stateofiction's reviews
616 reviews

I'M FINALLY FREE! cannot stand it when books take me so long to finish omg.

this was good and action packed and just as confusing as the first one. though tbh the ending was pretty lackluster

was this dumb and repetitive? yeah? was it also a banger of a good time? absolutely 

this book is written like a fairy tale. that is not a compliment.

I'm currently taking two classes on mythology and folklore, so I've read a lot of different fairy tales this semester. the thing about fairy tales is that they are not good. you read them for the culture or for nostalgia or to see the inspiration for your favorite Disney movie. but my point is that the actual stories and writing are never good. they're simple and short.

this book just reads like one long Grimm's tale, where no characters have personality and you focused way too much on that tree.

disclaimer: I don't actually have much anything good to say about this book.

mind you, I did enjoy this on a surface level, hence the three star. the writing was really easy and enjoyable to read, and I could even find myself rooting for the romance because of it.

.... however.....

Ramon? evil. 

the worst kind of evil, where he doesn't even know it. he keeps saying that women like confident men, so he took that as "I need to flaunt my wealth as much as possible" it is actually impossible to forget the type of car he drives, since you bet it's mentioned every other page. he is a member of a club so expensive you're too poor to even know about it. along with two other country clubs. oh, and he has a beautiful multimillion dollar house on the beach that he is just TOO busy to even enjoy! he shares it with his brothers, but he does want you to know that he could have bought it on his own.

I'm not against millionaire romances, you know? but not like this.

*3.4 average

overall, my main thing is that I purposely waited until fall to read this and it is a very summery horror anthology.

Stay by Erica Waters - 4/5
this one was sufficiently creepy and handled grief in very compelling ways

The Tallest Poppy by Chloe Gong - 4/5
at first I did not know if I was vibing with it (Chloe Gong vibes I guess) but once I had read a few pages I was loving it. this was just like a horror movie in the best way

Loved by All, Save One by Tori Bovalino - 3/5
this one was still really enjoyable but honestly felt rushed and short, even for a short story. also wtf is the title about, did I miss something?

One-Lane Bridge by Hannah Whitten - 3/5
for most of the story I just had this URL in my head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEZfG... 
but then the ending was so bad I just could not forgive it

Ghost on the Shore by Allison Saft - 3/5
SLOW DOWN!!!!!!

Petrified by Olivia Chadha - 3/5
idk the jumping around and all the characters I kept mixing up... not for me

Third Burn by Courtney Gould - 4/5
this one at least actually felt like a short story, which was nice, and I liked the ending

It Stays with You buy Aden Polydoros - 3/5
it's fine. every story is FINE

Truth or Dare by Alex Brown - 4/5
okay this one slayed a little. the way it's written, guys that spell Dylan wrong getting got? slay

The Burning One by Shakira Toussaint - 2/5
I heavily dislike this method of storytelling, so I purposely skimmed

I mean was this the worst book ever like the average rating suggests? no. is it just very average? yes. I feel like I would have liked this more when I was a young teenager, so that is who I recommend this book to.

the book is pretty juvenile and kind of offensively basic writing. but it doesn't take itself too seriously and it's very fast paced

cw: disordered eating as a self punishment

okay so I bought this book in the bargain section without checking reviews first. my bad, won't do that again. listen, I didn't want to be a hater, but this book is not good.

first off, both main characters are insufferable. they're food snobs, but different types of food snobs, but still absolutely insufferable. we have the mmc kicking someone out of his restaurant for asking for ketchup. the fmc assumes everyone is just going to love whatever is put in from of them even if it is not what they asked for, like say, ratatouille with apples for some reason.

along with that, it's dual pov... kind of? other that a select few chapters, all of Julien's chapters are like 2 pages long. all the chapters are short, which is probably why I managed to get through it, but why even include Julien's perspective if you're just going to have him have 2-3 page chapters?

we get to the end, the dreaded third act breakup. Brought on by what? a surprise proposal without literally any other conversation about marriage. yeah OBVIOUSLY she is going to decline!! hello what is wrong with you. red flag red flag.

also the author describes their fuck sessions as "coupling"

okay bye that's all I have to say this book is bad and I didn't even get into the random magical realism.

I'm devastated. nothing about this worked for me. the dual timeline was honestly so irrelevant and only worked to serve the twist. any time something dramatic would happen and leave the chapter on a cliffhanger, the next chapter would say "it's been a week since..." EVERY TIME. by the end, I really just did not care about anything. let me reiterate how upset I am.

this was SO MUCH FUN omg. it wasn't very enemies to lovers, but it was still a great time. can't wait for the next one.