no judgment we hyperfixate like women

i started writing book reviews for myself for fun and thought....i could make a blog out of this *POSTS VERY INCONSISTENTLY*

[neverlearnedtoread]

[review format]

thought i’d start off by explaining how my reviews work! the title of the book is always the header :)

⭐5-star-rating-system⭐; “quote summarizing my feelings about the book / my latest attempt to be funny”

in general:

5-star read = highly personal fave; the author shot me in between the eyes with one of my own specific interests

4-star read = immaculate vibes+all around fun time but did not make me hyperfixate

3-star read = the most varied rating - no rose-coloured glasses, i can pick it apart even though i think its a solid read overall. im most likely to recommend 3-star books to someone based on their own preferences! 5-star recs are for people with the same taste as me, or they specifically asked for my personal faves

2-star read = :/ hmm. hmmmmmmm. the bad stuff far outweighs the good, i can barely muster the energy to give it the benefit of the doubt because there’s too much doubt. im spamming that (x) button for doubt

1-star read = should have dnfed, but by some inexplicable force of will, i didnt, and thats on me

Oh?? 👌😉😏

reasons to pick up the book!

can include tropes/trope subversions, diverse rep, or anything else i really wanted to shout out as the selling points of the book

maximum 5

No... ❌🤢🤮

reasons to say nah to the book..

could be personal preferences, things that bugged me

or trigger warnings/insensitive aspects you should probably know about beforehand

maximum 5

Summary: Pretty self-explanatory! Sometimes I try to make it funny, sometimes I stick with a recap of the Goodreads blurb. It depends on how much I vibed with the story. Sometimes includes vague spoilers, but if it doesn’t, I’ll leave it above the [read more].

Concept: 💭5-star-rating-system💭

Why did I pick up the book? What did I think I was going to get going in? Am I really a shallow person who uses her monkey brain to judge books? ...yes. huhuhu shiny cover

--usually the [read more] will be added here, or slightly higher, depending on the level of spoilers I include at the summary and concept sections---

Execution: 💥5-star-rating-system💥

Did I get what I came for? Did the book pull through on its premise? Were there any twists that slapped me in the face, or did the trope subversion I was chasing turn out to be a mirage in a desert? Are we all doomed to suffer? More at 11

Personal Enjoyment: ❤5-star-rating-system❤

Art is subjective and I have a lot of hills I’ve decided to die on, so this section was added in an attempt to acknowledge my aggressive bias! I can accept liking a book for dumb reasons, but having to like a book for logical reasons? That is going way too far, get out of my house

Favourite Moment: *my longest yea boi ever*

Favourite Character: *my longest yea boi ever but in character archetype*

[cowboyhatesithere]

Enough about favorite books. What’s a book you read and absolutely hated? The book you’ve got a bone to pick with.

[jmtorres]

out of curiosity. I would love to hear folks' most hated book that was NOT assigned reading. what's a book that you picked up of your own volition but were deeply frustrated with? bone to pick etc?

[archiveofidentityconstellations]

spoilers but remember that part in spinning silver where, after miryem turns everything in the three store rooms to gold, the staryk king is like. so turned on.

[archiveofidentityconstellations]

the staryk king: im gonna rock ur world tonight ;)

miryem, plotting to kill him: not if i rock yours first

[look-at-the-stars-tonight]

love Mirnatius going crazy over the fact that people think Irina is pretty

[wish-i-could-read]

[hylialeia]

love how Spinning Silver adds a Mirnatius POV because all his chapter sections are just like "everyone around me is an idiot. I'm the hottest person in the room. this demon that's possessing me is annoying. Irina is so smart she thinks of everything. I hate Irina. why does everyone like Irina so much. Irina is ugly. I'm going to draw 50 different sketches of her. to prove she's ugly. everyone in this palace wants me carnally. why won't people shut up about Irina."

[wish-i-could-read]

Wanda and Magreta knitting the same mattress like two people working on the same word document on google docs

[memendoemori-deactivated2025020]

The best quality a fictional man can have is being deeply, pathetically, wretchedly in love with someone, I think

[neverlearnedtoread]

Spinning Silver

⭐⭐⭐⭐; the staryk king and mirnatius with the word 'wife' on the board: there's only one thing more horrible than a wife.... *rips off paper* MY wife

Oh?? 👌😉😏

women are fucking amazing and wonderful and terrifying and unequivocal badasses. especially to their husbands. it's about the fantasy of a marriage you have no control over being perfectly suited to you in ways you didn't even know it could

inhuman fae creatures that actually have a separate culture and set of rules they are governed by. they're much more powerful than humans, of course, but they are bound to their laws, and if you're smart you can work with that

fairytale-esque magic system that relies heavily on (1) trickery (2) Having Audacity and (3) the rule of threes 😉. we love a soft magic system that rewards big swings and BDE!

not one, but TWO separate arranged marriages engaged in HEATED pvp AKA two people bound in hostile matrimony trying to kill each other while having 'wait, are they hot? fuck!' moments

you can be cold and practical and still be a good person. you can be strong enough to protect yourself without sacrificing others. with a good enough grasp of contracts you can force a demon to leave your kingdom AND husband unharmed in a 2-for-1 deal

No.. ❌🤢🤮

multiple POVs with no names for chapter titles so you have to figure out who it is from context clues - if you're like me and love a little puzzle to go with your reading time, you'll really enjoy it (Novik does it VERY well) but if you get confused easily or don't wanna put in the brainpower its annoying and overly complicated

if you don't like enemies-to-lovers where they actually argue and are ideologically opposed, you're not gonna enjoy the romance subplots. this is not a 'forbidden-lovers' kinda enemies-to-lovers. this is firmly in the 'my husband misses me a lot - but his aim is getting better!' zone

really quick wrap up - it gets tied up a little too fast after the final confrontation with the Big Bad. i wouldve liked at least to have irina POV at the end because her side of things just. gets left hanging

Summary: Miryem is a daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, and though her father doesn't have the hardheartedness to be a good one, she'd rather be despised for what she's owed than starve. Her knack for the trade, coupled with her sharp tongue, draws the ire of her village, and even more alarmingly, the Staryk's attentions; faerie creatures who only covet gold, they take her offhanded boast that she can turn silver into gold quite literally, and show up at her door to hold her true to her careless words - which, honestly, kind of backfires on them when she rises to the challenge and upends their realm into complete disarray, so maybe there's a lesson there for the next group of nonhumans to learn: don't bet the house against a human girl whose Had Enough Of All This Bullshit. She might win.

Concept: 💭💭💭 I don't know Rumpelstiltskin's story very well, and Ice Kingdom aesthetics aren't my favourite (you can blame it on my residual dislike of Frozen), but I DID read Uprooted before this. I wasn't as into the book blurb as I was with Uprooted, but I'm an experienced (and opinionated) enough reader to know when to trust my gut - if I find an author's writing style easy to read, and I enjoy how they handle their themes, I'm not afraid of diving into deep waters. If it's that bad, I can always DNF

Execution: 💥💥💥💥 As I've come to expect with Novik's writing, a wonderfully easy read; the storytelling voice flows smoothly and makes me want to keep on reading. No slogging through difficult to understand passages and too slow pacing for me! I instantly wanted to collect every POV character like puppies in a basket, no matter how brief their sections were. I will say the ending does forget what it wants to say and simply ends on a happy note, instead of a complete thought. It doesn't tie in the POV characters together strongly enough - I would've loved to see an epilogue scenes with the 3 main female characters supporting each other, or at least being three distinct Bad Bitches!

Personal Enjoyment: ❤❤❤❤❤ Mostly because of Irina and Miryem (and Wanda)'s absolute BDE. They truly brought their stories to life and felt very dynamic, constantly driving the story forward through their actions, especially because their personalities and characteristics were so well-suited to the challenges they faced (Miryem rules-lawyering the Staryk, Irina taking to politics, Wanda keeping faith despite all the shit she's been through). Honorary shoutout to the complete hilarity of Mirnatius's POV (though ultimately it IS more indulgence than necessity, I respect Novik for it) - may he spend the rest of his life desperately drawing his wife in vain search of her bad angles!

Favourite Moment: the running gag of mirnatius losing his fucking mind trying to prove irina isn't hot. you know that post that's like 'find a blorbo to draw and your art skills will start improving so much faster'? irina is his blorbo. special mention of the scene he gets jealous realizing a random guard has a crush on his behated wife and immediately jumps to the conclusion that irina would want to fuck the guard for the sake of the kingdom. babygirl the hoops you are jumping........where is this gymnastics routine even going 😭 this man is not beating the meow meow allegations..

Favourite Character: It's really a tie between Miryem and Irina, who are both so similar yet different at the same time. Miryem's BDE was enjoyably explosive - she throws it in everyone's face, which is perfect to play off of the Staryk's otherworldly impassiveness. Irina's BDE was a lot more...steely. Quietly coming into her own as she realized how adept she was at politics, and how perfectly well-suited that made her to being tsarina - and when they finally met each other? it was so funny when were like 'hey...why dont we kill our husbands via pokemon battle??'

[neverlearnedtoread]

Midnight in Everwood

⭐⭐; reading this book is like letting a kid explain their drawing to you - 'this is the cotton candy castle with a prince and princess and their 29 dogs and cats', they say, pointing to a wobbly blue squiggle and a patch of snot. all you can do is smile and nod and let it happen

Oh?? 👌😉😏

the narration, while over the top, fit the atmosphere the book wanted to create (confectionary sugar world). its probably annoying to listen to as the descriptions dont let up but im good at skimming so i could swim my way through the syrup just fine

i liked the beginning, before the author's hand became too glaringly obvious to ignore later in the plot - while marietta was never entertaining as a main character to follow, she felt more 'real' in her home environment, more believable as a character. i liked her relationship with her brother

I'll say this: finishing this book made me want to rewatch Barbie in the Nutcracker, just to feel something. what a classic! unlike this book 😭

No.. ❌🤢🤮

oversaturated with metaphors and flowery language - enough synonyms, hoity-toity French vocabularié and verbiage to rot your teeth out. it's also an 'oh?? 👌😉😏' point because i do think the author did it on purpose to create a certain tone, but it's A LOT.

i get the distinct sense that the author understands on a surface level that her character is a privileged whiny baby, but doesn't have the writing prowess to make her compelling OR put her through her paces of a satisfying character arc.

#girlboss #modernfeminism #womenarejustasstrongasmen played completely straight. a main female character who stays entirely, pretentiously convinced of their own girlbossery the whole time, despite doing NOTHING to earn it, and an author who reshapes the story to meet those expectations. anything for her #slay #girlboss #queen!!!!!

stuff constantly gets introduced just to not add anything to the story - the mouse king equivalent has in his castle a captured FAIRY and WARRIOR PRINCESS as part of his menagerie of women marietta finds herself a part of, and we just leave it at that. the guard captain is revealed as part of a SECRET REBELLION and all that happens is marietta gets weirdly horny about it.

the romance develops at the most annoying moments - they even decide to fuck in the snow (their bare asses!! in the SNOW!!! and not even a hint of pneumonia to show for it 🥶) before marietta returns to her world. i expected her to be hornt up, but the guy?? my brother in butterscotch we have got to get you better standards in women

Summary: Marietta Stelle wants to dance but she's too damn privileged to be allowed to pursue it as a viable career - she needs to get married to some creepy old man for the sake of her family's ambition, damnit! As her last performance draws near, Marietta is pushed into accepting the marriage proposal of the creepiest man in town, a mysterious toymaker named Dr. Drosselmeier. Of course, she's a #strongfemalecharacter, so she vehemently rejects him - only to fall victim to his (very heavy-handedly hidden) magic, which transports her in a magical world made of sugar, full of hidden dangers.

Concept: 💭💭💭 The Nutcracker isn't my favourite story ever, but I'm a sucker for a good fairytale - and for good music! I think it's a story that lends itself very heavily to a specific kind of whimsical, airy aesthetic - while allowing for darker themes or storytelling aspects to lurk in the shadows. A friend whose taste I trust recommended this book to me, and while I was skeptical that the summary (mostly because the blurb included a list of #tropes, which is a bookish red flag for me) would really deliver on its vague promises, I've done more for less.

Execution: 💥 This book should come with a 'NO DIVING! THIS POOL IS ONLY LESS THAN 1M DEEP' warning - it's so shallow I was encouraging my own reflection to keep going after every chapter. Bafflingly, this issue actually worsens when Marietta gets to the magical isekai world of Everwood - which is the OPPOSITE of what is supposed to happen! You would think a world governed by an evil mouse king (who is not a mouse, just a guy. he has enchanted mice running up and down his coat, ooh scary) and literally made of sweets would be fun, but we only get TOLD the names of its stories and legends and then the book is like 'next chapter! marietta felt more at home because her new friends told her stuff!' Plus, in the latter half of the book you really chafe against the author's lack of skill - like watching a puppet show while clearly being able to see the fingers / hands of the puppeteers, her characters are angry, awestruck, and miserable in the most wooden of ways as the author stomps on the next bullet point in her outline with all the subtlety of an elephant.

Personal Enjoyment: ❤❤ I can't say I enjoyed reading this book, because I really didn't - at one point I had to put the book down after SIX PAGES because marietta was getting on my nerves with her badly timed horniness (which she didn't know was horniness, because that builds ~~tension~~). But I had a LOT of fun recounting this book to my friend (the one who recommended it to me, who then gave up less than 20% in) and my sister. Everything that happened WAS frustrating, but in a way that made me laugh - which is the reason why I kept reading. It was like watching a collision in slow-mo - I had to know where it ended.

Favourite Moment: this entire book was painful but i had a good laugh when marietta and the captain fuck in the snow - and i do mean fuck. ass fully out behaviour. everwood is supposed to be stuck in a forever winter and they were all 'we'll just lay our coats down, it'll be fine'. like, i am absolutely sure it will NOT be fine, but you do you! it's not like marietta 'damn this feminism shit is easy' stelle is gonna listen to anyone anyway. that would be non-feminist! a ho never gets cold!

Favourite Character: Dellara, AKA the remains of a Sugar Plum Fairy equivalent stripped of every possible interesting thing and left on the floor to bleed out as a 'mean girl'. Don't get me wrong, Pirlipata was a fascinatingly underused character too, but Dellara actually snapped at Marietta multiple times (didn't amount to anything, but A+ for effort) and we simply have to stan her for that. Also she endures torture for the sake of others and is an otherworldly immortal being who becomes Queen at the end. I would gladly have thrown Marietta into the path of an oncoming bus to follow Dellara's storyline instead.

[rosiethorns88]

Aaaaand (after a small delay) the fourth and final bonus Sketch-a-Wish from my 2nd Patreon anniversary - a frequently requested scene from Uprooted, featuring Sarkan (the Dragon) and Agnieszka! Phew, I'm art-pooped after this one. 🫠

[mideias]

I think that by making Sarkan such a difficult man to live with Uprooted asks the question "what if your immortal hot boyfriend actually had the personality of an insufferable grumpy old man? Would you still hit that?" The answer is yes, absolutely.

[mideias]

Sarkan: *takes girls away from their families and keeps them confined in his castle for ten years*

Also Sarkan: It genuinely upsets me to learn that young women are afraid of me :(

[neverlearnedtoread]

Uprooted

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐; my favourite kind of fantasy - classic fairytale with a side of 'dont worry about the details' and 'you gotta believe in the heart of the cards!'

Oh?? 👌😉😏

a really sharp, quick-witted, and willful female protagonist going 'fuck it!' every few chapters or so and doing something crazy (crazy fun) to drive the plot forward, off a new exciting cliff

a soft magic system that really shows off in the best light what makes soft magic systems so valid. its all about the metaphors!! you have to measure the chocolate chips with your heart!!!

nature is so magical and beautiful and deadly. specifically if you treat trees bad they will form a sentient vengeful forest to raze your civilization to the ground and salt the earth with your bodies

kasia. i love an atomic blonde unkillable bad bitch with the strongest queerplatonic vibes with her best friend from birth

a CLASSIC grumpy 'beastly' male love interest. he seals himself away in a lonely tower, makes girls hang out with him for 10 years at a time, and unironically calls himself 'the Dragon'. he even has the audacity to be offended that everyone thinks he's creepy!!!!!!

No.. ❌🤢🤮

if you like having explanations for how magic works and any semblance of a hard magic system in your fantasy, put this book back. 'round here we operate on Vibes Only, babey!!

similarly, if your love language is words of affirmation and/or you think that fanfic-style romance plotlines should stay in fanfic, this romance is Not For You. this is not a judgment, only a warning

Summary: Agnieszka loves her home in her little village in the valley - you know, except for the evil forest simply known as the Wood that's been around as long as there have been people in the valley, with terrible creatures and sentient walking trees. And the century-old wizard known only as 'the Dragon' living in the tower overlooking their land, who takes a young woman every ten years to serve him. But what Agnieszka dreads the most is that her best friend, Kasia, will be chosen next, and that Agnieszka is helpless to save her. Until the day of the choosing, when the Dragon picks Agnieszka instead.

Concept: 💭💭💭💭 I've never gotten along that well with a book blurb, but this one does its damn job - gives me enough plot premise to get me interested without giving it all away, and doesn't make me feel like I've been lied to once I start the book! some stories really don't do what they say on the tin, or take ages to get there at all, but Uprooted starts off exactly at the spot the blurb said it would - with a girl, in a valley, scared of a terrible wizard, about to be whisked away to a tower.

Execution: 💥💥💥💥💥 This story is EXACTLY what it says it wants to be, down to the cadence of the prose - a Polish folklore-inspired fairytale. The rhythm of Novik's narration even fits right - one day I'll get the audiobook for this and get to hear it the way I read it in my head, like a grandmother's bedtime story with twists and eddies and crescendos at the all the right bits. I was in love with the aesthetic of every character, they fit perfectly into the backdrop of what this story was.

Personal Enjoyment: ❤❤❤❤❤ This book aligns to my tastes much the same way An Enchantment of Ravens does, and shares of lot of the same elements without ever feeling derivative - smart girl meets magic boy, causes all kinds of irreversible political upheaval, and lives happily ever after being just as they are - a Girl with The Audacity. its a tale as old as time, and i'll hear it told just as often

Favourite Moment: you know its a good book when you really can't choose a favourite moment - one that comes to mind is agniezska choosing to save sarkan from being grafted onto the heart-tree in the Wood instead of setting fire to it. the 'fuck it!' energy agniezska brings to her moments of crisis is SO good, plus the motif of her always reaching out to sarkan to cast magic together - 'hey real quick, cast a spell with me while you're being pulled into an evil magic tree trying to twist your magic and life force against us. couldn't hurt, eh?' and then it WORKS

Favourite Character: now yall know i love a sarkan-esque character - pathetic wet cat men who are so offended by their own squishy feelings are a great time! and kasia is SO bad bitch extraordinaire, her and agnieszka's love for each other literally makes the plot go - every time, every time without hesitation she puts herself as the last thing standing between agnieszka and the Wood. but agniezska herself is really Something. the way she uses magic, her connection with nature and her refusal to be anything else than what she is - a grubby young woman who wields kindness as her weapon against the world, who holds onto her humanity with both hands and teeth - she shapes this fairytale to be the story she wants it to be, one of connection and empathy. and im still thinking about her introducing the lord of the whole valley to her mother 🤣 power move!!

[neverlearnedtoread]

Forging Silver Into Stars

⭐⭐⭐⭐; its genuinely really great to see an author get better and more subtle with their writing and characterization over time

Oh?? 👌😉😏

one of kemmerer's greatest strengths is the robustness of her worldbuilding - not only does emberfall feel distinct from karis luran, in culture and in setting, this alternate universe intersects with the 'real world' without losing its believability. i respect an author with the complexity to write about characters from another world with their own prejudices interacting with characters from the 'real world' without tripping over their own setting

lgbt romance that's sweet, heartfelt, not shortchanged, OR overplayed! in fact i did like all the romances in this story and the range they displayed. i have my favourites but they were all both distinct and at least passably interesting to me

women who get to be complex! i will forever mourn what lia mara could have been (viciously politically savvy with a moral core, usually a male character's archetype from fiction ive consumed) but i did like her interactions with the more cynical callyn

'side character gets a POV in the spinoff' book! i don't feel like it was a cash grab or because the author was too afraid to write something new, the plot AND the narrative voice was distinct from the original trilogy without feeling too removed from its events.

No.. ❌🤢🤮

another character from the original series continues on his era of becoming more annoying since bk1. grey...your character was way more fun when you didn't have as much responsibility. i liked you as an antagonising force / source of tension for tycho in his book but your bullheadedness is really not fun on its own merit. i definitely dont miss the days you were a POV character!

lots of travelling; not something i hate, personally, but it may feel a bit time-consuming to go back and forth like a pingpong ball. the travelling aspect feels enough a part of the narrative for me not to get frustrated by it, but given that only ONE character moves from place to place, while the other two stay in a relatively non-important setting for the most part, it might feel quite jarring to switch POVs

This is a spinoff from a trilogy (Cursebreaker Trilogy by Brigid Kemmerer, starting with A Curse So Dark and Lonely) - pretty unavoidable spoilers for the ending of that trilogy up ahead!

Summary: Some years have passed since Grey was crowned King of Emberfall and married Lia Mara, the Queen of Syhl Shallow. They now live in the Crystal Palace, trying to keep the peace with a populace that despises their king-by-marriage for his magic as much as they despair at their queen for her nonviolent diplomacy. Grey's young friend Tycho has been promoted to King's Courier, ferrying messages both public and secret between the royals to ferret out any rumblings of unrest before it can boil over. On one of his usual trips back and forth between the two kingdoms, he stops by a sleepy little village called Briarlock and meets two locals, Callyn and Jax. Syhl Shallow natives, they have different perspectives on how things have changed since King Grey and Queen Lia Mara took their thrones, and are suspicious and charmed in turns by the young lord in their midst.

Concept: 💭💭💭 I have decidedly mixed feelings about the Cursebreaker Trilogy - like a rollercoaster it took me up (bk1), then downnnn (bk2), then rolled flat (bk3)! So I was pretty cautious about reading this spinoff. Tycho was relatively interesting in the original trilogy, but mostly in relation to Grey, and I...did not leave the original trilogy loving Grey as a character. He got boring when they gave him responsibility.

Execution: 💥💥💥 I don't think what Kemmerer wants to explore with this fantasy world (fantasy politics through a modernist moral lens) is ever going to be what I want to explore, but I can appreciate that she's getting better at showcasing the conflict she wants to build in her stories. Having only non-royal POVs in this story really helped make the story feel more real to me - when you're not one of the big movers and shakers (even Tycho, for all his proximity to power, feels the limit of his influence when they strip him of his rings and Grey refuses to listen to his counsel), you're gonna feel resentment for the Big Guys making the choices. They're the ones holding your lives in their hands, and for all their best intentions, they may not treat you well all the time! I definitely felt like this was her best book I've read yet, because Kemmerer wasn't just telling me the conflict and how it was gonna go - she was able to show it to me through the character's actions and situations.

Personal Enjoyment: ❤❤❤❤ I will be honest, I skimmed Callyn's AND to a lesser extent Jax's POV until the end because I just really wanted to read about Rhen from an outside POV that wasn't Harper's. I would apologise but I promised myself when I started writing these book reviews not to say sorry for stuff I don't regret, and me picking favourites regardless of rational thought falls firmly under that. I did truly come to enjoy the final conflict AND tycho's POV for its own merit, tycho's personality in particular was really fun to see in action, but the middle section where callyn is living her 'maybe-this-shady-guy-isnt-manipulating-me' denial era didn't ever get easy to read.

Favourite Moment: Any Rhen moment but especially that part with him being gentle and sweet with Harper when Tycho first tells him about the tournament idea. Tycho's description of their relationship being quiet and sweet was SO CUTE in general - the idea that Tycho finds Rhen pretty difficult to be around at first, but admits you'd have to be blind not to see he's besotted with Harper - I sigh every time

Favourite Character: I'm a Rhen apologist through and through but Tycho actually went over so well with me in this book. That bit when he rounds on Grey to berate him for not thinking shit through and running off without a plan? SAY IT LOUDERRRRR. I have truly enjoyed seeing Kemmerer grow as a writer and write Tycho with this level of nuance - his eventual realisation that he gets along well with Rhen, despite their history, his cautious but earnest courtship with Jax, even his ever-shifting relationship with the Syhl Shallow royal family both in public and private settings, all of it felt like it fit together and informed Tycho's characterization as a whole without conflicting with any other part of it.

[neverlearnedtoread]

A Vow So Bold and Deadly

⭐⭐⭐; SHOUTOUT TO LILLITH FOR COMING THRU WITH THE TORTURE!!!! we love a heinous one-dimensional bitch who brings the drama and drives the plot forward with all the force of a charging bull

Oh?? 👌😉😏

cringefail!rhen is back from 2nd book purgatory in full force. ive said it before and i will always say it again: cringefail men are the cornerstone of good romance! the more desperate, hopeless, and despairing the man, the more impact it makes when his lover stands by his side to help him solve the plot, and i will love it every. single. time.

i really liked the scenes where rhen is alone in the castle being held captive by [redacted]. something about the muted horror and rhen's strength as a trauma survivor really gets me

character conflict that i can actually understand and believe in (eventually), without feeling the hand of the author concocting the drama, plus dynamic, interesting action scenes!

No.. ❌🤢🤮

not necessarily a dealbreaker, but the trauma survivor experience of rhen did make me feel like a content warning would have been appreciated (better safe than sorry!). there's also a spicy scene (with fade-to-black) where the characters sort of gloss over how sexual trauma might make things more complicated. there is enthusiastic verbal consent , but i do feel like the whole scene could have been taken as an opportunity to explore that topic at length instead of wriggled around to keep the sexiness going

i speedread all the grey and lia mara pov chapters up until the very very end when all the pov characters are in the same place. they were SO. BLAND. the fairytale of their romance was too boring!! like caricature cutouts of 'morally correct prince and princess who Want to Do the Right Thing and Still Be Monarchs'

Spoilers under the cut - this is the third book of the series!!

Summary: In fair Emberfall, we set the scene: two brothers who don't want to go against each other, reluctantly moving to go against each other and dragging two neighbouring countries into it. It's a whole thing! On one side of the border, Rhen waits for the axe to fall as Grey's ultimatum to give up Emberfall's throne to him as the rightful ruler draws ever closer; on the other side, Grey struggles to garner enough support in a foreign country that's dragging their feet over their new queen's calls for gentle kindness over harsh obedience, and find themselves thoroughly disgusted by the idea of a magesmith king. But the worst part of all this isn't the brewing unrest in both kingdoms, or the threat of brother-on-brother violence - the worst part is that Lillith isn't dead, and she's about to make that everyone else's problem.

Concept: 💭 It was clear to me by the middle of the second book that we were engineering Rhen and Grey to be ~in conflict~, and that was the stage the third book needed to open on. At this point, I was mostly just pulling myself to the finish line to know how the trilogy ended. The disappointment was real and I was ready to skim-read.

Execution: 💥💥💥 For better or worse, I definitely understand what Kemmerer was going for with Grey vs. Rhen, though I don't feel it was well-executed at all, and certainly not enough for me to get invested in it. Rhen and Harper's chemistry while rebuilding their trust and relationship with each other, however! I enjoyed the nuance of them pushing and pulling until they reached an equilibrium; it was heartfelt and well-earned. I also liked the buildup to and the actual action scenes at the climax very, very much - Kemmerer's craft shines best, I feel, when it comes to describing scenes of physical confrontations and building short-term tension.

Personal Enjoyment: ❤❤❤❤ (Harper/Rhen POVs); ❤❤ (Grey/Lia Mara POVs) Like I said Harper+Rhen as a couple (and as individual characters) appealed to me so much more than Grey+Lia Mara, mostly because I found their interactions and character conflicts much more interesting. Giving Grey and Lia Mara no conflict to overcome beyond 'golly gosh its hard to be monarchs', which, neither of them had to figure out anyway in this book, really stalled their development and left them feeling secondary in a book where they were POV characters. Arguably, the most important thing they did was have sex and (major spoilers!!) get pregnant. which, like, good for them! but not enough to hold my attention.

Favourite Moment: because they happen right after each other I'm picking two scenes for this: Harper dicking Rhen down and Lilith immediately showing up post-fade-to-black PISSED TO HIGH HEAVEN. the way she got so heated!! Now, do I think Rhen deserves to suffer traumatic unending torture at the hands of a vicious evil fairy? No. (am i vaguely squicked out over the way he and harper have sexytimes largely for the sake of YA plot over his own character's very understandable aversion to sex? yeah.) But does the plot becomes so much better when Lillith shows up? YOU FUCKING BET!! It perfectly showcased my favourite aspects of both characters - Harper's 'fuck it we ball' energy jumping out in Rhen's defense and Rhen's quick-thinking + selflessness to protect Harper in turn. no matter what else, we have Lillith's jealousy jumping out to thank for that.

Favourite Character: What's this?? It's Harper coming up with a steel chair to steal the top spot in the last round!! This book, to me, really drove the point home on why Harper was the girl to break Rhen's curse, out of all the others; she cuts through the heart of his fear and acts when he freezes in panic. she brings a knife to a fairy fight and gets a hit in! While I appreciate Rhen (my cringefail son) wholeheartedly for engineering those situations where Harper truly shines, she always rises to the occasion with gusto and never lets me down (cough, cough, grey). Honorary mention to Rhen, though: there is truly no romantic lead I appreciate more in fiction than a pathetic guy, and Rhen comes prepackaged already on his knees.

[neverlearnedtoread]

A Heart So Fierce And Broken

⭐⭐; there are certain angles grey can work and 'person in a position of power making a tricky decision' is NOT one of them 😭😭

Oh?? 👌😉😏

the way the world was expanded and the isekai aspect of the story was well-handled. it was realistic and also (more importantly) brought tension to the story in a way that i didn't feel derailed the main conflict

in particular the 'women warrior' culture of Karis Luran wasn't overplayed - there wasn't a sense that their culture was any less myopic than any other about gender roles, which was very refreshing to read after Strong Feminist Harper in book 1

No.. ❌🤢🤮

the protagonists of the previous book take a sudden turn for the worse. i don't think its a character assassination per se, but i do find it jarring how the main characters in bk1 became antagonists in this (the actual concept of them becoming the antagonists, i have nothing against, but the execution fell flat for me). i just wasn't finding the situation believable enough for that kind of sudden 180

it wasn't that there wasn't anything happening, but nothing that was happening was something i felt emotionally invested in

POV characters that don't do nothing in the latter half of the book (when they should, absolutely, be DOING SOMETHING, OR AT LEAST FEEL LIKE THEY ARE)

Some spoilers under the cut - this is the second book in the series!

Summary: I've read cliffhanger endings before, but talk about stepping off the rollercoaster of the first book into the Tower of Terror of this one! Let's look at the pros first: the curse that held Prince Rhen and his guard Grey has been broken, and Lillith left dying on the streets of Washington, DC. Harper's still alive, as well as her brother and his boyfriend. As for the cons, well: remember how in the first book they told a bunch of lies about Harper being a princess and constructing an elaborate ruse to rally Emberfall together in the face of ruin? All that's about to bite us in the ass, because not only is the ruler of Karis Luran threatening to invade them after three long years of skulking around their borders, but the rumours that Prince Rhen is not actually the firstborn prince are true, and the real heir to the throne is Grey, who, upon finding this out, has cut and run with his deadly secret like a wolf afraid of his own shadow. It's not the best start for a would-be-king, and it honestly doesn't get better.

Concept: 💭💭💭 The last part of the first book really clawed its way up to four stars (Harper guiding monster!Rhen - on a murder spree no less - was so fun!!) and set the scene for an interesting bk2. I was so excited! I liked the idea of having Grey as a more pragmatic, even-keeled POV to contrast Rhen and Harper's strong-minded narrative voices in bk1. I also love 'stoic bodyguard' / 'guard dog' tropes and was stoked to see Grey as a main character.

Execution: 💥💥 Grey, darling....what happened?? i mean i know the author was trying to write you as a character floundering in situations you were ill-suited to, but did you have to become that annoying in the process?? dont even get me started on rhen. and the thing is, kemmerer's justifications for what happens in this book make sense; on paper, it does work! but all the interesting parts of the story were sacrificed in the process, and that's not an acceptable outcome for me. i was told why the characters were doing what they were doing (ie torture), but i didn't actually believe it. it would have really helped if the sense of urgency and desperation kemmerer wanted us to feel was made more concrete - like, maybe there were hordes of people literally making their way to the castle to demand prince rhen reveal the heir and/or step down, or evidence of karis luran's troops (not just the princess) on the wrong side of the border. and have our POV characters run into these groups, instead of vaguely saying 'they're around!'

Personal Enjoyment: ❤❤ I didn't enjoy this book, but I was also invested enough in the drama to skim-read at a speed that would make it seem like i was really into it. it took me less than a day! more than halfway through i had to admit to myself that anything i would have wanted to happen wasn't going to pan out, including cute rhenxharper scenes, lia mara being kind and whipsmart (or balancing both depending on the situation), and grey making any attempt to rise to the damn occasion. by the end, i was just trying to be done with the book 😕

Favourite Moment: this was a bummer of a book for me but the mental image of grey launching himself out of the window after sneaking into lia mara's room, I WAS LOSING IT 🤣 man said BYE! 💨🤸‍♂️🧗‍♂️

Favourite Character: lia mara? harper? its actually hard for me to pick any character, that's how difficult this book was for me to enjoy. i liked what i THOUGHT i was going to get but it became too clear about halfway through kemmerer was trying to write characters into certain positions / state of mind for bk3 for me to fully invest in what was happening. i will say lia mara SHOULD have been my favourite (i wanted her to be so badddd) except that my vision of a politically savvy and whipsmart heroine that didn't have to resort to violence or threats to garner power (while grappling with her innate sense of justice and kindness) crumbled into her just being 'girl stuck in tower' for like. the last third of the book. like baby! stand up!!