simonlorden's reviews
1263 reviews

fake dating, friends to lovers, only one bed, mutual pining, bisexual awakening

Entertaining, cute, and Christmas-y. The second half of the book actually takes place in Australia over Christmas, which means Christmas songs on the sunny beach, which is definitely a fresh experience to me as someone on the Northern hemisphere.

Angela is that straight ally who is a bit confused but she's got the spirit. It explained so much when we learned her backstory, and ouch. She might be a bit cringe, but her heart is in the right place, and she's doing great.

I regret reading this tbh

Roma néphitből származó alakok, szörnyek, lények tára. Így egyben olvasva elég tömény, de nagyon érdekes dolgok voltak benne. A végén lévő színes képek főleg gyönyörűek. A képaláírásokat néha nem értettem, jobb lett volna több magyarázat vagy kontextus. Pl van egy fotó egy idős cigány nőről, és odaírják, hogy a Napkirály felesége... ki mondja ezt? Miért pont ez a kép? Stb.

I had really high hopes for this series, but it's not delivering. Sebastian and Ves should maybe leave investigating to someone who's good at it. In this book, they accuse and physically harm two innocent people wrongly, without properly apologizing or anything. Meanwhile the killer is right in front of them but Sebastian dismisses the suspicion.

Also at the end when they

find the third book and immediately put it in with the others... like, Claude literally told them that's a bad idea. This is gonna bit them in the ass.

A beautiful cover, which made me expect a nice Hades/Persephone retelling, but that's not really what I got.

First of all, Hades/Persephone is really secondary to Hecate/Hermes, which is a very random pairing, and it didn't really convince me tbh. Also, all the gods and goddesses felt more like random humans than actual divine beings, and I was mostly bored throughout the 70 pages.

I'm also not sure why Hecate is celebrating Samhain, or calling herself Persephone's "goddessmother", which is just kinda forced? Especially since Persephone is called goddaughter later.

I wasn't a fan at first because it overwhelmed me with a lot of info on the magic and the workings of the school. I still don't fully understand some bits, but the characters save the day. Orion is like a slightly dumb but very loyal guardian puppy, and he grows on Eli like mold. And what the heck was that ending?? I need book 2 immediately but the library isn't open until monday.

Very cozy and had sweet scenes, but somehow I was more annoyed by Horace's childish excitement and narration style than in the previous ones. I liked the new seaside city's culture differences, though.

Look, first of all: I was annoyed in the previous book, because the last 20% of the ebook was actually an excerpt from the next one, so I felt cheated because the book ended sooner than I expected. I figured that wouldn't happen here, since it's the last book, but instead the last 20% is an excerpt from... the first book?? That I presumably already read??? What even was the point???

So, that annoyed me a lot. But the book itself was great. Ollie's POV alternated with her friends, who were trying to save her. Both were good, but I liked Ollie's parts that went more into the background of the strange carnival and put the Smiling Man in a different light. I also really liked the ending, and especially the Smiling Man's reaction, I think that was neat.

Overall a very good, fun, and creepy middle grade series that is going among my favorites.