skillyillian's reviews
122 reviews

Katherine (Catherine? Idk, it was an audiobook) is the must insufferable bitch I have ever met in a book literally ever, she's a spoiled rotten brat and the main character and her husband must have been absolutely shite parents to let their daughter turn out this way. I actually do like the main character and the humor in this book is actually not bad but oh my god if I have to listen to that lunatic berate strangers with a photo of her missing dad for one more minute I'm going to lose my mind. I finally found someone who swears too much for my taste, which I never ever thought would happen. But Katherine is just too much, in every sense of the word. It's a wonder Claire stayed with her for more than three minutes. It's a wonder Katherine isn't banned from every building she's ever set foot in. And it's an absolute miracle she's not locked up with multiple felony charges under her belt. I want to finish this book but I can't stand Katherine anymore. I just can't. She bullies everyone she meets and her mom just sits there and lets it happen the entire time. Absolutely no backbone. I'm sorry but I genuinely hate katherine. I know she's not meant to be likable but somebody needs to just smack her or something. She's a fucking menace

This is a proselytizing murder mystery with " written by a Christian homeschool mom" vibes. I appreciate the respect the author attempted to pay to mental health and people who deal with things like schizophrenia. That being said, it's hard to take literally anything seriously when gruesome murders are happening and characters are responding with exclamations you'd hear from a third grader in the 1950s like "holy buckets!" And "what the what?!" I just had to roll my eyes. 

The dual timeline thing was really cool, the writing itself isn't bad, but by the end of the book, every single character was getting preachy and "god will fix this for us" and just. It was too much. I'm not religious, but I don't mind people acknowledging their religion in their writing. But this was too much. If you're into Christian literature then this would be a great choice. The final plot twist or two felt out of pocket but the mystery overall was decent. But uhhhh. Yeah. Too much proselytizing and weird non-swears.

Oh it's just as fun as the movie, I loved every minute of this. 

i loved this. i absolutely ripped through it as fast as i could. this is no surprise, V is my favorite author after all, but it's still worth saying. this is peak V.E. Schwab, with the graphic parts toned down a bit for the YA audience, but in a way that you don't feel like you're missing out on anything. her characters are unique and funny and believable and consistent. i love seeing what mackenzie (hopefully i spelled that right, i did audiobooks for these) values most and how it affects her decision making. the emo boy absolutely would've done me in when i was in high school lmfao. he's a goober and i love how hard he's trying for mackenzie in this book. i love them working together. just, a great book, and very fun.

okay i'm a lazy shit and writing this review literally almost six months after reading this book, but i am still thinking about it. about both books, tbh. craving the third. our FMC is a badass, although like any teenager, susceptible to manipulative dummies who give them attention. i didn't adore how some of the plot this time felt kind of reiterated from the first one, but it wasn't ruining the book for me. i love imaginary friends lmfao. again as usual i'm not a huge fan of will-they-won't-they but i'm not the target YA audience. me a decade ago? i would have eaten that shit up. hell, i ate up the rest of this book in as little time as possible. v.e. schwab has written yet another really entertaining, dark, mysterious book, that had me staying up later than i should have been just to find out what happened next.

i love the world she created with this story, too. she always excels at writing worlds that are only ever a step away from ours. it feels more relatable and easy to get into, while still being far enough away that we can keep feeling safely separate from the monsters and maniacs she has imagined. she's an absolute master of magical realism and this is yet another example of it. her characters are intriguing and unique and have their own secrets and agendas and putting the pieces together is always so fun. i am itching for the third book in this trilogy but i know it's been so long since this book came out that the chances are getting slimmer by the minute. but V....please..... i am begging you to finish their story

oh my god, holy fucking shit??? i may never recover. shout-out to @lilycantstopreading on booksta for recommending C.S. Pacat (seriously give her a follow she's so funny and clever and sweet), but also, she and this author have ruined me. the emotional rollercoaster i just experienced !!!! oh my god!!!!! will and james!!!! oh my god!!!!!!!! 

pacat is an excellent writer, beyond stellar. the plot, the word choice, the timing, is all so fucking good. switching POVs at just the right time to add suspense and emotional turmoil!!!!! keeping secrets!!!!!! i'm. i will never be the same. i am not who i was before reading dark rise and dark heir. please god let the third one come out as soon as possible. the content warning list needs an option for "crazy fucking secrets" istg. i love you c.s. pacat but how could you do this to me. 

it's fine? there's really not a whole lot going on here haha but it wasn't bad or anything. i think maybe i'm just not a "christmas special novella" kind of girly. 

absolutely had to read this bc i grew up loving the movie. unfortunately, it took me the better part of six months to get through. most of that is me being busy, but part of it was because this book takes a long time to say anything. that being said, i did really like it. the way hoffman writes is magic in and of itself, but she is also seriously verbose to a fault, and can make the book feel like it's dragging on sometimes. gillian shows up to sally's with her, ahem, problem, and it takes literally ages for the story to get on after that. it's a lot of weird weather and romantic drama until the very end of the book, when everything gets solved in about a chapter, maybe two.

i did like how sally's girls are teens in the book, rather than little kids like in the movie. it made them feel more like their own people, rather than accessories for sally. i actually really wish the movie had kept them older, and included the love interests and everything too. i think the movie focused too much on sally, as much as i adore and relate to her. gillian deserved her love interest as much as sally did, but in the movie she doesn't get the kind of closure that you can get from finding a good partner after years of shitty ones. justice for movie gillian!!! maybe it'll be in the second one, idk.

moving on though! the descriptions hoffman writes are lovely. the way magic is as innate and intuitive as the sky is blue is so, so, so darling, even when she's describing sad or difficult things, it just makes you want to sigh and look out a window. i wish i could inject alice hoffman's writing style directly into my veins. i think it would probably cure my depression.

sally and gillian's relationship reminded me so much of my own relationship with my sister, like hoffman watched us grow up and then wrote our story with magic tossed in by the fistful. the same with antonia and kylie. god all four of them reminded me of my life with my sister. i cried several times. there's so much healing and love (and trauma bonding) and it just finds the cracked parts of your heart and soothes them in the same way you'd pet a grumpy cat until their hackles went back down and they cuddled with you.

i do wish the romance had taken longer, i'm not a huge fan of insta-love, but i'll give hoffman a pass because of the magic of it. it was better than the movie, where the aunts did it for sally bc she was so sad and pathetic in their eyes. i do wish the aunts had been in the book more, but i know they have a book of their own, so i might pick it up someday. anyway, long review short: good book. takes far too long to say or do any damn thing, but still worth the read, if you're here for the vibes and not in any kind of hurry. unfortunately i need stories with a little more plot and a lot less fluff, otherwise this would have definitely made it above four stars.

this love hurts to read. nothing makes sense from a legal/procedural standpoint and the characters are self centered and dumb as rocks. the will-they-won't-they isn't hot or flirty or fun, cody and what's her face could be together just fine, but instead they keep unnecessary secrets and it's all forced conflict for the sake of drama. almost none of the backstory is explained, either. something, somewhere, should make sense, but nothing, nowhere, is tracking. i made myself finish this bc it was fairly short but i regret the time i spent on it tbh.

it hurts me to give this a low score bc ofc i love the movie so much, but this made me realize that the movie took the title of the book, the characters, and the bare bones and left everything else behind.

what the fuck do you mean howl is welsh???????

the narrator of the audiobook did excellent voices for everyone, and even did a welsh accent for howl. she did a great job. but that was also as much love as i could muster for the book. the story takes ages and ages for anything exciting to happen, there's oodles of stuff that didn't need to happen or be described to the length it was, and howl -- i'm so sorry -- is fucking insufferable. he's a narcissistic little shit and he's so mean to sophie!!! i know she's meddlesome but oh my god does he whinge about it endlessly and just make fun of her the entire time. there's no romance, no developing relationship or anything, it's just him calling her "mrs. big nose" until they hold hands at the very end of the story. good god it was exhausting. he's a spoiled brat!!!! and he did not grow out of it by the end of the book! this, for me, is one of the rare instances where i actually liked the movie better. there's too much book here for the whole lot of nothing that happens. it's all vibes, almost no plot, and the plot that is there is just howl being a whore with everyone in town (multiple towns, actually) while sophie, calcifer, and michael do everything for him the entire time and then he complains about it because it isn't exactly how he wants it done. no thank you.