Colleen > Recent Status Updates

I do want it to be said that I started reading the book before the hype. I bought it from BOTM because it reminds me of Ann radcliff’s castle of Udolpho. I have a love for gothic literature and I thought this behemoth and that behemoth would make good bookends on how gothic literature has changed and that this book would highlight gothic with 21st spicy romantasy

Alright take two. I forgot what exactly inspired me to SJM a second chance but after putting this book on pause for atleast two years, I’m going to try and slowly start making my way through the third novella: the assassin and the dessert? I think

I love how quickly it reads. I wanted to gift it to a friend who loves history enough he got a degree in it, but I wondered if having a historical job made a history book the last thing he’d want to read. But it actually never mentions a year, time period, name, or even I think the country. So it’s hard to call it historical, it’s more atmospheric and the psychology of one man who didn’t want to be king

I laugh as they talk about “who would murder her, I mean… she was a mean woman..” it feels like a Conan bts clip where they’re making fun of true crime videos and how the victim is always “the kindest woman ever” and they were joking what if the show was about people who had been “fine, nothing to write home about.” Also I predict our MC Mia will be falsely arrested for the crime or her mom will

I love this book

I have been waiting very impatiently all year for spooky season so I can return to this book! It’s my first t kingfisher book and I’m still early along but I might be in love

This book is weird and quirky with a few too many metaphors to biblically accurate angels but I will miss reading this book when I finish it

Not as good as the first book. It’s repeating the plot of: add new students for my drama. Doesn’t really focus on the drama we already set up last year. And Charley went from such an interesting girl to cliche queen bee. And it reads like the first book was an optional prequel :( every character even new teachers sound like a teen girl, so much sex so far too

I loved the first book, I don’t agree with the second book, but my love is back for this third book. I love the pacing of other people’s arcs. Seeing everyone’s paths diverge, do redemption for Gwen unlike the movie sometimes the door on old friends really is closed, and god I surprisingly love seeing antagonist Margot struggling to adapt to how her family is changing. Even JAM is back

This book moves slow. Every chapter is about 6 pages and feels like it contains exactly one piece of information. Her problem is that she’s a YouTube chef trying to pitch a cookbook and they want recipes that are meaningful to her. She has 3 but she glanced over atleast 10 that I would have included. The deadline is so close just include them since they are meaningful just not sophisticated

2.5 ⭐️ probably. I like that it’s a more adult take on cozy fantasy, but the author is clearly a novice. The pacing is all off, it’s not really interesting until the last 20% and I’m pretty sure everyone will just instantly forgive her for her war crimes. For a reformed criminal, morality is just too black and white. Glad to see bartleby get some development! I would read a book about the lady knight

I lost my book :(

Gosh I love this book, it speaks right to my depression. But this one bed scene is *chef’s kiss* complete with the childish pillow barrier
Her: no funny business
Him: I can control myself. Can you?
Her: sometimes I make a fool of myself (when she almost kissed him)
Him: you need to to let that go
Her: you made it clear that’s not what you want
Him: I know what I want
Her: Which is?
…
Him: Another time

It’s fine but it’s not how astronauts think and behave. I understand that how private and emotionally closed off those in nasa are especially these brilliant minds who strap themselves to rockets doesn’t make for as good of a story but these melodramatics would have gotten them all canned. It feels like a soap opera or high school, reminds me of divergent, you can be either smart or brave or kind; jock or nerd

Well now I have another three “classics” to look into

The writing and worldbuilding is beautiful. I wish I understood more. There’s also not much forward momentum since it’s a nonlinear story. It’s basically showing years of misery while hiding from the Germans so far

I like this more than I thought I would. It reminds me of Archmere. Zip Zap isn’t as prominent as I thought it world be. Doesn’t show up until page 150. I thought it was Cinnamon’s doing. I feel like I missed a short prequel. Also this was not advertised as having a sequel. It’s annoying that some plots (like cinnamon) won’t be wrapped up in this book or even foreshadowed

I don’t normally mind pop culture refrences in books but it says it’s post pandemic yet their going out outfits are so 2014 or earlier

This is giving degrassi vibes. Good girl Laura Jean interested in casual dating and exploring her sexuality as cartoon villain jealous ex girlfriend bullying her by spreading a secretly filmed “sex tape” video of Laura Jean having her first real kiss while in a hot tub. Her single father doesn’t trust her and wants her to go on the pill while LJ doesn’t trust her bf isn’t hooking up with his ex

There is something bothering me about this that I can’t put my finger on. I do like cozy fantasy, but it reminds me so much of the enchanted greenhouse, more than the spellshop, in that the fmc’s internal monologue is so soo repetitive and insecure, and that the mmc is charmless, grumpy and just there. Can we know more about the homicidal plant please?

I thought this was going to be a 6 ⭐️ book for sure, it has so blown my mind and all it had to do was just keep giving the level of detail it has been. Maybe I just needed this already long book to be longer but this last third is so thin and so rushed, it makes me so sad. Like the reveals of what his pov was in the younger years feel like they don’t even matter at this point

I cannot say enough how much I love this book!

I am oddly in love with this trilogy. I still think Luc and the vampires are unnecessary, and that Lala and Chaos are underdeveloped so I won’t give it 5⭐️ it is def better written than Caraval anyway. I want to love Jacks and Eva but I don’t like enemies to lovers, he’s not good enough for her, I just want him to be soft for her and to love each other. I don’t like all the YA angst

This book is a lot better upon reread, but it might be because it’s hitting at the right time in my life. I’ve always loved Eva for being so soft and believing in love, but after reading the Caraval series, it’s just beautiful. A boy who has never been loved, who just really wants to love and to be loved, meeting a girl who has never been loved but has so much love to give, finally getting that love back 💕

I don’t want to keep reading, the bad things will happen if I keep reading. I don’t want to see the hurt these sweet kids wen through with the war

I have had many unsolicited opinions that I have not lived until I read Abby Jimenez and that she and this book will turn me from a romance hater to a romance lover. No. I am not the target audience, I don’t like reading about causal sex. He’s too perfect it’s unrealistic and she’s toxic and straight up embarrassed to be seen with him

Every chapter feels like a plot twist. Went from middle class to princess of Denmark, her sister marrying the UK heir. The crown prince of Russia Nixa is in love with our oblivious princess? She said yes! He’s dead? Gotta marry his brother the next crown prince? Is he even literate? Declarations of love!

No. Romantasy is not for me, I knew I probably wouldn’t like it but it kept getting hyped up and I like Rein Italy. I tried to be invested, I mean her brother was sentenced to hang in a cage over the city and starve. But the book doesn’t really care, it was just to motivate her to meet the hot, brooding, emotionless love interest who might try to seduce her to control her

I mean yeah it reads like self published D&D fan fiction but for some reason I keep coming back to it. It has some soul, feels like a passion project rather than just a list of tropes and they’re slowly building a real romantic connection rather than just hotness, yearning and instalove… well, last chapter he fell to his knees in awe and love, vowing to worship her and only her for all his life