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Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

I loved this book so much, which was not surprising.

It was weird to read about characters in this universe that weren't in the Raven Cycle Series, but I enjoyed getting to know more about Declan and Matthew and meeting Jordan and Hennessy.

Having chapters in Delcan's point of view, specifically, actually made me like him while at the same time making feel very sorry for him. And as much as I wasn't sure if I was going to like Jordan or Hennessy, I found that I really liked them by the end of the book and I am excited to see how their relationships with Declan and Ronan grow and how their relationship with each other changes. It was also very fun to learn what makes them so different from each other.

I do wish there was more Pynch. Every time Adam was there or even mentioned, it made me so happy. I understand, of course, why Adam wasn't in the book more. Logically, him not being more involved made perfect sense. But Adam and Ronan are just so sweet together (and they've got a lot of things to work out) that the times they were together just didn't feel long enough. I did love seeing how their relationship was handling Adam's first year at Harvard. It revealed a lot about them both as individuals and as a couple. But this book is not Pynch focused, so that's something to keep in mind if that's what you're wanting out of this book. (I also really hope Gansey, Blue, and Henry make appearances in Mr. Impossible, I miss them.)

To summarize, is this book worth reading?? I think so, yes. And I don't think you need to have read the Raven Cycle Series to read this book, though I really really suggest you do. Everything that happens in the Raven Cycle Series that is important, is explained. But the books do offer a lot of insight to Ronan, who this book follows plus I think this book would mean a lot more to you if you've read the Raven Cycle Series beforehand.

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Year of the Reaper by Makiia Lucier Review

My Rating: ☆☆☆ 1/2

This was a daring book to put out into the world while we are still living through a global pandemic. That being said, I think it is exactly the kind of thing we need out in the world right now.

The book takes place after a plague has torn through lands that have been suffering from a fifty year long war. The war has finally ended and the plague is no longer running rampant among humans, though still found among some wild animals. Touching on the difficult and delicate natures of loss and grief, this book follows Cas and Lena as they try to solve the mystery of who is trying to assassinate their queen.

The ending of the book, dispute the sad topics it covers, is uplifting. That kind of ending is something that is needed in times like these because with us reaching another full year with this pandemic, it can be hard to imagine a life after while it can be so hard to live during these times. This book shows how life can move on after such terrible things have happened. Personally, this book was the type of thing I needed to read. I fell in love with Cas and Lena and I almost with there was more of their story to read. I highly recommend this book.

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The Cruel Prince by Holly Black Review

My Rating: ☆☆☆ ½

I read the Cruel Prince on a whim. There's a million books that are so popular that I've never read and I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do so I randomly chose to read this one.

I found this book enjoyable. It was very easy to read, I breezed right through it. I love the worlds that Holly Black creates in her books and she did an outstanding job with this one, not that I expected anything less.

I will say, I'm not particularly attached to any of the characters. And I know what happens with Jude and Carden and unless Carden has a serious personality change in the other books, I'm not sure how much I'm going to like what happens.

While I did enjoy the book, I'm not tripping over myself to read the next one. I'm not going to DNF the series, I liked it enough that I will keep reading it, but I'm not feeling any sense of urgency to find out what happens with these characters or how the story progresses. I have other books on my TBR that I'm more excited to read right now.

That being said, do I recommend the book? Yes. I liked it and it was enjoyable and I think other people will enjoy it as well. If it's something that you think you'll enjoy or are interested in, definitely give it a read. However, there are many other books and series that I would recommend before this one but I wouldn't tell flat out tell anyone to pass on reading this book.

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The Raven Cycle Series by Maggie Stiefvater Review

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ for the entire series

This series really just felt like I was reading one very long book but in the best possible way.

I read ¾ of these books while on vacation and I didn’t have my laptop on me to write about each one as I finished them. But because all four books more or less take place right after one another and have an overarching plot, I decided that I would review the Raven Cycle Series as a whole rather than each book individually.

When it comes to my first impression of The Raven Boys, I wasn’t initially impressed. I wasn’t impressed with Blue’s whole thing- her name, her situation with “the curse”, a family of psychics and being the odd one out in an odd family. It seemed like Maggie Stiefvater was trying too hard to make her quirky and different and the curse situation actually made me roll my eyes. I thought this was then going to be a cheesy romance sort of book and I was tempted to give up after a couple chapters because I was annoyed with where I thought the story was headed. I am so glad that I stuck with it and was proven wrong.

As I have now finished The Raven King, I have found that I don’t dislike Blue at all and I love the way that all of the characters grow and change throughout the series even though the books take place within the span of a year. The character development is just amazing. I was also pleasantly surprised that this series, in the most simple of terms, is about a treasure hunt. Rich boys trying to find a treasure, of sorts, and Blue is there to help with her psychic family. It was nothing at all like I was expecting. I seriously thought I was going to DNF the series or at the very least, move it to the way bottom of my TBR list. But every time I put one of the books down, I wanted to pick it back up again. It was literally all I could think about.

Something else that I loved was the fact that the first book came out in 2012. This means that some characters don’t have cell phones and one has a music player and another keeps a CD folder thing in his car (I forgot what they're called 😅). It’s just fun to read because while the first book is only 9 years old, a lot has changed in the last 9 years and the subtle differences between then and now are very entertaining to read about. And I sincerely hope that if they do go through with the Raven Cycle tv series, that they keep it set in 2012. They could honestly have so much fun with it being set in 2012, especially since people thought the world was gonna end that year so please could they just keep something originally set in the 2000s/early 2010s in that time period in the adaptation? Not everything has to be updated to take place now.

Bottom line, my love for this series has thrown me for a loop and I’m kicking myself for having put off reading it for so long. If you have not read this series but you like supernatural treasure hunts, definitely give this series a shot. I highly highly recommend it.

Also, for anyone wondering, yes there's actually a lot of Raven Cycle fanfiction on ao3 and yes I am very very happy about it.

[books-letstalkaboutem]

Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber Review

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

This honestly is going to be a fairly short review because otherwise it would just be paragraphs and paragraphs of me gushing about how much I absolutely adored this book! It was well worth the wait and I am dying to know what will happen next.

I will say that with the way that Stephanie Garber would constantly say that this is Jacks’s story, I thought that it would be from his point of view. I was mildly disappointed at first when I saw that it was from Evangaline’s but as I kept reading I didn’t mind so much that it was her pov. I came to absolutely love her. She’s very smart and kind and all she wants is to have love at first and a fairytale ending. I also think that it being from her point of view rather than Jacks’s just makes Jacks more mysterious. We never quite knew what was going through his head in Legendary or Finale and that’s no different in Once Upon a Broken Heart. While he remains a mystery, we do get to know him a little better and I can’t wait for the next book to come out so we can continue to learn more about him, and Evangaline of course.

The twists and turns in this story were everything. There was only one thing that I was actually right about and even then I was only partially right about it. There were some things that caught me completely off guard in the best way and it was honestly a lot of fun.

I absolutely recommend this book even if you haven’t read the Caraval Trilogy. Whether the trilogy doesn’t interest you, you DNFed it, or you just haven’t gotten around to reading it yet, you absolutely should read Once Upon a Broken Heart. You do not need to have read the trilogy in order to read this book. Many of the things that connect back to the trilogy are explained and while there are little easter eggs that aren’t, they’re not anything big in the grand scheme of things, just small little references for people who have read the trilogy to catch.

All I really have left to say here is, I definitely recommend reading this book. If it’s not something you’ve thought about picking up, but you like fairytales, magic, prophecies and bad boys with broken hearts, you might want to give this book a chance. The book was very enjoyable and it will leave you wanting more.

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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue Quotes that I Loved

This is just a list of quotes or excerpts that I highlighted while reading the book- literally all of them and there are a lot. I’m going to go ahead and say spoilers below just because there are so many quotes and while I don’t think the quotes actually spoil anything, I don’t want to accidentally spoil something for someone.

Some of the quotes might seem a little weird out of context but these are quotes that hit close to home, made me say “Hell, yeah, Addie!!!", quotes that made me laugh, and then basically all of the other quotes that I loved while reading.

I know that I didn't completely fall in love with this book like so many other people did, but it was still so beautifully written and there were so many amazing quotes in this book.

And just a heads up, I read this on my kindle, just in case the page numbers I list don’t match with your copy of the book.

Spoilers Below:

Quotes that Hit Close to Home

“Three and twenty, a third of a life already buried.” Page 39

“The day passes like a sentence. The sun falls like a scythe.” Page 41

“[...] and when she dies it will be as though she never lived.” Page 42

“I am so tired of not having choices, so scared of the years rushing past beneath my feet. I do not want to die as I’ve lived, which is no life at all. I—” Page 46

“[...] she swears sometimes her memory runs forward as well as back, unspooling to show the roads she’ll never get to travel. But that way lies madness, and she has learned not to follow.” Page 61

“His parents meant well, of course, but they always told him things like Cheer up, or It will get better, or worse, It’s not that bad, which is easy to say when you’ve never had a day of rain.” Page 97

“But then a night would go long, and a day would start late, and now he feels like there’s no time at all. Like he is always late for something.” Page 119

““I see someone who cares,” she says slowly. “Perhaps too much. Who feels too much. I see someone lost, and hungry. The kind of person who feels like they’re wasting away in a world full of food, because they can’t decide what they want.”” Page 140

““Life is so brief, and every night in Rennes I’d go to bed, and lie awake, and think, there is another day behind me, and who knows how few ahead.”” Page 167

““I mean feeling like it’s surging by so fast, and you try to reach out and grab it, you try to hold on, but it just keeps rushing away. And every second, there’s a little less time, and a little less air, and sometimes when I’m sitting still, I start to think about it, and when I think about it, I can’t breathe. I have to get up. I have to move.”” Page 177

““Small places make for small lives. And some people are fine with that. They like knowing where to put their feet. But if you only walk in other people’s steps, you cannot make your own way. You cannot leave a mark.”” Page 179

“It was such a lovely jar she had kept them in. But the glass is cracking now. The water leaking through.” Page 215

“Moments of joy register as brief, but ecstatic. Moments of pain stretch long and unbearably loud.” Page 225

“[...] you’ve never felt called to any one thing. There is no violent push in one direction, but a softer nudge a hundred different ways, and now all of them feel out of reach. Page 226

“[...] in wanting to live, to learn, to find yourself, you’ve gotten lost.” Page 226

“He lets it ring, holds his breath until it stops. He tells himself that if they call again, he’ll answer. If they call again, he’ll tell them he is not okay. But the phone doesn’t ring a second time.” Page 229

“He misses the structure, misses the path, misses the purpose. And maybe it wasn’t a perfect fit, but nothing is.” Page 257

“That he’d blinked and somehow years had gone by, and everyone else had carved their trenches, paved their paths, and he was still standing in a field, uncertain where to dig.” Page 283

“And those first two years, he was happy. He had Bea, and Robbie, and all he had to do was learn. Build a foundation. It was the house, the one that he was supposed to build on top of that smooth surface, that was the problem. It was just so … permanent.” 283

“Choosing a class became choosing a discipline, and choosing a discipline became choosing a career, and choosing a career became choosing a life, and how was anyone supposed to do that, when you only had one?” Page 283

““The vexing thing about time,” he says, “is that it’s never enough. Perhaps a decade too short, perhaps a moment. But a life always ends too soon.”” Page 333

“He is all restless energy, and urgent need, and there isn’t enough time, and he knows of course that there will never be. That time always ends a second before you’re ready. That life is the minutes you want minus one.” Page 421

“The world is wide, and he’s seen so little of it with his own eyes. He wants to travel, to take photos, listen to other people’s stories, maybe make some of his own. After all, life seems very long sometimes, but he knows it will go so fast, and he doesn’t want to miss a moment.” Page 438

Quotes that Made Me Laugh

“Henry loves his sister, he does. But Muriel’s always been like strong perfume. Better in small doses. And at a distance.” Page 120

““Sorry, Book,” she mutters, lifting the cat gingerly onto the back of the old chair, where he does his best impression of an inconvenienced bread loaf.” Page 248

““It’s Halloween!” defends Robbie. “It’s the twenty-third,” says Henry, but Robbie treats holidays the way he treats birthdays, stretching them from days into weeks, and sometimes into seasons.” Page 274

Quotes that made me say “Hell, yeah, Addie!!!”

“If she must grow roots, she would rather be left to flourish wild instead of pruned, would rather stand alone, allowed to grow beneath the open sky. Better that than firewood, cut down just to burn in someone else’s hearth.” Page 31

“[...]from this moment forward, her life will be her own.” Page 48

“There is a defiance in being a dreamer.” Page 117

““It has only been two years,” she says. “Think of all the time I have, and all the things I’ll see.”” Page 132

“It will take time, but time is the one thing Addie has plenty of. So she opens her eyes, and starts again.” Page 192

“But then Addie straightens, lifts her chin, smiles with an almost defiant kind of joy. “But isn’t it wonderful,” she says, “to be an idea?”” Page 261

Quotes that I Love

“[...] never pray to the gods that answer after dark.” Page 7

“What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind?” Page 15

“The things that last, even when memories don’t.” Page 16

“As if you couldn’t like one place and want to see another.” Page 23

“Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.” Page 35

“The kind of place where time slips and blurs, where a month, a year, a life can go missing.” Page 39

“[...] attraction can look an awful lot like recognition in the wrong light.” Page 56

“The rise isn’t worth the fall.” Page 56

“Being trapped, buried alive, these are the things that scare you when you cannot die.” Page 57

“Funny, how some people take an age to warm, and others simply walk into every room as if it’s home.” Page 58

“Déjà vu. Déjà su. Déjà vécu. Already seen. Already known. Already lived.” Page 66

“[...]a lifetime of knowing brushed away like a tear.” Page 73

“[...] and it is sad, of course, to forget. But it is a lonely thing, to be forgotten. To remember when no one else does.” Page 77

“[...] ideas are so much wilder than memories, that they long and look for ways of taking root.” Page 77

““These days, everyone’s looking down,” muses Sam. “It’s nice to see someone looking up.”” Page 101

“Being forgotten, she thinks, is a bit like going mad. You begin to wonder what is real, if you are real. After all, how can a thing be real if it cannot be remembered?” Page 103

“If a person cannot leave a mark, do they exist?” Page 103

“Dreamer is too soft a word. It conjures thoughts of silken sleep, of lazy days in fields of tall grass, of charcoal smudges on soft parchment.” Page 11

“She considers the cut of their clothes, the absence of bone stays or bustled skirts, and thinks, not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, how much simpler it would be to be a man, how easily they move through the world, and at such little cost.” Page 129

““I remember you.”” Page 135

“The darkness claimed he’d given her freedom, but really, there is no such thing for a woman, not in a world where they are bound up inside their clothes, and sealed inside their homes, a world where only men are given leave to roam.” Page 163

“She watches these men and wonders anew at how open the world is to them, how easy the thresholds.” Page 165

““I think there are many ways to matter.”” Page 179

“But ideas are so much wilder than memories, so much faster to take root.”” Page 210

“He is full of roots, while she has only branches.” Page 212

“Easy to stay on the path when the road is straight and the steps are numbered.” Page 229

“Outside the window, the day just carries on as if nothing’s changed, but it feels like everything has, because Addie LaRue is immortal, and Henry Strauss is damned.” Page 235

“[...]I didn’t want to live forever. I just wanted to live.”” Page 236

““There’s this family photo,” he says, “not the one in the hall, this other one, from back when I was six or seven. That day was awful. Muriel put gum in David’s book and I had a cold, and my parents were fighting right up until the flash went off. And in the photo, we all look so … happy. I remember seeing that picture and realizing that photographs weren’t real. There’s no context, just the illusion that you’re showing a snapshot of a life, but life isn’t snapshots, it’s fluid. So photos are like fictions. I loved that about them. Everyone thinks photography is truth, but it’s just a very convincing lie.”” Page 239

“God, it feels good to be wanted.” Page 256

“[...] And ideas are wilder than memories. They’re like weeds, always finding their way up.”” Page 261

“Homesick—Henry knows that one is supposed to mean sick for home, not from it, but it still feels right.” Page 262

“Dressing up, he thinks, is just like watching cartoons, something you enjoyed as a kid, before it passes through the no man’s land of teen angst, the ironic age of early twenties. And then somehow, miraculously, it crosses back into the realm of the genuine, the nostalgic. A place reserved for wonder.” Page 274

“Bea always says returning to campus is like coming home. But it doesn’t feel that way to Henry. Then again, he never felt at home at home, only a vague sense of dread, the eggshell-laden walk of someone constantly in danger of disappointing.” 282

“He doesn’t know what he believes, hasn’t for a long time, but it’s hard to entirely discount the presence of a higher power when he recently sold his soul to a lower one.” Page 284

““You can’t make people love you, Hen. If it’s not a choice, it isn’t real.”” Page 290

“He has asked the wrong god for the wrong thing, and now he is enough because he is nothing. He is perfect, because he isn’t there.” Page 290

“A life reduced to a block of stone, a patch of grass.” Page 299

“The present folding on top of the past instead of erasing it, replacing it.” Page 306

“She knows the paint will fade, rinsed off by a puddle, or simply wiped away by time, but that’s how memories are supposed to work. There—and then, little by little, gone.” Page 307

“Without the bells, the organ, the bodies crowding in for services, the church feels abandoned. Less a house of worship and more a tomb.” Page 311

“God is so large, why build walls to hold Him in?” Page 311

“Once you know about a thing, you start to see it everywhere. Someone says the words purple elephant, and all of a sudden, you catch sight of them in shop windows and on T-shirts, stuffed animals and billboards, and you wonder how you never noticed.” Page 314

“There is a freedom, after all, in being forgotten.” 325

“Memories are stiff, but thoughts are freer things. They throw out roots, they spread and tangle, and come untethered from their source. They are clever, and stubborn, and perhaps—perhaps—they are in reach.” Page 327

“They’ve been lucky, so lucky, but the trouble with luck is that it always ends.” 329

““You said it yourself, Luc. Ideas are wilder than memories. And I can be wild. I can be stubborn as the weeds, and you will not root me out. And I think you are glad of it. I think that’s why you’ve come, because you are lonely, too.”” Page 332

“She closes her eyes, reminds herself there are many ways to leave a mark, reminds herself that pictures lie.” Page 337

“She may not feel the years weakening her bones, her body going brittle with age, but the weariness is a physical thing, like rot, inside her soul. There are days when she mourns the prospect of another year, another decade, another century. There are nights when she cannot sleep, moments when she lies awake and dreams of dying. But then she wakes, and sees the pink and orange dawn against the clouds, or hears the lament of a lone fiddle, the music and the melody, and remembers there is such beauty in the world. And she does not want to miss it— any of it.” Page 342

“Luc’s smile darkens. “Because time is cruel to all, and crueler still to artists. Because vision weakens, and voices wither, and talent fades.” He leans close, twists a lock of her hair around one finger. “Because happiness is brief, and history is lasting, and in the end,” he says, “everyone wants to be remembered.”” Page 351

“It is a sign, when even gods and devils dread a fight.” Page 367

“And this, he decides, is what a good-bye should be. Not a period, but an ellipsis, a statement trailing off, until someone is there to pick it up. It is a door left open. It is drifting off to sleep.” Page 419

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The Invisible Life of Addie Larue By V.E. Schwab Review

My Rating: ☆☆☆

I'm not going to lie, I struggled with what to rate this. I so badly wanted to like the book more than I did and I'm not sure if my expectations were too high because of how much people have been raving about it but I can't bring myself to rate this book higher than a three out of five.

It didn't deserve anything less than an average rating, it wasn't bad by any means, but there was nothing for me that pushed it over being average. It's a book that I'm glad I read but I don't have particularly strong feelings about it.

My motivation for reading this book initially was because I wanted to know why it made people cry so bad at the end. Usually when I read a book for that reason or just because people are talking about it a lot, my motivation changes once I start reading. It changes because I become invested in the plot and/or the characters and I want to know what happens next. That was not the case with Addie LaRue. I so very much wish it was.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love Addie. I think she is an amazing character and her being so freaking amazing made me really sad that it was such a struggle for me to read the book. I would die for her, that’s how much I love her. But I was just not all that invested in her story. The premise of the story is interesting and I actually really enjoyed the parts of the book that were set before 2014. But for the most part, I was just not engaged with the book.

I think the reason I had trouble becoming invested in the book is because things didn’t pick up the way I thought they would. Once Henry was in the picture, I was hoping the story would really start moving along but the book kept moving at the same pace. And it wasn't just an issue of the pacing, but I feel like there wasn't an overarching plot. For as many different stories throughout Addie’s life that were told, there wasn't a lot keeping the book moving. There wasn’t actually a whole lot happening.

There were very very few moments during my reading where after putting the book down, I couldn't wait to pick it up again. I had to force myself to pick it up and read. I constantly was tempted to start another book while reading this one but I knew if I did that, I probably wouldn't ever finish this book and I desperately wanted to know why it made people cry.

I'll admit that during the last hundred pages, I didn't want to put the book down. But for a 442 page book, for that to only happen during the last hundred pages, I don't think that means very much. I'm not sure what changed at that point, but I finally thought things were going somewhere, and they were, but then the book ended.

Talking about the ending, the part that made people cry, it was cheesy in my opinion, but I mean that in the nicest way possible. I don't hate how it ended. However, I've been seeing things about people sobbing and ugly crying over the end of this book and while I was a little emotional, I didn't even come close to crying. I'm almost disappointed that I didn't cry, if I'm being honest. I genuinely was expecting that I would. I thought despite my struggle to become invested in the book, that the ending would be amazing enough to bump up my rating to a four or five star. But while the ending wasn't bad, it was cheesy and predictable.

That all be said, do I regret reading the book? No. Absolutely not. The book is so beautifully written and like I said, I absolutely love Addie. I relate to her, and Henry, so much. I just don't think this is something I would reread or if I did reread it, it would have to be years from now after I've mostly forgotten the details of the book. Hopefully I'll enjoy it more then.

Would I recommend the book? I would, but I don't think it's anything to write home about. I wouldn't advise people to drop what they're doing or to go out of their way to read it. If you do want to read it, it would probably be best to wait a little longer until the buzz around it dies down. That might take a while but I think I would have enjoyed the book more if I hadn't built it up so much in my head and was able to read it more for what it was rather than what I was expecting it to be. I think my expectations mixed with how Addie’s story was told just wasn’t a good combination.

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Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston Review

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

It took me a while to get to reading this book because I was hesitant to read a book that would so heavily revolve around characters where their lives revolved around politics. And for it to not even take place in a made up world. After the last election and the hell that was 2020 (that has continued into 2021), I am all politics-ed out.

That being said this book was very enjoyable. The enemies to friends to lovers trope is one of my absolute favorites and Alex and Henry's relationship was so worth trudging through the politics in the book.

A couple of critiques, the time jumps were a bit jarring sometimes. Like one minute Alex is in England and suddenly he's back at the White House. It doesn't help that the chapters are so long. There's only 15 chapters in this 400 something page book. There were so many places where chapters could have ended and then started and they didn't. So with time jumps happening suddenly in the middle of very long chapters, it could be a little confusing and make it a little frustrating to read.

One last thing that was annoying is the use of the word y’all. I get it, I’m from a state where we say y’all. Hell, I say y’all quite often. But it’s not something that I usually see written in books and I’m honestly not actually used to reading the word at all. It's normally something that is just said, at least where I live. So, yes, the characters saying y'all makes sense considering they're from Texas but it was annoying to read the word even if it made sense for the characters to be saying it. Anytime y’all was used more than twice on a page or two, it really drove me crazy.

That being said, every time I put the book down, I just wanted to pick it right back up and keep reading. Like I said, the politics was a bit much but the romance was beautiful and I would do anything for these two doofuses.

Spoilers Below:

To continue my ramblings a bit:

Henry and Alex's relationship was so adorable and it was a complete whirlwind that was heartbreaking and intoxicating and fun to read. God, and that scene where Alex flew all the way to England to talk to Henry- I seriously thought they were gonna break up. I had to hold back tears just so I could get through the scene.

Overall, I rate this book four stars. The politics of it all was a bit much honestly. I know Alex's world completely revolves around politics but politics stresses me out and that was no different with the politics in this alternate universe of a book where Tr*mp was never president (which can we talk about how awesome it is that in this book the President of the United States was female and had a biracial family??!???) Anyway, the politics just got me thinking too much about what was happening irl and about the last election instead of being a way to completely escape from the reality of what life it like here in the USA. It was exhausting to read sometimes but the romance between Henry and Alex was worth reading through all of that.

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Finale by Stephanie Garber Review

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

I’m disappointed to say that this is my least favorite of the three books. Despite the first book being somewhat annoying to read because of Scarlett’s pov, it still was so amazing. I don’t think anything could compare to it. And while I didn’t hate this book, I feel like some of the magic that made the first book, and the second one, so spectacular just wasn’t there with this one.

Spoilers Below:

I will say though, I enjoyed the fact that it was primarily in Tella’s pov. She’s my favorite character and I prefer her pov to Scarlett’s, although the pov sometimes was switched to hers. It was explained why Scarlett sees colors which makes up slightly for the fact that the colors drove me crazy throughout the first book. She’s the Fallen Star’s daughter and she has an ability. Great explanation, still annoying to read.

I also feel like the ending of the book was rushed. The last section of the book, The True Ending, just wasn’t as interesting to read as the other parts of the book and it impacted a lot of how I felt about it overall. I feel like ultimately, the suspense in killing the Fallen Star wasn’t there when it finally came time to face him. And while I love that Legend ultimately decided to give up his immortality for Tella, and it had been obvious for quite a while that he cared for her, I feel like a lot of that transition from not wanting to give up his immortality to accepting that he loved her and willing to give it up just wasn’t there. His decision to become mortal felt a little jarring to me, idk.

I just feel like while the ending of the book wrapped up nicely, it all just happened too cleanly and too fast. I don’t really know how to describe exactly why I feel like that but I just feel like the suspense wasn’t there to justify such a neat ending.

I wasn’t expecting Scarlett to become empress. I supposed I should have considering that the Fallen Star had become emperor and Scarlett was next in line but it genuinely did not occur to me for that to happen.

Anyway, side note, Tella’s letter to Legend at the end was really cute and while I am super excited for Once Upon a Broken Heart, and it being from Jacks’s pov, I also wouldn’t be mad if Stephanie Garber wanted to write a story about Legend and Tella’s adventures or even just Legend himself and about how he came to be the Master of Caraval.

Also, I just remembered something. What happened to Nicholas's dog? I forgot his name, but he was with Julian and Tella when Scarlett found them and he led them to the servants that were captured by Jester Mad but after that, he's never mentioned again. Did the servants take him? Did he end up staying with Tella or Julian? Did I completely forget what happened to this dog? Like was it explained or mentioned or acknowledge and I'm just forgetting about it? I'm thinking he went with the servants but I don't think it was clear if he did and I hope the dog is okay.

Overall, I enjoyed the book but I feel like it was lacking a bit especially compared to the other two. Maybe it was because Caraval wasn't taking place during this book (though I don't think I would have liked it if it had been). But I would still recommend this trilogy to anyone because I am absolutely in love with it.

[books-letstalkaboutem]

Legendary by Stephanie Garber Review

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆ ½

Spoilers Below:

Stephanie has a thing for blood. Ngl, it's kinda hot the way she describes it but it is painfully obvious if Caraval and Legendary are anything to go by.

I felt like the plot twists in this book were more predictable than the first one but I enjoyed Tella's pov more than Scarlett's. She didn't use colors to describe emotions so that was nice. Also, Dante is in this one more and I WAS RIGHT. HE IS LEGEND. I fucking called it and I'm so glad to have it confirmed.

Also the fact that Tella is the Prince of Hearts's one true love is hilarious. I'm not completely convinced that it's her, though I doubt he would have kissed anyone after he kissed her. I also don't buy that Legend doesn't have feelings for Tella. If he truly didn't care, he wouldn't have done the stupid thing of letting the Fates walk free. He would have destroyed the cards even if it meant destroying Tella. But he didn't even hesitate to let the Fates and Tella out of the cards. He cares about her.

The end of Caraval left me with more questions than this book did and much more of a cliffhanger as well but I'm excited to see how it all ends. I just hope it either takes on Legends pov maybe or stays with Tella's but I have a feeling it's going to go back to Scarlett's which I honestly don't want.

[books-letstalkaboutem]

Caraval by Stephanie Garber Review

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

When I say that every time I thought that I finally had some sort of idea about what was going on, I didn't. The plot twists were amazing and made things really fun to read.

Spoilers Below for both Caraval and Legendary

I will say, it started to get on my nerves the way things were described in Scarlett's pov with using colors all the time to describe feelings. I don't understand the point of it and once I realized that it was happening, it started to get on my nerves.

The entire game being a plan created by Legend and Tella was amazing and we stan Julian for being a Scarlett simp. The fact that he was supposed to leave her at the clock shop but then went into the game with her 1) explains why things were so tense when the other players (including Dante, his brother) ran into him and 2) just made me really fall in love with Julian.

I also had my theory that Dante was Legend. I went into this book thinking that Legend was the main character so when I learned from a bookish unboxing video that Legend had tattoos on his arms, I didn't think anything of it. It was only when I started reading that I realized that Legend wasn't the main character knowing that Legend has tattoos covering his arms gave away who he was. That's why when Dante was introduced I had a hunch that it was him. However, I did surprisingly have my doubts throughout the book and I was second guessing myself.

This book was amazing. 5/5!

[books-letstalkaboutem]

Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo Review

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Spoilers Below:

This book made me cry. I cried when the Darkling turned Nikolai into a monster. I cried when Bagrah died. I cried when Nikolai came back to Alina and she tried to change him back. I cried when Mal died and then cried again when the Darkling died, surprisingly.

Just when you think things are going to go a certain way, things go in the opposite direction. That’s what happened with Nikolai, with Mal, with Alina's powers. It was such a whirlwind.

Honestly, after the first book, the Darkling/Alina ship faded for me. The Darkling is hardly in the Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising and when he is, he's always hurting Alina in one way or another. I understand where who he is comes from, why he is the way he is. But Mal and Alina are the ultimate ship. While I thought for a while that the Darkling was right that Mal would never understand Alina the way he did, and that was true during the first two books, anything that I felt about Mal not being quite right for Alina went away with this book.

The Darkling weirdly reminds me a lot of Anakin Skywalker in a way. The tragedy of his story, thinking you're on the right side, doing the right thing but really you're hurting innocent people and destroying lives to get what you want. It's that sort of doing the wrong thing but so very much believing it's right, with the underlying good intentions that I think draws me to the Darkling and no matter how much I hate him I will always be somewhat attracted to him. But if I had to choose, Mal is 1000% my favorite of the two. All I can say is I can't wait to read Six of Crows and also to get the King of Scars duology.

Of the Grisha Trilogy, Ruin and Rising is my favorite of the three. Nothing played out how I thought it would but it was heartbreakingly beautiful the way it did.

Also I love this quote on the last page:

"They had an ordinary life, full of ordinary things- if love can ever be called that."

It legit made me almost cry.

[books-letstalkaboutem]

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo Review

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Spoilers Below:

I wasn’t expecting the plot twists in this one. The book started with Mal and Alina far away from the Darkling. I wasn’t expecting him to catch up with them as soon as he did. It was only a few chapters in before he had captured them again which was surprising to me as I had thought the book would revolve around Mal and Alina hiding and running from the Darkling.

I was introduced to my new favorite Character, Nikolai. From the beginning we knew that he was hiding his true identity but his identity was revealed to me through a bookish tik tok not too long before I got to the reveal in the book. He quickly became my new favorite character (not sure that I really had one before him) and I can’t wait to read the King of Scars duology.

The twist of Vasily basically allowing the Darkling into Ravka was a surprise that wasn’t surprising. It was something that I expected from him but I wasn’t expecting the Darkling to get into Ravka that way. I truly had expected there to be more of a fight against him but it ended up with the Darkling leading a slaughter. I did know that Nikolai became king eventually, again spoiled through a tik tok, but I was wondering how he’d be next in line because his brother wasn’t standing down and the book had been coming close to an end when everything happened. But then Vasily died so that explains how.

Any part of me that shipped the Darkling and Alina went away with this book. I didn't think that Mal was necessarily a good match for Alina at this point but he was 1000x better than the Darkling. I felt like the Darkling was right in that he was the only one who could truly understand Alina but at the same time he was constantly trying to manipulate her and he was hurting her physically, emotionally, mentally. I didn't like him by the end of SAB but I truly started to hate him during Siege and Storm.

[books-letstalkaboutem]

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo Review

My Rating: ☆☆☆

Not gonna lie, my main motivation for reading this book was because the show was coming out and I realized that I had never read the book. Honestly, I felt this book was very average. I enjoyed Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising more than this one (I'll talk about those in another post) but if I hadn't been motivated by the Netflix show coming out, I don't think I would have actually wanted to finish the book. Honestly, I don't know why I was motivated to read Siege and Storm after feeling pretty meh about SAB.

Spoilers below:

Honestly, I think I would have enjoyed this book more if things hadn't been spoiled for me right before I got to them actually happening. For example, the Darkling being the Black Heretic was spoiled for me. So much lead up to that reveal and it was something I found out when I was only a couple chapters into the book.

I did wish that the book wasn't in first person. First person, while I can get used to it, is not my favorite point of view. I feel like sometimes it can feel very cheesy for certain things to be written in first person and that definitely applied here sometimes.

Something else that made me not enjoy the book as much, and this is something that happened with the other books as well, it took a while for things to pick up plot wise. It wasn't until towards the end of the book when Alina escaped that I actually was starting to feel invested in her story.

Onto thoughts about the characters. The Darkling is hot. And I knew Ben Barnes was going to be playing him so it was easy to imagine him as the Darkling (wtf was up with the show giving him the name Kirigan??? and him telling Alina his first name just completely ignored a lot of what the significance of his name held in Ruin and Rising) That being said, I enjoyed finding the cracks in the Darkling's mask. He held such an air of mystery in the beginning but after finding out that he was the Black Heretic, I enjoyed reading into his interactions with Alina and picking them apart because I knew his secret before I was supposed to.

I also felt like Alina wasn't the most interesting character (I love how she was portrayed in the show). She definitely grows into herself as the series progresses but to follow her through the first book was a little painful in my opinion.

I love Genya (and apparently I've been pronouncing her name wrong in my head according to the Netflix show). She will always be one of my favorite characters. She is so fucking strong and I admire her so much.

I enjoy the universe that was created here and I am dying to read Six of Crows (though admittedly, I need a break from Grishaverse so it might be a while until I get to it.)