#acrownsocursed

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🦇 A Crown So Cursed Book Review 🦇

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

❝ Don't forget to mind your Muchness, and keep moving forward. ❞

❓ #QOTD What's your favorite fantasy retelling OR your favorite character from Alice in Wonderland? ❓ 🦇 The long-awaited final installment of L.L. McKinney's Nightmare-Verse trilogy is finally here! The Nightmares that are leaking into the mortal realm are no longer so easily defeated with Figment Blades. With the monsters now seeping through the Veil, Alice and her crew must save Wonderland from itself. Between Hatta's Madness, Humphrey and Chess's strange, shared nightmares, and Alice's family in danger (again), it's almost more than Alice can take. Can she confront Wonderland's dark past to save the mortal realm's potentially darker future?

[ Find my full review below or on: Goodreads | Insta | StoryGraph ]

💜 L.L. McKinney is a magical moon goddess who weaves words with exquisite, unmeasured Muchness. As always, McKinney excels with both her word choice and dialogue, painting vivid pictures and powerful, raw characters that bounce right off the page. There's no refuting how fun, creative, and enchanting the entire Nightmare-Verse series is, and McKinney's spellbinding prose is perfect for an Alice in Wonderland retelling. How can you not love the badass, multi-fandom-loving bi baby girl that is McKinney's Alice? From the first chapter, readers are rushed off their feet, out of this reality, and into Alice's. Every fight scene conjures spectacular, action-packed imagery. Each line of dialogue sounds like you're talking to a familiar, fascinating friend. Alice in Wonderland is one of my all-time favorite classics, and no one has rewritten that world quite like McKinney has. I devoured this book in one sitting, as I'm sure many readers will (after all, we've been waiting since 2019 for this final installment, and it's finally here!).

🦇 Though I'm sure this will be a five-star read for many, this is my least favorite of the Nightmare-Verse books. The entire story, while action-packed, seemed rushed, as if the author was trying to fill 300+ pages to get to the grand (unsurprising) reveal. There are many plot points that are never fully resolved. For starters, the relationships in the book are a mess (Alice/Hatta, Alice/Chess, Chess/Humphrey, and Alice/Haruka...the latter seems like it was thrown in there to remind us that Alice is bi, even though she's kind of dating Hatta at the time?). There's a reveal involving Hatta, Chess, and Humphrey that gets mind-wiped, leaving us with no resolution there (a reveal that complicates the confusing ships mentioned above). Perhaps the most frustrating is the reliance on magic as a quick fix to a messy plot. The majority of the story is meant to get Alice to an epic final battle, but there aren't enough clue drops or slight reveals placed throughout the story to build suspense or intrigue.

🦇 Recommended to fans of Alice in Wonderland retellings, action-packed fantasy fight scenes, and magical mayhem.

✨ The Vibes ✨ ♠️ Alice in Wonderland Retelling ♥️ Third in a Trilogy ♦️ Love Triangle (Square?) ♣️ Young Adult Fantasy Fiction ♥️ Bisexual MC

🦇 Major thanks to the author @ll_mckinney and publisher @macmillanusa / @mackidbooks / @fiercereads for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. #ACrownSoCursed

[llmckinney]

What if Buffy fell down the rabbit hole instead of Alice? What if she was a bi Black girl from Atlanta? Visit TheNightmareVerse.com. Link also in bio. #BlackGirlMagic #ABladeSoBlack #ADreamSoDark #ACrownSoCursed #NightmareVerse #AliceInWonderland #BuffyTheVampireSlayer #BlackAuthors #Bookshelf #Fantasy #FairyTale https://www.instagram.com/p/CC1r0-4Ad5F/?igshid=1er1idqa2czh7

[pufflekittehreads]

January 2021 Anticipated Releases.

January 2021 Anticipated Releases.

I can’t believe it’s January again! Last year both zoomed by and dragged by. On the plus side, new year means new releases and 2021 has some highly anticipated releases. I’ll go into the year as a whole (kind of) in more detail soon, but first I am going to talk about my anticipated January releases! Pick up a beverage of choice and get comfortable because this is a pretty long post. Let us get…

[llmckinney]

Alice gets another book! A CROWN SO CURSED will complete the first trilogy of the Nightmare-Verse. ♠️ . Plus I’m writing a middle-grade! My Black girl gamer love letter to Sailor Moon! ✨🌙✨ . . . . . . #NightmareVerse #sailormoon #aliceinwonderland #buffythevampireslayer #gamergirl #blackgirlmagic #blackgamergirl #blackauthors #acrownsocursed https://www.instagram.com/p/B1w4tPTA2K4/?igshid=2zbx8drqwj09