angelsbeforeman's reviews
906 reviews

i do love it when russian authors start analysing death in their work, which is exactly why i read this. i typically like tolstoy's style, and i did here as well. i didn't love it the way i loved ana karenina, but i do appreciate that it's much shorter than ana karenina. sometimes i want to read tolstoy but not 800 pages of tolstoy, so this is quite nice 

not too into polyamory and pregnancy tropes, but at least it was a quick read

this was really good ♡ to be fair, it's mostly because of the theme. i'm a fan of books that combine gothic elements and queer identities. enjoyed the writing style, and it's truly rare for me to not hate at least one story in a collection. but i don't hate any here! one of the main things this collection has going for it is the fact that it's not boring (to me at least) and it keeps you interested. the pacing is good and i don't think it's too long. i'll pick favourites after i reread, but for now stories that stood out would be hags, lipless grin, no dominion, and raw pork and opium. i think raw pork and opium especially stands out because of it's uniqueness. lovely + i'll be reading more from leon craig for sure !!

enjoyed this !! i think i would've absolutely loved it when my special interest in witchcraft was super active, but it's good either way. the author incorporated both traditional folklore and some more modern ideas + the illustrations are really pretty and fitting ^^

mixed opinions, which isn't strange since this is an anthology. i picked it up because i love dark academia as a subgenre. my favourites were the stories by helen grant, kelly andrew, ml rio, and olivie blake. though i liked the writing in susie yang's story, the theme was so not my thing. i hated the ones by david bell, james tate hill, j.t. hill, and kate weinberg, both theme and writing wise. some also didn't quite fit the dark academia subgenre, but anyway. mostly good, but not perfect. 

beautiful, and i am switching it to 5 stars after rereading it. this is wonderful, and motivates me to write. this is the kind of philosophical work i enjoy. so much to highlight to come back and read it again and again. cried about it! i might write more about this when i recover from it emotionally a bit.

read this because i love vampires, and because this is marketed as gothic. the premise is also very intriguing to me and just a fun concept. i thought the atmosphere was great! liked the setting and the energy very much, and the blood maid system. the characters were mostly good, some less developed than others in a way that made me want more from them. the writing was alright. i enjoyed the mysterious aspects and this was a pretty easy book to get through. 
i mostly liked marion as a main character, though sometimes her decisions and thoughts seemed unrealistic and almost out of character (?) or something. my main issue is that the book has a lot of inconsistencies and incomplete plot points, and it was so noticeable that i felt like i was reading a debut novel. i'm not familiar with the author so i don't know if it is, it's just the energy it had. this was also reflected by the messy pacing, but i wasn't as mad about it.
overall, it's alright, mostly because the concept and the atmosphere carried the story. 

this was recommended by rafael nicolás and i can definitely see why 😭

read this because it's based on elizabeth bathory, and she was. insane! i had an obsession with researching her as a child, which probably wasn't the greatest choice, but the special interest in vampires got to me very early on. anyway, that's why i knew i had to read this. also, it's about lesbians and the plot seemed interesting.
it was interesting! i honestly think it could've been more interesting, only if i didn't know as much about bathory beforehand. but either way, i enjoyed the author's take on the story, and the exploration of elizabeth's relationship with anna. i liked the writing style, because i thought the tone fit the historical setting. i had some issues with pacing, but it was good overall and i think the length of the book is pretty much perfect. 
i kind of disliked anna most of the time? 😭 like 90% of the time. hated the gore at times, and other times it was alright, so i'm really not sure about that. obviously the relationship dynamic is terrible and sickening, but i'm assuming that's the point, so i'm not criticising it. the worst thing about this was definitely the ending, which i won't spoil, but i hated it. 
it's good overall, but i wouldn't reread. i also wouldn't recommend this as a feminist book, despite the fact that i see people doing exactly that often.

actually liked this more than i thought i would. of course, i'm interested in the subject and that's why i read this in the first place. but what really made me enjoy it a lot is that it was more academic than i expected. typically, books with this theme aren't like that, but here i could tell that the author's a scholar. and that's great for me!