elizlizabeth's reviews
226 reviews

If you ever thought "oh I wish Jane Austen had written urban fantasy", look no further. Delightful, a little absurd, somewhat anachronistic but SMG nailed the tropes and pacing of a period novel.

Interesting. Probably not the book I'd choose to first get into FLW but it's the one I had on hand so. 
A very fair assessment of the architect himself, though at times I would've appreciated a show-not-tell approach with the building descriptions and interpretations. Misogynistic prejudices are prevalent especially on the first chapters that deal with Frank's childhood where the author tries to diminish his mother's influence in favor of the father even though he has little to zero evidence of this.

I was expecting a fantasy comedy with monsters and honestly it only half excelled at comedy and sucked at the rest. The world building had its moments but overall it was shallow and dismissed as soon as the stakes were too high or the MC needed a way out. As for the comedy I could see where I was supposed to laugh but the chronically online jokes didn't land and I'm afraid will only get worse with time. Skipped the smut scenes, first because they were cringe but they quickly devolved into problematic bioessentialism. 
On that matter, for all the author's claims about diversity there were so many questionable choices, especially the slavery plotline. Which you know, if it was just a silly book I wouldn't question much but if you're gonna sell yourself as "diverse fantasy writer" maybe put the work behind the words.

Trope by trope, eeeverything I could want in a romance. Except maybe more gays, but it's got hockey players and they kinda loop around in the macho to homo scale so.

This book answers the question What if Tom Cruise Mission Impossible were a woman? a question that nobody asked but which given how entertaining the result, should've been posed ages ago. 10/10 would watch a movie adaptation.

Perfect romance read! I'm excited to read more from this author.

The characters were interesting, I think the mom could've been more fleshed out as some of her dialogue feels artificial -especially during the third act conflict. Unsure of how I feel about the portrayal of mental illness, but there's definitely worse out there. 
Teen me would've loved it so I would definitely recommend to the age group that it was intended for.

Many comments about female bodies rubbed me the wrong way but I thought it was only the main character being a closeted girlie in love with her best friend for all the Jolene-esque comments that she kept firing. Spoiler alert it's not, and it also barfed some disgusting transphobic and homophobic comments for laughs at which point I was done.
Disgusting, I'll stick with the version of this book that lives in my head.

A bit boring, probably because most of the drama happens in Emma's head. Overall it was ok, I just wish it could've been shorter or had a faster pace instead of shoving all the plot twists on the third act.

Audiobook version is so bad, which is sad because given the text format, it had so much potential. It’s only the main guy voice though, he reads everything in a deadpan way that quickly gets annoying (was this the point?). Footnotes are also read as part of the text, which overall lessened my immersion, as I’m hearing what “kin” means out of the voice of someone who reads LMAO as “le maw”.
That aside, the book is an interesting take on the true crime industry. It shows (exposes?) the many faced masks that “true crime content creators” adopt and is ruthless with every single one of them. The narrative forces you to reconsider as you read on the actual “true” crime so just when you think that you’ve found moral ground, it gets questioned again and again. Goes to show that there’s never a good ”moral” standing point in the matter or, in the words of fictional-disgraced-author Alec Carelli “the snake has eaten its own tail”.
Way to write a flop journalist btw, that guy sucks.