cass_lit's reviews
1432 reviews

I liked this a lot, but it was a little too insta-lovey for me and I wish we got more of Asiri’s magic 

Genuinely enjoyed most of these and only wish they could be full novels and worlds!

I was excited for the premise of this, and I’ve loved the previous works of Alyssa Cole’s that I’ve read, but unfortunately it fell so flat. The last 10% or so was good and fast-paced and interesting, but everything leading up to it was so tough to get through. I wanted to put it down so badly but because I’ve loved what I’d read from her before, I also wanted to stick it out hoping for a payout. 

Absolutely not the book and I hope to come back to it soon! My library hold was running up and I just didn’t have the time to devote to this. 

I got a bit worried starting this because the first half of the stories are very sci-fi heavy, and just personally in someone who prefers fantasy to sci-fi. The second half totally saved this for me overall and there were some stunning short stories in here from authors I’m so excited to check out more from. Standout stories for me included:

This was actually the first Isabel Allende book I’ve read, even though I own second hand copies of quite a few of her fiction books. I didn’t realize it was a memoir before starting it and was so pleasantly surprised. I love that I got to learn more about her before starting into her fiction and I hope to be her when I grow up (I’m a full on adult). 

For a novella about brand new characters in a brand new world, I loved this. Obviously we’re not going get a ton of back story on every character and the relationship’s going to feel a little insta-lovey because we’ve got under a 100 pages to do everything, but that’s to be expected if you’re picking something like this up. I’m obsessed with this family and the island and the magic system and I would love Alexis Daria to give us more of them. 

I don’t know what about this didn’t HIT hit with me the way it seemed to for others. Maybe I had too high of expectations coming in? Either way, I enjoyed this but didn’t love it. It felt a little too long (and it’s not even that long of a book) and the characters’ relationship didn’t do anything for me. I liked them both fine separately but together, I was a little over it already

Continues to be adorable 

I’m slowly learning that any Ashley Poston book is going to be a great happily ever after payoff, but you’re going to have to trudge through all the emotions before you get there. I love her magical realism but god does it feel like we’re torturing these characters sometimes. I particularly loved in this one the discussion around her aunt’s death and that grief — again, Poston isn’t shying away from the hard parts of life in order to show the healing and the living that comes after.