celli_taylorsversion's reviews
193 reviews

This book made my Christmas 🎄

This book is dual POV and it follows Aren and Lara. Lara and Aren have arranged marriage, enemies to lovers, AND SO MUCH MORE. I don't remember the plot nor the names of the kingdom but all I can say is I haven't had this much fun with a book in so longgggg (the enemies to lovers is AMAZING and Aren is SO HOT) I'm so glad my dad bought this all the way in his Belgium trip. 

aren you have my heart <33333

i am team seb. thats all i have to say.

Here we follow Williw Fields who is known as - I kid you not - “Queen Weird”  in school (🙄); she wears weird clothes, has weird hobbies, is a weird psychic, and has a weird mom. One day she gives a pyschic reading to one of the most popular girls in her school, Beth, and notices something eerie in her memory. Angels. Beth is convinced that the angel in her memories will bring her good things, however Willow reads that Beth is dying and will die with these angels. Unconvinced, Beth thrusts herself to the Church of Angels (I forgot what you call their church of evil angels). Once Willow follows Beth into the church, she sees these angels and notices that no one else sees these - except one hot boy. 

Sooooo this was published 2010, so we know how it is from there, and I feel like is inspired by the City Of Bones??? I mean, in that time there was a vampire/angel/werewolf craze where all the YA fantasy books were the same except whatever being the main hot male love interest is. This book is the first in a trilogy, and it really isn’t anything new. Except maybe the evil angels that feed on people like vampires part, that was quite interesting. However, it was still enjoyable and I’m looking forward to read the next book! (looking out for the love triangle 👀👀)

This book follows Laylee who is from the magical land of Whichwood with forever winters and the frostiest nights. At the young age of 14, too tender to be this lonely, she works as the village’s mordeshoor. Which is basically prepping the dead for afterlife and skinning them and cleaning their souls (yes, I know). Her hands are tired and her body aching from the work, as well as her hair and the tips of her fingers fading into white as life seeps out of her body. But then, our familiar friends Alice and Oliver show up into her house - uninvited and with no notice - to bring her friendship and life she didn’t know she needed. 

This book was darker than Furthermore and slightlyyy less enjoyable. Mainly because I didn’t care for Laylee and Benyamin as much as I did with Alice and Oliver, as well as the world not being as enticing and magical, in my opinion. The prose and writing was still great, it was just that I didn’t feel the same curiousness for the setting as I did with the first books. This book touched on topics such as grief and death and utter loneliness. However we saw a little bit of romance action going on, obviously it isn’t Shatter Me level tension, it’s a MIDDLE GRADE for crying out loud. My favorite line is from Oliver as he thinks of Laylee, “It would be four years before she looked at him like he wanted her to, four years before she smiled and said, without speaking, that she loved him. 

He would wait four years for a moment that lasted no longer than five seconds; a moment that would change the course of his entire life. 

But for now, he was only fourteen years old.”

This book was just the sweetestttt

We follow Alice Queensmeadow who, unlike everyone else in Ferenwood, she is devoid of color. Her skin and hair is the palest white and the only exception are her eyes, a shade of yellow shy of white. Struggling with feeling loved and accepted in a land where color and magic is vibrant and everywhere, when the time comes where she has to showcase her magic, she fails terribly. Then we meet Oliver Newbanks, this cranky young boy - though we learn later that certainly isn’t the case - who offers to help her with her magic and finding father, as long as she agrees to help him into traveling the unknown land called Furthermore. 

This book was just the best type of adventure and I loveee it. I loved the banter and the bond our two main characters had and I could really see that Tahereh Mafi had so much fun making this book and writing it. Shatter Me was very bleak while this one was very sparkly and shimmer-y, especially in the scenes where we were in Furthermore. So magical.

Wtf.  It felt like watching a reality TV show where rich people are just spoiled and want what they can’t have but when they do get what they want they all of a sudden don’t want it and change their personalities. The series was never necessarily good but it was fairly enjoyable and made sense until the second book. The third and fourth were just borderline ridiculous. The third book was funny, at least, and the fourth one just had nothing happeninggggg but at the same time everything was rushed. Did I enjoy it? Yes. But am I glad it ended? Yes.

I found this book on the table in the bookstore, with a big sign that says SALE and it was literally sold for half the price of a regular paperback, so it was shocking that a good book with a great cover and in hardback was so cheap—anyway, enough of how I bought it.

This book is about Jess and is split into two timelines; one in her freshman year just after losing her dad and the next in her senior year just after losing her girlfriend. The grief that she experienced with her dad was a really sad one, we really didn't get much into how her dad died, but we watched how the grief affected her. She developed these anger issues and is learning how to control herself and cope with her grief in a healthier way by visiting a therapist. The therapist tells her that drawing and doodling would be a really great way, and this is how she finds her passion for art. Then the artsy, enigmatic, girl named Vivi with a beautiful fashion sense walks into her life and helps her feel better about life a little more. Now for the second timeline which is after Vivi's death, we go back to these negative emotions that hit her a lot harder because along with this she's pushing people away, she seems to be bringing the not-so-great people into her life and is struggling with college applications and what is after. Because after for her, is entwined with Vivi, and now that she's gone so unexpectedly, what's next? 

This story was so heartbreaking but at the same time just so sweet. I read a lot of YA books about grief and mental health - because those seem like the only good YA books I enjoy these days - and this one is honestly no different. However, I still very much enjoyed it. In this book, it seems like birds and art are very much a theme because it was such an important part of Vivi and their relationship together and I thought that was really beautiful. This was also the first real sapphic book I read from start to finish and that I own, so it's quite special to me. Jess' character development throughout the book was great and I feel so happy for her. The pacing was also quite nice because we only see her for five weeks after Vivi's death, it doesn't seem like such a short time. And honestly, I'm glad that she doesn't find a new girlfriend by the end of the book (I loved Levi though, he's so sweet, a little shy, but genuine) because YA books do that too much.