*MILD SPOILERS AHEAD!*


This one's been on my list for a while (the cover has definitely caught my eye in the past on B&N shelves and BookTok videos). I can understand why it's popular and receiving love from the fantasy genre---this is one of the most gripping and followable magic systems I've read in a long time! Emphasis on followable; I don't have to pretend like I grasp the most important fundamentals cause I actually do. I appreciate the amount of times the general legend of the Shepherd King and eventual Rowan royal family are mentioned, whether it be through flashbacks from the main character of bedtime stories, the literal chapter title cards, or the rhymes the Nightmare sings in Elspeth's head. The concept of this world's magic being guided by and tied to the cards people wield is fascinating, and the Nightmare's ability to see the colors of the card's magic through Elspeth's eyes made the writing all the more atmospheric for me. I'd be remiss not to mention the smell of salt every time magic or the mist is near, too, and the politics of this kingdom's decision to eradicate any sign of their mysterious illness in children rather than care for and attempt to heal them.
Let's talk about Elspeth---I think she stands out as a really great FMC, not just because she's pretty much got a split personality, but because she proves herself capable of wielding and resisting the darkness within her. I don't necessarily think all of Elspeth's interest as a character comes from the fact that she has the 500 year old spirit of the king of her realm living as a half monster, half man trapped in her mind (though that's certainly unique). I think a lot of my interest stemmed from wanting to see if she'd succumb to her degeneration, find a way around it, or decide to fully embrace it. Her romance with the somber Captain of the Destriers of course works to make her massive secret increasingly treacherous, but there's so much introspective work going on with her motives and fear and self-identity. Not to mention her attempts to figure out how her relationship with her cousin Ione had such a quick and total switch. I want a book told from Ione's perspective to figure out just what she's up to, cause I know she's using that Maiden card beauty for much more than meets the eye. Perhaps the second book in the duology will grant this wish of mine (I really really hope so). 
Elspeth's love interest, Ravyn Yew, reminds me of many other MMC types in the realm of fantasy series and duologies, but I'm not necessarily mad about it. Sure, he's literally tall, dark, and handsome, with a splash of danger, but for this novel's Medieval-esque setting, I think it works. I didn't expect a fake dating (or courting, I should say) trope to be thrown in the mix of this plot either, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much tension it created. Obviously the larger plot is centered on finding and collecting the Providence Cards to save the kingdom, but we've gotta have romance in there. I'm glad the ruse wasn't kept up for too long, that the yearning came to a head and resulted in a swoonworthy kiss (among other things). 
I'm very intrigued to read the next book and therefore finish this duology's interesting story, as I thought the way the first book ended left me with no choice but to keep reading.




Some of my favorite quotes from One Dark Window:

"Nothing is free. Nothing is safe. Magic is love, but also, it’s hate. It comes at a cost. You’re found, and you’re lost. Magic is love, but also, it’s hate."

"'You’re smiling.' Elm looked over the table. 'Does no one else find that incredibly unnerving?'"

"Children are strongest when their eyes are clear."

*MILD SPOILERS AHEAD!*


This was Cute with a capital C!! I must admit that my main reason for giving it a try, since I'd heard nothing about it before, is that the cover looks like me and my boyfriend, down to the glasses and colorful cardigan. I was already pretty convinced Dungeons & Dragons and Broadway nerds have enough in common to get along romantically if all the puzzle pieces fall together. This novel is a perfect recipe for cuteness overload via fake dating, high school-level flirting, and just the right amount of musical and D&D references.
There are so many things about the whole set up of this story that I think work. For one, I haven't read a high school romance book in a hot minute (aka, when the main characters have been high school aged). I think the concept of this fake dating scenario plays out so well in all the sweet, innocent ways an appropriate teenage romance should. If you're gonna create two characters with niche interests to pretty much center the plot and their fake dating around, and make them 16-year-olds, musical theater and D&D are fantastic choices, in my opinion. 
I adored Riley's optimistic and bright outlook on life, how goal driven she is from the start when it comes to doing what she loves, and her friendship with Hoshiko. I liked the choice in pacing concerning her character's goals: Budget cuts have canceled the highly anticipated spring musical, but Riley's plans to student direct in high school so she'll be taken seriously postgrad will not be foiled. The show must go on. Her "punishment" via working at her dad's game store only furthered her character development for me, as it showed she was eager and willing to make new friends, pick up more hobbies related to acting and music, and make the most of her situations. Riley's excitement to choose/play a character who gets to sing and perform (a Bard) made me smile, cause that may or may not have been the exact same reasoning I followed when selecting my first character. There's actually so much overlap in these two separate nerd hobbies, lol.
Nathan as a character and love interest stands out to me as very well written. I'd think it's probably very hard to write in the style and headspace of a teenage boy as a female writer, but Boyce pulls it off well from my reading experience. I think he's equal parts devoted D&D player, average high schooler, and sweet lil gentleman with a budding crush. His exasperation with parts of Riley's more exuberant personality traits accentuate his more generally chill demeanor, and make the fake dating "I'm only doing this to make someone else jealous" trope that more tantalizing when nothing's fake anymore. 
Along that same train of thought, I usually despise the miscommunication trope and stay as far away from it in traditional romance books as I can. But the elements of this novel's miscommunication seemed to help with the tension of Riley and Nathan's emotions because they're young people trying to make sense of their feelings and their adolescent lives. For example, we don't know a lot about Nathan's parents other than that they work a lot and feel generally absent from Nathan's home life, so his late night drives with Riley mean that much more. And Riley's dealing with the pressure of putting together her plan to revive the spring musical on top of building new parts of her relationship with her dad and some unexpected health issues. There's more depth to these young characters motivations than "I have a crush," which makes their romance that much sweeter and their eventual confessions that much more meaningful. Ugh, it's just all too sweet. I can't recommend this book enough for a lighthearted, nerd-centric romance read. I'm very glad the cover design drew me in.




Some of my favorite quotes from Dungeons and Drama:

"Why do guys have to look so good when they’re leaning against things?"

"He looks away from the road long enough for our eyes to meet, but it’s enough time for my stomach to jump like we’re on a roller coaster that just dropped."

As someone who grew up reading the classic Tinker Bell chapter books (and now keeps them on her childhood bedroom shelves to reread during the holiday season and possibly pass on to her own children someday), this book means a lot to me. I had a blast reading/listening to it solely because I feel like Allison Saft does a fantastic job at capturing the unique beauty Disney's created with the continuing Tinker Bell franchises. There's something so specific about this subgenre, from descriptions of tantalizing fairy food, to the wonders of nature, to the combination of functionality with whimsicality in areas like clothing and buildings. Like the way the Pixie Dust tree caters its flowers to Clarion's disposition or needs, and the metaphors used to describe how Clarion and Milori feel about each other contrast both summer and winter---it's the little details that really made this for me!
Amid my delight and waves of nostalgia, though, I found myself reflecting on themes that dealt with some darker and heavier stuff. While this is a book targeted more for the young reader and young adult side of the market, it's not all literal sunshine and rainbows. The fear of not being enough, of what happens when nightmares manifest in real life, and what you have to sacrifice for love and duty are explored across the story, to name just a few. I think Clarion and Milori's love story depict the heart of all these struggles beautifully, from their naturally contrasting realms, aesthetics, and magical powers, yes, but also their selflessness. They both struck me as very strong characters in their decision to act on the greater good for their two realms rather than their own personal desires. It's really sad. Like, really sad. The ending left me staring at the wall wondering if I could've done what Clarion did, and how her story is a subplot in the rest of the Tinker Bell canon but kind of a huge deal in the grand scheme of things in that same canon.
I digress---getting to reflect on truly selfless characters and a very sweet and pure love story only added to my sense of nostalgia that ultimately made this a pretty solid read for me overall. I will say that some parts of the plot that slogged a bit for me were buoyed by my preexisting love for these fairy books. But, c'mon, if you're picking up a Disney Fairies-related title, chances are you're ready and eager for the whimsy.



Some of my favorite quotes from Wings of Starlight:

"She loved him. Perhaps she was always bound to, from the very moment she saw him standing on the border. How could she not?"

"How could she ever teach new arrivals to fly? How could she dare to unfurl their wings with the tenderness they deserved when she would always remember the ones she had broken?"

"'I do not think I’ve been subtle about it, but I feel I should tell you that I like you, too.'"

I'm so happy a third installment of these queer Regency love stories exists! I'm really a fan of the layers of tension that naturally come with choosing the Regency/English ton era for a romance setting---Bridgerton obviously does a scandalously good job of pairing more "loose" modern romantic associations with the strict and incredibly rigorous social expectations of high society. But what I think makes Alban's books stand out---with this one in particular---is that the idea of feeling romantically inclined to a member of the same sex is a huge no no because it's just not what's done. Alban's characters break the boundaries of what they've been raised to envision their lives are supposed to look like when held up to the flame of their personal desires for love and acceptance, and I think that's really beautiful on a human level as well as literary level. And I'm always here for a variation of the ​Mean Girls trope.
I love how Catherine and Rosalie start as contemptuous enemies, hard bent on winning the hand of a man who they quickly realize kind of sucks, while all the while harboring hot crushes for each other. I loved the forced proximity, descriptions of pretty dresses, flushed cheeks, and colorful bonnets, and slow but steady progressions toward feelings that just could no longer be ignored. 
What really stood out to me is what this novel manages to say about generational trauma and the realities of what it can look like to come out to loved ones. Without getting into the weeds of their beef, Lady Tisend and Lady Pine's history remained an intriguing mystery to me (though a bit tangled and confusing once all smoothed out and explained, I cannot lie). Within their circumstances muddy with good intentions and terrible executions comes the comparison made to Catherine and Rosalie's lives---not getting to choose their own paths in love is not something their mothers want for them, despite how long it took reconciliation to occur in their own narratives.
I liked how the story at large made me think about how it really does take a few carefully laid plans to end pain that could very well travel down countless generations---but those plans can also mean that a parent's dream for their child is not what their child wants for their reality.
This is where the coming out steps in---and for the sake of spoilers, I won't get into nitty gritty. But the way this novel's conclusion handles the realities of immediate acceptance alongside acceptance that requires time and deep processing felt refreshing, hurtful, and close to home in other ways for me personally as a reader. When a book is able to make you reflect on your own difficult conversations and circumstances while being set in Regency era England, chances are you're reading a pretty good book.



One of my favorite quotes from Like in Love with You:

"'I'll be in love with you wherever we are, but the country would be nice.'"

Every once in a while I love to throw an essay collection in among the usually quite long fantasy and sci-fi books that line the physical shelves of my room and metaphorical shelves of my "to be read." I'm very happy with this selection of essays, and have had it recommended to me time and again considering a few of my previous professors know the author, and one of my previous graduate cohort peers had Christman as her thesis second reader.
I really am a fan of easy collections that have a pretty clear theme or through line I can follow through nearly every essay. I think this collection does a great job of that, though those throughlines are not for the faint of heart. These essays contain immense heartbreak and love after that heartbreak written in sometimes striking, always beautiful prose.
I want to focus the rest of my review on my 5-star essays from this collection (so many of them were 4-stars, mind you):

"The Sloth"
I had this piece given to me in a creative nonfiction writing class years back, and now it's one of the main pieces of creative nonfiction I've given to groups of students to study the basic elements of parallelism and flash nonfiction. I think every single sentence in this piece does so much heavy lifting. To have placed it at the very beginning of the collection offsets the tone of what's to come, too. The depiction of grief being as slow as a sloth is profound.


"Slaughterhouse Island"
This essay really kept me in a firm grip concerning the heartbreaking account of the author's story of rape and very elucidating thoughts on the aftermath, years and years down the road once she is a mother to a daughter. This particular portrait of violence against women through Christman's personal experience resonated with me simply because I can identify with being a woman in a world where violence may be right around the corner, and neat and clean answers about why or how that violence happens time and time again are not at the ready. This was one of those pieces with such striking language at times that I had to put the book down and stare out the window for intervals.


"Naked Underneath Our Clothes"
This one made me think about teaching in new lights as it details a quite embarrassing story from Christman's earlier teaching days. It made me think about how I might've tried to react to or recover from the same situation, as well as how I would've reacted to students intent on "being right" in a space that was meant for challenging worldviews rather than remaining complacent. In a lot of ways, I saw some of the young teacher and career woman I'm becoming in the pages of this true story. I also loved the footnotes included in this essay; this was a stylistic choice not replicated in any of the others, but I think it works well to give asides and further thoughts about teaching that would otherwise interrupt the flow of the story.



Some of my favorite quotes from If This Were Fiction: A Love Story in Essays:

"To survive, we might bury our traumas or skirt the edges of our grief, but to heal, we have to go right through the middle. We have to know what's in the dark places. We have to point to who scares us and see what makes us sad---give them all names. There's no other way through."

"Love is an art. Love takes practice."

"How close we come at every corner, in every generation, to having different stories to tell to an entirely different audience of beloveds. In any lasting love story, seriously, what are the chances?"

"Empathy is the antidote to judgement, but we are a people who love to point fingers and draw boxes. That terrible thing? That will happen over there, to someone else, to someone who didn't follow the rules."

"I say 'maybe' a lot when I'm teaching. The longer I'm in the classroom, the less sure I am of anything, and the more willing I am to travel into uncertainties. This is not a bad thing."

"Teaching is hard in many of the same ways writing is hard: you have to be prepared, and you have to be willing to let go of your plan and follow the surprises; you have to be brave; you have to know the rules---and when to break them. Some days, teaching is like a dance, and others can feel more like a wrestling match. Either way, you might come out sweating."

Okay, this was a thriller I (for the most part) can get behind! This is my first Riley Sager book too, so I'm learning my way around her writing and prose style. Overall, I think it's not five star material for me. But hey, three stars is better than two.
The eeriness of the story's first half, rife with scary house vibes, a narrator who's totally unreliable, and her improbable circumstance of becoming the caretaker for an infamous (but now geriatric) murderer, totally hooked me with its potential. In the midst of character and setting introductions, though, I felt like the writing style was treating me like a reader who needed everything spelled out for her. This kind of prose style, especially in a mystery-centric thriller novel, is not my favorite, to say the least. To say more, I started getting annoyed and talking aloud to no one as my audiobook kept narrating.  
I think it tries to remain a more straight shot "whodunit" in this first half, but it was the second half that ultimately lost me. I think this is due to the fact that, while executed pretty well and pretty cool in theory, the story begins to get clunky and cave in on itself (not unlike the Hope Mansion) due to the amount of subplots told through letters. Whether they were the letters being typed for Kit to read and learn "the truth," the flashback type chapters from Mary's manuscript, or the novel's concluding letter in the second to last chapter that introduces at least 2 other huge twists in addition to info dumping, I could feel myself losing interest in the plot as a whole because there didn't seem to be a clear central plot running as a through line for me to stay rooted and invested in. Sure, the argument can be made for the through line being Kit's internal predicament concerning what happened to her mom, but the twists and turns connected to this recurring trauma for our main character felt unsatisfying once unraveled. The amount of concealed identities and theories tossed around by Kit and the other residents of the Hope house left me feeling unsure what to believe about what supposedly transpired on that fateful night that first thrust the family into the spotlight covered in each others' blood. And while I'm aware thrillers should keep readers guessing, I was not having fun with this guesswork. A good amount of the stakes were lost for me once it was clear the main danger was the house's eventual collapse into the ocean (if we don't count the danger of the truth being revealed to all). 
I think this novel could've packed more of a literary punch if it ended at the first twist concerning someone's identity. Cause that was fantastic; my jaw dropped quite literally. From this initial big twist, too many others seemed to follow too fast. Explanations were quick. I wish I could've been more here for this pacing, but I just wasn't.
Will I try out another Riley Sager book someday? We shall see.




Some of my favorite quotes from The Only One Left:

"'You're never alone when there's a book,' she used to say. 'Never ever.'"

"Here, we give young women accused of terrible deeds the benefit of the doubt."