booksandbraids's reviews
1864 reviews

This book was not nearly as good as the first. The first had all of the world-building to give it at least SOME substance/story. This book was mainly smut held together by the thinnest of plots.

The entire time they were waiting to get Pan his shadow from when it ran away and hid on Hook’s side of the island. In the meantime they slept together in a number of combinations and scenarios. While Pan getting his shadow should have been the dramatic highlight of the book (minus that ending surprise which I will talk about shortly), it felt like the Darling landing Vane was hyped up more. I had actually decided that I was going to stop with this book and not continue on UNTIL that dramatic change of events at the end. It was just too much smut and too little substance, despite the still intriguing concept of the vicious lost boys. 

BUT THEN! But then Darling got the dark shadow. As soon as that happened I knew I couldn’t stick with my previous decision to stop with this book because clearly I need to know how that turns out. So onward I press…

that ending was enough for me to give it a second star. For a majority of the book it was only going to get 1.

Colleen Hoover managed to do it again. I got only 4 hours of sleep last night and woke up with a headache because I spent a significant portion of last night crying over this book. I refused to sleep until I finished it. 

I was actually really nervous when it started out due to

the whole kitten situation. Who feels the need to force kittens upon random people? Don’t they know that kittens would be easily adopted by people who actually want a cat from a shelter? It’s not like she is trying to find a home for an adult cat. And why would this girl accept the cat just to delay paying $250 dollars? The cat is going to cost at least that much if she actually cares for it properly. With initial vet bills, a litter box, and food… apparently she skipped the idea of taking the cat to the vet to get spayed/neutered and it’s shots up to date. Or maybe the lady did all that before giving Kenna the kitten (although she seems way too cheap and uncaring to do that, especially since she clearly didn’t get her cat spayed since she had all these unwanted kittens). 

But anyways, once I got past the stupid kitten plot point, I had to get over my anger at Ledger and Scotty’s parents. It just really pissed me off how much they were fighting Kenna. She was not asking to take the child away from them. She just wanted to meet her. Maybe see her occasionally, but her initial request was just to SEE her. She had never even seen a photo. I understand that Kenna killed their son in a drunk driving accident and made the stupid mistake of leaving the scene while drunk… but Diem is her daughter. She grew the child. She lost Scotty too. Would letting Diem meet and occasionally visit her mother be THAT awful? After all, they know the pain of losing a child from losing Scotty. They were just cruel people for wishing that same pain on Kenna and it drove me insane. But obviously that was the point. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been a story to tell. Everything worked out in the end and I wound up absolutely loving the book.

Below I am going to copy my random commentary that I noted while reading the book…

- 28% I should have a new rule. Never listen to a Colleen Hoover audiobook while at work. Because you will want to cry. And you will have to sit there fighting back tears. My planner November TBR includes three Colleen Hoovers thanks to their availability on Kindle Unlimited and my commitment to a two month trial of it… I am going to be fighting back tears for a solid month. 
- What is wrong with these people. I understand she killed her son in a drunk driving accident and made the stupid mistake of leaving the scene while drunk… but Diem is her daughter. She grew the child. She lost Scotty too. Would letting Diem meet and occasionally visit her mother be there awful? After all, they know the pain of losing a child from losing Scotty. They are just cruel people for wishing that same pain on Kenna. 
- She’s not a fucking murderer. This book is making me angry 
- Roman is the only decent guy. He is the only person with an ounce of compassion and humanity in this situation. “Roman takes a step closer. ‘She’s responsible for the accidental death of someone she was in love with. As if that wasn’t hard enough, she went to prison for it and was forced to give up her own child. She finally shows back up hoping to meet her, and you do God knows what with her in your truck, and then you prevent her from meeting her daughter, and then you tell her to fuck off.’”
- As awful as it sounds, part of me wants Kenna to kill herself just to devastate these people and ruin their lives with guilt. Obviously that won’t happen but they deserve to feel terrible for how they are treating her. 
- How can Ledger describe this situation and still think that Kenna is frolicking around happy with sparklers? He literally just described her either crying or trying not to cry 
- “Here’s the thing. It shouldn’t matter if a mother isn’t perfect. It shouldn’t matter if she’s made one big, horrible mistake in the past, or a lot of little ones. If she wants to see her child, she should be allowed to see her, even if it’s just once.”
- 33% you all say that Kenna is being selfish for trying to become a part of Diem’s life. But really, Diem wants to know her mother. It is Scotty’s parents who are being selfish. They are only considering their own grief and anger. They are not considering what it is like for Kenna OR for Diem. 
- “What would Grace feel if she had to share Diem with Kenna?” You only have Diem BECAUSE of Kenna. You selfish assholes. If Kenna’s rights were reinstated, that would only be fair. You would be grandparents. Like you are supposed to me. 
- 34% really, Scotty wasn’t such a saint. He was a good guy, sure, but apparently he tried cigarettes when he was 13 and got high. None of which make him a criminal, but taken out of context it could make him seem like a bad kid and like he had bad irresponsible parents. He could have easily been the one driving and he could have killed Kenna. The parents probably wouldn’t even care- he would have only killed some trashy bad influence slut of a girl- no great loss. 
- 37% what sort of grocery store has a policy where the baggers are required to take groceries out to customers cars? Sure, it’s a nice thing to offer. But I don’t want to go to a human cashier, let alone have them carry the stuff out to my car. 

And then I got too invested to actually note any additional comments 😅 I will say Thank God for those letters to Scotty or else they would have probably hated her forever.

Average for a Fear Street book…aka not very good. But I’m still determined to read them all! I enjoyed the “twist” in this one.

This third book was significantly better than the second. Stuff actually happened. Decent stuff.

I love that Darling and Vane are splitting the shadow.

I read the No Fear translated version in preparation to see the play performed at the University of Georgia. Normally I would read both the translated and original versions simultaneously, but I needed to finish it fast in anticipation of seeing it performed, and I figured I would be getting the real version as it was meant to be seen when I attended the play.

I went to see the performance just to cross seeing a Shakespeare play performed live off of my bucket list. I did not expect to truly enjoy it- Shakespeare’s language is dense/hard to understand and it was only a college performance.

I was so surprised and impressed! It was actually quite amazing. Professionals could not have done a better job. The set consisted of a number of large rectangular abstract pieces. When I first saw them I thought to myself “wow, this is a low-budget production”. But it worked SO perfectly. The pieces moved back and forth across the stage so that different arrangements portrayed different locations. And the design was actually very pleasing to the eye once everything got going with the actors in front. It paired very well with their costumes which were also great. 

Other aspects were done very simply/cheaply but it worked SO well. I guess if any show was meant to be performed barebones, it is Shakespeare. 

I actually really enjoyed the No Fear translation when I read it prior to the performance- it was probably the funniest Shakespeare comedy I have read yet. But it was so much better being performed. They did SUCH a good job interpreting the script and acting it out. It was SO funny. The Dromios in particular were absolutely amazing. With their wigs and hats, they were very much almost identical. Everyone else did an excellent job as well. 

I will definitely be checking out other performances of Shakespeare to see if all of Shakespeare's plays are better performed live, or if UGA just did a truly remarkable job in this instance.

This was a very quick and humorous read. It reminded me a bit of Erma Bombeck. While it was funny, it was also sort of sad how this poor woman was surrounded by awful people.

Only Richard was decent. I hope they have a happy life together.

My commentary while reading…

- The descriptions of her first husband are absolutely hilarious partly because they remind me of my husband. Who is also neurotic and keeps hamsters. How her friend says that she picked her husband because his neurosis meshed perfectly with hers is such an accurate description of me and my husband it is both hilarious and frightening. Hilarious because it is a thought I’ve had before— this is a much better phrasing of it than anything I had previously used to describe it. Frightening because in the case of this book it is a bad thing… hopefully with us, it is not. 
- “My first husband was so neurotic, he kept hamsters. They all had cute names like Arnold and Shirley. And he was very attached to them. He was always whipping up little salads for them.”
- Mark is a complete asshole. Not only is he a serial cheater who cheats on his PREGNANT wife, he is laughing and doesn’t seem to care about the fact that she was robbed at gun point!!! As a pregnant woman! Wtf is wrong with him. If she goes back to him, she is a moron.

This one was really good! Maybe even better than Tease!

I read this book out of immense curiosity. I kept seeing it mentioned on Bookstagram, so when I committed to a couple of months of Kindle Unlimited, how could I not read it? I was fully prepared for outrageous blue alien smut, but it was actually good! I am intrigued by this frozen alien planet and the people involved. I really thought I would only read the first book and then move on with my life, but I have already started the second book in the series to find out what happens with Liz!

I think I enjoyed this one more than the others. I definitely enjoyed it more than I expected to- I was actually dreading reading this book at the beginning. I had been putting it off since July when I finished the last one. I wanted to read this one only because it was the last book in the series and I felt like I needed to for completeness' sake. 

The summary in the beginning where it straight up went through each character to tell you what had happened to them and what their current situation was was absolutely PERFECT. Since I had been 6 full months since reading the last book, that couldn't have been better. It was so much easier than me trying to remember what happened slowly as the story progressed. 

I don't have any particular complaints about the first 3/4 of the book.

I actually really enjoyed the time jumping to both the future and the past. I enjoyed the time loop. I enjoyed Zila getting left behind and how that revealed the hand she had in everything that had already happened. I enjoyed Tyler and Saedii getting together. I love Magellan. 

The only part I did not enjoy was that the solution was "love". I can understand trying to explain to the Ra'haam why absorbing everyone is bad by infiltrating their mind by becoming one of them, but to sell it as that being "love" as the solution is way too freaking cheesy for my tastes. And at first, I was insanely pissed that Aurora would give herself up to the Ra'haam and that she would abandon Kallis... but then when she gave up her powers and did not abandon Kallis I was okay with it.

Overall, I do not think I would recommend the series. The last book was good, but getting here was not my favorite.