coolcatalycat's reviews
428 reviews

3.5

Lesbian surfers!!!!!!

4.5

I almost gave this a 3.5 because it took me so long to get through and I had no motivation to continue. I swear, I read until I was satisfied with the ending of the last book and then I put off reading it for like I don't know?? 2 weeks? lol. I just didn't have enough motivation knowing what was coming and I was already satisfied so I was like "whats the point?' but then I continued and tried to finish it all in one shot because I wanted to move on to another book and not have this be on my reading shelf for any longer and im so happy that i continued! I don't want to DNF any of the books in this series becasue they are a really nice way to escape and I enjoy them but I think it's the fact that they're so long AND they're fantasy books that make it difficult to get through.

So I continued and I was especially in awe by the last 20-15% of the book. The way the war was written is what made me give this one a higher rating than all the others. This one definitely had much less romance than the others as well. It just pulled me in and then there were moments where I was like :o. the element of surprise always wins me over.

SPOILER ALERT!!! (for the text below)

Mor's coming out scene really touched me. I had suspected it but I didn't know for sure and didn't think too much of it. i think it is so important to show the guilt and shame that comes along with hiding that part of yourself. overall, a beautiful scene and it was one of the many scenes that made me tear up.

I also like the whole Tamlin/Feyre plot in this book. He loves her, clearly, but expresses it in the worst ways. He projects his fears and hurt onto her. Feyre recognizes this & at the end, she says something along the lines of "life is too short to live with hate" and that even though Tamlin has deeply hurt her, she still wishes happiness for him and hopes he can settle the rage within himself. This part of the book also tore at my heartstrings (lol) because as I get older, experience and grow, I recognize lessons like this. You can never change someone else, they have to be willing to do it themselves. Like Feyre says, why live the rest of your short life hating someone for hurting you when it is only a reflection of their hurt and insecurities and not who you are as a person.

it feels like this took me a fucking century to get through.

this series is good, im entertained, but not enough to the point where i feel that need and pull to get back to the book. it sucks though, i truly miss that feeling.

this one was better than the first, because the characters are growing on me. & im loving feysand, im not even gonna lie :p the ending was getting me intrigued and hopefully more ready/excited for the next book.

i miss being sucked into my books, i need it now especially. i was hoping this series would do the trick but i might have to take a little pause and read something else in the meantime… idk
slumps suck when you love reading this much

RR Feb 2023:
I think i'm actually an insane person for putting myself through the pain of this book again. i felt compelled to read it one more time, the way i imagined it, without the live adaptation getting in the way. one more time reading it as aly's version. that sounds absolutely super dramatic but i dont know, i get sentimental with my books. and this one is very special to me, i can't even explain why. and secretly, my "i want to be mysterious and different" personality hates that one of my top books is such a popular one.

I hate this fucking book but I love it. I hate it because the characters are all a mess (except for camila I love her, shes way too good for anybody in here), but at the same time, i cant help but love them. tjr just has a way of making readers actually like unlikeable characters. they're deeply flawed but they recognize that and try to work on it and it's very admirable and you can't help but want to jump in the book and help them or hug them.

this reread consisted of me annotating the shit out of my copy (to the point where its become unreadable) being annoyed with eddie, calling the characters assholes, praising camila and hurting much more than i thought i would considering I knew what was coming. its ironic how my highlighters were very pigmented throughout the whole read but towards the end they were dying out, when everything was going to shit.

anyways, i'm really glad I did this. i will cherish my annotated copy of this and someday will find it and look back to this time of my life, what I felt and how i related to the characters at the time. it's the little things like this that make me happy.

now i'm going to read what I journaled the first time I read this which is actually very exciting

FTR May 2021:
WOW. this book is seriously a masterpiece. i’m ngl, i took a little break from it about 20% in cause i wasn’t in the mood for this style and i really wanted to enjoy it so i started something else for a day and came back to it the next and i seriously couldn’t put it down. it was written so well that i felt like they were a real band and i wanted to hear the music.

music has always been my life, loved everything about it. finding new songs, playing it, singing it, making new playlists. so having a book talking about a band in the 70s??! it’s perfect for me. loved every second of it, the characters were written so well and the story was heartbreaking (was trying not to sob reading it in the car with my whole family) IM EMOTIONAL LMAO

anyways, i could talk about how much i enjoyed this for hours but this would be too long so i’m stopping for now. it’s always the books you think you won’t enjoy that end up being the best ones, i encourage you to pick out a book that you’ve been eyeing but aren’t sure of and READ IT

finally reading this series after hearing about it for so long! this book was a good start to the series, it had an unexpected storyline. literally all I heard about this prior to reading it was fairies, feyre and rhysand. so imagine my surprise when she falls in love with someone named tamlin.. like lmao who tf are you?

like i said, I knew nothing and still know nothing of what's to come but i'm excited to see how this plays out. this book felt like many books merged into one because so much happened, or maybe its because I read it over the course of a couple of days. Tamlin and Feyre's relationship is clearly relevant to the story, even though I know she ends up with Rhysand cause everyone is always talking about him. Even though I'm not rooting for Tamlin and Feyre, I still enjoyed reading about them and i'm looking forward to seeing what will change between them, if they don't end up together. If they were endgame though, I would've felt like their relationship progression was so rushed in this book.

anyways, I like the charcaters so far, there is just missing some sort of depth to some of them, but probably because this is only the first book out of many. i'm actually excited to continue!

also rhysand isn't fooling anyone, I can tell he's secretly mush on the inside lol

4.5

I guess I should’ve read the blurb before reading this because I didn’t know death was involved and it made me sob like a baby

i dont see anything wrong with this book, in fact, i am tearing up right now. so.... 5 stars.

i sped through this in the last 2 days because i could not stop reading. i got sucked into the story, the world, the atmosphere, the writing. everything about it was beautiful. the end came sooner than expected, and when i flipped to the last page, i was surprised and very sad.

i feel as if its very hard for me to be fully immersed in the books I read now, because i just dont connect with them as much. something was calling at me to read this and im so happy i found it second hand and picked it up right after! there was just something about it that i loved so so much, i want to live in these pages. i need more!!

this was beautifully written, i didn't expect the love story to be so beautiful as well. there is just something about books about circuses that draws me in and makes me never want to leave. ive heard people comparing it to the lonely hearts hotel. i feel they're comparable but in their own ways. the only thing that connects them is that they are both about a circus and a love story. so if you've read one, i recommend reading the other. they are both so so good.

couldn't have asked for a better first read of the year. be right back on my way to buy the night circus tarot deck. i need it ASAP.

i’m not adding this to my dnf shelf cause i almost finished it. it’s been too long now that i’ve been reading this