bratatouille's reviews
204 reviews

Dark, gorgeous, interesting take on vampirism. Not one of the best stories I’ve read, there’s many loose ends and little story/character development, but boy can Kohda write some pretty sentences. I’ve never read a vampire book that focused on the eating! She even mentions the ridiculousness of vampire riches in media which I found fun. Also! Asian vampires!! I imagine I would read this again, but I can’t reasonably give it four stars. 

This was adorable and so fun. This man is the absolutely stupidest man I’ve ever met in my life and I love him for it. Scarred ass man with two brain cells goes for a marriage of convenience with an only-barely-smarter-than-him seamstress. They’re trying for an heir, he’s trying to be the town vigilante, and she’s trying to get him to be a real boy. The dialogue and writing in this are some of the funniest I’ve read in a long, long while. It’s incredibly tongue-in-cheek and silly.

This started off pretty strong with a dark academia, murderous, magical setting. Our main gal, Galadriel (yes, named after lord of the rings), is a loser, outcast, fuck-them-privileged-kids, machine of a woman. (She talks about how unwanted she is SO often.) She is constantly getting almost murdered by the school and being saved by School HeroTM Orion, who she is incredibly ungrateful towards. This isn’t because she hopes to die, it’s because she has an affinity for Mass DestructionTM and she could save herself if he didn’t enter the gotdam room and make himself also a target for her murder spells. I enjoyed the concept of this quite a bit! The rules of the school are unique and the dynamics don’t feel as trope-y as I feared they would. 

All that being said, dear God, this was an info dump. About 50% of the book is El just monologuing, and 2/3 of that monologuing is lore or the explanation of mechanics. I’m so glad that this was a meticulously thought out world and magic system; that’s hard to do! However, I don’t like reading fantastical textbooks. I will not lie to you, I started speed reading and skimming shit and I absolutely did not need all of it. Also, Miss Girl is supposed to have a stupid amount of power despite never using the Bad Magic of this world, and that never gets shown in a way that’s satisfying to the reader. None of the other characters ever see or react to a display of her power. There’s one bit about halfway through that’s interesting, but nobody else witnesses it, and she immediately throws it under the rug. At the end, there’s a snippet of *something*, but it’s equally as dissatisfying. I understand that there are meant to be more books to this. Dang, tho. I might read the second one and hope it’s less textbook-y, but we shall see.

Harrow weaves an atmospheric story about something that can not be properly labeled as a “haunted house” without losing the layers of life and mystique that it deserves. It’s practically a southern gothic folktale, but I fear that description will deter people from what this book actually is: an unstoppable force colliding with an immovable object. Opal is starved, chaotic, and lonely, making her a wild card for the occupant(s) of Starling House. I’m impressed at Harrow’s ability to write such an angry yet likable character. My only gripe with this story is that communication does not exist in it at all. Not one time does a character communicate. Not even the side characters. After a while, this gap begins to feel kind of silly. That being said, I enjoyed the ride. The romance is an inevitable slow drip, making the journey tender. Opal is an, “if you die I’ll kill you” and Arthur is the kind to be bleeding out on the floor only thinking, “oh god, she’s gonna kill me.” Big fan.

If she had one iota of cognitive thought this could’ve all been avoided.

Flynn is quickly becoming a beloved author of mine. Her voice as an author feels like someone telling you about their wild experiences rather than you being there with them, which gives it a warm and slightly uncomfortable quality. This works wonderfully for the type of media that she writes. Her depictions are grotesque in a startling way, being not so full of gore but instead clear displays of the violence of being human. Each character is intriguing in their own right and the mystery, although with only a brief cast of suspects, truly keeps you riled up to the last moment. 

Girls get seasonal jobs at an eerie hotel where they only ever host one guest. One day, they unexpectedly house a large celebration for a holiday they’ve never heard of. The next day, one of them is missing. I found the language in this absolutely stunning. However, this book is all vibes. If you’re looking for plot you only have to read about half the chapters. I can see what it’s going for, it really does create an almost tangible sense of atmosphere. Typically, I tend to like books where basically nothing happens but the pacing was too glacial for me to truly get on board. This was actually on my tbr for a while and I got lucky that they mailed a copy. I’d say it’s good, but it wasn’t for me.