clovetra's reviews
217 reviews

you know how you can easily tell if i’m not gonna like a book? if it takes me 2 months to finish a 386 page book. i do not get the hype around this book. 

i mean i didn’t hate this!!! it was a perfectly fine book. nothing more than that for me honestly.

i could kind of feel for elizabeth? like yes relatable feminism type of beat. but idk man the book felt so monotone the entire time because she herself is so monotone! i mean i love a bad bitch who likes chemistry but idk she felt incredibly one dimensional. like why did the fucking dog interest me more than the main character. anyways shout out six-thirty he’s a real one.

well what else is there to say? the plot just seemed to read like a biography & ended at a super odd place imo. like the way this book was formatted i was here thinking it would end with mad becoming a chemist or elizabeth dying or something and then it just…. stopped randomly. like why was that point chosen to end the story?? but honestly i wouldn’t have cared if it kept going because i actually didn’t give a shit about any character except the dog. THE DOG!

idk based on the hype this book has & the fact it has its own tv show…. i expected More. this was a really odd book. but i mean i finished it. i had a decent time. i like the overall message & the chemistry themes. other than that tho…… this is not for me. honestly it felt like a waste of time. i mean not every book needs a “message”, but when i don’t give a flying fart about ur characters ANNNDDD ur book said nothing new. yawn 

ok the argument can be made this book is about found family. but for what this book was most of the time, it did not succeed in satisfying me. 

i feel like im being demonic in writing this review but i promise im only this scathing when its a popular book sorry i’d self combust if i was this mean to a book with <100,000 reviews. but luckily this book is popular so i don’t feel bad for dunking on it! 

i think the reason im so “disappointed” in this book is because of its hype. it’s a perfectly tolerable book, with what i will admit to be some funny dialogue, but the plot felt all over the place, was uninteresting, and imo never actually interested me. i’m so serious i only picked up this book just so i could finish it. for a while i was a tad invested in mad, but at some point i think i stopped caring & just wanted to finish it because i own this book (i mean not after today you best believe im donating this sorry my shelf space is for all time faves). 

anyways i will say this book DID excite me for my next neuroscience class next semester LETS GOOOO

thank you NetGalley & Peachtree Teens for providing me with an ARC of this book!!!! babies first ARC who cheered. anyways. i dont know why but once i finished this book i was crying. i was a mess. i was on the fence whether i was going to give this a 3-star or 4-star rating but i believe if a book can immerse me that well it deserves an additional star.
the novel follows miles abernathy, certified proud socialist, redneck, and trans kid just trying to get by in a town where his family name is mud. his lineage also follows some certified badasses, namely saint abernathy, who was also a socialist. abernathy’s get treated like dirt in twist creek, namely by the resident asshole, sherriff davies, who has lied, stole & killed to keep his position. we follow miles as he Fucks Shit Up, and becomes entangled in seeking revenge for himself and all those wronged by the davies family.

let me start off with what i absolutely adored;

the way ajw uses chapter-formatting to his advantage is on full display here. every chapter starting off as a black page is feeding into my love of books with “mixed media”, and im a sucker for one-paragraph chapters. 

the characterisation of the main antagonist of this story, sheriff davies? chefs kiss. impeccable. ajw NEVER fails to make his villains menacing, and i know whenever im reading an ajw book im in for a TREAT in the villain department. ugh theyre always so well written. you know where else ajw doesnt miss? when writing about being trans & autistic. i love that that is ajw’s “calling card” in his books, and yet again as an autistic & nonbinary person, the descriptions were very true to reality. i also really adored the brief touching on what it means to be afab & autistic, and how we are often underdiagnosed. 

this story reminded me a lot of heathers (1988), both tonally and at some plot points. im not mad at that at all god that movie is a masterpiece. but i do think there are many differences between both stories to not completely conclude “oh yeah this book is an adapted retelling”, but i will say the “heathers” elements of this book SLAPPED. 

the overall story did take a while to get started, which i think is a bit of a flaw. when it got going, this book was GOOOODDD. eat it for breakfast lunch and dinner. but it took more than half of the pages for the plot to really entice me. compared to ajw’s other stories, i’ll say this one took the ‘longest’ to really pick up its pace. 

i think one minor slip with this book’s fundamental story is regarding setting it in a time period. the story gives the vibe of a country-western movie (ive never watched one), and although yeah its quite obvious once reading what the time period is based on things like phones, references, etc. but… i dont know hearing about contemporary events in this book was incredibly jarring. this brings me to a bigger issue - i will say i am also a socialist. do not mistake what i am about to say as me disagreeing with the points raised. but there are paragraphs throughout this book that include what seem to be think-pieces about socialism, police, communism, capitalism, etc. all fine and dandy, but the way they were written and how they were woven into the story and dialogue itself felt clumsy. one minute we’d be talking about miles’ opinion on something going on in the town itself, and then it would move on to an overall opinion of how the world works. i dont know how else to properly to describe what exactly im referring to without spoiling the story, but i will say it felt a bit… awkward. this issue of clunky dialogue extended to any dialogue about a character being lgbt+ and/or disabled. let me also preface, i am all of these things! i am autistic, a nonbinary lesbian & physically disabled. i promise i am not saying this because i am ableist or homophobic or transphobic. but, yet again, any dialogue regarding a character being autistic, or having physical deformities, or discovering their identity, was so fucking heavy-handed. for example, there is a line of dialogue, word for word, “I know they’re a they – it’s hard to miss the Suck my they/them dick pin”. or for another example, “I mean, [redacted name for no spoilers] didn’t know [pronoun] was being threatened, the autism will do that”. there is a whoooole bunch of dialogue like this, and im sorry every time i saw it i wanted to cry. because this book was so good but im so serious dialogue like that reminds me of fan fiction and i just cant do it man. im all for representation, theres so much in this book!!!!! and none of the actual representation itself feels forced, its just the way these “quirks” (as so written in the book dont @ me) are divulged to the reader feel so amateurish compared to what i am used to, just coming off finishing what i am calling his magnum opus, the spirit bares its teeth. 

i just realised i havent actually yapped about how much i love the characters so heres a quick rundown -

i really wasnt invested in what happened to miles up until about the halfway mark, which is concerningly long but by the end i was fully having adrenaline spikes and crying cuz i was worried for my boy. happy to see a physically disabled & autistic character - bro thats literally me. i think this may have been why i was crying, because finally representation of me exists :’). love dallas, they’re a bad ass bitch and i loved them candidly explaining there is no degree of disability to be considered disabled - a few scars vs full disfigurement, we are all the same. miles’ parents ate, as did his grandparents. obv i hated the antagonists, and actively was gobsmacked when paul was killed. cooper was a shit head & deserved what he got, but i do feel bad for his dad :( im also very pleased that there was no animal cruelty because my god if there was i would not have survived i think.

all in all, although there are a few imperfections with this book, honestly, i had a good time! by the end i was fully devouring this book, and i need art of miles this minute.

anyways if you wondered what heathers the musical would be like if it was canonically filled with awesome lgbt+ and disabled representation set in a contemporary period, this book is for you!  

okkkk work! this is my first retelling ive read (that isn’t greek mythology mind you) and ngl i had a good time!

this review will be short as this was literally like 150 pages. short & sweet

i really liked the main character! i think creating a bunch of new pronouns & having the mc not only be nonbinary but use xenopronouns was super interesting.

the story at times felt like it was stagnant and at other times (mainly the end) it was moving too fast, but it’s such a short story idk how this could have been “worked around”.

the ending was intriguing yet lowkey kinda cool? this was a very interesting book in terms of body horror. i’m always drawn to book that include nature in their horror themes, but tbh i think this book is the first ive read to actually “succeed” at this goal.

what else can i say? madeline was really cool esp in the end. miss potter is also a bad bitch and i love her.

idk what else to say except im excited to see where this goes in the next instalment! 

honestly i dont really know what to say about this. this is the most average book ive read. somehow disinterested and curious about the book.
perseus was insufferable for the entire book, which was difficult as he's lowkey the main character. yeah thats the goal of this book but idk i wanted to deck him more than i loved the main characters.
danae was... fine. her beginning was super interesting, and then her story teetered out. andromeda was also interesting to begin with, but by the end she lost all her characterisation. that was probably intentional but it does make for a super boring story when i hate one main character & dont care about the other.
i really liked medusa's story. it was the shortest yet the best. im still confused about if in this retelling if she actually had snakes for hair? or she just liked snakes? i know about the gorgon bit but... idk. she was the best but she still wasnt great, as yet again she just felt like a plot device.
idk this book was fine. i dont think it achieved the feat of being a "feminist retelling" of perseus, as all the female characters just existed to drive the story. yes theres probably a deeper commentary about how perseus objectifies women and this is expressed in their significance within the book but.. i dont care if a book has a deeper meaning if i dont find the book interesting its complexity literally means nothing to me.
like i said, this feels like an average book. this is like a movie you'd go and see because your voucher expires tomorrow & this is all that has seats left, yknow?

god this book had such potential!! and sadly it did not live up to it. this book's pacing was so odd, and coupled with the fact the actual "mystery" was only explained >80% into this book was a bit.... eyebrow raising.
i will say i liked iris, she was a good protag. kinda was a blank slate but i think that was her role.
vivi can have my soul esp since she seems to love hungarian women. vivi hmu i can show u my grandma's village we can get it on queen. sorry i love a bald lesbian who also is down with the magyars 🔥
grey was... idk. i still cant put my finger on my opinion of her. i mean she was... fine. with how big her role was for this story though... she was a bit of a let down. especially since for like 90% of this book she spoke in cryptic phrases that actually just pissed me off. at some point i want to be reading this book because im invested in the characters, not just that i want them to shut up and stop saying vague terms to actually explain the whole mystery element of this story. like by the end, this book became so interesting! but when i only find the last fourth of your book intriguing......
like

the fact the girls were changelings all along? and killed the real hollow sisters? the dad was the bull (which ngl was predictable but its YA so im not gonna be too harsh on that)? cate knew they were changelings??? tyler had his fucking SKIN REMOVED AND WORN LIKE A SUIT????????

was so good! if the whole book was that i wouldve easily given this 4/5 stars. but when most of ur book is building up to a reveal that doesnt come until the very very end and then almost NOTHING is done with the reveal?????? nawwww
also sorry the minute i read

iris kissed tyler

this book became a chop. sorry i cant fucking stand the

a relative of a missing person & the missing person's partner kiss because they share such a deep love for said missing person

trope. not to mention

iris is 17 and tyler is fucking 20!!!!!!! EW AGE GAP

.
i think a lot of these "issues" i have with this book can be attributed to its YA nature but some... like literally i love the premise i just wished it was executed better. like this book had some great parts! the opening chapters were quite good ngl, as were the final 4 chapters. but everything in the middle? it was not enjoyable for me im afraid. idk i think the concepts explored at the end deserved some more run time, with the whole "ooo where's grey" schtick being shorter as to expand those concepts. i mean for me personally im not saying change the entire book just for little old me 😭 but you know? great concept, missed the mark more often than it probably should have.
also sorry i feel like the "horror" elements were all mish-mashed together. like the flower stuff... the fucky-ass ending with the bull? like idk it reminded me a lot of You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight & She Is a Haunting but idk like those books this felt..... like it was missing multiple puzzle pieces. 

i find this book so hard to rate. on one hand, this is probably the best fantasy book i’ve ever read, and i immediately want to read the prequel. on the other hand, i did find some issues with this. anyways im gonna break my thoughts down & maybe that’ll edge me into a decision:

- i loved ead. i would marry ead if she was real. i love her. her overall characterisation was sublime, and although her ending is bittersweet, it is overall good.

- sabran underwent one of the best arcs i’ve read. going from a mean, arrogant, stubborn women to a

forgiving, understanding and someone open and actively causing change

was amazing to read. her ending was perfect, as was her dialogue. no notes

- i found myself getting… bored at times with tané. i like her sure. but compared to ead’s main story, not as much happened here. her story only really felt as though it picked up like 65% into this book. which for a book that is 800 pages….. that’s too long

- loth was ok! like it was written well, but i didn’t grow beyond anything to just liking him, and found his story often to be a waste of time

- roos can go choke. i don’t care. i don’t even care if the intention was to have a main character so insufferable. i hated him & his chapters and i wish him pain and suffering even though he’s not even real.

i would say the overarching plot was so intriguing. it felt perfectly paced, and had plot twists galore. so much kept changing, so i was constantly on the edge of my seat. i saw a review saying this book rambled a lot and honestly, i disagree! this book absolutely needed the pages it did. it would not be as good of a book as it is. i mean yeah it could’ve been split into multiple books but i felt like it defo needed all its pages. 

but, it wasn’t perfect. for one, so much was going on all the time, meaning i would forget shit. like this is the first book ive actively had to note take just to grasp. that also ties in with the fact nothing is explained!!!! i mean obviously a lot is explained, but many crucial foundations to this story are not explained, and either thrown into the glossary & timeline. that is all fair & dandy, but i should not have to search ur book to remember who crucial characters are! sure if they’re random side character A ok u don’t need to explain them, but when you don’t explain what the fuck virtuedom even is, or the dukes court (i don’t even remember the name oh my god). like i still could not remember who was the duke spiritual, a crest, a goldenbirch, or combe. like please set some foundations. ur big bad should not be explained in the fucking glossary!!!!!!!!!!!! also come on not explaining simple things like what an ichneumon is. (edit: google is confusing me as to whether these are even real. but seriously what happened to death of the author. i should not have to consult anything BUT the text to know what’s going on imo).

that is the biggest “issue” imo holding this book back for me. it just expects you to be aware of how its world works. like yes should i have glanced at the glossary & timeline before beginning? yeah. did the glossary & timeline also have a shitload of spoilers? YEAH. like ??????

i very much did love this book, i would literally die for ead, sabran & tané, and wanted to cry when i realised i was done. but idk the lacklustre worldbuilding foundations were infuriating. goinng further with the worldbuilding e.g. the story of cleolind, the priory, etc. was great! the layers needed to build up to that though were…. lacking. 
edit: i lied even tho i said this book did flop in parts i actually don’t care because this book made me so emotional & it feels wrong not having this as a 5-star based on how much it made me feel

i do truly adore the message of this book. the language, the ending, the story in general is quite touching.
this book was already going to be a tough one for me, as my dad passed away whilst i was a child, so i could relate a lot to the feelings in this story. reading about zoila's grief was especially hard, as although i dont remember my own grief as a child, i do remember my mums. 
i loved yahaira & her story, i felt i very much related to her, esp with her anger towards life. also shout out sapphics i love herrrrrrr
now camino..... im sorry i found her insufferable. and that was probably one of my biggest issues with this book. her anger towards yahaira unfair. realistic? yes. did it also annoy me? yes! like this girl did nothing to you. its realistic but idk it felt like i had to pick a side, and i will always align with the gay bitch sorry. 
i wont lie tho i didnt like camino from the beginning 🫣 she just didnt grow on me, and then was just a dumb character with her decisions. most of her plot followed her & el cero, but im sorry why didnt she just tell someone. literally at least one person. yahaira made dumb decisions sure but they were relative to grief. camino's dumb decisions were as a result of pride and idk i cant stand that shit.
the story felt rushed in a lot of places but also what do i want this is a poetry book. ofc its gonna be short. theres like 4 words on a page.
the ending was sweet, i will admit. but honestly when half the story is following camino and i dont really like her, its hard. i do overall like the story, i did find it good, god i just couldnt stand camino at all. maybe its because i decided to be number one dick rider for yahaira cuz shes sapphic & camino was angry at yahaira for like 60% of the book. idk. its 3am and all i know is that i didnt like camino. i might come back in the morning & write more but yeah. this was a book! nothing too good, but nothing too bad either. perfectly average

edit: ok im back. more proper thoughts:
- plot needed more fleshing out imo, but also im not too mad about this seeing as this is a poetry-based story
- characters felt one-dimensional
- i didn’t grow to care about anyone really except yahaira but even then i wasn’t worried for her
- predictable story
- i loved the language used but my ass had to google like half this book cuz i don’t speak spanish
- poetry itself was lovely and very relatable
i sound like i hated this book but it was perfectly average (for me)

this was such a cute story!!!!!! somehow giving both cottagecore lesbians & industrial revolution ye-olde vibes. 
shesheshen was such a delight to read about. lowkey love how she struggled with human civilisation & narrated weird ass shit humans do 💀 i also liked her formal way of speaking, it was super endearing. homily was such a girlboss too! esp in the ending! i was worried for where she was going but thank god this book had a happy ending (kind of... depends how u look at it).
i also loved the ridiculous amount of rep. seamless nonbinary characters? check. unapologetic sapphic love? check. lovely atmosphere? check. super interesting premise? check. super funny dialogue? check. unpredictable story that kept me (mostly) gripped? check! but, as much as i had fun reading this, i do find there are a couple of things holding me back from adoring this story.
a) the explanations of how the "wyrms" work was super hard for me to visualise & grasp. ive read fantasy & supernatural books before, but i found it incredibly difficult to actually understand what was trying to be depicted. like i could never tell what shesheshen really looked like? that may have been the point, idk. all i know is i had no idea how to picture her form. i kind of imagined her like oobleck, where she hardens up when she wants & is liquid at other times. 
b) the "plot twist" that hits you like 2/3s into the book came out of nowhere. im either a super observant reader or a complete blubbering idiot. but i did not see this coming. i was looking for something like what happened, as i just had a gut feeling there'd be a "plot twist" surrounding the mythicality of this book but what actually happened felt like it came out of left field. honestly i dont think i liked it? like i liked how the story was prior, and the plot twist kinda fell flat for me
c) it takes WAY too long for shit to start getting good. like i was only properly interested like. >50% into this. the beginning either needed more worldbuilding or idk something else because it took a while for this to get going.
d) i kinda was attached to shesheshen but i also kind of... didnt care about any of the characters. they all kind of felt one-dimensional, esp homily's family. i also think homily herself was a tad one-dimensional which sucked because i really liked her set-up!!! there was so much more that couldve been done with her!!!
e) the ending was weird??? it felt like an epilogue (hah... get it...) but idk it felt unecessary!! it shouldve been literally just the last chapter or something similar. it was a cute ending i will admit, but it also just made the pacing slam to a halt, from an adventure-esque story to a slice of life story.
this book had so much going for it & i so desperately wanted to love it!! like bro theres a (lowkey) ace relationship, lesbian love where one person is (yet again, lowkey) genderfluid, super interesting plot, classic "monster learns to love" trope that i adore!! i just found with all the positives this book has going for it, such as its humour & intriguing plot, it is a letdown in some other places </3
i still would say i liked this book! i didnt hate it, not at all! it just wasnt something i loved, and you know what? thats ok.

ok i think i can say i am a self-proclaimed greek mythology retelling lover. do they probably water down & bastardise the original myths? probably! do i care? nope!

look i’ve tried to read the actual works (looks at the odyssey with a glare) and i fucking hated it the whole time. but when they’re rewritten in the 21st century??? ohhhh ill never get enough of them.

this book was so quippy. bro there were so many fire one-liners. the story was incredibly lighthearted (which i needed!) yet entertaining. every character’s personality oozes through the pages, and you are sitting there rooting for everyone (except hercules he can get fucked).

i liked how this explained everything for my goo goo ga ga brain. i don’t know shit about greek mythology but boy did i love this! i loved how a big focus was on the women in his life, but also largely focused on what a dick hercules was. yeah he did some good things but bro if this story doesn’t have fictionalised aspects…… yeah he deserved what he got in the end. 

i’ll be real i didn’t know shit about hercules except he’s strong before this. i’m so happy this book simultaneously educated and entertained me, which honestly i find it hard to find a book able to do this.

i’ll be real tho and say that keeping track of everyone’s names is so hard. yeah that’s the point & the author literally references how everyone has the same name (iole, iolanus, and the other one who i forget). but i can’t say it didn’t confuse the shit out of me. i think my baby brain needed a biiiiiit more context going in to make this a 5-star ranking. but honestly for me i think that is all that is holding the book back, and it isn’t even the book’s fault!!!! it’s just cuz im uneducated regarding greek mythology!!!!!!!

anyways i fuck with meg from disney’s hercules even more now. SHE DESERVED BETTER!

i am so confused. i went in thinking this would be a classic slasher horror. it was not!

i’m ngl i went into this thinking in the beginning chapters that this would be a 4-star at least. but the end half of this book went buck-wild in the worst way.

i’ll be nice and go over positives - gay people!!!!! i love the gays. i also love the gen-z language seamlessly worked into dialogue. some authors do such a bad job of imitating gen-z slang but i think it was done really well here! i also loved charity and bezi so much ugh they’re my queens

ok and now on to the negatives…… man what the fuck did i just read. this book was lowkey marketed to be a slasher. suddenly we have…. whatever the ending was! not only did it feel like it came out of left field & was poorly explained, the actual horror was crammed into like 50 pages. cmon it’s a 200 page book you didn’t need to spend 150 pages setting up the end. like if you needed that time to set it up…. make the actual horror element longer? make the book itself longer????????? what are we doing here.

like i still don’t fully understand the ending and the “perpetrator”. bro shit just kept coming out of every where not making any sense. 

plus, when your story takes so long to actually begin the meat of it…. i get bored. like seriously i didn’t need to hear for the umpteenth time that felix & the others are slackers!!! ooooo!! like cmon from the blurb i knew they were dead. you didn’t have to pretend i didn’t know for almost three fourths of this book.

plus the ending……. Huh? like how did they survive…. 

idk man. this book was trying to subvert expectations commonly found in horror stories, and create the perfect “final girl”, but in attempting to do that the actual story itself was not good. charity was characterised super well! but the plot was rushed, poorly fleshed out, and confusing as all hell.

i’m ngl tho even though i just tore this book up i can’t lie and say it didn’t entice me. my ass was sat. esp since a twitter moot recommended it!!!!! like if i could rate the characters? 4/5. some characters fell flat but bro i loved charity. the story? 1/5. in my mind this averages out to my rating. 

hey even if a book is absolute garbage (looking at you twilight) if i have fun it’s going to get a high rating sorry! but as much as i found this fun i cannot look past these flaws. like they bugged me sooooo much reading this. 

i feel like i need a cleansing good horror story after this. i’m gonna have to read fuckjng motherthing or something now like a palate cleanser.