expecto_padronum's reviews
142 reviews

Whenever we got a tiny glimpse of the romance it was very sweet but overall it was really repetitive and I double checked to make sure it wasn’t YA bc it felt like it was. I wish the romance and her career stuff was more fleshed out because it felt like she kept complaining about the same things without giving us much info. I guess that’s an accurate portrayal of anxiety spirals but I was hoping for a little more story.

I started playing bingo in my head each chapter to see if she would mention 

1. Grace’s hair 
2. Sea salt & herbs
3. Rosebud cheeks
4. What it means to be a “Porter”
5. “lonely creatures” 

And she pretty much mentioned all of them every chapter. 

would not have picked this up (or finished it) if not for book club. Overall it wasn’t bad but I’m pretty apathetic about it. There were a handful of sexy vampire scenes which were fun, and a few lines here and there that were thoughtful. The POV switch didn’t bother me as much as it seemed to bother other people, I was kind of glad to have more straightforward/modern writing. Some lines really bothered me, like when the vampire said that “she was a widow too, in a way”….. bitch no you’re not. For something to work as a metaphor it has to make at least a little sense. Choosing to kill a guy you had sex with one time for sport does not make you a widow in any sense of the word. Also the ending was a truly wtf moment. I had a hard time sympathizing with either protagonist. 

the plot thickens! While also kind of staying the same because the ending leaves us in pretty much the same situation as the last book

This was fun enough that I’ll probably read the sequels. The footnotes were annoying at times, like I actually do wish your editor didn’t let you keep them all! I do not need to know what B list celebrity each of your characters most resembles. I also didn’t think it was cool of her to spoil 3(!) Agatha Christie novels. Thankfully they were the ones that I read but I would’ve been pretty annoyed if I hadn’t read them yet! Additionally, this was the first time I’ve EVER correctly guessed the killer. Which I think is a combo of me reading more mysteries and this one being a little predictable.  

Cute and fun. Josh was too good for her but I guess that was kind of the point!

Beautiful reflection on her relationship with her mother 

It was fine. Not sure I would’ve finished it if it wasn’t for book club. I struggled to relate to the narrator because what do you mean

you find one guy in the town who knows the town is fictional and you just??? Don’t follow up on that?? I would have annoyed the hell out of Anders and not let the subject rest until I figured out how tf he knew he was in a book when no one else did!!  And you don’t go back to the graveyard, the ONE place you got service, for days???

there were also a couple places where the grammar / sentence setup wasn’t quite right or she straight up contradicted herself a paragraph later and it took me out of the story a little bit.  

Probably my favorite one so far because they finally have FRIENDS! And ending on a cliffhanger! We are leveling up 

Maybe I’m too old to be reading YA because some parts of this were so painfully YA I found myself rolling my eyes multiple times. The story was fine, mildly entertaining. 

Copying and pasting @bridge_overbooked’s review because I feel the exact same way: 

“I had really high expectations for this book and it fell short for me. Butler's exploration of climate change, social inequality, and economic collapse resonates strongly in today's world, but I wanted more background on how those things happened, more regional variation as the group travelled north, and more relation to her hyperempathy. While the book kept me interested, I finished it and ultimately felt like nothing had happened. My favorite thing about the book was Butler's writing style and the journal-based format - I think I was hoping for more plot points and more of a relation to climate change!”