mayastef's reviews
175 reviews

For a middle book in a trilogy??????? Holy shit? Tracy Deonn I am in need of the next book pls pls 

Absolute banger of a book. Race, grief, identity, love, magic, community, family its a book about so many things that can be so heavy, but the story never gets lost under the weight of the subject matter. The only reason it's not perfect is becasue it was really hard for me to pick up on the structure of the order of the round table at first and how exactly everyone fit in together. It made sense eventually, but I think Bree understands it before the reader gets a chance to (in my case), so I had a handful of confusing chapters before I figured it out. 

The plot of this follows a lot more closely to the show, so i think it was a more boring read for me. Idk i just wasn't feeling motivated to read it . I still have beef with how lucy is portrayed, and I think the root of that is the author being a man because she is a pretty accurate 15-year-old girl (hater to her core) but also, I'm a hater to my core, and male authors take a lot of that heat. 

I was reading in the baroness order and the story failed to really hook me in. I tried to push through but reading out of order makes you feel like you're not really making progress on the book and that's hard when you're already struggling with the pace and content of the story. Maybe I'd try this book again in the future.

I watched the show first so my review is potentially a bit warped (I'm not sure if its for better or for worse).  Love the premise of the books and love these kids trying to get shit done. My only real complaint is that they are like ~15ish years old which means they can be insufferable to each other but that's also a compliment to the author bc he did a great job representing teens.

The trilogy was good, I read all of them but they just were missing a certain je ne sais quoi to me. I think I like my fantasy books with slightly less scheming (or more entertaining scheming really) and a lot more love both romantic and platonic. Overall the series hovers between a 4 and 4.25 stars for me. there are other better books that I've rated 4.25 but there are also much worse books rated at 4 so I'm not sure where this falls for me. I have other thoughts but they are direct spoilers so thats it from me. 

So much scheming and i do love me some scheming but what do I love more? Character development. I feel like I am not getting enough of the characters to fall in love with them but maybe my standards are too high. Honestly the scheming gets exhausting its at a point whre

idk if jude can trust literally anyone at all which is maybe what Holly Black is going for but still IM TIRED OF IT

and its gotten to the point where I am confused about what's going on. Also the enemies to lovers I was marketed is doing a lil too much enemying for my personal taste. 

The YA is definetly YAing here, idk how to explain it. I think I'm on the cusp of finding YA enjoyable/being too old so sometimes i flip flop. In terms of the actual book experience it was a good book that kept me up past my bedtime but I think the characters could have more depth. They aren't shallow per se it is just taking a lot to develop their stories outside of the archetypes each character is slotted into. I'm not sure if that made a ton of sense but basically, the characters are good I just don't feel like the characters outside the main 2-3 have real depth to their stories. 

I didnt love pov of this book it was mildly confusing at times but overall its a solid read. It hit me in the feelings but I think that was more of a subject matter thing not how the subject matter was depicted/described thing. But I cant be certain how much emotional response was personal and how much was from the writing so 4 stars. 

lovely read, follows the structure of a traditional romance book. The writing is solid and i liked the characters and we love queer rep in this house.