carefulfearanddeaddevotion's reviews
155 reviews

 

Eli is so convinced he's the good guy, that he almost could have fooled me during his POV chapters. He's such a well written zealot.

"we could be dead" "that's a risk everyone takes by living" okay Richard Campbell Gansey III. I liked Victor, he's obviously not a good person, and we're told as much, but he's a good character and I like his relationship with Sydney (who I love <3 Mitchell Turner, Sydney Clarke you will always be famous)

don't really have much to say. good book, well written plot and characters, imo did not really need a sequel but Vengeful is already on hold at the library. 

 I fear that every relationship in this book (Astrid/Iris/Claire, Delilah/Astrid, Delilah/Ruby) was more interesting than Delilah/Claire. Especially Delilah/Astrid. During any Delilah/Claire scenes, I found myself wishing for another Delilah/Astrid scene instead. Their relationship was much more compelling imo. I would have enjoyed the book much more had their relationship been the focus instead of Claire/Delilah.

Sadly, I didn't much like any of the characters besides Astrid (well, okay, I guess this is unfair. I didn't hate the characters. I was just disappointed. I almost liked them, and then they went and acted like assholes). Iris is a mean little bitch. Delilah is...I guess more complicated, but still, she has such malicious intent towards Astrid for like basically no reason. Astrid was never mean to her when they were kids, she was also just another grieving kid who didn't know how to reach out to her sister.

Claire was mostly fine(and by this I mean, that I didn't really give a shit about her either way), except in her treatment of Josh. Like I get that there is a history there that I don't know, but from what we're told (and especially, shown), it wasn't that bad, so I guess I found her reactions to him disproportionate. She was just like incredibly mean to him. And like half the reason for it was that every time he showed back up she slept with him and then he left and that devasted both her and Ruby. Like, okay, some personal accountability pls. It was just really hard to buy him as this irresponsible untrustworthy person. I found HER really selfish and controlling re: Ruby. Like ok, I've heard many times that IM immature and irresponsible so I guess I might have projected more onto Josh than Claire, but I guess I didn't really see what was so wrong about letting your ELEVEN YEAR OLD kid, who you haven't seen in two years, stay up until 10 (one hour past her bedtime and on a weekend) to watch a kid-friendly movie. Like? Idk Claire just came off as really controlling and annoying. And also the hijacking of the camping trip really pissed me off and I totally get why Josh (who, frankly, reacted much more maturely than you'd think, based on his supposed characterization) was annoyed.

Having said all that, I did enjoy the book overall, the writing was on a much higher level than most other romances I've read, the plot was fun, if a little lacking in the execution department, and I read the book into the early hours of the morning, which is why it's an almost 4 star read. Also, it's gay, which automatically bumps it up by 1 star. 

i would read a hundred books of just slice of life with these characters i love them so much <3333

????????????

very atmospheric, but that’s about all i got from this book. reading bunny was like having my brain pulled out of my head and wrung out. maybe i just ~didn’t get it~ but i REALLY did not get it. 

overly flowery(?)/metaphorical(?)/confusing(?) (idk what word i wanna use, maybe that’s because Mona Awad stole all of them and put em in her book). 

it just seems like the book wants the reader to think “wow! what an intelligent book and how intelligent am i for reading it,” sacrificing comprehensibility for it. i’m not saying books need to spoonfeed their readers because i hate THAT too but i could have done with like 2% more explanation / clarity. reading this book felt like watching a movie with a (veryy lovely) silk scarf over my eyes. 

sobbed like a little baby, heartbreaking book

 Unsure how this is the same lady who wrote The Long Game. I really enjoyed that book, but the writing in this one was just fuuuucking terrible omg???? Like literally wasn't even 5 pages in and already was dreading having to read the rest of it. Literally was brought to tears (and I'm not being dramatic -- ok well, maybe the fact that I was brought to tears is dramatic, but I am not lying about it happening) by how bad it was. Which is actually really sad and frustrating because I thought the romance was so cute/fun and I liked the characters! It was so obvious from like the very first interaction that that man was like hopelessly in love with her meanwhile she was like "ugh he hates me and I hate him" girl.....Rosie had some sense but miss Lina refused to listen.

Absolutely hated that they said each others' names every sentence. Soo annoying. Which is really my only complaint about the romance itself. I love a (not so) enemies to lovers / fake dating romance. I believed that they fell in love over a weekend,

given that he was in love with her for 2 years, and the only reason she didn't realize her feelings is cause she was holding a grudge (so true of her, tbh)

Small thing to get stuck on, but I hate that she described an (American) football as "melonlike." Has this lady ever seen a football? or a melon???? they're two completely different shapes!!! wtf! google if you're not sure!

This book was a study in gaslighting fr. On one page, Aaron curses. The next page, "Aaron never curses." On one page, Aaron smiles. The next page, "Aaron never smiles." HELLO????? Why are you trying to convince me I'm insane??? This, more than the unnecessary metaphors and run-on sentences (and I love a run on sentence - my reviews are evidence), was my least favorite part of the book.

If the writing wasn't so shit, this book could have easily been a 4. What a sad sad case of wasted potential.

4.5/5

Stevie continues to be my little baby. She's so weird and awk and SMART! Oh I just wanna swaddle her. She's so unintentionally --and also intentionally-- funny (

running away from David???? lmfao!

). 

In contrast, we have my enemy: Nate 👿🤬. He's soooo fucking annoying I'm sorry literally the only reason this book is 4.5 instead of 5 stars. Every time he showed up I'd literally yell at my book for him to go away (let's remember, I never claimed to be sane). He irked me to my very core. Less of him in the next book, hopefully.

God, poor Ellie. To die like that. Fucking horrible.

The whole David/EK/Stevie situation was annoying, I both get and am annoyed by David's reaction to it. Def understandable given the circumstances but I wish he would just forgive her (selfish, ik). There's actually something clinically wrong with that boy -- someone needs to get a therapist involved frfr. But just like Stevie running away, it's hard to fault them for their behavior. They're literally 17.

**spoiler alert** hm. might have spoken too soon. i didn't dislike this book by any means, but i def liked it less than this savage song.

personally, i found Kate and August, together, to be the strongest part of this savage song. For our dark duet to keep them completely apart for more than half the book - why mess with a winning formula. for the first 50% of the book, I really thought i was gonna give it 3 stars, but then Kate and August reunited and it reminded me why i liked the first book so much - but too little too late frankly, especially when the rest of the story didn't really hold up.

1. disappointed we didn't find out why the Chaos Eater was created -- side note: the discussion the wardens had about the monster names made me think, who came up with those names? i didn't give it much thought, but I assumed the monsters themselves had chosen those names-especially since they refer to themselves by them, something i don't think they'd do if humans had assigned those names to them -- i was really expecting to find out that it was Leo and that it was created by a Sunai killing another Sunai.
2. Did I misunderstand a massive piece of lore, or were we not told in the first book that the reason the Sunai go after sinners is so that the monster they created would die with them? is this something i made up? WHY WAS SLOAN STILL ALIVE??????? I swear that Alice, in the last page of the first book, had said there was no heart (in Sloan's chest where one should be), and I was expecting this to be the reason he was alive or that at least we would come back to it. Did I misread?? I really was waiting for this to come back at all in the second book, and it just didn't
3. Why did she kill kateeeee 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 all that fighting to live, those near misses with death, only to kill her????? fuck you victoria. fr. i literally said no so loud my mom asked me if I was alright from the other side of the house.
3b. um the wardens? riley? ok yea august finds those unsent messages, is the implication that he's gonna do anything about them? no, not really. what's going on in Prosperty, more monsters? who's dealing with them? i really wanted a warden (or at least riley)/kate reunion. mostly, i just didnt want kate to die 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
4. was really expecting the sunai's music to play a larger part in the whole chaos eater thing - like maybe they'd be able to separate the light soul from the red soul? idk. i also thought that Kate killing the monster she'd created would clear her soul. that also didn't happen 🥲 and then she died

hm writing this review is really making me think about why i wanted to give this book 3 stars. but like do i care about logic? not really. because i started cheesing the second kate reached the seam and didnt stop until kate died.