phaedraismyusername's reviews
744 reviews

A satisfying end to a super interesting series. The first book is still the absolute standout for me personally but I'm glad I finished the trilogy and I'm looking forward to picking up Translation State soon 

I have such beef with this author lol. In my experience he has such interesting premises but the execution is nearly always particularly frustrating to read... I may have to just accept they're not the author for me 

Devastated that I didn't love this. 

Decent writing but such a repetitive plot. I wanted more from it 

I really liked the first half of the book, I think the author did a good job weaving the set up and the fairytale vibes together into an intriguing premise, but once the story actually gets to the Other Place and the actual whimsical magic started I quickly lost interest unfortunately because I think what I like about these kind of stories is the ambiguity surrounding if what they experience is actually real (e.g The Wicker King was a 5 star read for me).

Also, these reads very very young. Like, for a group of people supposedly in their mid to late twenties, they all read like 15 year olds and it was super distracting even though I do think the author tries to justify why they might all be somewhat emotionally stunted, I just was not convinced of it by the text lol

This was definitely a book of two halves for me. The beginning felt very slow and a little tedious, even when what the scenes being described were inherently interesting as a time and place I've rarely seen explored in a book before.

My main complaints mostly centre on how much of this read I spent feeling just a little bored, maybe? My eyes tended to wander from the lines on the page and I'd find myself distracted or wanting to put it down between line breaks. It also felt like so much longer than 220 pages lol.

Overall my takeaway from this one is how much I appreciate the project of it all, you can really see how much time and effort was put into the research. The author did a great job in setting this in such a distinct point in time, I love that it all takes place over one day, the humour was a pleasant surprise, and I was mostly satisfied by the ending.

I just know I'm gonna be an outlier on this one lol.

When I say I was obsessed with the start of this book I cannot stress how true that is - I inhaled the first few chapters absolutely convinced this would be 5 stars. Then the pov swapped to the devil.

It should have been, and sometimes was, an interesting perspective. There was a lot put into the concept of the devil as a suffering tormented exhausted being who just does this because he's supposed to because he's condemned to it, and that is a great premise to start this slow burn coming together with Judas as a mirror image of their roles in the narrative of their stories and how they can save each other from their own eternal torments - that premise holds so much potential. 

My main problem was the consistency of the language used, the opening chapters are written very archaically as you would expect from a bible based story, and it was so so good, but then it switches to the devil, an even older being, and yet he frequently sounds particularly modern in comparison which was dragging me out of the story a little. The dialogue as well, it just felt tonally inconsistent in a way I found distracting.

Also the slow burn wasn't slow enough for me, but that's 100% personal taste so neither here nor there really. 

Another thing that is very much my personal opinion based on my history reading fanfiction, but this very much feels like a woman wrote these sex scenes. Now I cannot stress enough that I have not researched the author, I do not know it for a fact, and even if it is a female author I'm not implying that's inherently a bad thing, it's just how it felt to me and it just kept distracting me from being as absorbed by it again as I was in those opening chapters. 

The opening worldbuilding was.. a lot? But girlypop clearly had a vision and was committing and you know what, I respect that, I'm here for a silly goofy time and I can work with this.... then that first real chapter.... woof. 

I hate claiming that someone's writing is bad, reading is subjective (thank god) and my opinion is worth as little as anyone elses, but this is, at best, objectively lazy writing. And this is just the first chapter, arguably the easiest to go back to and rework during rounds of editing, and it still reads like that? 

So yeah I just know I'm not gonna be able to look past it and I'm gonna ruin not only the experience of reading it but also inevitably rate this book low when I finish it and that just feels spiteful so I'm just gonna bow out here and accept its not my jam lol

I picked this up off of someone else's recommendation because Scream is one of my favourite movies but the YA writing style feels very young and it just isn't doing it for me so it's not holding my interest unfortunately

I learned this wasn't a standalone on the very last page so there's that lol.

It being the first book in a series changes my enjoyment of this book somewhat. What I thought was a vaguely ambiguous open ended mystery story is actually a foundation for ongoing adventures and I think it maybe makes me like it a little less? But that I think is very much a matter of personal taste and not a flaw of the book.

The epistolary format is a little tedious in places, especially with such a flowery and formal writing style, and I'm absolutely guilty of skim reading a couple of lore related entries that I just didn't find interesting, but overall I really enjoyed the setting and the concept and it kept me engaged until the end.

I don't know if I'll read the next one because I kind of like the mystery left where it was but I did enjoy the experience overall

I enjoyed this so much more than I thought I would lol. Surprisingly funny