icanreadish's reviews
214 reviews

returned because there's a list of people waiting for it. the first few chapters were really beautiful, and i hope to come back to this in the future. 

A fun, twisty thriller! Love the podcast bit, and i really loved Lucy's memories of Savvy. The whole how she was vs. how she's remembered was such a fun little play, though once that was brought up, I was expecting that to have more impact on the overall plot. Lucy was a fun POV character and I appreciated her dry sarcasm, her fearlessness when it came to punching assholes. Yayyy!!!! 

i had the pleasure of watching the amazon prime adaptation before reading this. i preferred the adaptation and its' differences, but this was a fun, breezy read to get through. quirky and fun. 

i really really loved the first book, but this follow-up was so messy it was almost incoherent. way too many characters were introduced or brought back, and so many others have several different names the author will refer them to (within the same page!) that it's difficult to keep up with the plot that's developing.

i love the core relationship of the group and i appreciated the lack of *bad relationship drama*, but even they barely saved this for me.

i reserve a special sort of hatred for the

mom with rightful anger and vengeance is actually possessed by this wacko man aspect

of the story. let women be angry !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! let women be villains of their own right !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we were robbed. ROBBED

i also missed our sarcastic and begrudging-yet-helpful remy. the voice i fell in love with was lost in all this noise :/ remy voiced so much humor, so much oh fuck this in the face of fuckery. i'll definitely re-read the first over and over again and ignore this entire second set up  (minus, maybe, the 50 pages i actually liked and understood) 

i do appreciate the series, its' inclusiveness, its' look at love and grief and family and culture, but there was just ... so much happening here that made it fall short in comparison to the first. i think with more pages, more room for chupeco to let the characters breathe and be, as well as some strong edits to the huge character roster, the plot would've had more of a punch. we could've explore more of the vampire stronghold and the tense relations/differences between the different courts (because seriously.... huh), as well as the characters who do, seemingly, have impact on our core three (lorian, the person who tried to bathe remy

who, upon dying, remy cried something like you were my friend like wdym you were there for like 2 scenes

mostly) the twists had so little impact on me because i was like !!! who are these people !!! who are you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

also that cover art ..... who is that ik it's not my malekh. 

interesting and super gruesome!! it took me a minute to get sucked into it, but for once i actually appreciated the last half of a horror book more than the first. the 'reality' of the mc can get kind of confusing, but i see the intention and the purpose of all the chaos.

there is some animal death and rape mentions. so, fyi.

also i am choosing to read this as a supernatural horror and not a thriller with a mentally ill teen. 

sooooooooooooooooooooo much exposition it takes forever to get through a single scene because of the internal monologues. 

i do appreciate the imagery and the setting. the art deco'ness is gorgeous and faeries fit right alongside the worldbuilding. but my god, the thoughtdumps :///// 

audiobooks and i = constantly at war 

i didn't like this

I love the dialogue, the fun, the sincerity, the found family'ness of the family. This reminded me of a great Saturday afternoon movie: warm and sweet. 

<3 
queer rep 
pretty colors !!!! 
the artwork was gorgeous
love the inclusion and the expression of different cultures 
space !! 

</3
the main character was a bit bland - the only thing he expressed interest in was comics (?) and even then it was one panel