eri_cat93's reviews
263 reviews

I am so sure that if I read this I would like it, but it just didn’t grab me and I found myself avoiding reading (which I just don’t do) so decided to table it for now. 

What a delightful book! Simple & heartwarming, it tells the story of Tova, a widow, befriending an octopus at the aquarium where she works. And the story of Cameron, a 30yo lost soul with the maturity of an 18yo & very little going right in his life. We follow them both as their paths happen to cross and each is at a crossroads of their own. 

With a few laughs and a lot of heart, Remarkably Bright Creatures is a very nice little read. 🐙

Alright, buckle in for my longest review yet. I waited to write/post my thoughts on all of the books in this series until I was caught up & that day has come. 

2.5 stars

Ok look, this is not a good book. 

Hate me if you want, but I said what I said. 

HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean I completely disliked reading it or this series. I love a series, love getting to know characters and living in their world with them. So, while it’s not a good book or well written or compelling or original, it IS readable. 

Now, let’s review. Here’s my not-so-quick synopsis of this story:

First off this is literally just Beauty and the Beast if Belle couldn’t read, and her dad sucked and she had evil stepsisters, and instead of punishment she received a significantly better life and if the Beast wasn’t ugly (just a dick) and if he did nothing to earn her love at all. Oh, and throw an evil queen in there because…who knows why, but she’s here. 

Feyre is just a normal girl who just wants to live with her shitty dad and paint pictures (because she painted one time and that’s the dream) but is instead stuck living with her shitty dad AND shitty sisters. No one else in the house does literally anything at all to help them survive so it’s all on Feyre to provide food, money, emotional support, etc. Oh, and she sometimes gets it on with a random Towny even though they’ll never be together (get it girl, you deserve one half decent thing in your shitty life). 

On a fateful hunting trip, Feyre shoots a wolf and ends up trading its pelt for money her sisters immediately waste. But, what’s this? The wolf wasn’t a wolf at all but a Fae/Faerie in disguise?!? And now a bigger, meaner Fae wants revenge? A life for a life?!? Shit our main character is doomed! 

Nah, she’s just forced to go live in a literal palace with servants and food and nice clothes. Sure, the only other people she sees are the mean Fae and his snarky friend, but it’s better than simultaneously freezing & starving to death. Plus, the mean Fae is probably hot (hard to tell because he is cursed to wear a masquerade mask 24/7) and magically made her family not poor or starving anymore. 

For some reason, our protagonist thinks this is all terrible and really wants to get back to her shitty family – cue a lot of decisions that make no sense at all. Bad decision follows bad decision, culminating in Feyre being told SO MANY TIMES that a whole bunch of faeries are coming over for a big ritual at which she will absolutely be killed (or worse) and she should under NO CIRCUMSTANCES leave her room tonight. So of course, this bitch just waltzes on into the festival. 
As she walks herself right into a real bad situation (multiple males – not men, only males (kill me) – with very bad intentions), a dark figure saves the day by pretending to know her. Our shadow daddy has arrived! But wait, he is also a dick? Hmmm. 

Truly I don’t remember what happened next because it was really boring. Probably more bad decisions, oh and being mad horny for Beast even though he hasn’t done a single thing to earn any affection, let alone lust from her. 

Eventually she somehow gets wrapped up with the Evil Queen who has been tormenting the Faerie world for 50 years. The queen kidnaps the Beast and it’s up to our dumb little human (who has at some point decided she’s in love with him????) to save the day. 

Feyre is unable to solve the world’s easiest riddle and instead must complete three challenges. She is comforted between these challenges by her snarky friend from the palace and confusingly by the shadow daddy, going so far as to make a deal with him just to get out of this mess and back to the Fae she inexplicably loves. 

The one-time Feyre and the Beast finally get to be alone together after MONTHS of torture, they don’t speak, they don’t profess their love, they don’t cry in each other’s arms – they just hardcore make out. At a party. Where they will absolutely be fucking destroyed if they’re caught. So, shadow daddy catches them and makes out with her too – yay, the day is saved! 

Eventually the last test comes along, and Feyre must kill some people to save the Beast – except oh no! She must kill the Beast to save him! Good thing she randomly figures out (based on really no context) that he has a stone heart. So, stab away, he ain’t dying. Also, at some point during this she finally solves the stupid riddle from before – the answer is love (BARF). 

Furious that she’s been thwarted, the Evil Queen kills Feyre (possibly the only exciting part of the book) but our Shadow Daddy and the Beast rally all of their other powerful friends and they bring her back to life! Yay! Except now she’s a Fae?!? And she has to hold up her end of the bargain with Shadow Daddy now that she’s still alive. 

The End. 

 My thoughts: 

The writing in this book is so inconsistent and nonsensical that I wanted to pull my hair out sometimes. Not only are the characters’ actions inconsistent from chapter to chapter, but even physical descriptions change randomly. 

I also really struggled with every motivation the characters had. Feyre is desperate to get back to and save her family despite that facts that (a) they have done absolutely nothing but treat her like absolute garbage for years, (b) Tampon made them all think she’s a-ok and also vastly improved their lives as a result, and (c) she’s living a life of luxury with zero cares in the world. There is no reason for this NINETEEN YEAR OLD (oh yeah, she’s only 19 and everyone else in this book is like 570) to want to go back to her old terrible life. None. Especially considering that her “sense of duty” is based off a promise she made to her dying mother when she was EIGHT years old because even facing death her mom was like “hmm my family sucks, gotta put all the responsibility on this 8 year old”. 

There’s also no motivation for her to have affection, lust, or love for Tampon. He’s at best neutral to her in his terrible attempts at being nice, and at worst basically tells her he would have raped her if she had stuck around at the festival much longer. Her response to this? Swoon <3. So gross. The love story is 100% unearned and completely forced. We see so little interaction between Feyre and Tamlin on the page that I really struggle to understand why anyone was smitten with this love story. 

I could probably write an entire essay about how much the riddle pissed me off. First off, why on earth would Amarantha offer it as an option? She is clearly the queen bitch who only plays games she knows she will win, so offering to give up everything if Feyre solves a single riddle & giving her months to figure it out? Make it make sense. Especially because the riddle is truly so glaringly obvious that I immediately thought that the obvious answer must be a fake-out and the real answer is more complicated! But no, not true. It’s just a big old obvious cliché. The only one of the three trials that was interesting was the Wyrm. I understand why the other two exist (to show Rhys helping her and to show that she figured out the curse) but they were pointless on the page.
Overall, I’m glad that people had warned me that this is not the best book of the series and that it’s kind of just a weird set-up and character introduction. Because let me tell you, if I hadn’t promised friends to read this series I absolutely would not have read past this one. 

If you don’t think about it too hard, or pay attention to any details, or like books with likable characters then this is a fine book. It’s an interesting world that’s been built and there’s a little mystery here and there to draw you in. But overall it’s just not a good story, not well written, and just kind of a let down book with lots of eye roll moments.

I truly think I’m going to have to read this again to know wtf I just read - what I do know is that “I’m thinking of ending things” is a suspenseful, scary, tense story that had me hooked all the way through. Jake is taking his girlfriend (our narrator) home to meet his parents on their farm, an odd visit followed by a strange drive home. 

This book FLIES. Despite being a fast read, it required paying a lot of attention to follow (or attempt to follow) what’s going on. I still don’t think I actually fully understand every part of it despite my best efforts. 

Highly recommend if you enjoy mindf*ck, tense books that keep you on the edge of your seat.

Pun intended - this is a funny story. Truly, I laughed quite a lot reading this lighthearted romance. Unsurprisingly, Emily Henry once again delivered a warm story about heartbreak and the love that can follow. Predictable? Of course. But the characters are lovable, the pettiness & awkwardness are delicious, and the live story is cute (if not also a bit boring admittedly).

I think already knowing the whole story really ruined this book for me. The writing style is chaotic & jarring which, had the mystery been there, likely would have been compelling & grabbing. But knowing the plot & big twist, it just felt disjointed and unnecessarily hard to follow. 

I truly think this is probably a great book if you go in blind, but it left me unsatisfied.

This is also not a great book – BUT it’s a LOT better than the first. 3-3.5 stars

The writing, consistency, predictability, and pacing did not improve. There were, however, a few cool moments that helped to make this story much more interesting than the first, even if it’s still frustrating. 

My not thorough (but still too long, sorry) synopsis of the main happenings: 

Our girl Feyre has not improved or become any more likable or reasonable. She’s ‘happily’ engaged to Tampon now, but is also massively depressed, hates wedding planning, and isn’t allowed to do literally anything at all other than fuck vigorously whenever he wants to. Fey is also dreading the day Rhysand comes to cash in on their bargain for her to spend one week per month at the Night Court – which he has mysteriously avoided and been super quiet about so far. 

As the wedding draws closer, Tammy Boy continues to be a dick and basically isolates her from everyone and everything but him and sometimes Lucien. Feyre FINALLY wises up and gets cold feet on her wedding day, accidently-on-purpose calling Rhysand for help. He pops in and whisks her away for a lovely week in the not-so-scary Night Court. To no one’s surprise, the Spring Court still sucks when she gets home and eventually, she has enough of TimTam’s bullshit and one of Rhy’s friends comes to save her. 

Also to no one’s surprise, she gets better while at the Night Court! And they aren’t all big scary monsters! Except for the Court of Nightmares, they still suck for some reason even though they’re scared shitless of Rhysand because he puts on his mean face when he goes there. Oh and somehow Feyre goes from being 100% illiterate to a fully educated reading level in like….a month…so good for her? Plus she has special powers from all of the high lords who re-alived her at the end of the last book, super special & super unique powers. 

Eventually Rhysand gets hurt and Feyre again SO EASILY catches her buddy pal the Suriel, who reveals that she has magic blood now and also that Rhysand is her mate (cue the word ‘mate’ being used ENDLESSLY for the rest of the goddamned series. We get it.). She freaks out about this and goes to hide out in Rhy’s secret cabin which she spends a week vandalizing before he shows up and she’s like “hmm you right, let’s bang”. 

Also there is a scary Fae King out and about trying to bring down the wall between their world and the human world, and to beat him they have to steal something from the Court of Nightmares, even though Rhys is the High Lord of it and should just be able to…take his things? And the plan to steal it is…for Feyre to be thirsty af? Alright then. They get all of the stuff they need to fight the King and his all powerful cauldron and make a plan to go win the day! 

Eventually they go to beat the cauldron but SURPRISE Tamouflage has been working with the big bad evil King all along! To rescue Feyre from Rhy’s clutches! And for some reason he was also OK with the King kidnapping her sisters to make a point to some other humans that he can turn them Fae…which he does! Oh boy, how convenient for Feyre that now literally everyone she knows is immortal too! She doesn’t have to go back to the human world to be with her shitty family, they can be here with her now! 

But little does Tambrogini know that super conveniently for the plot, Feyre and Rhysand got married off page (because god forbid we get any love story actually happening on the page). Deciding it’s time to fuck up Tamato Soup’s day for being such a dick, Feyre pretends she was brainwashed by Rhysand but is better now and will go with Tator Tot. But poor lil Tammy doesn’t realize that his misogyny is about to bite him in the ass because even though he said she couldn’t be one, Feyre has become the High Lady of the Night Court and will use her not-like-other-girls powers to bring him down from the inside. 

My thoughts: 

How can a 600+ page book manages to make every single important plot point feel rushed? How is this possible? Why do we spend dozens of chapters doing NOTHING or doing/saying the same thing over and over to then fit the entire climax of the story into like 20 pages? Plus, the entire timeline of this book/series is INSANE. In a span of 5 months this woman goes from being a tortured prisoner, to stabbing her lover/stockholm syndrome captor, to getting engaged to him, to leaving him, to madly in love with another dude, to queen of the nighttime. it's SO FAST. 

Once again, Feyre’s decision making is completely unreasonable. I will grant her grace that she is 20 years old, but even at that she’s supposedly been keeping her family alive for YEARS, but she doesn’t have the common sense to see or understand anything going on around her. 

And WHY does she paint the entire cabin?!? This is a super peaceful, meaningful place to Rhysand and his Inner Circle, but she just goes to town on every single wall? I can’t think she’s a very good painter since she’s only been doing it for like…2 months? Plus, she just paints everyone’s eyes super large. So anytime they want to go have special bonding hang out time as a friend group they just gotta deal with this? 

The Court of Nightmares makes no sense at all. Rhys is in charge and everyone is terrified of him, but he also has to still play politics while going there? And sneak around? What? 

The sisters being Made was so annoying. It is such a big part of the future books, but to me it’s completely unnecessary. We didn’t need them in the story beyond this. I would have much preferred Feyre learning to deal with her own immortality through the lens of her human life aging and passing away while she lives on. But no, we’re stuck with a living piece of cardboard (Elain) and teenage angst meets PMS meets sociopath (Nesta) for the foreseeable future in this series. 

As I said, it was better than the first book. But I still really struggled with the writing, overuse of words/phrases, pacing, and overall story arc. 

Interesting/good parts of this book: 

-We love a shadow daddy. I personally do not find Rhysand to be a top tier book boyfriend, but he’s much better and more interesting that Tambourine so I’ll allow it. 

-Rhysand sending her music while she was a prisoner in book 1 is cute AF. Loved it, no notes. 

-Feyre shape shifting into an Illyrian to get Lucien to fuck off was sick, as was our side character shadow daddies showing up on the lake to save her. 

-Amren is intriguing as well – a multiversal God-like figure trapped in this universe for eternity and having escaped the in-world equivalent of Alcatraz? Sign me up. It is notable that nothing exciting happens or is explained about her character in the story overall so far, but she was at least an interesting character introduction in this book.