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kaitlynisliterate's reviews
332 reviews
The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert
4.0
I really enjoyed The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert! It was engaging and well-paced with a likable main character, Nora. I’m not sure I would classify this book as horror though but more of a magical mystery/thriller.
The prologue gives this book a strong start by introducing us briefly to the four people who disappear in one night. Considering that the book starts off slowly with Nora only piecing together that four people have disappeared after the first few chapters, the prologue ensures that the reader at least knows that four people have disappeared right off the bat. Nora slowly discovers more about the three people other than her best friend, Becca, and each revelation is spaced out enough to keep me wanting to read more.
The ending is probably the weakest part of the book as we have Becca basically explain her entire side of the story from a hospital bed. The toxic friendship between Nora and Becca remains unaddressed with Nora seemingly forgetting about it with Becca’s return. I wished that Nora had a stronger character arc as I felt like the book was moving towards Nora realizing how manipulative Becca was and how poorly she treated Nora at times. I really disliked how Becca’s trauma was basically used to justify her behavior towards others, especially Nora, and the harm that she caused.
The book also does a pretty bad job of explaining why the entity that possessed Nora was so bad. Obviously, I’m not condoning murder but there’s no reflection on how Becca/the entity literally prevented a school shooting and stopped a child predator/groomer. It's not clear that Becca or frankly Nora really learned anything from their experience or how to deal with evil in the world.
If the ending was stronger and the toxic friendship between Nora and Becca was explored more, I think this could have been 5 stars. As it is, this is a solid 4-star read.
The prologue gives this book a strong start by introducing us briefly to the four people who disappear in one night. Considering that the book starts off slowly with Nora only piecing together that four people have disappeared after the first few chapters, the prologue ensures that the reader at least knows that four people have disappeared right off the bat. Nora slowly discovers more about the three people other than her best friend, Becca, and each revelation is spaced out enough to keep me wanting to read more.
The ending is probably the weakest part of the book as we have
The book also does a pretty bad job of explaining why
If the ending was stronger and the toxic friendship between Nora and Becca was explored more, I think this could have been 5 stars. As it is, this is a solid 4-star read.
Everything We Never Said by Sloan Harlow
2.5
Everything We Never Said by Sloan Harlow didn’t make a ton of sense but was a quick page-turner nevertheless. The story is told from Ella’s POV with occasional chapters from Sawyer’s POV and Hayley’s diary.
I can’t possibly list all the different things that don’t make sense or contradict each other so I’ll just go into a few examples that occur early in the book to avoid spoilers as much as possible.
I was a bit confused after the first few chapters of the book because I was slowly realizing that the blurb for this book includes a straight-up lie. It says “Then the school psychologist requires that Hayley’s closest friends join him for a grief counseling group, and Ella and Sawyer are forced together. After a few sessions, they start to grow closer, until Ella realizes something horrifying…” There aren’t “a few sessions,” there is literally one single session contained within a single chapter and then the grief counseling group is never mentioned again. The grief counseling session isn’t even the first time Sawyer and Ella interact in the story.
The grief counseling session is so contrived and becomes just another thing in this book that makes no sense. We’re told that Rachael is one of Hayley’s friends and that Ella is in Latin class with Rachael. Then, Ella is specifically called out of class to attend this grief counseling session. Only Ella (and possibly Sawyer) was forced into attending the grief counseling session and everyone else volunteered to attend. None of Hayley’s other friends were required to attend and none except Scott chose to. The school administration is apparently keenly aware of who was a student’s best friend and who was simply a regular friend and for some reason is only concerned about providing support for Hayley’s best friend and not for all her other friends. Having this scene make sense would require such minimal changes so it’s baffling why it was written like this.
At multiple points in the story, the reader is told something major about a character to further the plot but it is never mentioned again. For example, after the first day of school, Ella and her mom almost get into a fight over Ella’s decision to quit the swim team. This is meant to show Ella’s family dynamic before and after Hayley’s death and reemphasize how much of a stellar student Ella was. Ella is considered good enough to be scouted by top universities but the decision to quit is never brought up again.
The way that Hayley’s diary entries are written is so unbelievable. No one can write down entire conversations that they’ve had verbatim and from memory hours after the conversation occurred. Yet Hayley’s diary entries consist of basically transcripts of entire conversations including incredibly emotional and intense conversations. After the first two entries, I thought that this was a clue that the diary is fake (like in Gone Girl) but no, it turns out that this diary is real and no one (not even the police) doubts the authenticity of the diary.
The biggest issue I had with this book was the narrative framing of Ella’s role in the accident that killed Hayley. We are told from the very first chapter that Ella is wracked by guilt and blames herself for Hayley’s death yet everyone around her (except Scott but we’ll discuss him later) assures Ella that it wasn’t her fault. While Ella believes that her (and Hayley’s) friends are only being nice to her out of pity but secretly dislike her and don’t want her around, the narrative heavily implies to the reader that this isn’t true.
But in the second chapter, we are told thatElla was drinking while underage at a party before driving and crashed the car with Hayley inside, killing her. Ella has no memories of that entire day so the reader is only told that witnesses from the party saw Ella drinking a beer. We have no sense of how much Ella really drank or what her BAC was. There was this extreme cognitive dissonance in how the narrative expects the reader to feel about Ella’s role in Hayley’s death and the facts that are presented to the reader.
The root of the problem is this: The author already knows that Hayley is not dead (and that Ella was thus not responsible for Hayley’s death at all and should not feel guilty) before the reader or Ella knows. So unintentionally, the author does not have the plot treat the idea that Ella caused Hayley’s death seriously even though from the facts available to the reader and to Ella for most of the story, that’s exactly what it looks like. The story takes for a given that the reader agrees that Ella is too hard on herself and that she shouldn’t feel so guilty before the plot twist happens.
The hoops that characters jump through to justify Ella's drinking and driving are wild. In Hayley’s letter to Ella at the end of the book, she says that Ella was just drinking a Natty Light so it’s no big deal.
Literally, the only person to blame Ella for Hayley’s death is Scott and he is described as annoying and mean for doing so. In fact, at the end of the story, he apologizes to Ella for his behavior towards her. No one else even remotely cares that Ella was drinking before getting into a fatal accident.
On a related note, everyone in this book including all the adults (and the police) has a completely blasé attitude towards straight-up crimes up to and including manslaughter. We are explicitly told that Ella has faced zero consequences for the underage drinking and driving that led to a fatal accident.
When the big plot twist at the end of the book reveals that Hayley faked her death with Sawyer’s help, neither of them even consider that Ella could be prosecuted for Hayley’s death. Hayley’s only concern is that Ella will blame herself for killing her, not that Ella might go to jail. Again, the problem is that the author has unintentionally factored the fact that Hayley is not dead into the plot even though only Hayley and Sawyer (and eventually Ella) are supposed to know that.
On a related note, I just have to mention how completely and totally unrealistic the plot twist is. Firstly, the idea that an actual domestic violence shelter is going to commit a felony (obstruction of justice) on your behalf is absurd. A DV shelter can help you disappear from an abusive partner but not literally fake your death like it's witness protection. Secondly, the idea that Mr. Wilkens’ car hit Ella’s car hard enough to send it in through the barriers and this didn’t leave a recognizable dent/impact on Ella’s car for the police to notice is equally absurd.
Let me end this review with something that I actually liked about this book. If you basically turn your brain off, this can be a quick and fun read. The plot goes pretty off the rails going into the climax of the book and I did enjoythe “good for her” Hayley arc
I can’t possibly list all the different things that don’t make sense or contradict each other so I’ll just go into a few examples that occur early in the book to avoid spoilers as much as possible.
I was a bit confused after the first few chapters of the book because I was slowly realizing that the blurb for this book includes a straight-up lie. It says “Then the school psychologist requires that Hayley’s closest friends join him for a grief counseling group, and Ella and Sawyer are forced together. After a few sessions, they start to grow closer, until Ella realizes something horrifying…” There aren’t “a few sessions,” there is literally one single session contained within a single chapter and then the grief counseling group is never mentioned again. The grief counseling session isn’t even the first time Sawyer and Ella interact in the story.
The grief counseling session is so contrived and becomes just another thing in this book that makes no sense. We’re told that Rachael is one of Hayley’s friends and that Ella is in Latin class with Rachael. Then, Ella is specifically called out of class to attend this grief counseling session. Only Ella (and possibly Sawyer) was forced into attending the grief counseling session and everyone else volunteered to attend. None of Hayley’s other friends were required to attend and none except Scott chose to. The school administration is apparently keenly aware of who was a student’s best friend and who was simply a regular friend and for some reason is only concerned about providing support for Hayley’s best friend and not for all her other friends. Having this scene make sense would require such minimal changes so it’s baffling why it was written like this.
At multiple points in the story, the reader is told something major about a character to further the plot but it is never mentioned again. For example, after the first day of school, Ella and her mom almost get into a fight over Ella’s decision to quit the swim team. This is meant to show Ella’s family dynamic before and after Hayley’s death and reemphasize how much of a stellar student Ella was. Ella is considered good enough to be scouted by top universities but the decision to quit is never brought up again.
The way that Hayley’s diary entries are written is so unbelievable. No one can write down entire conversations that they’ve had verbatim and from memory hours after the conversation occurred. Yet Hayley’s diary entries consist of basically transcripts of entire conversations including incredibly emotional and intense conversations. After the first two entries, I thought that
The biggest issue I had with this book was the narrative framing of Ella’s role in the accident that killed Hayley. We are told from the very first chapter that Ella is wracked by guilt and blames herself for Hayley’s death yet everyone around her (except Scott but we’ll discuss him later) assures Ella that it wasn’t her fault. While Ella believes that her (and Hayley’s) friends are only being nice to her out of pity but secretly dislike her and don’t want her around, the narrative heavily implies to the reader that this isn’t true.
But in the second chapter, we are told that
The root of the problem is this:
The hoops that characters jump through to justify Ella's drinking and driving are wild. In Hayley’s letter to Ella at the end of the book, she says that Ella was just drinking a Natty Light so it’s no big deal.
Literally, the only person to blame Ella for Hayley’s death is Scott and he is described as annoying and mean for doing so. In fact, at the end of the story, he apologizes to Ella for his behavior towards her. No one else even remotely cares that Ella was drinking before getting into a fatal accident.
On a related note, everyone in this book including all the adults (and the police) has a completely blasé attitude towards straight-up crimes up to and including manslaughter. We are explicitly told that Ella
When the big plot twist at the end of the book reveals that
On a related note, I just have to mention how completely and totally unrealistic the plot twist is.
Let me end this review with something that I actually liked about this book. If you basically turn your brain off, this can be a quick and fun read. The plot goes pretty off the rails going into the climax of the book and I did enjoy
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
4.0
The only reason this isn’t 5-stars is because I hate when the main conflict is solved by a special process that we have only just learned about as it’s happening. I want to have at least a shot at guessing at the resolution.
The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher
4.5
Only thing stopping it from being 5 stars is how unbelievably cringe some of the fandom/fanfic stuff is.
The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi
2.75
This was an immensely frustrating read not because it was bad (a 3-star rating for me is pretty decent) but because it felt like there was so much wasted potential.
Many aspects of the book are so good but are weighed down by some baffling authorial choices. For example, Forging, one of the main mechanics of the magic system, is never shown and always happens off-page inexplicably despite it being central to the plot. It's just a baffling choice by the author that is unnecessarily confusing to readers.
Many aspects of the book are so good but are weighed down by some baffling authorial choices. For example, Forging, one of the main mechanics of the magic system, is never shown and always happens off-page inexplicably despite it being central to the plot. It's just a baffling choice by the author that is unnecessarily confusing to readers.
The Teacher by Freida McFadden
4.0
McFadden has finally found the perfect pacing to ensure that the slow reveal of critical pieces of information by the POV characters (who are essentially lying to themselves in their own thoughts) does not feel too frustrating. The twists do not stop coming. There's at least one one every few chapters including a shocking one in the epilogue that I didn't see coming.
Make sure to read the content warnings!
Make sure to read the content warnings!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Infidelity, Pedophilia, and Murder
Moderate: Death of parent
Minor: Alcoholism, Stalking, and Alcohol
Weyward by Emilia Hart
3.0
I don’t mean to be callous but each of these three women experienced the most stereotypical misogynist violence of their time period. Feels like a story you’ve already read many times before.
Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross
1.5
The more that I think about this book, the less I like it (which is a pretty bad sign). The author seems like have liked the idea of the characters being journalists but the characters never actually do their job. They literally never investigate anything or do any fact-finding. Instead, they act more like propagandists for one side of the war.
I thought that once Iris and Roman became war correspondents and saw the horrific reality of war, they would start questioning the behavior of both gods. Iris literally never considers how messed up it is to enchant an entire army into fighting for you. She refers to it as a 'calling' or something but the way that it's portrayed with her brother does not make it seem like its out of their own free will.
The way that war itself was fought was also so strange. Why would there be regular trench warfare against magical creatures?
The story starts to fall apart 2/3 of the way through due to the lack of worldbuilding. Characterization was decent initially, but it feels like the author dropped multiple storylines (eg, Roman's family) just to focus on the romance.
The way that war itself was fought was also so strange. Why would there be regular trench warfare against magical creatures?
The story starts to fall apart 2/3 of the way through due to the lack of worldbuilding. Characterization was decent initially, but it feels like the author dropped multiple storylines (eg, Roman's family) just to focus on the romance.
The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison
4.25
Very strong as a fantasy and pretty solid as a mystery.