oatmilktea's reviews
118 reviews

4.5

Captivating and… you know. It's very spicy.

It's been a while since I read this so I can't give a comprehensive review. But I remember appreciating that Harry spoke French at court/among knights, and English with his staff and servants. That made my little linguist heart happy.

The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimons

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emotional lighthearted

3.75

Entertaining and sweet.

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

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2.75

Yes, I got that Día de Muertos is three days away, thank you.

I'm not the target audience, granted. But my teenage self would have been bothered by the repetitiveness of this novel as well. I read it because I was happy to see gay trans masc representation and the setting and premise intrigued me. Disappointingly, the entire book felt like exposition.

If you're here for the trans masc rep and gay YA romance, give The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimons a go.

The Whispering Muse by Laura Purcell

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

The Whisperig Muse is a fantastic piece of gothic horror/thriller fiction.

Something always captured my attention: the plot, the plays, the characters, the mystery.

Purcell’s descriptions of the plays and the actors’ performances were concise and easy to picture, yet so vivid and immersive at the same time.

The characters and their relationships are written so well that I was invested from the start. They are fleshed out, flawed, convincing. Jenny, the narrator, isn’t necessarily the protagonist of this novel. To me, in the book as well as the Mercury theatre, Lilith takes centre stage—a complicated, flawed character that I fell more and more in love with. Yet Jenny isn’t just a blank slate; she has agency and a character arc. It’s just that she plays a supporting role in her own story—which I didn’t mind at all. I’m just mentioning it because it stood out to me.

The Whispering Muse leaves me with questions, but not in an unsatisfactory manner. I enjoyed the mystery and the supernatural, and overly explaining them might have done the story a disservice. This is the perfect book to read by candlelight in the colder months. It’s not scary scary, but a little eerie here and there, as well as quite gory. If you love gothic fiction, the theatre and tragedies in particular (and I’m so happy it’s not just Shakespeare in this one!), complicated characters and relationships, especially between women, and a Victorian setting, you should give The Whispering Muse a go!

I’m just a little disappointed that

Purcell buries her gays

Content Warnings

The Binding by Bridget Collins

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Did not finish book.

dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

1.75

DNF at 50 %

The Binding has a promising premise: having your memories bound into books to forget them, the ethics of voluntary and sometimes coerced memory loss, the consequences for the ones whose memories are bound, the abuse of people and books… there are so many really interesting issues that could have been explored. But they were barely more than a backdrop for a romance I wasn't invested in.

The wordy, convoluted writing and slow pace bothered me from the start but I kept going because I was still mildly intrigued by the book binding. Then came the end of Part 1, which, having read the blurb, felt incredibly anticlimactic. And now, three chapters into Part 2, I'm no longer just bored but also annoyed and will read no further.

Other reviews confirmed my suspicions that the plot is leading nowhere, basically. I could have finished it but I don't want to spend another week forcing myself to read. Good thing I can just return this one to the library.

TLDR: convoluted, boring, annoying

Content Warnings