Personal rating: 4 stars Goodreads rating at time of review: 3.99 stars Content rating: PG-13 Trigger warnings: Abusive parents, stalker, manipulation Seventeen-year-old fangirl Rosemary Collins lives for VIGIL & ANTE Studios movies. From action-packed superhero fights to sweet character moments, she’s here for it all. But in a real-life crossover no one saw coming, the fandom’s heartthrob supervillain, Ironfall, isn’t as fictional as the film studio wants her to believe. Beyond the glamorous red carpet lies the government’s most guarded secret: the movies are real. Armed with a devilish grin and a wit as sharp as his knives, Ironfall needs her help, and refusing means he’ll kill her parents. Her only other option involves spying on him for the government’s secret superhero division. Suspended between fact and what she thought was fiction, Rosemary must join her heroes and create an impenetrable web of lies—or guarantee her parents’ safety as she watches the world burn at its adored villain’s hand. (goodreads.com) As someone who was reading and writing fanfics around 2012 - 2018 (aka the heyday of Avengers fanfiction in my personal opinion), I have read many, many stories with this premise before. And let’s be real, I gobbled them up every time I came across them regardless of how well they were written or how annoying the main character was. Marvel movies come to life? Sign me up for that adventure (at least in the sense of reading about it, I’d prefer the MCU to stay in its own universe, thank you). All of that being said, I know that the writing of this book could have used some polishing. I know that there were parts of it that were cringey and unrealistic and maybe a touch too try-hard. I am not claiming this to be a great piece of literature… however I had an absolute blast reading it and therefore I am giving it four stars. You can’t stop me, this is my blog. I did, in fact, breeze through this book in one sitting, shouting at the characters all the way through it and rolling my eyes at the particularly fanfic-y parts (even though you know I loved those too). It was a very easy read to get into with short chapters, simple writing, familiar tropes. If you, like me, have read fanfictions with the same premise before, you know where things are going right from the get go, but you’re excited to get there. Handsome villain stalking the main character? Here for it. Main character has to go through a training montage? Obviously. Secret government organization convinces the main character to spy on the villain that she’s slowly falling for? I would expect nothing less. Plot that starts to fall apart and meander aimlessly after the author has already written the scene that they were originally daydreaming about? Listen… we’ve all been there. Okay, okay, I admit, the plot was maybe structured a bit too much like a fanfiction. And I am going solely off of my own fanfic writing experience on this one, but what I mean is this: as a fangirl in a fandom, sometimes you daydream about a particular scene that you would like to see play out either in the canon content or with your OC or whatever. You can just picture your favorite character dancing or getting coffee or murdering all of your enemies because they dared to lay a finger on you. And, if you are a writer, your instinct may be to write it all down so that you can revisit that daydream whenever you want. The only problem is, if you are a writer, you might also be inclined to justify that one scene with an entire plot because how else would the characters have gotten there? So you write a fic, but after you get to the point in the story that your original scenario occurs, you start to run out of steam and then things start to go down rabbit holes that you dug in the middle of things and maybe even get ever so slightly convoluted until you either wrap things up or leave the fic on hiatus for the next ten years. At least… in my experience that’s what tends to happen. And it kind of feels like that’s what happens in this book as well. After the main character, Rosemary, and the “villain”, Ironfall, start to get closer and the heist plot starts to wrap up, that’s when the evil terrorist group shows up along with the plot twists that were maybe too heavily foreshadowed before. Still, I think everything wrapped up nicely at the end with an epilogue “post-credit scene” to boot. You can tell that the author put a lot of work in to tie all of the various plot threads together and I appreciate that. I think part of the reason I enjoyed We Could be Villains so much is because it brought me back to that fun time in the Avengers fandom. Rosemary describes eagerly waiting to hear news from convention panels and watch trailers. She and her friend talk about theories together and have posters. Ironfall is very “Loki-coded”, but the weird teenage version of Loki that many fics at the time adopted because then they could get away with having their 17 year old OC fall in love with him and claim it wasn’t creepy because of that one tumblr post that did some math and proposed that Loki is only a teenager in human years (iykyk). It’s just all nostalgic to me in a weird way. Were I not so embedded in Avengers fandom culture in my youth (*cough* and maybe also now *cough*), I don’t think I would have enjoyed this book as much as I did. While I think it can stand on its own and that others would enjoy it, I definitely think the plotting needs a bit of help and the characters could use some fine tuning. There was also a random side plot about Rosemary and Ironfall being part of the school production of Beauty and the Beast, which I found funny, but was kind of out of place. (Also, I’m still wondering how Rosemary was allowed to be in the play even though she hardly went to any of her actual classes. Don’t public schools have rules about not being able to participate in extracurriculars if your grades are low?) This review is getting long and rambling. To summarize: would I recommend this book to others? Uh…. undecided. Depends on what your own history with the MCU and fanfiction is. Will I be reading the sequel when it is released? You can bet your buns I will. Thank you for sticking with me to the end of the line, or at least the end of this review. I’d better go to a coffee shop and hope no villains and/or super spies are following me. Until next time! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61101765-we-could-be-villains
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Personal Rating: 3.5 Stars Goodreads Rating at time of review: 3.62 Stars Content Rating: Light PG-13 Trigger Warnings: Fantasy substance abuse, anxiety, depression, absent parent, some body horror (people growing flowers out of skin, chest, lungs, etc.) Clara’s magic has always been wild. But it’s never been dangerous. Then a simple touch causes poisonous flowers to bloom in her father’s chest. The only way to heal him is to cast an extremely difficult spell that requires perfect control. And the only person willing to help is her former best friend, Xavier, who’s grown from a sweet, shy child into a mysterious and distant young man. Xavier names a terrible price in return, knowing Clara will give anything to save her father. As she struggles to reconcile the new Xavier with the boy she once loved, she discovers their bargain is only one of the heavy secrets he’s hiding. And as she hunts for the truth, she instead finds the root of a terrible darkness that’s taken hold in the queendom—a darkness only Clara’s magic is powerful enough to stop. (goodreads.com) The copy of this book that I own is the Fae Crate exclusive edition, so if you’d like to see what that cover looks like, scroll on down to the bottom of this review! Both are magnificent covers, so please take a moment to appreciate the beauty! Alright, obligatory pretty cover comment out of the way, let’s get into the actual review. I was so, so, so excited for this book! A cottagecore fantasy with flower magic and a bit of romance? Sounds lovely, sign me up! And it was lovely, it was also just a twinge disappointing. I think part of that was because I set my hopes unattainably high and did not prepare for anything less than exactly what I wanted. It was still a fun book, it just wasn't the warm cottagecore hug I was hoping for. My first disappointment with it was the world building. Well, the lack of world building. And I know world building in a cozy fantasy is not always a top priority, and generally not all important to the plot, but I still would have liked a bit more. The reader is dropped into a world and told there are magic users, that those magic users have a council of some sort, and that young magicians are apprenticed to older magicians. All of which is relevant to the plot and great. However, there isn’t really much expansion on that information. We get small details about what the magician’s code of ethics is like and how they use their magic, but not much else. And the rest of the world is never explored. We know it’s a queendom, which sounds really cool and interesting, but I don’t recall them mentioning any information about the queen or what the queendom looks like outside of Clara’s small town and Xavier’s family home. My default guess for books like this that feature cottages and manors, is that the world is inspired by the English countryside, but there aren’t many clues confirming that, so that imagined world only fits because of my own background in reading fantasy. There also isn’t really a “set time period”. Obviously, this is not set in our world so no time period would line up with it exactly, but most fantasy worlds are inspired, at least with fashion and technology, by a point in our world’s history. Lord of the Rings, for example, has some decidedly medieval aesthetics going on. Based on the dress Clara wears on the cover, I’d guess Flowerheart is supposed to be late Victorian or early Edwardian, but hardly anything in the actual book points to that. The Victorian/Edwardian eras have some great technology that would have been a fun way to set the mood, like a gramophone or mention of trains or maybe even something with an Industrial Revolution nod. Again, it’s not vital to the plot that we have an exact picture of the world the story takes place in, but it would have been nice to be able to visualize it a little better. Apart from that, it really would have been cool to know more about how magic works in their world. Are the magicians the only difference from their world and ours or are there other things? Magical creatures? Odd geography? Legends of magic? Deities? I’m not saying not knowing these things makes it a bad story, but I, personally, would have enjoyed it more with more context. What little the reader does get to know about the fantasy world this is set in reminds me a little of Ingary, the place where Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones is set. Which was fun, but again, I'm drawing from my own reading experiences and not being given anything new from this book. I did like the plot. I mostly liked the writing style (I’m a bit exhausted of first person perspective, but that’s a me problem). The flower descriptions were so fun and I loved that we got to see some “language of the flowers” action. I would adore it if more books used the language of the flowers, ever since I read the Enola Holmes books by Nancy Springer I’ve been interested and Flowerheart has rekindled the obsession. I thought the characters were lovely. Albert Lucas, Clara’s father, was adorably sweet. The various magicians Clara met with were interesting and I would have loved to hear more about them. And I liked that Xavier felt realistic for a teenager burdened with large responsibilities. He acted mature and formal much of the time, but there were little instances of bashfulness and awkwardness that made him seem genuine. The book was easy to get into and be drawn into, but there were points that lagged for me. The pacing was not quite right. There were moments when it seemed like it was trying really hard to be a slow, cozy read, but then other moments when everything was happening at the speed of light and all of a sudden there are new problems, or old problems are solved in the blink of an eye. And the slow, cozy moments were not always well connected to the rest of the story, which is why I had to set it down several times. I kept thinking “why are we focused on this right now? Clara’s dad is dying!”, or “okay, things are calm, now would be a good time for some cute warm scenes--oh, nevermind people have dandelions growing out of their faces”. However, as a whole, I did like this book, I just didn’t love it. Not as much as I was hoping to anyway. Still, I could see myself picking up a sequel if there is one (most of the dilemmas were tied up, but there were enough openings that a sequel is possible) for a quick fantasy read. If you like diverse, mid-stakes (I don’t want to say “low-stakes” because her father was dying, but it doesn’t feel like incredibly “high-stakes” either because I was never too worried about the guy), cottagecore, teenage romances, you should check out Flowerheart. If you don’t… well, okay, I dunno, check out another one of my reviews and see if you can find something you like, I guess. Thank you for reading, I am off to check the magical cabinet that has delicious treats in it. Until next time! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61319750-flowerheart Personal Rating: 3 Stars Goodreads rating at time of review: 4.18 Stars Content Rating: Light PG-13 Trigger Warnings: Racism, misogyny, character has panic attacks Floss is most definitely NOT marrying the Goblin King, even if it saves her a trip through the labyrinth. Floss, an aspiring law student, has enough troubles to ruffle anyone’s bustle. Her school of choice won’t let her in because of her gender, her equal rights league is hopelessly ineffective, and there aren’t enough calming tonics in the world to stave off her panic attacks. Now her niece is missing, the roguish Goblin King keeps proposing, and sinister forces threaten Floss’s city. She’ll have to brave a dangerous labyrinth and question everything she believes in to save not only her family, but an entire kingdom down below. If only the Goblin King wasn’t quite so distracting, she might actually be able to do it. (goodreads.com) As always, we must take a moment to behold a pretty cover. I love the pink! It sort of makes me think of the covers of old Barbie movies, which is a spectacular vibe. Now, if you read the description and if you’ve ever seen Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, you may be noticing some similarities between this book and that movie. And I think this book was inspired by Labyrinth (though I can find no information to back that up) or perhaps started as a fanfiction, but I can assure you the vibes are fairly distinct from one another. Though, I suppose they are the same enough that it would still interest someone who might be looking for a book “like Labyrinth”. As we get into this review, I fear that I might have several negative things to say, so I want to start out by saying that I did really enjoy reading it. Easy to get into, interesting world building, cute romance, female friendships, a dashing goblin king—all very fun to read and I liked it quite a bit. However, no matter how much of a good time I had while reading it, I also felt a persistent feeling of “hmm… that doesn’t seem quite right”. As well as a few other little things that bothered me. Let’s get into it, shall we? First off, the romance. It was cute. It was fun. The male main character was the king of a magical realm and a gentleman with a penchant for mischief. What could possibly go wrong with that? Well, for the most part the king was completely fine as a love interest (I was not expecting him to turn into a giant green creature that I could only picture as the Hulk, but you know, some people are into that so whatevs). It was Floss that I took most issue with. Floss was so… law abiding. Literally that’s one of her main character traits. She wants to be a lawyer and follow the law precisely. Which is fine, but it also meant that she was sort of naïve and ignorant of problems in her world. She is part of a group that protests for equal rights for women and magical creatures, but she is woefully uneducated about the plights of those magical creatures. It’s frustrating because she wants to do what is right, but she also won’t acknowledge when she is not doing what’s right. It reminds me very much of a well meaning woman of privilege who only sees her own problems and is insensitive to the injustices against minorities even as she speaks up for them. Like, she’s fighting for her equal rights and since she’s friends with magical creatures, she’ll tag their rights on too. That was another thing that bothered me. Equating magical creatures to real life minorities who are facing injustice is always a tricky thing to write. Because much of the time it starts to feel like mockery of real people, or saying that real people who face discrimination are “not human”. I’m just not sure that it’s the best idea to say that historically people of color faced the same problems as fairies. I suppose there are instances where it can be done well, but this book’s attempt at handling “magical social justice” left me feeling uncomfortable. Another irritation I have with Floss was that her motive for being such a rule follower was because of something bad she’d done in her past. And I don’t want to invalidate anyone’s trauma, but when you find out what the horribly wicked thing is that she did… it’s not really all that bad. I don’t even really understand why she did it apart from the fact that she was a child and children do stupid things. And when this big horrible thing is revealed to her sister, who was affected by the big horrible thing, Floss is immediately forgiven and faces no consequences, making me feel that it wasn’t really necessary to the plot. It seemed like it was put in as background information about Floss, supposedly telling us why she wants to be a lawyer. But the thing is, the reader is already told at the very beginning of the book what her motivations are and they seem perfectly believable. So I don’t really know why a second reason was necessary. I don’t want to spoil too much of the book or harp on it endlessly, but I also just want to mention that the conflict is resolved astoundingly easily. Sure, there is a whole journey through a labyrinth to get through, but once that is done then everything sort of just falls into place with minimal bumps in the road. The antagonist causes a little bit of drama, but other than that, everything is worked out super easily. This would have been fine, because by the end of the book I was more interested to see the resolution to the romance. However, a redundant amount of time was spent on sorting out the main conflict instead (which, as mentioned, practically solved itself anyway). The romance is sorted out with a teeny tiny epilogue that felt somewhat unsatisfactory. I liked Floss and the goblin king as a couple, I wanted to see more of their relationship once the labyrinth business was sorted. Also, brief note: one of the goblin kingdom’s major problems was solved by the tourism industry. The problem created by imperialism was solved with tourism. And that just seems… I don’t know, maybe too close to real history for many places. Especially because the citizens of the goblin kingdom seem quite averse to outsiders (which Floss knows when she suggests the “solution” of tourism) and they don’t really want further intrusion from the oppressive empire. You probably wouldn’t believe it from all of the critiques I just mentioned, but I did genuinely enjoy reading this book. The magic was fun, the writing voice was comedic, but not overly so, the characters were, for the most part, interesting. There were just certain aspects that I felt were not as good as they could have been. It is hard to praise the features of the book that I really liked when they are so entangled with potentially problematic pieces. All of that being said, I do want to read the next book in this series when it is released as well as the novella (only available as an ebook currently) that is already out. If I do, I will try to post another review and we’ll see if things improve for the world of “Lady Primrose Presents”. Thank you for reading this review, I’m off to run the labyrinth to get my cat back. I’m sure that’s where she goes when I can’t find her. TTFN! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60210872-how-to-train-your-goblin-king Personal Rating: 3.5 Stars Goodreads rating at time of review: 3.87 Stars Content Rating: PG-13 Earth may be a nightmarish landscape, but that's no reason to stop the music. Post-apocalyptic life ain’t all doom and gloom for Sebastian Yun. The eighteen-year-old lives for broadcasting his music to the end-of-world-weary masses from behind the wheel of his sweeeeet, double-decker ride. But when making a pit stop at a small, dusty town, the self-made radio DJ runs into a shady old nemesis who totally kills his good vibes. This seasoned flimflam woman claims she can send the bloodthirsty creatures that prey on mankind back to hell. When Sebastian’s completely-not-selfish attempts to unmask the phony hit the wrong note, the very real danger is cranked all the way up to 11. Will Sebastian live to share more of his dope tunes, or will it be dead air from here on out? (synopsis from amazon.com) Normally, I am not one for post-apocalyptic books. Occasionally, I’ll watch a movie of this variety, but rarely will I read a book about the end of the world. I came across this one because I follow the author on TikTok and I thought the premise sounded really fun. A DJ driving around the world in a double decker bus, playing music from pre-apocalypse? Sounds like a good time! Plus, this is so short, I figured I wasn’t investing that much time if I didn’t end up liking it. But, I really liked this book! It was a weird, fast-paced little snippet of some end of the world shenanigans. I will say that because it was so short, I felt like I was missing so much information. Of course, I suspect much of this information will be revealed in volumes two and three, but it still would have been nice to have a bit more set up for the character and the world they live in. Also, because of the length of the book, there weren’t really any good stopping places, so it’s really a book that you just need to take an hour or two to sit down and read in one sitting if you can. Enough about how short it was, let’s talk about the actual story. The characters were fun and interesting, but I didn’t feel like I got to know them very well. I look forward to spending more time with Sebastian and Meza in the sequel and even the conwoman, Chancy freakin’ Freeman. The humor was goofy and I liked that there was a running joke throughout about how the town they were staying in was too small to actually be called a town and so Sebastian, despite being in the middle of a crazy situation, keeps trying to figure out a better word to use to refer to the town, such as “village” or “hamlet”. It’s just a silly gag that keeps on going and is resolved at the same time the action is, which was a fun way to wrap things up. As far as the plot goes… there’s not a whole lot to it, but that’s okay. I think the best way I can think to describe this book is that it feels like the pilot episode of a TV show. We’re not sure what is happening really, or who these people are, but it’s fun to watch them fight monsters and listen to music. It’s like watching an episode of some show you randomly find on your preferred streaming service or at the library and you watch it. And maybe you don’t fully vibe with it at first, but it catches your attention, it captures your interest, and you think to yourself “hmm, I want to see where this goes”. Now, I haven’t read the next book in the series, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m going to get sucked in and start to get way too attached to these characters. And I’m excited for that to happen. I loved the music choices for this book as well. Since Sebastian is a DJ, there were several songs mentioned that I thought went well with the scenes and added a layer to the atmosphere created in the book.I especially enjoyed the song at the very end and loved picturing everyone at the end singing along to it. What’s fun about this being set in the distant (or maybe not so distant) future is that any song could be used. It’s not just classic rock, or older songs. Since we don’t know how far in the future this is, it is not limited to the music of yesteryear, the series can mention music that’s coming out this year and it will still be “old music” to the characters. I think there’s also a Spotify code on the first page, but I couldn’t get my phone to scan it, so I’m not sure if that’s actually what it was or not. If anyone else was able to get it to work, let me know! I recommend this book to anyone who likes post-apocalyptic stories with a little flair, or people who enjoy fun music. As I said, I am eager to read the next book in the series and will be ordering it shortly. Well, I’m off to hide from the giant booger monsters of the future. Thanks for reading! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60616050-so-you-survived-the-end-of-the-world Personal Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads rating at time of review: 3.96 Content Rating: Light PG-13 (some violence) What if you had one year to save everything you loved? ONE PRINCESS. Merida of DunBroch needs a change. She loves her family—jovial King Fergus, proper Queen Elinor, the mischievous triplets— and her peaceful kingdom. But she’s frustrated by its sluggishness; each day, the same. Merida longs for adventure, purpose, challenge – maybe even, someday, love. TWO GODS. But the fiery Princess never expects her disquiet to manifest by way of Feradach, an uncanny supernatural being tasked with rooting out rot and stagnation, who appears in DunBroch on Christmas Eve with the intent to demolish the realm – and everyone within. Only the intervention of the Cailleach, an ancient entity of creation, gives Merida a shred of hope: convince her family to change within the year – or suffer the eternal consequences. THREE VOYAGES. Under the watchful eyes of the gods, Merida leads a series of epic journeys to kingdoms near and far in an attempt to inspire revolution within her family. But in her efforts to save those she loves from ruin, has Merida lost sight of the Clan member grown most stagnant of all – herself? FOUR SEASONS TO SAVE DUNBROCH – OR SEE IT DESTROYED, FOREVER. (goodreads.com) Beware, I'm about to get kind of personal in this review. I just have a lot of feelings, okay? Full disclosure, Brave is one of my all time favorite movies. Not just Pixar, not just Disney—one of my favorite movies out of all the movies I’ve seen in my life. So I went into this book feeling rather nervous. I have read and watched sequels to movies before where all of the character development from the original movie is undone. Sometimes there are massive continuity errors or character deaths that are completely unnecessary. I was so worried that something like that would happen in this book and that I would hate it. And guess what… some of those things I mentioned did happen (to a much lesser extent than I was expecting, thankfully) but I absolutely loved the majority of this book. Without any further ado, let’s get right into this, shall we? I have many thoughts and I don’t want this review to turn into a full blown book in its own right. First off, the bad. (My least favorite part of this book I will create a spoiler section for. I have severely mixed feelings about it and need to rant to someone, but it is from the very end of the book and I don’t want to spoil things for anyone who doesn’t want to be spoiled. But if you don’t care or have read the book already, go right ahead and jump to that spoiler section.) One thing that is very minor, but irritated me about this book is how they treated Merida’s animal companion. She is technically a Disney Princess and in being such, obviously has an animal companion. Hers is Angus, a massive draft horse who is, for all intents and purposes, a good boy. He’s also not very old. I mean, they never say how old he is in the movie, but he doesn’t seem that old. My sister who works with horses regularly, also agrees that he doesn’t seem that old. However, in the book they keep referring to him as ancient and said that he had to come out of retirement for a road trip they were taking. They acted like he was fragile and decrepit. And this book, as far as I can tell, takes place about four or five years after the movie, but horses can live up to thirty years so he shouldn’t be ancient just yet. Angus is such a minor part of this story that it’s really not important, but it bothered me and I’m in charge of this blog so I get to talk about whatever I want. Another thing I didn’t like about this book was the relationship between Merida and her mother, Queen Elinor. Now, if you’ve seen the movie, you know that they have had a rocky relationship in the past and that the movie was about mending that relationship. And sure, not everything is going to be perfect after one magical adventure where the queen gets turned into a bear, but I feel like the lessons they learned when the queen gets turned into a bear would be pretty memorable and that they would keep trying to fix their relationship. And it is better in this book than it was at the start of the movie, but it also feels like Elinor isn’t actually trying to make it better, she’s just not arguing with Merida. It almost feels like she’s afraid of her daughter turning her into a bear again. Which was an accident (sort of) in the first place! By the end of the book I felt things were a bit better, but I still wasn’t satisfied with Merida and Elinor’s behavior toward one another. I will say that Elinor was in the book little enough that this relationship did not truly affect how I felt about the rest of the story. So, again, not a major problem, just a little irritation. One more nitpick-y thing and then I’ll get to the parts of the book that I enjoyed (which were most of them). Merida, you may recall, has three much younger brothers: Hubert, Hamish, and Harris. In the movie, they are indistinguishable from each other and they don’t speak. Mostly because they aren’t hugely important to the film apart from causing shenanigans and sometimes helping Merida. In this book, however, they play a much more important role, which is great. I will say that I was anxious about what their dialogue would be like, since they don’t talk in the movie and they don’t have distinct personalities either, but it was well done. It started off with them not speaking, or making gestures like in the movie, then they would all speak as one for a while, and slowly we are eased into the triplets being independent of one another and getting to know their personalities and how their personalities and Merida’s view of them evolve over the course of the story. That’s not the part I have complaints with. The part I have complaints with is, again, super minor and not hugely important, but irritated me. At one point, Merida questions whether her brothers know about the secret passages all throughout Castle DunBroch. And, thankfully, later, two of the three triplets assure her that they’ve already seen the passages. But it bothers me that Merida doesn’t know that because it is one of the triplet’s biggest roles in the movie. They are constantly crawling through secret tunnels and popping up at other ends of the castle. It’s a whole thing during a scene where they have to lead King Fergus on a wild goose bear hunt through the castle. And it’s ALL THREE OF THEM. Not just Hubert and Harris. Hamish knows the secret passages too! In the book he says the secret tunnels sound scary, like he’s never been there or something. And though Merida doesn’t really see the boys use the passages in the movie, I just feel like she would know that they do. Because it’s their whole thing. And maybe in the book, it’s supposed to show us that Merida doesn’t always think of others, or how she has a set view of the people around her that needs to be updated and changed, which fits with the themes of the book. But still. I’m just a bit salty about it. Okay, enough ranting about tiny details. Let’s get to what I actually liked. Maggie Stiefvater is a wizard with words and plots. She wrote The Raven Boys series (which I did review on this blog, but I can’t find where I put it so I can’t link it) which didn’t end up being a good series for me personally, but let me give you a quote about how I felt about the writing: “THE GOSH DARNED WRITING WAS JUST SO GOSH DARNED GOOD AND THE CHARACTERS WERE WELL WRITTEN AND WELL DEVELOPED AND THE PLOT WAS INSANE AND INCREDIBLE.” So even when I don’t like the themes of Maggie Stiefvater’s books, I still am shocked and astounded by her writing. It’s unbelievably phenomenal and I was pleased to find that this was also the case with Bravely. I mean, the first chapter starts with a lengthy description of bread. I freaking love bread. The descriptions of food in general were just the epitome of “chef’s kiss”, actually. It sort of reminded me of the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. Descriptions of everything were grand. The descriptions of the settings were vivid, the descriptions of people were spot on and helpful, and the descriptions of daily castle life were realistic without being too gross (because we all know medieval times were nasty and it’s nice to no have to focus on that). The prose of this book wrapped me in a big hug every time I picked it up.
This book made me feel so comfortable reading it, but it also made me uncomfortable--in a good way! This book is all about change, but not change for the sake of doing something different. It’s about avoiding stagnation. Breaking out of your bubble of safety. Learning more about the world and people around you. It does a great job of actually changing the characters too, because rather than taking the easy route and saying “let’s just make this character experience the opposite of what their normal personality is like and call that change” it introduced them to aspects of their life that they needed to improve and their development felt organic. Lately, in my own life, I have been feeling a bit afraid of change. I’ve gotten comfortable in my house, with my cat, reading, writing, watching videos in the embrace of my blankets and big changes are scary. Part of this is probably because it is winter and winter makes it so difficult to do anything. (You can’t just leave the house, you have to bundle up, check road conditions, be prepared for it to get dark early, and experience the biting cold when you actually do get outside. It’s hard to be moving when all the sensible creatures are hibernating.) But big changes are scary for me right now too because there are tangible momentous things upcoming in the near future. Career adjustments, friends getting married, siblings graduating college or heading out on their own, the possibility of going back to school myself--all big exciting and terrifying things that spook me into inactivity. So, with the whole plot of this book being that Merida needs to find a way to help her family, friends, and home get out of their stagnant state within a year, it made me dwell on some of the ways my own life is moving ever onward and how I’ve been resistant to that lately. And even though that’s not exactly comfortable or easy, it is important. I think I read this book at the exact right time and I am grateful for it. Good books always help me process the world. Okay, enough goopy sentimentality. Another thing I like about this book is that it can stand on its own even if you haven’t read the movie. In fact, I might have almost liked it better if it weren’t connected to Brave, but I can’t quite say that with complete honesty. I think, because I have always felt a bit of connection with Merida, it made me feel more at home and invested in the happenings of this story. If it had been some other princess that is new to me, I probably wouldn’t have cared about what was going on. However, I still think others who haven’t seen the movie would really enjoy this book. The stakes are high in this book, but the edge-of-your-seat-action is at a minimum (there is one really intense scene with a fire and another with some battle, but that’s about it), so it reads like a cozy fantasy (the multiple feasts help with that). There isn’t a ton of magic in it either, so if you like more historical fiction type stories, this nearly falls under that category too. As I said before, I have a least favorite part of this book that is very much a spoiler. So I have included a spoiler section down below if you would like to see the reason why I knocked off one star from what would have been a five star read for me otherwise. This part of the review, however, we shall leave on a happy note. I wish there were more to this book so that I could keep reading it. I love the theme of change and the way this book handled it with its characters. And, as I’ve said before, Maggie Stiefvater’s writing style is incredible and even though I wasn’t a fan of The Raven Boys, I seriously need to check out some of her other work. Thanks for reading, I’m off to turn my mom into a bear (jk, jk, I would never do that… on purpose). I’ll see you in the next review! Click on “Read More” in the bottom right corner to see the spoiler section! Personal Rating: 3 Stars Goodreads rating at time of review: 3.53 Stars Content Rating: R (mostly for violence and language, but some non-graphic sexual content is present as well) Trigger Warnings: Violence, lots of blood, assault, manipulation. There’s only one way out Belle Morte. One of five houses where vampires reside as celebrities and humans are paid to be their living donors. While others came here seeking fortune, I came in search of my sister who walked into Belle Morte five months ago . . . and never walked back out. Now that I’m here, the secrets about this world have proven to be much bigger than I ever anticipated. And lurking around every corner are shocking insinuations of what happened to my sister. There’s only one person who might have the answers I need, and the undeniable pull I feel toward him is terrifying: Edmond Dantès―a vampire, and my mortal enemy. The harder I try to resist him, the further I fall under his spell. And in one instant my life is irrevocably changed. My past becomes prologue and my fate becomes sealed behind these doors. Belle Morte has spoken. And it may never let me go. (goodreads.com) As always, a moment of appreciation for a pretty cover. I’m not quite sure how it relates to the story, other than the general elegant vampire vibes, but it’s a lovely cover nonetheless. When I first heard of this book, I was excited about it. I’m always hopeful for new vampire books. I never really got into the Twilight/Vampire Diaries/Vampire Academy type books, but I love the idea of vampires and the different plots that can come from immortal, super-powered individuals who struggle with morals. So, I get excited when I see new YA vampire fiction. Then I saw that this was a Wattpad book… and my excitement dimmed. Unfair though it may be, I am generally apprehensive about books written on Wattpad. If you don’t know, that particular free writing website has spawned works such as The Kissing Booth by Beth Reekles and After by Anna Todd. And no hate to anyone who enjoys those books, but let’s be honest… well, I can’t be honest without making a generalized assumption. Let’s just say that they are not my cup of tea. Neither are many of the stories that can be found on Wattpad, though the genres cover everything you could possibly want. Still, I thought I’d give it a go, because, well, vampires. The first few chapters irritated me because I felt like I’d literally just opened Wattpad in my browser and had clicked on the first vampire story I saw. Of course, the grammar and formatting were miles better and by probably the third chapter I was sucked into the story. Because that’s what Wattpad stories are good at, they might be the most ludicrous, poorly written thing you’ve ever read, but something about them does a great job of keeping the reader entertained. Or, at least, this reader. Okay, I’ll stop talking about how Wattpad-ish it is now. It’s published by them, we get it. Moving on. The actual story itself was pretty interesting for the first half of the book. The main character, Renie, is searching for her sister and the vampires seem to know where she’s gone, but no one is giving any information up. There are spooky clues that Renie keeps finding and dubious alliances that she’s forming. Things are mysterious and the reader is hoping along with Renie that her sister is okay. It’s a complete mystery as to what happened to her sister for the first half of the book. Then we find out what happened to her and the mystery element goes away. I won’t tell you what happened to the sister, but I will say that the revelation comes much earlier in the book than I was expecting and from there onward the book loses some of its appeal. There are still mysteries to be solved, but no one puts much effort into figuring things out until it is revealed to them. Plotwise, this book is kind of meh. I wish it had been more difficult for Renie to find her sister, June. It didn’t particularly feel earned when she figured it out and since that was the main plotline, it kind of just dropped from there. But, I suppose, people don’t read books like this for the plot. And that’s totally fine. After all, I read it and even with the flat plot, I still found it entertaining. This book is not a mystery with a supernatural element, it is a vampire romance with a dash of mystery. And it does a pretty good job at being that. Personally, I didn’t really care for the romance of Belle Morte. It was very insta-lovey and not in a way that was explained. It’s one thing if the two leads see each other, feel irrationally drawn to each other and then it turns out, gee whiz! There was some sort of soulmate magic all along. But it irritates the heck (pardon my language) out of me when both characters feel a magnetic pull toward one another and even though they barely know each other they fall desperately in love and then there is no explanation why they felt so drawn to each other. Apart from that, the story went out of its way on multiple occasions to point out how old Edmond is compared to Renie and how he’s lived through wars and trauma and heartbreak and how she’s… gone to highschool. Which, to be fair, happens in almost all vampire books. But this one kept pointing it out and Renie had a moment where she was completely freaked out and somewhat disgusted by their age difference. Then she got over it after a nap because Edmond was just so darn pretty. I’ve read and enjoyed other books where one of the characters is immortal and the other is not and it hasn’t bothered me, but Edmond seemed like such a grandpa. He was bad at technology and kept talking about how cushy things are in the present. It had a very “when I was your age we had to walk uphill both ways” feel to it. One thing I did enjoy was the amount of extravagant parties the character attended. Completely unhelpful to the plot, totally unnecessary, but really fun to read about. I just enjoy the dancing and the many irrelevant details about what dresses and tuxes everyone wore in the book. That’s one thing I love about some YA books is the amount of fancy dresses. It’s probably because I grew up on a healthy diet of Barbie movies. Overall, I liked this book and I will read the next one when it comes out, but it was a bit disappointing. Oh well, I’ll keep looking for a vampire book that I enjoy and if I can’t find one then I might just write one. We’ll see how things shake out. Thanks for reading! I’m off to raid the wardrobes of Belle Morte and throw a fancy ball of my own. Until next time! Cover image: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/57917080-belle-morte Personal Rating: 3 Stars Goodreads rating at time of review: Content Rating: R (for violence and suggestive scenes) Trigger Warnings: Murder, assault, an almost rape/murder, funeral for a teenager, kidnapping, prostitution. Cassandra Caravello is one of Renaissance Venice’s lucky elite: with elegant gowns, sparkling jewels, her own lady’s maid, and a wealthy fiancé, she has everything a girl could desire. Yet ever since her parents’ death, Cassandra has felt trapped, alone in a city of water, where the dark and labyrinthine canals whisper of escape. When Cass stumbles upon a murdered woman—practically in her own backyard—she’s drawn into a dangerous world of courtesans, killers, and secret societies. Soon, she finds herself falling for Falco, a mysterious artist with a mischievous grin... and a spectacular skill for trouble. Can Cassandra find the murderer, before he finds her? And will she stay true to her fiancé, or succumb to her uncontrollable feelings for Falco? (goodreads.com) A book about Venice? In the Renaissance? With a spooky murder mystery? Don’t mind if I do, hand it over! Originally, I thought this book was going to have fantasy elements to it, because it was shelved in the young adult fantasy section of the library. However, after reading the first book in this series, I can find no blatant use of magic. There may have been something vaguely alluded to because it seemed like the main character had “premonitions” of some sort, but none of those came true so I’m not sure what exactly was going on there. I’d say that this first book is mainly mystery/romance. My favorite thing about this book was the immersion into Venice. C’mon, you know me. You knew that was going to be what I liked best. When I was reading it, I felt like I was there, like I could run away to Italy in a book. After I finished reading, I almost didn’t want to pick up another book because I knew it wouldn’t be set in Venice and I wouldn’t be learning more clues to solve the mystery. My least favorite thing was, unsurprisingly, how much sexual stuff was going on. C’mon, you know me. You knew that was going to be what I liked least. It just felt like an unnecessary amount of talking about prostitution, affairs, secret trysts, etc. There was only one scene that described anything happening in detail and it wasn’t terribly graphic (and it was easily skimmed through) and it was really not needed for the plot of the story or for the development of the main character. Or if it was, I’m sure it could have just been mentioned briefly, rather than described at all. To my great irritation, books about Venice are like books about vampires. Both are intriguing topics that I find fun to read about, but both are always swamped in steamy, sensual writing that I don’t care for. Maybe there just needs to be more children’s books about Venice. And vampires, come to think of it. Maybe even both together, but not like that Doctor Who episode (fun fact, I’ve only seen three or four episodes of Doctor Who, picked out for me by my friends and they decided that one of those episodes should be “Blink” because I guess they wanted me to have nightmares or something *glares good naturedly at friends* but one friend also showed me “The Vampires of Venice” which was great, but not exactly what I have in mind for more stories about vampires and Venice). Enough of my rambling about what I want for the future of Venetian and Vampirian (is that a word?) literature. Moving on with the review! Let’s talk about characters, shall we?
Cassandra is the main character and she is a pretty standard 2012 YA book heroine in some ways but also different in other ways. For one thing, she seems to have quite a strong “not like other girls” streak and one character literally tells her that she is not like other girls. I’m sure that line killed back in good ole twenty-twelve, but it’s been a decade since then and the phrase induces more cringe than anything. Regardless, Cass was also different from standard 2012 heroines because, despite being “not like other girls”, she also had a couple of awesome gal-pals who she could confide in and she wasn’t a complete snob or running around wearing trousers because she’s just “too tough for dresses”. Not that there is anything wrong with wearing pants, sometimes pants just don’t make sense in the context of Renaissance Venice for a young noblewoman. Anyway, Cass isn’t the worst MC that I’ve ever read, but she definitely had her annoying moments. Then we have Falco. The artistic bad boy who worships science instead of God. Wowza, what a rebel (although, honestly, at that time in history being an atheist out loud was pretty darn dangerous). He’s also the main love interest for the book, even though Cass is betrothed to another guy named Luca. I won’t say too much about Luca for fear of spoilers, but I will say that I got kind of an icky vibe from Falco for the whole book. Something about him just seems wack, even though I’m pretty sure he’s supposed to be a good guy. I wasn’t a fan of him and his constant peer pressure of Cass. And the two of them rarely have a conversation that isn’t an argument. If they aren’t arguing then they are smooching. How they had time to decide that they loved each other, we will never know. One character that I really liked but who wasn’t in the book very much was Sienna, the lady’s maid to Cass. Sienna started off somewhat distant from the main characters and I didn’t think she’d be involved in the whole murder mystery at all. Again, I don't want to say too much, but she does become a bigger part of the story later on and her arc is continued in what I’ve read of the sequel, though Cass is still the MC. There were plenty of other interesting side characters as well, but there were almost too many and I sort of lost track of them. I would suggest keeping somewhat of a list of names mentioned. It might make the big “who-dun-did-it” reveal at the end more satisfying. Just because of the setting, I want to finish this book series, but the end of the first book doesn’t leave all of the ends tied up, so the suspense will also keep me reading until the end of the trilogy. I’d recommend this book to anyone who loves mysteries, Venice, or the Italian Renaissance, but doesn’t mind some violence and spice (although most regular spice readers wouldn’t even consider it spice, they’d probably think of it more as just a tad zesty, but it was spicy for me). It really is a read that sucks you in and keeps your attention, so if you do check it out, I hope you enjoy it! Thanks for reading, I’d better be finding a gondola to take me to a masquerade ball. Alla prossima! Image sources: Cover: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9999795-venom Gifs from giphy.com Welcome back to the thing no one asked for but I'm going to keep doing anyway! I have some more short graphic novel reviews for your reading pleasure. Let me know if you've read any of these or if you are interested in checking any of them out!
And there you have it, the most recent batch of graphic novels that I've read! I've found that, now that I'm a stuffy old grown up with lots of responsibilities, children's graphic novels really appeal to me. Especially because it is so easy to read them and generally they can be read much faster than a traditional book. However, as I've said before, they can be difficult to write full length reviews for. I don't know if anyone is interested in these short reviews, but, like all things with this blog, I'm having fun with it so I'm going to keep doing it.
Until next time! Personal Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads rating at time of review: 3.96 Stars Content Rating: Strong PG-13 (for alcohol consumption, language, and “fade to black” sexual content) When Japanese-American Izumi Tanaka learned her father was the Crown Prince of Japan, she became a princess overnight. Now, she’s overcome conniving cousins, salacious press, and an imperial scandal to finally find a place she belongs. She has a perfect bodyguard turned boyfriend. Her stinky dog, Tamagotchi, is living with her in Tokyo. Her parents have even rekindled their college romance and are engaged. A royal wedding is on the horizon! Izumi’s life is a Tokyo dream come true. Only... Her parents’ engagement hits a brick wall. The Imperial Household Council refuses to approve the marriage citing concerns about Izumi and her mother’s lack of pedigree. And on top of it all, her bodyguard turned boyfriend makes a shocking decision about their relationship. At the threat of everything falling apart, Izumi vows to do whatever it takes to help win over the council. Which means upping her newly acquired princess game. But at what cost? Izumi will do anything to help her parents achieve their happily ever after, but what if playing the perfect princess means sacrificing her own? Will she find a way to forge her own path and follow her heart? (goodreads.com) This is the sequel for Tokyo Ever After, which you may recall I read and reviewed last year. You can read that review here if you would like. Oh my goodness, this was such a fun read! The book I finished before this one (which I may or may not review, I haven’t decided yet) was such a long and arduous read with so much world-building jargon, that it was nice to read a fun, fluffy story. If I would have had the time, I probably could have read the entirety of this book in one afternoon. It’s a very quick and easy read, which was very much appreciated after the week I’ve had. This book takes off pretty close to where the first one left off, hopping right into the summer following Izumi’s graduation at the end of Tokyo Ever After. Right off the bat, it seems like things are going well. Her parents are engaged, she’s starting to get the hang of being a princess (minus a few blunders), and she and her boyfriend, Akio, are super duper in love. It’s great. Until it isn’t. Dun, dun DUUUUUNNNN. This is a minor spoiler, but it basically says it in the description anyway so I’m not going to worry too much about it: Akio breaks up with Izumi! He says it’s for the best because everyone, including the Imperial Household Council, thinks that he is not the right fit for a princess (since he’s a commoner, y’know, that old spiel). And then he runs off to flight school after throwing into effect one of my least favorite contemporary-romance-sequel tropes: The Unnecessary Break Up.
I don’t know why, but it seems like there are a ton of contemporary romances with sequels that involve the main couple splitting up for really stupid reasons. It particularly annoys me when the reason for the break up is something that they already resolved in the first book. So, I was super shocked, annoyed, and heartbroken when Akio pulled a “I’ve gotta go my own way” à la High School Musical 2. I’ll be honest, I briefly considered quitting the book right there, so annoyed was I. However, I decided that I liked Izumi and the whole princess storyline enough on its own to keep reading even after Akio abandoned ship. And I’m so glad I did because, gosh darn it, it was still such a fun read without that surly, brooding bodyguard boyfriend. In fact, after another character is introduced, it might have been even more fun without Akio! So, ha! Take that, you self-sacrificing galoot! The other character that was introduced is named Eriku and good golly, he was probably my favorite character for most of the book. He is introduced as, first Izumi’s tutor and then… she and he decide to fake-date to make both of their families happy and appeal to the Imperial Household Council. And the shenanigans they get up to are absolutely adorable. There were also some fantastic and fun gal pal bonding scenes in this book, both with Izumi’s old friends, and some unlikely new ones. One of the things I’ve found so entertaining with this duology, as well as with The Inheritance Games series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, is reading about people with remarkable wealth just doing super expensive things. In real life, absurdly rich people are… controversial and sometimes not the most ethical people in the world. I feel like watching real wealthy people do things like go to amazing theme parks, spend exorbitant amounts of money on clothes, or clear out a restaurant for private use, only sparks envy, annoyance, or self-righteousness. Reading about a fictional character experiencing those things, and sort of “going along for the ride” with those characters is so much more fun and guilt-free since it’s all made up anyway. On the whole, I was so happy with this book and all of the drama, fluff, and adventures in it. There was one thing that irritated me to the point of removing a star from what would have been a five star rating, but it’s a spoiler, so I will only discuss it in the spoiler section below. Basically, though, I’m in love with this series and the characters and I could probably read thirty more books about Izumi and not get bored. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys fluffy romance (that isn’t very steamy), The Princess Diaries, or a bit of Japanese culture (again, I cannot attest to the accuracy of the cultural depictions in this book, but the author did say she did her research). If you would like to read my mini rant in the spoiler section, click the “Read More” button below. Thanks! Another LitJoy Crate unboxing! The winter box was delayed because the publishers had some difficulty printing the special edition book, but the wait was worth it! LitJoy Crate: https://litjoycrate.com/ Spoilers for this box: ♛Book: This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi ♛Goldryn letter opener from Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas ♛"Warrior Queen" candle inspired by Crown of Feathers by Nicki Pau Preto ♛Sleep mask and scrunchy inspired by The Selection by Kiera Cass ♛Magic carpet mug rug inspired by The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh ♛Mirror inspired by Fairest by Marissa Meyer ♛Adventure card featuring characters from Legendborn by Tracy Deon |
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