ellemaddy's reviews
1094 reviews

 Absolutely loved and cracked up at "Bad Day at Palm Springs". Eve's attitude towards her friends is so relatable to me. She's so funny, I love her!!! 

 just about some of the dumbest, melodramatic, toxic people on earth. it took everything in me to finish it. was it entertaining at times? sure! sometimes you want to watch stupid people fight each other, just not for 400 pages, though! after the first 100 pages i was just over it. 

 This is a book about grief, remembrance, and about aging. All aspects of life that always send me into a spiral of anxieties. I do not relate to this, but I’m afraid I will be. That’s the thing about having anxiety, you can imagine a thousand ways where your life can go wrong and you can imagine it so vividly. It is borrowing fears and grief from the future.
I have so much sympathy for Joan Didion, while i might never know what it is to be a mother or to lose a child, i can still sympathize with her because i have a mother whom i love very dearly.

“She had no idea how much we needed her.
How could we have so misunderstood one another?”

“The ways in which our investments in each other remain too freighted ever to see the other clear.
The ways in which neither we nor they can bear to contemplate the death or the illness or even the aging of the other.”

“The source of the fear was obvious: it was the harm that could come to her. A question: if we and our children could in fact see the other clear would the fear go away? Would the fear go away for both of us, or would the fear go away only for me?”

I really thought that the writing was beautiful. I loved the repetitions, the constant callbacks and the reoccurring glimpses of memories, of objects, of places, of things. It paints such a vivid picture.

“Time passes.
Memory fades, memory adjusts, memory conforms to what we think we remember.
Even memory of the stephanotis in her braid, even memory of the plumeria tattoo showing through the tulle.
It is horrible to see oneself die without children. Napoléon Bonaparte said that.
What greater grief can there be for mortals than to see their children dead. Euripedes said that.
When we talk about mortality we are talking about our children.
I said that”

“In theory these mementos serve to bring back the moment.
In fact they serve only to make clear how inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here.
How inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here is something else I could never afford to see.”

“During the blue nights you think the end of day will never come. As the blue nights draw to a close (and they will, and they do) you experience an actual chill, an apprehension of illness, at the moment you first notice: the blue light is going, the days are already shortening, the summer is gone.” 

 “No Committee of Guardians is going to ration horror, to keep fresh its ability to shock. And the horrors themselves are not going to abate.”

“Someone who is perennially surprised that depravity exists, who continues to feel disillusioned (even incredulous) when confronted with evidence of what humans are capable of inflicting in the way of gruesome, hands-on cruelties upon other humans, has not reached moral or psychological adulthood.
No one after a certain age has the right to this kind of innocence, of superfi-ciality, to this degree of ignorance, or amnesia.” 

 This book feels like it’s building up to something. Not much is happening here, but I’m excited to get into more of it with the next one! 

 Hm.. I don’t know about this one. I’m not sure if it’s the translation or it was the way that it was really written, it just felt really stilted and detached. It’s hard for me to enjoy the prose because this translation is giving me major trust issue.
I think nothing particularly special stands out from the story itself, although I did find the relationship between Shingo and his family quite interesting. Other than that, I really can’t say much about this book. 

 Every conversations Elly had with his Dad make my heart throb and ache. I think this book’s a journey, it’s a moment of change and changes hurt. It was written in this candid, very upfront way. At times it was funny, another time it made me question the writing. But moments of unpolished sentences get interrupted by a surprisingly genuine and relatable musings about life, relationship, and what it’s like being an adult. I think it was charming and sad and wonderful, and again I really love his relationship with his dad, I think those are some of the best part of this book. 

 for now i must sleep but i’ll return with a review!
to summarize, though… I ATE THIS UP!!!!!!!!! 📣📣📣📣📣

OK I now had a proper & good 8 hour sleep so here's an update on this.
2024 is for me to finally unapologetically embrace that yes, yes Ali Hazelwood's books are for me. Like you can literally give me the same book with just the characters' name and the background settings changed and if it's written by her I'd still eat it up. In fact, that's exactly what's happening. Most of her books have the same vibe, pretty much the same type of characters and the same type of story beat and formula. Do I care? Do I give a single living fuck? I truly don't. I think they're fun, they're snappy and they're entertaining! They're good for my health, I think!
In the case of Check & Mate, let's get this out of the way. This is NOT YA. If I read this back when I was 15 I'd think to myself "This is... a bit much". But since now I'm an adult woman well into being practically an ancient relic, I read this and I thought "If this is YA, we are so doomed". This is New Adult, you guys. Let's just put this out there. The sexy scene is fade to black, but that's literally just about it. YA age range is literally from age 12 to 18 and I don't know if this is a book for the 12 year old to read. YKWIM.
Anyway. This book was cute! The MC is the typical smart, gifted, type A kind of character and the MMC is the typical tall, dark-haired, handsome, unsmiling asshole. Ms. Hazelwood reeled it in a little bit with the size kink, which I think is good. Let's not talk about how the MMC is built like a fridge and how teeny tiny the MC is anymore, that's one thing I'm kinda tired of.
You might find Mal as a character to be kind of annoying because this bitch cannot communicate without making everything about her own trauma and shit. If she were to go and seek help to a therapist she'd probably think that everyone else is toxic but then the therapist would tell her that actually, you made all that shit up in your head and the pressure to act this way is all coming from your own unresolved trauma, guilt, and savior complex. Which is like, girl! that's me. Hence why I can relate and also I don't find her annoying. I was just screaming in my head the entire time about how she's so me and about how we're literally the same person and I realize how stupid I am when I try to fix everything and do everything on my own and for making all sorts of assumptions about everyone I'm trying to help. It's exhausting! I get her! So I do not hate Mallory Greenleaf. I tolerate her, at best. But I have a lot of sympathy for her. Also.. she's a traumatized 18 year old. Let her live.
Then comes Nolan Sawyer. I love him. Simple as that. I know that some of you girls hate it when the MMC come into the story and they try to save the girl but I don't hate it. Save me Nolan Sawyer... save me Nolan Sawyer. Wish I had a Nolan Sawyer who would come into my life and fix my shit for me, wouldn't that be great. Maybe in my early 20s I'd be like 'that's so unfeminist of you' but now in my ripe old age, let me tell you, I genuinely wouldn't mind at all. Oh, you're a hot person who loves me and wants to help me (financially and in other aspects of my life?) well.. yes! Come here, bitch.
Also you know that thing Ms. Hazelwood does like when Mal was talking to Nolan's best friend and then she was just yapping and he was like "oh he doesn't stand a chance" and Mal had no idea what he was talking about and YOU as the reader GETS IT. I was like "Oh that's..." then I just started gnawing at my couch like a rat. SHE GETS IT. SHE KNOWS WHATS UP. And then there's the hurt/comfort scene that literally got me running circles in my house. You can give me enemies to lovers and I wouldn't even bat an eye and my cold dead heart wouldn't even warm just a little bit, but give me a sickfic trope and I'd literally start barking, I don't play with this shit.
UGH. what else. THE YEARNING? HIM BEING LIKE "I want you.." OR "I WANT TO PLAY CHESS WITH YOU?" ur probably thinking "what's so great about that" idk, don't ask me. But they do things to me that makes me want to go out there and run a marathon. See what I mean when I say that these books are good for my health???
Ok that's enough craziness. Read this if you like cute romance! If you're a tween maybe don't, though. Even if you don't understand shit about chess (like me), this book would still be enjoyable. Aside from the romance, the relationship between Mal and her family & friends are great. I cried when they had that conflict resolution near the end with her Mom because I can relate to the stuff they're going through so much. And in a typical Ali Hazelwood fashion, Check & Mate was just super highly readable and very quick to get through. So yeah! I think it deserves it's 5/5 because I loveeed it. LOVED IT!

52 Book club prompt 5/#39 Published by Hachette 

I enjoyed it, the lore/world-building/magic system’s still non-existent but I’ve expected that. The book feels more atmospheric than the first one and I liked reading about Roman and Iris. For the most part it was a good conclusion to the story and honestly I have no major criticism for the book other than the very tepid lore. Although I’ll say that this will be a story that I’d likely forget about soon. It was enjoyable! But it’s not impressive! I’ve read better stories! I didn’t hate it, though! Ok.. next!

52 Book club prompt #24 A cover without people in it. 

 A bit convoluted and I’m not gonna lie I was so lost at some parts of this book because I don’t remember shit from the og trilogy (i think i read them like 2 years ago). But this was cute! I really love Wren as a character, I feel so sorry for her, she truly couldn’t suffer more. I think all the supporting characters are charming and Wren & Oak’s interactions are cute. I also enjoyed the character development of Wren!! Overall this was an enjoyable read with lovely, lovely writing!

52 book club’s prompt #15: Part of a Duology