bladelikesbooks's reviews
201 reviews

dark informative fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Blood City Rollers is a Middle Grade graphic novel about an ice skater kidnapped and forced to play roller derby for a team of vampires. This was definitely a weird one! The main character is training for the Olympics in Ice Skating when she gets kidnapped by kid vampires and is forced to join their roller derby team. The author very easily breezes over the kidnapping and the MC doesn’t seem to care much about it either.

Despite that, it was quite a fun read. On one hand I enjoyed the explanation of all of the rules of roller derby but it was very heavy info dumping and definitely takes you out of the story. What should be a one-sitting read turned into a 3-sitting read because of the heavy game rule info. I definitely think this would hinder a child’s enjoyment of the book since they’re the intended audience.

I loved the art style and colour palette. The character designs were so cool. The yearbook-style “meet the characters” pages were really cool and had a diverse range of pronouns which was so lovely to see! I think the ending does hint at a second book but I don’t know if the story enticed me enough to continue if it does turn into a series.

Overall, I think this was a very mid read and I do rather enjoy Middle Grade books so it was disappointing. I think the main issue really was the detailed explanation of roller derby rules, it definitely overshadowed the story.

TWs/CWs - Blood, Blood Consumption, Car Accident (past, mentioned), Kidnapping (on-page), Mind Control, Misogyny, Missing Person, Parental Death (past, mentioned), Vomit (mentioned)

Honeybloods by I.S. Belle

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adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Honeybloods is a YA Horror Romance novella about two girls who were once best friends rekindling their relationship to honour a blood vow to hide a dead body and go on a revenge road trip to murder the indie band that turned one of them into a vampire.

After reading Babylove, I knew I had to read every other book by this author and this one definitely didn’t disappoint. Firstly, the cover art is absolutely beautiful, and it’s so nice to see a plus size character actually be represented as plus size in their character art and especially on the cover.

It’s a very quick and easy read with lots of gore, teenage angst and multi-layered characters. Sadie has her own family and personal problems she wants to escape from and uses isolation to protect herself, and Honey, while labelled ‘the typical queen B popular girl’ is struggling with the loss of her best friend and her sudden, non-consensual introduction to vampirism. The girls reconnect to find a way to turn Honey back into a human and along their road trip rekindle their friendship and old romantic feelings for each other resurface.

The main plot is to find the indie band that turned Honey and make them turn her back into a human before the beginning of senior year. I’d definitely say you can tell that this is part of a series because it does feel like an introduction book to a series but I wouldn’t necessarily say that makes the book feel slow paced because plenty happens in this portion of the story. While I did feel like it was fanfiction for Jennifer’s Body, it was still very enjoyable and I think the next book will definitely bring more separation from the movie that inspired it and set it apart as it’s own independent story.. at least that’s what I’m hoping for anyways.

I definitely sympathised with Sadie a lot during this and kind of developed this dislike for Honey considering the way she’s treated Sadie but that’s probably because I related to her so felt very protective over her. In conclusion, this was a really fun story and I’m excited to see where the author takes it next!

TWs/CWs - Alcoholism, Animal Death, Blood, Blood Consumption, Body Horror, Cannibalism, Corpses, Dismemberment, Gore, Murder, Parental Abandonment, Stabbing, Underage Drinking, Vomit

Rep - Bisexual (MC), Lesbian (MC), Plus Size (MC), Sapphic (MCs/SCs)

When I Arrived at the Castle by E.M. Carroll

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challenging dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

When I Arrived At The Castle is an erotic horror about a cat woman who goes to the countess’ castle with murder in mind. The premise of this book and, of course, the sapphic MCs, really attracted me but I actually found it really underwhelming. I originally got the e-book and was so confused when I first read it because it seemed like I was being thrown into the end of a book with no set up and no character development, I thought maybe I got scammed with a bad copy, however I bought the physical and it’s exactly the same content.

So the main character is a cat woman and her aim is to get into the castle and murder the Countess that lives there. Why? Who knows! The book sure doesn’t explain! I have no idea why this Countess is hated by everyone, what she’s done that’s made her such a monster that needs to be killed. There’s a lot of stories within the story that I’m assuming is meant to weave together the over-arching plot but honestly it’s so vague I have no idea what it was going for.

The art is absolutely stunning and Carroll’s command of colour is phenomenal. The mix of gore, violence and eroticism is genuinely exquisite and the colour palette is just amazing. If you’re into books that are simply just vibes then I’m sure you’ll love this but for me it just didn’t make sense for it to be a whole story on it’s own.

TWs/CWs: Animal Death, Blood, Body Horror, Cannibalism, Confinement, Death, Grief, Gore, Injury/Injury Detail, Murder, Sexual Content, Sexual Violence, Violence

If They Come for Us: Poems by Fatimah Asghar

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5.0

Coven by Jennifer Dugan

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3.0

Seoul Before Sunrise by Samir Dahmani

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dark mysterious sad medium-paced