jaysaysnope's reviews
66 reviews

Merry Inkmas by Talia Hibbert

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relaxing fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

2025 is the year of devouring as much romance as I can get my hands on while writing a romcom feature script and then a romance novel. Even romance that isn’t great (Talia can and has done better than this LOL) can be learned from. Lots of coincidences and the homeless man feels more like a vehicle than a character in his own right, but all in all, it fleshes out a full world in which our leads have chemistry.
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Who doesn’t love a novella about a Disney princess being evil, actually? Evocative, poetic language and a horror in the body of a pretty person, what else would we expect from Kingfisher? Gonna try and dig through more of her works this year, what I’ve seen so far has been great. Ooh, a short story collection from her and Seanan McGuire…
Lady Eve's Last Con by Rebecca Fraimow

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adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Imagine it’s the future, but everyone has agreed to behave as if it’s 1923! A lot of well-done world building in this one, but you do have to pay attention to keep up. (Did y’all know that Americans used to use “simoleons” as slang for dollars, and that didn’t originate with The Sims in 2000?) The main pairing has chemistry, and I don’t even hate Ernesto! My main issue was how convoluted the plot got at points. I let a lot more slide in fantasy, but sci-fi gotta come correct.
That Inevitable Victorian Thing by E.K. Johnston

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lighthearted relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

An enjoyable way to pass the time, but had a swift (read: rushed) ending and is ultimately kinda forgettable. The extra 0.5 is for all the fun Toronto/Northern Ontario talk.
Spindle Fire by Lexa Hillyer

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adventurous mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

there’s just no reasoning strong enough in my mind for a sleeping beauty retelling to take more than one novel to cover. none whatsoever. the girls have forgotten the ancient texts! (alix e. harrow books) disappointed by the amount of questions left at the end of this book, and by the way poor
gilbert gets entirely shafted by the narrative. all in all, not enough here for me to return for a sequel, and thus, should’ve just condensed two novels into one. we used to be a country.
Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

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adventurous funny mysterious relaxing fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

epistolary novels are so underrated, and i want them to come back in a big way.

this was so much fun. emily wilde's is an imminently fun brain to hang out in, and i'm very much looking forward to the second book in this series. i will say, i found
the bambleby reveal
underwhelming, especially how soon into the novel it was revealed
(as well as how much of a non-issue it was to everyone around them).
however, i suppose there is something to be said for not dragging out a twist too long.
shadow being a faerie creature, though? that i did not see coming.


my only other complaint is that this book whipped by. epistolary novels, by design, only show you fragments of time already, and i felt like i got even fewer due to the whole
being trapped in faerie for over a month
thing. more entries! more introspection! that's what epistolary novels, and furthermore journals, are for. fingers crossed for a bigger page number in ew2.
So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

can anyone confirm if signey soto is black? just need to know before i decide to stan /j

this book is so much FUN and makes me proud to be a jamaican-canadian mythology nerd. sequel needs to be in my hands yesterday actually.
The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste

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medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
I would definitely recommend that you find incunabula_and_intercourse’s review of this book further down the page, as it is everything I wanted to say myself since about 10% through this debut. 

I wanted to like this book so badly, especially due to the fuckery it went through, but unfortunately I think Baptiste was shafted terribly by her publisher. There are the bones of a fantastic story here, but they’re weighed down by clumsy pacing, inane prose (“a seed of sob” will stay with me for a long time), and convoluted world building. An editor who cared would’ve wrangled this into the story it should’ve been, but unfortunately that was not the editor Baptiste got. So much exposition, and yet so many questions unanswered (Why was Janus never taught to brew, considering brewing is so dangerous that it could kill Venus, the family’s breadwinner, at any time? Why does
Nisha use Prospero as the face of the Golden Coin, instead of fronting it herself?
How did Venus not immediately clock the initials
GWMS
? Or that
the only health potion brewer who has a debt to her family and thus would make her a Sacrificium potion would be Brother Glenn
? Or so many other things that Venus doesn’t realize until it’s relevant to the plot.) Unfortunately, this is a miss for me but I hope to see Baptiste’s next novel get the care and love it deserves.
Delilah Green Doesn't Care by Ashley Herring Blake

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medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.75

Any book that stars a lesbian, but refuses to use the word "lesbian" anywhere in its page number is automatically 2 stars or lower to me, like. It's 2024. Be so serious. (The girls who are bisexual loudly proclaim it, though. Way to contribute to the enmity between lesbians and MGA sapphics, Ashley! /s)
Wash Day Diaries by Jamila Rowser

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funny relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Because this comic is a collection of short stories, it didn’t give me Abrupt Ending Syndrome like most graphic novels I read. The characters were super cute, and their stories were realistic enough that this was an enjoyable way to spend 20 minutes.