joonswifey's reviews
531 reviews

i wish i were eden

love an alien romance!!!

this book made me extremely emotional, and i grew so attached to every character that i wished so badly for a contrived happy ending, neatly tied up with a bow. this was well researched and engaging, and it tells the story of a very ordinary boy who goes on a trip so extraordinary i couldn’t have dreamt it up myself. it reminded me a bit of water for elephants, and i liked it very much.

there’s a lot i liked about this and a lot i hated. 

liked:
- great writing. immensely readable. i stayed up til 5:30am to finish this because it was addictive and easy to read 
- extremely accurate portrayal of daughter-of-immigrants trauma & parental relationships. honestly might hit too close to home at the moment 
- complex fmc. helen was interesting, even if i didn’t like her 

hated: 
- premise was honestly unbelievable. i’m sorry but you can’t convince me this could work. it’s too twisted. you can forgive him and you can move on but could you really fall in love with him? this is unfortunately coming from a day 1 dramione shipper so my threshold for this kind of stuff is pretty high, and this didn’t sell me. 
- doesn’t really feel like enemies to lovers … the jump from enemies to friends came out of literally nowhere to me 
- i still don’t know why they like or love each other 
- mmc gave me the ick. the marker on thigh scene literally almost made me walk away for good 

i would read something else this author wrote, their writing style is great. maybe i just need a different premise.

the premise was so good for this to be so boring. the ending felt rushed and the characters were complex but somehow still dull. the prose was pretty though. 

i wanted to like this a lot more than i did, but i don’t recall patrick being so unlikeable during the first book. the first 20% and the last 20% were great, but everything else was a bit of a drag. 

this was soooo bridgerton coded omg 

the writing is always fantastic in an emily henry book, so readable and so fluid. she is always so good at her banter and how deeply she gets into the heads of her characters. it’s honestly impressive how well you get to them throughout the course of any of her books. 

however, i think that the level of enjoyment you personally get from an emily henry depends on how much you can understand and relate to the main characters, and i literally hated these people. i actively avoid both of these people in daily life, their trauma genuinely felt over the top, and the male lead gave me the ick from the first moment he was introduced. so sadly, this wasn’t for me, but i hope for all the girlys out there that can relate to daphne, it does what it needs to do 😔✊🏾