boring. I just felt little need to get to know them. And that is fatal in contemporary romance because there really isn’t that much else going on. I had this moment of irony when Maeve said that her conversation with Loncey are so interesting and the things they have to say are so insightful. They felt like basic stuff to me that really wasn’t all that interesting and just made it appear as if Maeve is very easy to impress. 

Then there is their relationship. Their banter is quite fun. Yet I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that it felt a bit cheap. That the only reason Maeve is falling Loncey is that they are the first person to treat her with some basic respect. That is too low of a bar for me to think that they are incredible for each other. It makes it more sad than romantic. Then there is also the issue with their terrible communication. I was getting so frustrated.  Especially because they both are educated on the topic and know how to have healthier and better relationships. Yet, throughout this book, they were incapable of listening to their own advice. 

When I saw how thick the book was I thought, well, a lot of things will happen in it. But that isn’t the case. The writing style is slow and descriptive. It feels like we’re going along in real time. The problem is, the things that are happening really aren’t interesting enough for that. At times I felt the author just needed to have them do things so they did some random thing that had very little point to it. Quite frankly, I come out of this book thinking if it were around 300-350 pages I would have been able to actually enjoy it. Now it felt like I was waiting around for two characters I don’t really care about to get their shit together. 

Something I personally hate is when in a contemporary book someone really believes in astrology. I never feel like all that much of a scientist but damn this book made me want to rant about how much rubbish it is. It would be different if Loncey basically just used it for their own spirituality to feel better, but they took it too seriously, even though they appear to have basic knowledge about science. The scientist in me wasn’t happy. 

I can appreciate the book for what it tried to do but I don’t think it was particularly successful in doing it.

I’m not sure I can find the right words to describe what exactly bothered me about this book, but I will try my best. 

The writing style made this book worse than it needed to be. It did it a disservice. It made things sound too simple. I saw other people comment on the book’s dry humour. I like dry humour, yet nothing in here was humorous to me. 

There was so much casual racism and sexism. It was jarring. The author choses to leave other people’s actions and words mostly uncommented. However, Thomas rarely ever says something about it to the other people in the book either. With the transphobia it’s one thing. It can be a powerful tool as a trans person to let the insensitivity look extra stupid. I didn’t feel that way about the racism and sexism. It just felt inconsiderate. It felt normalising and just made me upset. 

Nothing in this book goes deep. That is obviously a conscious choice, yet I don’t get that choice. It makes most of the content feel unimportant. It didn’t feel like it enriched me in any way. It feels like the kind of book a cis person would read so they can then say they can understand the trans experience, yet they wouldn’t. It makes me question who this book is for. For trans people all of this might be obvious. The dysphoria and transphobia would probably be confrontational. To cis people it wouldn’t be all that informative. To a transphobe, it might go over their head how bad transphobia is. 

The book just keeps on telling me things. Small anecdotes. Nothing more than that. That is, quite frankly, not enough. 

I had to force myself through this. While I could warm up to the writing a little more as time went on, I never truly enjoyed it.

A very cute book. Loved their chemistry and all the characters brought life to the story. Would’ve loved to get to know the other characters other than Eli, Ambrose, and Dawn even more. 

This was so chaotic and fun!