The Chalice and the Crown by Kassandra Flamouri is not a typical YA fantasy. It’s dark, it’s gritty, it’s triggering. It considers some pretty timely themes about racism, classism, and mental illness. It contains animal cruelty and sadistic villains and some pretty hardcore bigotry. The book starts out with a young ballerina, Sasha, as she […]
First and foremost the thing I loved most about this book is that rather than rehashing the same storytelling technique of having dual points of view telling the same story, Pearson split our couple up early on so that the dual points of view could work together to tell two different stories, which I really […]
Deathless Divide was the perfect sequel to Dread Nation. PERFECT. Whereas Dread Nation (which everyone lost their minds for, myself included, because Civil War era zombies and a black female warrior lead? Oh. My. God. Yes.) sold itself on ‘combat school for Negro girls’, it really wove in a plot that expanded beyond the school […]
It feels right that my last review for the year is about a little girl whose superpower was reading. Recently I had a social gathering at my house that contained small children. I wanted a child-friendly film to play in the background, so I chose Matilda from Netflix. It was supposed to be a low-key […]
Jodi Picoult might be a household name, but this book is about 80% terrible and the remaining 20% that is actually interesting isn’t worth my time. There’s slut-shaming, girl-hating, and the female main character Delilah has physically assaulted two other girls so far. Yet somehow SHE’S the victim. And then, when Delilah explains that she […]
With a secondary character named Darcy De Winter, who is a rich snobby boy with a sister named Gina and who immediately dislikes our heroine, Emma, you would think that this book has something to do with a Pride and Prejudice retelling, right? Especially since the blurb says “Jane Austen reigns supreme” at the boarding […]
I’ve listened to 10% of the audiobook, and while that’s not enough to fully critique a book on all of its merits, I can tell it’s not worth my time to continue. What I like: – The worldbuilding. It’s stark and drops you right in, because of course you don’t need any info dumping. – […]
Through the White Wood appealed to me because I love elemental-based magic, especially when it’s ice/water vs fire: I also learned through reading the book that it’s based in an area of Russia centuries ago, except this version of Russia has real magic. I really liked that it was based here, and it was really […]
I’ve read some of Mary Webber’s previous books, so I know that I enjoy her writing when her characters aren’t full of dumb ideas and even dumber actions. Luckily, To Best The Boys stars a female scientist in the misogynistic world designed to keep her nothing more than a placid housewife, providing for and driving […]
I will probably spell everyone’s name wrong since I listened to the audiobook and have pretty much imagined them spelt my way for the whole time I listened to this. So I kinda low key loved this. I felt like I was in really good hands while I listened to this. The narrators were pleasant […]
