abby_ace_of_books's reviews
608 reviews

Yeah, this is going to be occupying half the free space in my brain for the next month and a half at least...

Hazelthorn is my second C.G. Drews book, and it's confirmed the author's spot on my auto-read list. Similar to Don't Let the Forest In, Hazelthorn is a mix of fantasy and horror for a YA audience but with an added focus on a locked-room(ish) murder mystery. I've been really getting into fantasy murder mysteries, and this one did not disappoint. Also...the prose. The style, the word choices, the vibes - it's also beautifully haunting, and I did not want to put the book down.
After the death of Evander's guardian, he is labeled the sole inheritor of the Lennox-Hall legacy: mansion, grounds, wealth, and all...but Evander is convinced that Byron Lennox-Hall was murdered. Evander employs the help of Byron's grandson, Laurie (the very person who tried to kill Evander a few years before), to find the murderer before they come for Evander too. I absolutely loved the vibes of the story, and while I can't say too much because of spoilers...I'm really starting to think I might enjoy horror (at least when it's mixed with fantasy). Surprisingly enough, I managed to call probably the most unexpected plot twist, and I sort of caught the murderer, but that's because the foreshadowing is so well-written and subtle (and I've also played way too many rounds of Betrayal at this point). The botanical horror aesthetics, the touching storylines, the "I'd literally let you consume me" romances - I absolutely loved this book, and I'm already excited for when I reread it (hopefully during spooky season).
I feel like I highlighted half of the dialogue between Evander and Laurie because it was the perfect mixture of banter, angst, and yearning. There's a line specifically that's going to live rent-free in my head forever now (I'll add it below my review because it contains spoilers). I absolutely loved Evander as a character; his journey of self-discovery was so fun, and his emotions were incredibly vivid. I loved Laurie, too, especially with his initially mysterious nature and the playboy vibes I got from him at first. There's so much I want to say about both of them, but you need to experience it for yourself. Also, the romance...I shouldn't adore it as much as I do.
Do yourself a favor and read Hazelthorn...and go into it blind. Trust me.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the free e-ARC!

5/5

(Also, Betrayal haunt with this theme when? Please?)


Spoilers: Read at your own Risk
"'God was stronger than me when he made Adam and didn't fall in love with him.'" Literally stop. I was waiting for this quote - I wanted the rib symbolism so badly - but I'm never going to stop thinking about it now. 

The best way I can describe this book is silly.

I read Matched because my sister said I should, and I decided to go for it because why not...it's not that long, and really, what's the worst that could happen? The answer? I want to know how the story ends, but I do not want to go through the process of reading any of it. Which is why I hope my sister will finish the series for me...
Take every dystopian book you've ever read, pick out the blandest pieces of plot/worldbuilding, mush them all together, and you'll get this book. I almost wish I read this on Kindle because then I could annotate any time the book stole plot points from other popular books (and then I see people reviewing this and saying it's "fresh" and "original" and I almost lose my mind). What's the plot you may ask? The (Secretly Evil) Government decides who you marry. Cassia is given two Boys to pick from: Childhood Best Friend (Blonde) or Mysterious Daddy Issue Neighbor (Burnette). Also, her job is literally to "Sort" things...whatever that means. Most of the book is spent in Cassia's mind as she ruminates over how she should love Xander (Love Interest #1) but she's drawn to Ky (Love Interest #2) because he loves hiking (definitely not a surprise tool that will help us later) and poetry (even though everyone in this world can read but not write...which I don't really understand because you just copy the letters??). The plot only picks up in the last, like, 30 pages, and even then, everyone is incredibly emotionless. The dystopian elements themselves are fine, if a bit unoriginal. I don't think anyone actually starts this book with the idea that the Government is good. The plot is just slow, the commentary kind of bland, and overall the whole book feels like I took one of those green pills before I started it.
As with any popular YA dystopia, there's a love triangle...only this one is pretty clear who the better option is. Cassia is surprisingly like other girls at first, which is kind of bad because her only personality is "I'm in love but I can't be." And then she reveals that she likes poetry and that she wants to learn how to write...and then she isn't like other girls. Xander has about as much personality as a saltine cracker (he's like Mal from Shadow and Bone but 100x worse). Ky was okay at first until Cassia started simping for him 24/7, and then I got annoyed with him by default...sorry dude. He is the better love interest though. None of the other characters matter. Her best friend appears, like, twice and her parents feel like they're on the verge of divorce the whole time.
Look, if you really want to read Matched ... go for it. I could definitely see it being someone's guilty pleasure read. Just don't expect it to knock you off your feet.

2.25/5 

Everyone is lucky that I couldn't annotate my digital copy of this book because there would have been a lot of screaming.

Vesuvius has been on my TBR pretty much since I saw the cover, and I'm so glad I got to read it early because this is the most invested I've been in a book in a while. The world and the characters immediately drew me in, and if I would've had the chance, I probably would have read this book in one sitting. The ending leaves a possibility of a second book, and I would love to read more if the author chooses to continue expanding this into a series.
The story follows two boys living in Pompeii: Felix, a thief who has lost the memories of his past, and Loren, a temple attendant with a penchant for seeing the future...even when he doesn't want to. I found the story pacing to be well-done, although there were a few chapters in the middle where it dragged a bit. I also wish the implications of part of the ending were touched on a bit more, just because it would've had more emotional impact. The story excels at balancing political intrigue with action, romance, and angst. While I did call most of the plot twists, I still found them exciting and looked forward to each chapter. There were some subplots that didn't have the most satisfactory endings, so that's why I'm hoping for a sequel, but I'm still happy with the way the story ended.
The characters were my favorite part of this book. Felix (as most thief-type characters are) was charming and his POV chapters were fun, but I also loved learning about his backstory. Loren was so sweet, but his character arc was so touching. I've seen some other reviews saying he didn't feel as detailed as Felix, but I personally thought he was really fleshed out. Livia and Aurelia were super kind as well, and I surprisingly grew to like Elias by the end even though I didn't like him at first. The villains were cunning, and while there were a few side characters that I thought could've used a bit more personality, I still loved them all. The romance between Felix and Loren was sweet but also angsty, and I really appreciated how they communicated their feelings realistically.
Vesuvius is a YA historical fantasy novel featuring a diverse cast of characters and exciting mysteries and romances, all centered around a volcano on the verge of explosion.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the free e-ARC!

4.5/5 

You could literally just substitute the last 20 pages of this book to the end of book 3 and nothing would change.

I did it. I've finally finished the Miss Peregrine's series with The Desolations of Devil's Acre, and my guesses were correct...this second trilogy was just a money grab. Save your time and money; just pretend book 3 ended how you wanted it to end and move on with your life. If you liked the first three books and want to spend more time with the characters, the second half of the series is decent, it's just not worth it if you didn't love the first three (and when I say love, I mean actually really enjoyed).
I thought given the ending of the last book that this one would be more interesting, but it was quite lengthy compared to the previous one and I felt like it didn't move as quickly as I expected or wanted it to. There were some fun action scenes throughout, and I think the ending was better suited to the series than the ending of book three. However, my main issue is that a certain plot point is introduced that would've been really interesting...should it have ever been touched on again. The author could've branched out in so many interesting ways, but he chose to follow the same formula he's been abiding by since book one, and overall, this book just felt anticlimactic for what was supposed to be book six in a series.
Also, I feel like none of the characters (besides Jacob and Emma) have really been developed. If you're going to present a cast of characters with intriguing powers and backstories, you literally have a million possibilities of what you can do with their arcs...and you choose to let them stagnate. Jacob in this book is the same as he's been since day one: anxiety-ridden, has a hero complex, and loyal to a fault. As much as I didn't love his relationship with Emma, I preferred it to his budding romance with Noor, which feels more convenient and inserted just to eliminate the weirdness between Emma, Jacob, and Abe. Noor was fine, but she adjusted far too easily to the world of the story and I just wish there was more conflict between the characters.
Again, if you didn't absolutely adore the first three books, I wouldn't recommend finishing the series. On its own, The Desolations of Devil's Acre isn't too bad, it's not worth five other books of reading to get to it.

3.5/5 

Not Finn unexpectedly carrying this book for me...

Odyssey is the second book in the Fractured Kingdom series, and I should've known by the title that it was going to be very travel heavy... Luckily, the pacing was still fast enough to keep me on my toes, and the cliffhanger is going to have me waiting rather impatiently for the next one on Netgalley. I've also watched The Princess Bride now, so I understand and agree with the comparisons between the two.
Picking up directly where the last book left off, we start with Persephone and Azriel making a deal with Mordesius: they will search for a legendary healing pool to save Finn...and to fix Mordesius. Persephone and Azriel set off on an adventure searching for this healing pool, and that journey takes almost the entire book. It was a bit less action-packed and exciting than the first book, in my opinion, but it kept my interest throughout and I liked the expanded worldbuilding. At first, I wasn't thrilled about the increased number of Mordesius (and a few other side characters) POV chapters, but I enjoyed the extra time with Finn. Overall, I think this book might suffer a bit from second-book syndrome, but I'm excited for the next one.
This part of the story was definitely meant to develop the characters and their relationships. I felt like Azriel wasn't as important to the plot itself in this book, but his banter was still fun for the most part. Persephone stepped into her role as princess well, and I liked seeing her gain confidence in herself and her identity. I'm interested to see how she'll change with the implications of this book's ending. Rachel is still kind of flat as a character, but there are hints of exciting subplots for her in the future. Finn was my favorite in this book, just because he's decided to take on the mantra "I will cause problems on purpose" and I love that for him. Also, I like how Mordesius is just plain villainous...he has no redeeming qualities and he doesn't shy away from being evil at all.
Odyssey is the second book in the Fractured Kingdom series, and it contains just as much court intrigue, banter, and adventure as the first book.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the free e-ARC!

3.75/5 

This book felt like it was three scenes long, and I know it wasn't, but wow...

The Conference of the Birds is the fifth book in the Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series, and it's also where I left off on my last read-through, so this was a new story for me. Honestly, this series has been kind of going downhill for a while in my opinion, but this book felt like nothing happened?
Picking up where the last book left off, Jacob and his friends are now back in the acre and trying to figure out why the wights wanted Noor so badly. They figure it out relatively quickly, and then suddenly we're in the epilogue... Maybe it was the circumstances in which I was reading this, or maybe I'm just stupid, but I felt like 80% of this book were filler scenes and that only a few actually important things happened. That being said, I felt like the pacing was rapidfire (although that could be me coming off the 800+ pages of Onyx Storm), which was good, I just didn't feel like there was really an important storyline throughout the book. The ending itself was decent, but it definitely didn't make up for the rest of the book.
Also, the characters barely develop in this book. The romance is absolutely horrendous in my opinion, and Jacob hasn't matured, like, at all since book three. As much as I find Noor interesting, she doesn't have a strong personality. All of the other characters aren't really relevant, although I was glad Hugh got a bit more page time. I wasn't super mad that the characters don't have much complexity, I'm just getting tired of them.
The Conference of the Birds is the fifth and penultimate book in the Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series, and while I didn't find it to be particularly attention-grabbing, it sets up for an intriguing conclusion to the popular series.

3.25/5 

This book wasn't even fun to hate...

I'm a certified Fourth Wing hater, to which you may be asking why I forced myself to suffer through all three books. The answer? A mix of FOMO and also, sometimes I like to read things that I know I won't enjoy because I need to direct my anger somewhere and with popular books, the chances of my negative review being seen by the author is very, very unlikely.
Plus, I want to be an informed hater.

This book wasn't even fun to hate. I was admittedly a bit excited going into it because I'd seen people mention it was heavier on the fantasy than previous books in the series. AND I was prepared to defend it from people who said it was too much filler because I just assumed they weren't familiar with fantasy...I was wrong.

I do want to point out that I went into this relatively blind; I reread my annotations/reviews of the previous books and I watched a whole two summaries of them (you should be proud of me for that alone). There's a character list at the beginning of the book that told me absolutely nothing because it contained a whole eight characters...if you're going to include a dramatis personae, at least include all of the characters. I would rather include more characters and forget the stupid fancy graphics.

I've already done a whole lot of complaining, and I haven't even begun to discuss the contents of the book itself yet. Why? Because I retained about 10% of it and the other 90% was pretty much useless.

Basically, the entire middle 600 pages of the book are spent traveling around the world to "find allies" and "look for Andarna's family." This section absolutely did not need to be 600 pages. Do any of the alliances actually work? I'm not even sure because, let's be honest, are any of these "armies" actually going to be helpful? They don't have dragons, they just have foot soldiers that are going to be absolutely demolished the second the step within 100 yards of a venin. I understand that we're at the point in the series where expanded worldbuilding is important, but not when your plot hinges entirely on extremely repetitive "political visits" that almost always end with something bad happening.
Spoiler Warning: we fight some random people and Dain gets beat up...we go visit Xaden's family and Garrick gets poisoned (although Violet finally learned upon the fourth time of being served poison that maybe she shouldn't consume it)...we got to Gambling City and a side character is killed for absolutely no reason besides the shock factor

With the first two books, there were at least a few interesting scenes that I could appreciate. With this book, there were a few tiny details and implications that I was mildly excited for? Namely:
- possible Ridoc corruption arc
- more Aaric page time
- we're no longer hating Dain (although the turnaround gave me whiplash)
- that's it...I thought there was more...but there isn't

The ending? Really anticlimactic and confusing? It might be a me rushing to finish the book thing, or maybe it's me not caring about the book thing, but the last 20% was really boring for an ending to a book.

Also, I know other people have already made the joke about the sheer amount of characters, but my gosh I didn't remember anyone. I don't care about any of the main characters, and the side characters I tolerate rarely ever receive page time.
As it stands, Aaric and Ridoc are the only characters I actually care about. Sloane, too, but she's been irrelevant for forever.
I'm hoping Bodhi is venin and that Ridoc gets a corruption arc.
Everyone else can die for all care (especially Violet because her POV is so bland).

The reason I rated this book lower than the other two even though I didn't hate it as much is for that reason: there wasn't even enough for me to complain about.
In the other two books, Violet and Xaden were extremely frustrating and annoying, the plot was mostly based on miscommunication, and there were so many stupid lines that I could highlight and laugh about because they were so bad.
I don't know what it was about this one, but there just wasn't enough substance for me to make fun of. Violet and Xaden were...surprisingly tame in their lustiness. Violet's stupidity was annoying, but somehow more subtle.
I read this for the purpose of being angry at something productive. This book failed to give me that outlet.

There's probably more I could say about this book, but I genuinely want to forget I ever read it. I'll take notes on it and I'll read the next book, but wow...what a miserable five days of my reading life.

2/5
1 point for Ridoc
1 point for Aaric 

Luc having more fanart than Henry bothers me way more than it should.

I first read The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue in January 2022, and it broke me. I've been meaning to reread it for a while, and I think it honestly hurt more the second time around. This is one of those books that I hope becomes a literary classic one day. I love the style, I love the story, and I love everything about this book. (I literally cried myself to sleep over it last night).
Addie LaRue has made a deal: she will live forever, but no one will remember her. The story itself takes place over the course of 300 years - which is why it's considered a historical fantasy - but there's a focus on the year 2014 because this is when Addie meets a boy who remembers her. There are so many tiny references in this book that I didn't get before, and I absolutely love the tie-in of historical events to Addie's story. The prose is poignant; every word holds weight, and every page invokes emotion. There are so many things I could say about this book, but none of the words I want to use feel adequate to describe it.
The characters make me feel seen. I love Addie's journey and her discovery of what it means to make a mark on the world. I love Henry and how his arc progresses over the story. The book is very much a character-driven story, and there are no other characters I would have rather spent my time with. Their hungers are real and relatable. Their story will haunt me 24/7 for at least the next week.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue has joined my god-tier shelf now, and if you only ever read one book, let it be this one.

5/5 

This book used the word "bicep" 37 times...and also all of my annotations about Jules call him "Lacroix Boy."

Cruel is the Light is a YA urban romantasy hat deals with the Vatican, something I'm not the most familiar with. I'd also like to admit that urban fantasy typically isn't my preferred setting, but I thought that with the focus of the book being exorcists and demons, it might not feel as "urban." Also, my review might be biased because I've been extremely busy lately, so I just want to throw that out there as a reason why I might not have loved this book.
The book follows two characters: Selene - an exorcist living in Rome - and Jules - a French footsoldier fighting demons on a distant war front. Their paths cross after a series of particularly brutal demon attacks, and suddenly they're forced to work together against the supernatural forces plaguing the Vatican city. I found this book to be very trope-y, so readers who enjoy the only-one-bed trope, the knife-to-throat trope, and the faking dating trope might enjoy this book more than I did. While it was supposed to be an enemies-to-lovers story, I found it to be a bit instalust-y (but I'm also not always a fan of romantasy). I enjoyed the action scenes and the unraveling of the mysteries. However, I also found the plot twists to be fairly predictable (I called one of the main plot twists before I even started reading the book). Also, despite the huge chunks of worldbuilding before the story itself even began, I still felt like I didn't have a great grasp of some parts of the world and the plot.
My other big issue is that I wasn't a huge fan of the main characters and their romance. Selene could have been so interesting, but she changed her mind abruptly on things I wished she'd created more tension on. Jules was fine on his own (I've seen a bunch of characters like him before), but I wasn't a huge fan of how quickly the relationship progressed between him and Selene. I really liked the scenes Caterina and Lucia were in; they seem like a super fun duo. Kian reminded me of Boq (I don't know what that means). Sparrow was my favorite character though I don't know why because he also gave me the ick. The villains and the other characters were fine, but no one really stood out to me so I wasn't super invested in anything beyond the mystery elements.
Cruel is the Light is a YA urban romantasy reminiscent of Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunters series and perfect for readers who don't mind certain tropes.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the free e-ARC!

3.25/5 

This book gave major Legend of Zelda vibes and I'm here for it.

The Floating World has been on my TBR ever since I saw the cover, and I was so excited to get an ARC of it that I read it almost immediately. It's a YA fantasy novel that takes place in one of my favorite settings: under and over worlds. There were admittedly a lot of other tropes that I found in this book that I adored as well, and if I wouldn't have been busy with schoolwork, I would've read this in less than a day.
Ren is a performer with a theater troupe, but she has a secret: she has magic. Sunho is a soldier, but he doesn't remember anything about his life besides his brother's name and that a demon lives inside him. After Sunho is hired as a mercenary to find Ren, their paths cross and their journeys become intertwined. The storytelling is extremely fast-paced, and while I called pretty much all of the plot twists, I never wanted to put the book down. My only complaint is that some of the plot points felt a bit convenient (characters just happening to show up at the perfect moment or saying something for the sake of advancing the plot), but that's understandable in YA. The ending engages with yet another one of my favorite tropes (though I can't say what for spoiler reasons), so I'm already excited for book two.
The characters are all incredibly loveable as well. Ren is such an engaging main character to follow because of her compassion and also her unique background and skills as a performer. I appreciated how her performer background helped her in a lot of unexpected scenarios. I loved Sunho because he's just a dozen of my favorite tropes tied together into one character, and his personality really complements Ren. I'm hoping Yurhee and Tag get more of a role in the second book because there were some early found family vibes. Jaeil is the only character I don't love, but he just feels a little too much like Chaol from Throne of Glass for my liking.
The Floating World is a the first book YA fantasy duology perfect for fans of Shadow and Bone and Legend of Zelda.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the free e-ARC!

4.25/5