foiblesandfiction's reviews
462 reviews

 pure quirky anecdotes and like, they're funny but also it's pure chaos. chaos, i tell you. maybe the audiobook is making this annoyingly chaotic and listening like the biggest run-on sentence. 

 this is incredibly boring. maybe if i stuck it out for the long haul, there would be some life-changing piece of knowledge but so far it's just lots of data pieced together to form obvious (to me) conclusions? 

 all hail jenny hickman because she always delivers. the woman promises banter and swoon, and banter and swoon thou shall receive! this book was, of course, no expection.

also, let's please give some kudos to the woman for building an lovers to enemies to lovers with a miscommunication trope thrown in within a NOVELLA. 

 who knew i could be so invested in a story yet not care about it all

like it's good? it's the three star kind of book that's, like, not bad (the writing is solid) but is completely insubstantial. it's a mystery but no sleuthing happens because the couple is too busy getting it on, yet most of the *whispers* boinking happens off page. i'm not really sure what they did for the weeks that this book's timeline covers.

but, it is a perfect spooky season read. while there may be no plot, this book does have lots of pumpkins and cliché witch outfits. 

 i finish this book feeling both heartbroken and enraged.

another supposed horror story that leans its entire weight on villainizing mental illness and, in this case, that of a child, a girl.

fuck you, paul tremblay. 

okay, this book is my biggest disappointment of the year so far.

was it good? yes. it was so good.

but also, as annoying as it is to hear (and say, tbh), this series probably needed to be a trilogy. 

the first book, all of us villains, had such gorgeous prose and eerie atmosphere and world building.  it was one of my top reads last year, and for good reason. i can still pull up mental images from many of alistair lowe's chapters because they read so strongly.

yet, all of our demise had so much plot to get through that it really lacked in all of those things that i loved most from the first book. i absolutely respect both authors and their decisions, and the ending wrapped up well. but this book did not need all of the storylines that it followed - the government involvement, the murders, the "resistance". i don't know if i've ever said this about a book, but i needed more paragraphs that were just mood and vibes.

i also found it incredibly irritating that the characters made so many massive logic jumps with no explanation. like, can someone please get in touch and we can vent about it together? because i am still annoyed.
"i'm not sure what to do, there is no obvious solution to the problem."
"wait, i know what to do"
*does random action*
"it worked!"
okay that's great for gavin and them, but i still have no idea why certain THINGS WERE DONE and IT MAKES NO SENSE.

like gavin throwing the shoes in the fire? why would he think to do that? why would that work? why did it have nothing to do with the pillar?

and hendry's final life magick spell not working? and no follow up? he deserved so much better than that. i'm still mad.

okay, the frustrations are out. let's talk about what was gorgeous about this book because it really was good:
the best ship of all time IYKYK
the discussion of family and legacy
the multi-POV was masterfully done and brought so much empathy to each character
the next generation always fixing their parents' mistakes
alistair, always alistair
the complex ending without everything being perfectly tied up with a bow

overall, this duology is absolutely worth the read. foody and herman are incredible authors who write such real and flawed and wonderful characters, you're going to fall in love with them too. just be ready because this second book is a freakin' whirlwind.

i loved this book so much that i finished it and then that afternoon borrowed the audiobook from the library for a reread.

i'm not super well-read in horror but this has all my fave horror elements so far:
- phobia-based setting
- exploration of grief and trauma
- psychological horror
- unreliable narrator

though this is a five star read for me because of how much i enjoyed the hell out of this story, i do still have to voice a criticism - why go with the romance storyline? *cringe* okay yeah i can see how it worked to show some of the MCs trauma but even that could have been done better through other avenues. it felt completely unnecessary and was a weak way to wrap up the ending.

for fans of into the drowning deep and the luminous dead.

i've had a difficult time gathering my thoughts about this book. about this entire duology, really. the first book changed me a bit, you know what i mean? one day your compass is set to its true north but then you finish a book and it's gone askew. i think that's one of the things i love most about books and story, that you can be on a steady path through life and then a new book can alter the way you move, the way you think, your entire direction. sometimes you feel the shift and sometimes its imperceptible, but it's usually so infinitesimal as to go unnoticed until you realize that your horizon has slid, and maybe this direction is new but it also feels better.

that was forestborn for me. it changed the north of my compass by a few degrees and i felt how precious that was.

so when i was approved for an advanced copy of wildbound, i was a bit scared. it felt too big, which sounds downright melodramatic but maybe not if you have a love for the way that people share themselves through words on a page. or if you have anxiety, like yours truly, because everything seems too big then also. 

but alas, my compass has been left further askew and i couldn't be more grateful for it. wildbound was wonderful. really, really wonderful. the messages of family, friendship, climate change and ecological preservation, identity and healing inner wounds - they're all themes which were laid in the foundation of forestborn and have been expanded into the profound arc of wildbound.

and the character development! the authentic voices in both rora's and helos' perspectives! the emphasis on not just romantic love but also the deep love that intertwines friendships! the highlight of softness within masculinity!

ah, i can't wait to read this duology again.

this was less horror story and more a plot to creatively murder the author's most-hated high school quarterback.

my 90s romcom brain is spinning.

the quarterback invited the author to senior prom but never showed, leaving them to wait by the door all night, boutonnière in hand. ten years later, the author is at their high school reunion furiously clutching a plastic cup of cheap white wine and glaring at said quarterback flirting around the party in expensive slacks.

yet, not in keeping with 90s romcoms, murder is in the air. the author spends the entire length of edwin mccaine's "i'll be" plotting more and more creative ways to cut and gut and burn the quarterback out of existence. what results is this book, tah dah!

of note, if you enjoy reading metaphors folded into an entire thesaurus, this is for you.

also of note, the haunted ghost house's smell is once described as that of cardamom and mildew and menstrual flow. it is never explained why, but one can speculate. i hope this will now haunt you as it haunts me.

the storytelling and pacing is off to my brain. it's odd and not in a good (to me, at least) way.

maybe i'll try again another time.