pastelwriter's reviews
1099 reviews

This was such a cute volume in this series! 

Aoki keeps being The Drama and chaotic about everything, but he’s truly just so nervous because of his feelings for Ida 🥺 Meanwhile Ida is earnest and honest and has such supportive friends too! I love that he has no qualms being out in the open about his relationship 😭💖

The whole Christmas time scene with Ida and Aoki dressed as Santa while they sold cakes? Adorable!! 

Everything with Hashimoto and Akkun was just a silly old time! Between the nicknames and Hashimoto stepping in when an upperclassman wanted to beat up Akkun… Truly an inspiration 😂👌🏼

And we finally got a love confession from Ida!!!! It took him seeing a little boy be mean to a little girl for him to understand his own feelings…but at least he got there! They’re both on the same page, and it was a super sweet interaction 💖

Another banger from Stephen Graham Jones! I absolutely loved this! It made my heart ache 😭

This was very close to being another perfect book by this author for me. It got super close! It nearly could have beaten The Only Good Indians as my fave book by him, but it didn’t mostly because of a pacing issue. There was a very clear moment in this novel (when Amber and Tolly were testing Tolly’s “abilities”) that dragged on for too long. I literally found myself thinking, “When are we gonna get back to the part about actively being a teenage slasher?” Sure, shortly after I had this thought, we got back to slashing…but I wish I hadn’t thought it at all. 

Apart from that detail, though, I loved this. My favorite thing was the relationship between Tolly and Amber. It was so clear from the beginning how much he loved his best friend. The two of them really had each other’s backs! Amber was a real MVP, and Tolly tried his best to protect her as well. 

Another thing I enjoyed was how scenes that felt like they would be funny in a movie, absolutely emotionally devastated me. Because this novel explores the absurdity and convenience of slashers, there’s several scenes with a funny tone but an undercurrent of sadness because these same scenes are solidifying the horrors Tolly has committed and will commit. It was interesting too because I buddy read this with a friend, and she was laughing at those scenes, while I was holding back tears. We understood why we were having different reactions even as they were polar opposites. 

As a whole, this was a very emotional reading experience for me. Although I must admit that the only characters I truly bothered remembering the names of were Tolly and Amber, they really stuck with me. I think this is precisely because of their close friendship. The strength of it reflected how I feel about my friends. I would do anything for them. Seeing that on the page was painful because of how real it felt. If I knew a friend was doing bad things, I would want to be certain without a shadow of a doubt while also not being able to put a final end to it all because I love my friend too much. 

I just have a lot of feelings 🥺 and I’m glad this was as good as I was hoping it would be!

This was such a fun read!!! I’m so glad I picked this up after the last monster romance I read upset me 😔

I found Sian and Trillin to be adorable 💖 Sure, it was insta-lovey, but I was okay with that. Their interactions were still sweet and entertaining. 

I felt like for such a short novella we got a pretty good amount of information to have a grasp of the world this is set in. This felt like a true sff novel. There was magic, there was travel between dimensions, there were aliens/monsters. It was a great mix! 

I don’t have much to say in general, but I had a genuinely enjoyable time reading this! I definitely want to continue the series 😊

This was another cute installment in this series 💖

The ski trip our main cast went on had me absolutely cackling! Poor Aoki and Hashimoto could not get a hang of skiing and were absolutely being torn to shreds by the instructor 💀 My poor babies! 

I was happy though that this ski trip made it so Aoki put all his cards on the table in terms of how he feels about Ida. And this leads to Aoki and Ida’s first date…which was so cute! Aoki’s whole freak out at having chosen a movie where the dog dies was super endearing! Especially considering he chose the movie because the main dog was the same breed as Ida’s dog. What a sweetheart 💖

Akkun and Hashimoto were going through it though in this volume! Hashimoto finally got the courage to confess her feelings…only for Akkun to be absolutely oblivious 🤦🏻‍♀️ someone needs to share a brain cell with him! He’s a good noodle at heart, but he sure DOESN’T have a way with words. 

Anyway! I’m glad to continue on with this series ✨

I don’t think I’ve ever found a reading experience of a book by Katee Robert so unpleasant 🧍🏻‍♀️

I’m honestly shocked by it. Well and truly! I only had small bursts of enjoyment while reading this. Most of it was dreadful. 

1. The “banter” between Catalina and Thane was irritating. I found some of the lines funny, but most of the time I just thought it was too much. 

2. Thane was incredibly neglectful during the entirety of the novella. He locks Catalina up in a tower and for a week she has no clean clothes or environment and only bread for food. Then for several weeks after that she has a clean environment and better (if boring) food, but she’s completely isolated and only (barely) interacts with three people. When he finally decides to give her the time of day, she still doesn’t interact with more people, and we’ve only added one more to the equation (Thane). If that’s not enough, they start fucking like bunnies and he doesn’t consider contraception at all despite not having a desire for children. It’s all just screw up after screw up after screw up. 

3. Somehow we’re expected to believe that despite all this Catalina and Thane are in love 🤨  I don’t believe it for a second! 

I wanted to love this so bad, but it was far too heavy and messy for a monster romance (and a novella at that!). At minimum this needed to be a fleshed out novel for Thane and Catalina to truly have the space to work through their trauma and still find a way to fall in love. As it is? This was an unpleasant mess. 

This was an absolute rollercoaster. My mouth was gaping open throughout most of it. I have no words! 

If I’m honest, even though I felt bad for Ribbit in The Initial Insult, I had a feeling McGinnis was leading us down the path we ended up in. I don’t mind this because I appreciate having conflicting feelings about the actions of a character. Was Ribbit absolutely deranged and out of pocket in this? Yes. Did I lowkey understand his pyromaniac tendencies? Also yes. He’s the perfect storm of nature vs nurture. Neither of those things helped in raising a stable teenage boy, so he went ahead and cracked. And became obsessed with a teenage girl who didn’t care about him that much. What a mess! 

In this installment I was just fully rooting for Tress while screaming at every chance: GET MEDICAL ATTENTION. My poor girl had an infection that had made it to her blood that had her with a fever, hallucinations, and a sense that she was surely to die. Wow! I mean talk about karma for entombing your ex best friend 💀 Still, I’m glad she got to learn the truth about what happened to her parents and why she’s had so many close calls with death. 

Speaking of what happened to Tress’ parents, I’m so happy we had all (most?) of our loose ends tied! It all made sense. It was all revealed and left me 😱 None of it really felt like it came from nowhere (which I appreciate!) but it was absolutely BONKERS. I was truly left speechless. 

I don’t really know what else to say without spoiling the events of this novel. Just know I really loved this duology because I summarized the plot of book one to one friend, and I summarized book one and two to another friend because I needed someone else to be as speechless as I was 😂✨

Chaehyeon was the absolute highlight of this volume for me! 

Although he initially had me livid by allowing one of his men to SMACK YEO’S HEAD AGAINST A TABLE, I was pacified once Chaehyeon apologized to Yeo. It also helped that he was nice while they were out to dinner, even showing a clumsy side, and that even though he seems to have nefarious intent…he does want to share info with Yeo. In general, I think he brings back the danger in dangerous convenience store. Now we just need to someone to bring back the convenience store 😂

Anyway. I do appreciate that Gunwoo tries to be considerate of Yeo and his needs…in his own way. He'll still wreck that ass and back, but he’ll at least get him pain relief patches and flowers 😂 He also definitely tries to be helpful by taking him to the library, and tries his best to enjoy their date together even when it gets highjacked by Yeo’s friends!  We get some wins in exchange for mercilessly tapping that ass 😂 

I truly cannot wait to continue this series. I’m having a great time!

I’m having a great time reading this series 😂 

My favorite bit about this volume is how we get to learn about Gunwoo. We learn not only how he gets the apartment next to Yeo, but how he starts becoming interested in him. I was super invested in his internal monologue as he tries to figure out why he’s so fixated on seeing Yeo and learning more about him! 

I also am toxic and enjoy some jealousy, and we definitely get some of that in here when Yeo realizes Gunwoo has lipstick on his mouth 😂 It was a whole thing that lead to miscommunication and an extensive car sex scene. Absolute chaos, and I live for it! 

At least in the end we get Gunwoo admitting he’s genuinely interested in Yeo ✨

I can see how this is not for everyone, but I had a great time reading this! I read it in two days, and I think that explains how engaging and easy to read I found it. 

First of all, I fuck with this book because the absolute chaos energy of trying to retell The Cask of Amontillado and The Masque of the Red Death in a YA novel is gutsy 😂 Like, truly deranged to retell a story where someone gets entombed but make it teenagers doing it and experiencing it. It was great!

Honestly, my favorite part about this is that even though so many cruel and unexpected things happen, I can totally see teenagers doing what is done in this novel. Of course there’s things you have to suspend your disbelief about, but at the core of it so much is accurate. The reasoning behind the actions themselves also make sense. That’s what I think makes this novel great! 

Because McGinnis chose to set this in a small town, I also find that Tress, but especially Felicity make a lot of sense in the narrative. Felicity is ultimately a people pleaser who wants to support her mother’s agenda of establishing their family as a respected family in this small community. She often uses inaction in order to passively allow heinous things to happen (despite her disagreement with the actions) because she doesn’t want to risk her social standing. It’s sad, but it’s real. It also makes it very real how she still strongly cares about Tress despite her being at the scene of so many terrible things happening to Tress. The love is still there, but the protection is gone. 

I think the main thing I disagree with some of the reviews is the believability of Tress experiencing remorse for her actions. Some readers think this is unrealistic because of how far she’s already gone, but I don’t think it’s unrealistic. There’s a huge cavern between wanting to harm someone and actually harming someone. There’s also a world of difference between feeling resentful and angry and realizing you’ve done something terrible not only to someone you once (still) loved, but someone who is fighting to tell you the truth because of things they themselves suppressed. None of this is easy, so it shouldn’t be unbelievable that Tress could regret her actions.

Anyway! I had a great time reading this. I’m so glad to have entered my Mindy McGinnis era ✨ As an Edgar Allan Poe fan, I knew reading this as my second McGinnis book was the right choice, and I proved that to be true ✌🏼

P.S. Justice for Ribbit! I sure hope he gets his revenge in book two 🙏🏼 The people around him ain’t shit!

This was completely silly, and I had a great time reading it! I needed another series like this to completely rot my brain 😂

I don’t have much to say about this because it was truly just a silly goofy time. The premise is ridiculous. It’s literally just a guy who works at a convenience store and a gangster that gains an interest in him. Yeo is just intrigued and frightened by Gunwoo, and eventually they fuck 😂 like that’s it. That’s the story. And we learn more about Yeo’s original crush, who ends up being a disappointment. 

Truly, this was exactly what I wanted it to be, so I have no complaints. Just a fun way to kill time 😂👌🏼