chaptersofmads's reviews
819 reviews

“My heart feels happy listening to her, like I could do it forever.”

Once again proving that I can appreciate YA contemporaries, so long as they have a sad element.

There was so much I loved about this book, how it handled Stevie's relationship with her parents and her own identity as well as the ways she tried to get back to herself. Her romance with Nora felt very believable and it was incredibly easy to root for them.

My only complaints are that it felt odd for Stevie to perceive herself as 15 and yet carry on as an 18 year old (when it came to romance and her future) and that it was a bit rushed at times (particular the end) but when a book is this short, that's to be expected.

I would recommend going into this with caution if you're a vegan (or anyone that feels queasy with discussions of animal death/meat). It alternated between discussing the benefits of staying away from meat and then having a cow you'd met be served for dinner.

Overall, I thought this was a really good YA contemporary and I'm glad I read it.

"Rise to your feet, Shin Lina. One last time."

ARC provided via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Easily one of the best series finales I have ever read.

This is how you write a finale. Hell, this is how you write a trilogy.

Sophie Kim has created the kind of series that will stay with me for a long time. The character arcs, the depth, the growth, the foreshadowing from book 1? There isn't a single piece of this that I could find fault with, even if I tried.

I swear I felt every emotion while reading this book, which is odd for me. I've said this before, I love reading but I don't always have the emotional experience that other people seem to. Part of this is because I'm usually unsurprised by most intended twists.

This whole trilogy was an exception.

This may sound a bit melodramatic, but I really mean it when I say this is the kind of book that tears you apart and puts you back together again. In many ways, there were lines that felt like they were meant specifically for me - which is a magic of fantasy, to feel so personal even as the characters are fighting mythical beasts and literal gods.

When I thought I knew where the story was going, the actual events always left me surprised. Even in small story beats, patterns I recognized from other books, Sophie Kim turned them on their head in the most satisfying way.

If I haven't made it clear already, this was incredible and secured this trilogy's position as one of my favorite series.

If you love *actual* enemies-to-lovers, stories of grief and addiction and forgiveness, books that don't treat traumatic events as minor inconveniences, a morally grey main character, magic, gods, and prophecies please read this. You won't regret it.

It's so bittersweet to be reviewing the last book, but I'm excited to return to Sophie Kim's words whenever she writes them. 

ARC provided via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

last read of the year completed!!

Unique and thought-provoking, This Ends in Embers solidifies the Divine Traitors duology's place as a refreshing presence in YA.

To prepare for writing this review, I went and reread my review for the first book and was pretty surprised to see that my feelings on both books were almost identical. I still really appreciated the world-building and the conversations on generational trauma and the costs of war.

During this book, we follow Faron and Elara as they are separated due to circumstance and the rising war. Because of this, the world and the politics got to be expanded. We learn more about the history of their world, the dragons, the gods, and how the general public views the sisters'.

However, for me personally, this particular installment fell quite flat.

I found much of the book to be redundant and over-dramatized, with powerful sentences being repeated so many times they began to lose their meaning. The sisters still both acted incredibly young, which was something I struggled with in book 1. This is YA, the characters are meant to be young. I know that. But when you have characters that have been stripped of their childhood and forced into these adult roles, it's hard to believe that they'd still be behaving this way.

This also fell into the unfortunate YA habit of feeling very... teachy? Sometimes, authors write YA characters as an adult writing teenagers (rather than putting themselves into the mind of the character), filled with all of the lessons they want to get across and the encouragement they want to give to young people. Which is beautiful and admirable! But it doesn't feel like these characters learning those lessons on their own, it feels like the author is telling me to get my confidence back and not to kill.

I also found this a bit confusing, but I'm not counting that against the book. I've been especially tired this year and I'm more than willing to admit that might have been user error. I would recommend rereading So Let Them Burn before jumping into this one, if you need a refresher.

Overall, I stand by the fact that this duology deserves all the hype and praise it's gotten (and more!) Kamilah Cole did something incredibly interesting with what could have been a very basic premise.

While this book didn't entirely work for me, I definitely recommend it to people that love YA fantasy (+ don't mind YA that reads incredibly young) and want to read something that doesn't feel like everything else. 

I'm tired and don't really feel like writing a review for this one, so to put it bluntly: this book lost an entire star after the 75% mark. I won't expand on what exactly caused this, but I will say that I'm not usually the type to lower my rating because I disagree with the author's creative choice.

That being said, the point of this event was to show we can choose happiness even amidst tragedy. However, since the entire point of the story and literally every other experience made this point, that event felt traumatic simply for the sake of being shocking. Maybe it was more realistic, but I think a magical Christmas story can handle a little unrealistic happiness?

I liked how this book handled grief and Eva finding her way back to herself. Even the way she handled the body-swapping was more reasonable than most stories with that plot and I appreciated it.

This still (even for a book about healing from grief) felt incredibly bleak.

I kind of regret reading this and I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone. (This isn't against Rachel Greenlaw as an author. I loved "The Woodsmoke Women's Book of Spells" and enjoy her writing even if I disliked this one.)

This was the book equivalent of a sleeve of bland crackers. It will technically feed you, but you'll be incredibly bored. 

I'm still loving this series, but I'm grateful to be done with this one.

"The stars would come and go. Fire was eternal."

Everything I hoped it would be.

This was absolutely my kind of book. A religion based magic system, unearthing corrupt history, royalty x guard romance, complex family dynamics, and the realities of how far one must go to keep what they love safe.

I loved so much about this book, but (surprisingly) my favorite part was following Leo - Ravani's king and Elena's father - as he grapples with his own humanity and the decisions he feels he has to make to be a good leader. The way his relationship with faith and life was handled was really interesting to me and it made me look forward to chapters that, written by another author, might have bored me.

The relationship was fantastic, if a bit more rushed than I'd like in a slow-burn fantasy series. (Take this with a grain of salt, they don't even hold hands until at least 400 pages in.) I loved the characters on their own and I appreciated that neither of them lost their own struggles to fawning over each other.

Also, this book is brutal and no one was safe (which I prefer!)

It was a bit predictable, but in the way that makes you feel satisfied as everything unfolds.

My main complaint would be that - despite being a rather slow-paced, 500+ page book - certain aspects were rather rushed. I can't give any examples without heading into spoiler territory, but what I will say is that I just wished things would have been given more time instead of just quickly being moved past.

Overall, though, this is exactly what I was hoping it would be and I cannot wait for the next book. If we usually have similar tastes in books, I definitely recommend this one.

"We all have magic in us - even if it never rises to the surface, it's in everyone, and everywhere."

Basically a magical swamp version of The Village (2004) with bad pacing, a focus on grief, and way too much of the plot devoted to magical snot.

That's really all you need to know.

I've enjoyed Laura Sebastian's other books, but I don't think her middle grade writing is for me. 

“For the ones who dream of stranger worlds.”

Solid, if not as life-changing as I might have hoped.

I've found a bit of a mixed bag with V.E. Schwab's works (didn't care for Addie LaRue, The Near Witch, or City of Ghosts but really enjoyed This Savage Song and Gallant) so I was hesitant going into this one, but I wanted to love it. It was one of those books that I just felt like I'd love.

And... while I can't say I'm leaving this book in love, I did enjoy it quite a bit!

This is a book that focuses a great deal on atmosphere (which I love) though it sometimes felt like it came at the price of me connecting with the characters or story. The tone of the story and the setting was incredibly well-crafted, but the villains felt evil just for being evil and the other pieces of the story seemed to fall into place rather conveniently. And the character I found most interesting was a side character and barely focused on.
(Also, side note, I see why everyone says Lila Bard has "not like other girls" syndrome, but I couldn't help but wonder if this was meant to be read as her questioning/struggling with her gender identity?)

Despite my criticisms, this is a good book. I see why it's so well-beloved, even if I didn't connect with it as much as I'd hoped. The world(s) and magic system are incredibly interesting and I could see growing to care for the characters more as I continue with the series.

Overall! This was good, I liked it. The hype may have done it a bit of disservice, but not so much that it ruined my enjoyment. I look forward to reading book 2.

Picked this up on a whim to try and help myself get into the wintery mood and it didn't exactly help, but it wasn't a bad time either. 

Not rating this because this isn't my preferred genre (it's a YA contemporary) and my rating might be unfairly lower because of it. 

“And what was freedom worth if I still felt imprisoned?”

I had such a good time with this.

With a focus on female rage, betrayal, magic, and revenge, For She Is Wrath serves as a reminder of just how thrilling and enjoyable YA fantasy standalones can be. It was so refreshing to see a main character that is actually willing to hurt people, instead of boasting about it and then... just... not.

The romance was also so much fun. It's been awhile since I've felt any fictional couples had any chemistry but they did and I loved them for it. This is partially because lovers-to-enemies is in my top three favorite tropes of all time, but also because Emily Varga did a really good job crafting their connection and tension in a rather short space.
(The Pride and Prejudice reference was also beautifully handled.)

I'm not saying this book was perfect. It can be a bit cheesy, with a main character that sometimes felt like a cartoon villain (I love and adore her though), and a plot that happens a bit too conveniently; but these aspects are genuinely easy to overlook with everything else going on.

Overall, this is so underrated and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting a unique, romantic, revenge fueled YA fantasy standalone.