sup3r_xn0va_maya's reviews
370 reviews

💬: “So you're just a quiet, cranky, brooding mountain man?” 
“Something like that.”

Weatherspoon, Rebekah. HAVEN: Beards & Bondage (p. 88). Rebekah Weatherspoon Presents. Kindle Edition. 

📖Genres: erotica, BDSM, romance, contemporary romance, dark, thriller, interracial romance

📚Page Count: 256

🎧Audiobook Length: 07h 28min

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 - 3.5/5 
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TW -

blood, cursing, death, death of loved one, gore, grief, gun violence, hate crime, injury/injury detail, murder, panic attacks, stalking, sexual content, violence

Haven by Rebekah Weatherspoon is the first book in the "Beards & Bondage" trilogy. Haven is about Shep, a grumpy nature photographer who lives out in the woods in Northern California and Claudia, a fashionista from the city. Claudia takes a trip out the Northern California wilderness for a week long get away, but the trip ends in mayhem and Claudia is tasked with trying to survive the night. With no where else to run, Claudia ends up at Shep's door and she's desperate for help. Shep saves Claudia but now both of them are forever changed. To help with the healing process, Shep and Claudia begin a week long sexual relationship, one that includes BDSM session after session. Claudia learns how to be the perfect submissive, and Shep dominates her wonderfully. 

This started off really strong with a thriller element and even though

the thriller element dies down towards the middle of the book

, the book still kept my attention for it's duration. I do think the characters could have had a little more development, but this is an erotica so we got more spicy scenes than character development. 

I'm unsure of how to rate the spicy scenes, they were good but I didn't love them. I appreciated that they used a condom in every scene, because the two had just met. The scenes didn't move me in a way that I wanted them to. Keep in mind that all the scenes are BDSM related in some way. I'm giving it three chilies 🌶️🌶️🌶️ out of five chilies

Overall this erotica was okay, I wish there was a better balance between the romance and spicy scenes. I'm giving this 3.5 out of 5 stars.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 - 3.5/5 Stars

I listened to this on [ChripBooks.com]

💬:N/A

📖Genres: shojo, romance, humor, manga, graphic novels, comics

📚Page Count: 174

🎧Audiobook Length: N/A

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️ 2/5 

TW -

adults having crushes on teens, adults romantically perusing teens

My Love Story!!, Volume 9 by Kazune Kawahara is a shojo humor manga about a Takeo, a high schooler, his girlfriend Yamato, and his best friend Sunakawa. Most of volume 9 is a continuation of the story from volume 8. Volume 9 continues where volume 8 left off. 

Yamato still

has her job at a pastry shop and the 21 year old pastry chief that she works with has a crush on her and he thinks that she is his muse

. This story arc makes me uncomfortable, I think Yamato is 15, 16 at the oldest. I don't think it's appropriate for a 21 year old character to romantically peruse a 16 year old character. 

There is a bonus story near the end of this manga and it was really cute, it was my favorite part of this manga. 

Needless to say, I don't think this manga was as good as the others in the series. Just like volume 8, this volume is not my favorite. I'm giving this 2 stars out of 5.
⭐️⭐️

I read this manga for free on [Libbyapp.com]

💬: “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered into my hair. “There’s the two of us now.” I felt warm, soothed, and safe for the first time in many days."

Gabaldon, Diana. Outlander: A Novel (Outlander, Book 1) (p. 212). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

📖Genres: romance, romantasy, adult, adventure, historical romance, historical, fantasy

📚Page Count: 850

🎧Audiobook Length: 32h 38min

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️ - 2/5
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TW -

ableism, animal death, blood, body horror, cursing, death, death of parent, emotional abuse, gore, grief, injury/injury detail, misogyny, murder, physical abuse, pregnancy, rape, sexism, sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual content, sexual violence, torture, violence, vomit, war

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon is an 800+ page historical romance that has action, spice, time travel, and adventure. Claire is a nurse from 1945 and she's thrusted back in time a few hundred years, where she has to survive until she figures out how to get home. It's here that she meets Jamie, a Scott who wants to show her a love so true. At least she won't have to try and survive alone, with him by her side. I didn't love this story, I barely liked it. Between the weird and slow pacing and the threat of rape being constantly thrown around, by the time the book was over I was exhausted and annoyed from the read.

I didn't like the book's pacing. The book started off really slow, I'd say it took about 2 to 3 hours of listening to the audiobook for the story to actually start moving forward. Once the story started to move, things got interesting and I became invested. Then, I'd say 200 pages into the action, things slowed down to a crawl and I stopped caring about the story. After about 150 pages of the slow crawl, things picked up again. Do you see where I'm going with this? This strange pacing continued throughout the entire novel.

(Trigger Warning  - rape, sexual assault)
The threat of rape was constant from the moment the main character went back in time. I understand that your female main character went back in time, that doesn't mean you have to have every other man she encounters try to physically & sexually attack her. I honestly should have counted the amount of times Claire was threated with physical or sexual harm by a man, there are a few times where she actually IS attacked. Claire apparently isn't the only one who's in danger of being sexually assaulted.

At the tail end of the book Jamie gets arrested and he incidentally ran into Randall, well Randall is an evil man so he wanted to take revenge on Jamie and he does that by mutilating, torturing, and raping Jamie for an uncertain amount of days.

(Trigger Warning  - rape, sexual assault, drugging)
Unfortunately, it gets worse. Now,

by the time Jamie is rescued from Randall at the end of the book, he has PTSD, he's so sick that he might die, and he doesn't want to look at his wife because he feels ashamed and disgusted with himself because of the sexual assault. How do I know this? Because he tells Claire and there's a dialogue about the assault and Jamie tells Claire exactly what was said and done to him. For some odd reason the author decided to make Claire drug Jamie with opium, so he hallucinates, and then she pretends to be his assaulter (Randall) and she says the things he said and then she does the things he physically did to elicit a response out of Jamie. Well, it does get a reaction, Jamie attacks Claire and they go tumbling to the ground (while Claire is getting beat on by Jamie). Somehow, while they're tumbling on the group Claire is able to insert Jamie into her, and now they're having intercourse. Claire "cured him" and helped him claim his "manhood".

OMG. How ridiculous, gross, and unnecessary.

(Trigger Warning - physical abuse, domestic abuse)
The spice fluctuated. At first I was into it but then there was this strange scene where

Jamie physically held down and beat Claire because he wanted to prove to his band of merry men that he was punishing her for her actions. I just didn't understand this scene, it made me sick to my stomach and it made me like Jamie a lot less than I previously did. After that, I wasn't interested in any spice between Jamie and Claire.

I'm giving it one and a half chilies 🌶️.5 out of five chilies

This book also ends in the

pregnancy trope

, and if you know me then you know I hate that trope very much. So, the ending was just disappointing for many reason. I really tried to trust recommendations and then trust the process with this one and that failed me. There were only a few times during the 32 hour audiobook that I enjoyed the reading experience. I just didn't like this book and I won't be continuing with the series.
⭐️⭐️ - 2/5

I listened to this for free on the library app, hoopladigital.com

💬: “By the Light, the dagger really was four thousand years old, and possessed of so much magic that it was almost sentient. That knowledge wasn’t the cause of the sudden cold in the pit of her stomach. The dagger’s owner, the dark warrior with the baritone voice, was still . . . somehow . . . alive. And looking for his blade."

Glass, Seressia. Shadow Blade (Shadowchasers Book 1) (p. 20). Pocket Books. Kindle Edition. 

📖Genres: paranormal action, magic, urban fantasy, fantasy, Egyptian mythology

📚Page Count: 345

🎧Audiobook Length: 09h 05min

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 - 3.5/5 
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TW -

injury, injury detail, blood, death, cursing, grief, violence,

Shadow Blade by Seressia Glass is a paranormal/urban fantasy. The story is about Kira, who is a shadow hunter (beings who fight demons and creatures with chaos energy.) Kira is a shadow hunter by night and an artifact appraiser by day. Her friend brings her an especially rare blade, one that's thousands of years old. Soon the original owner of the blade comes looking for it, and Kira needs to decide if she's going to work alongside them to keep dark forces off of the blade, or if she's going to keep the blade for herself to keep the dark forces at bay, alone. 

The beginning of the book held my attention because it was interesting and action packed. Unfortunately, the middle of the book was very flat. Not much happened in the middle of the book and that caused all the initial steam, from the beginning of the book, to blow out. By the time the end of the book came along, the action scenes picked back up but because the middle had been so slow, I found myself uninterested in the rest of the book. 

Another thing I didn't like was that the antagonist didn't show up until 68% of the way through the book. The main characters talks about the evil forces at work against her and her companions but, I repeat, the antagonist doesn't show up until 68% of the way through the book. 

There was sexual tension, other than that, this book has no intimate scenes in it. I'm giving it zero chilies -🌶️ out of five chilies

I really wanted to love this book but I didn't. I only kind of liked this book, which is disappointing. When this has the action going and everything is exciting, it's good. When this book dials down the excitement for quieter moments, it falls flat. I will continue to read the series until I've completed it. Overall the story was okay, it was disappointing that there wasn't an intimate scene in there. I'm giving this 3.5 out of 5 stars.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 - 3.5/5

💬: “Learning is not just internalizing everything you process. You must be careful about what data you incorporate into yourself."

Cole, Alyssa. The A.I. Who Loved Me (p. 64). Alyssa Cole. Kindle Edition. 

📖Genres: romance, sci-fi, novella, contemporary, adult

📚Page Count: 159

🎧Audiobook Length: 05h 18min

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 - 4.5/5 
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TW -

injury, injury detail, chronic illness, blood, death, cursing, grief, violence

The A.I Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole is a story about a woman named Trinity Jordan who works from home for Hive, a massive government research organization. Trinity is trying to put her life back together after an incident took place a while back, when she meets her neighbors handsome nephew, Li Wei. There are a few strange things about Li Wei, and soon Trinity find out that he's not human, he's actually an A.I or artificial intelligence.

This story started off really cute and funny, I enjoyed the progression from a lighthearted story into something a bit more heavy. While a few plot points were predictable, the story itself as a whole was still enjoyable. I would have really loved if this was a full novel instead of a novella, it would be great to just learn more about this world and to spend more time with Trinity and Li Wei (and also Tim.) The audiobook narration was high quality and some famous actors/voice actors did the voices for some characters, I think it's worth checking as I enjoyed it.

There was one and a half steamy scenes in this book, the big one was really nice. If there was one more full scene, I would have given this 4 chilis. I'm giving it three chilies 🌶️🌶️🌶️ out of five chilies

This was a really cute and endearing story, there were also a few funny parts as well. I'm giving this 4.5 out of 5 stars.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 - 4.5/5 

💬:“& although most people here won’t admit they 
think like me, 
a woman should be able to sell whatever she wants 
to sell. 
But not if it’s at the insistence of a man. This man."

Acevedo, Elizabeth. Clap When You Land (p. 46). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. 

📖Genres: fiction, teens, young adult, contemporary, LGBT, realistic fiction, poetry

📚Page Count: 424

🎧Audiobook Length: 05hrs 32mins

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5

TW -

sexual assault, stalking, parental death, plane crash

Clap When You Land is a young adult fiction story written in verse by Elizabeth Acevedo. This story is heartbreaking and powerful, I cried more than once while listening to the audiobook. This story centers around two teen girls, Camino Rios & Yahaira Rios, who share the same father, but neither knows of the other girl's existence. Suddenly, when their father passes away in a plane crash, the two teens are left to deal with their father's secrets and each other. 

Elizabeth Acevedo definitely has a talent for telling stories in verse, her poetry is always beautiful and it flows so nicely. This story is based on a real life event that took place on November 12, 2001, when a flight taking off for the Dominican Republic crashed after take off in Queens, New York, killing a total of 260 people on the flight as well as 5 people on the ground. More than 90% of the passengers and victims were of Dominican decent. Here's apart of the author's note; 

Overall, I think this story was fantastic, heartbreaking, and moving. I will definitely be reading the rest of Acevedo's work.  I'm going to give this 5 out of 5 stars
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5

I listened to this audiobook for free on [Libbyapp.com]

💬: “When we go wild between the sheets,” he said roughly, “I want you healthy and strong enough that I can bite”—a little nip of her lower lip that made her quiver—“pet”—his free hand stroking down her side—“and take you all night, then come back for seconds.”

Singh, Nalini. Secrets at Midnight (Psy-Changeling Novel, A) (p. 28). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

📖Genres: paranormal romance, romance, urban fantasy, adult

📚Page Count: 93

🎧Audiobook Length: 03h 19min

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 - 3.5/5 

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TW -

death of parents

Secrets at Midnight is a novella by Nalini Singh, it takes place in the Psy/Changeling universe, sometime after Heart of Obsidian. Leopard changeling Bastien and human Kirby end up crossing paths and Bastien is love struck, instantly. I enjoyed this story for the most part because it was really cute, and there was a twist near the end (one that I saw coming, but I liked it all the same.)

There was one spicy scene and it felt rushed and underwhelming. I'm giving it two chilies 🌶️🌶️ out of five chilies

This was an okay addition to the Psy/Changeling world, I think the story was cute. I'm giving this 3.5 out of 5 stars.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 - 3.5/5 Stars

I listened to this for free on the library app hoopladigital.com

💬:“Bia slithered into Joan’s hand, the blade vibrating at the thought of spilling more blood. Joan spread her stance and glanced around the empty street."

Williams, Brittany N.. That Self-Same Metal (The Forge & Fracture Saga, Book 1) (p. 82). Abrams. Kindle Edition. 

📖Genres: fiction, teens, young adult, historical fiction, historical, romance

📚Page Count: 344

🎧Audiobook Length: 10hrs 31mins

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️ 2.75/5


That Self-Same Metal is a young adult historical action novel by Brittany N. Williams. This story has Orishas (or African Deities), acting, sword fighting, fae, and Shakespeare. The main character, Joan Sands, works for William Shakespeare's acting company with her twin brother James. Joan has the power to shapeshift metal (she keeps this a secret from everyone but her family) and she uses that ability to maintain the weapons on the play stage. After Joan kills a high ranking fae and saves a terrible man's son, the action in the book begins to start. (this happens around the 30% mark in the book.)

I found the action to be slow starting, the main plot of the

treaty being broken

didn't occur until around 25% of the novel. I also found the setting to be really boring, unfortunately. Most of the time the main characters are at the acting house or at Joan Sand's family home. I just didn't get that feeling of excitement or even interest while reading this. I only finished it because it was a buddy ready with a friend.

Overall, I think the concept was interesting but I found the execution didn't quite pique my interest.  I'm going to give this 2.75 out of 5 stars
⭐️⭐️.75

I listened to this audiobook for free on [Libbyapp.com]

💬:“...when women didn't cry in their showers, didn't cry at all
for fear of ruining their complexions.
your complexion is already ruined.
what the fuck are you trying to save? ”

White, Ellie. Vanishing Below the Waist (p.07).

📖Genres: poetry, poems

📚Page Count: 34

🎧Audiobook Length: N/A

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75 - 3.75/5


Vanishing Below the Waist is a collection of poems by Ellie White about physical and psychological sexual disorders & dysfunctions in women and non-female folks with vaginas.

This collection was somber but powerful. Someone very close to me has sexual dysfunction and this made me think about her, I even cried while reading some of these poems. These poems were powerful and they gave in a small insight into the pain that these people feel and the struggles that they're going through. My favorite individual poems were "The Spectacle of Craving" and "Everything is so okay."

Overall, I found the collection to be very moving and very sad. I'm going to give this 3.75 stars. 
⭐️⭐️⭐️.75

Thank you [NetGalley.com], the author, and publisher for the arc (advanced reader's copy.)

 💬:N/A

📖Genres: shoujo, romance, humor, manga, graphic novels, comics

📚Page Count: 192

🎧Audiobook Length: N/A

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3.5/5 

TW -

adults having crushes on teens, stalking

My Love Story!!, Volume 8 by Kazune Kawahara is mostly lighthearted like the other volumes in the series. There were definitely some laugh out loud moments, but I didn't like this as much as I liked the other volumes. I tend to not love the volumes with the character Ai in them, because the author likes to focus on that the fact that she, as a college adult student, has a crush on the main character, high schooler Takeo.

In the first part of this manga,

Takeo meets Yamato's family, finally! The second part of the manga is about Ai being followed home for the summer by her college peer, Oda. (I get creepy vibes from Oda, it feels like he's stalking Ai. He definitely won't take no for answer either.)
The third part was about Takeo and Yamato getting summer jobs.

Overall, this manga was okay. It wasn't my favorite, I'm giving this 3.5 stars out of 5.
⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

I read this manga for free on [Libbyapp.com]