catcardoso's reviews
220 reviews

somehow every time I reread this book it becomes more special to me
"life offers up these moments of joy despite everything"

This was such an enjoyable read!! For some reason I had no idea it was a fantasy but I was pleasantly surprised omg
Mermaids, pirates and witches??? What a joy

I read this in one sitting whilst avoiding writing my exam papers so that tells you enough about how much fun this was <3

SO FUN!! F.T. Lukens is truly talented in crafting compelling worlds and characters with super entertaining storylines and dialogue <3

2,5* Surprisingly this is a popular tiktok book of which I don’t have anything particularly bad to say in terms of writing or story, yay! The representation is good, the pace and progression of the story wasn’t bothersome and there was no annoying unnecessary conflict (thank god!! a rare thing in romance books). But I couldn’t bring myself to give a higher rating ‘cause I didn’t really care about the characters nor the plot and felt like it was very insta-love/physical, which of course is the whole point of the plot but it’s just not for me.

I have a hard time reviewing popular books because they are clearly well-loved so it confuses me when I can’t see where the hype comes from.

First of all, Reading from Catalina’s POV was… rough. I haven’t heard anyone mention this but I would definitely put a TW for dieting/fainting, there is basically a lot of (rather harmful??) body image/diet/eating talk that made me really uncomfortable. The thing is that I didn’t feel like this was very relevant to the story either. It was never addressed it was just… there… constantly and I would’ve appreciated a warning before going into it.

Secondly, I liked the start of the book a lot. However the more it progressed, the more the writing and the storyline started to bother me. What is it with romance books and their weird (body) descriptions?? It has become extremely predictable and I'm just so over the obsession with tiny fragile women and huge men at this point. She is described as very "plain" and small and he is very tall and muscular (yes another Clark Kent reference God why). The random drama in the last 2 chapters of the book?? The literal human auction?? The inner monologue?? I was laughing for the wrong reasons I’m afraid. Why is Aaron Blackford everyone’s favourite book bf I don't feel like he has much of a personality at all and I was also at times very repulsed by him. “I want to feel you milking me”…. Do I need to say anything else… please stop.
So yeah this book… It was a lot. I genuinely wish I liked it as much as everyone else does but it simply wasn't for me.