bella613's reviews
250 reviews

This was... definitely something. 

I liked it until chapter 23. The last few chapters felt boring, rushed, and lazy after all the build up. 
But actually I don't know if "I liked it" is quite the right way to put it. Reading this book gave me the same feeling as when you overhear a juicy piece of gossip about something horrible. It makes you dislike the person who did the thing, the people who are gossiping about it, and kinda also yourself for listening in. Every character in this book is so incredibly terrible (except maybe the children but they weren't well developed) and it felt more like I had to read it than wanted to. 
The writing isn't great but Hoover definitely does a great job at making you love to hate her characters. Maybe the hype around her is hate-bonding, like when students group together in class because you hate the professor and the material and then after you leave and look back, it looks like a positive experience because of the community made within the hate. 
Anyway, this was difficult to rate and I might change it later once I've had time to think about it. It's better than what I expected because I heard a lot of fuss over the author and wasn't interested because of that. A colleague suggested this book to me and I took a long time to actually pick it up. I don't think I'd necessarily recommend it but I am going to read more by the author (mostly because of the movie coming out lol) 
Also can I just say: Colleen Hoover was marketed to me as a romance author. Unless the other books she writes are drastically different than this, she definitely is quite the opposite of a romance style writer...?? This is not romance (although not decisively thriller, either?) I would probably call it horror but tbh it doesn't fit great there either. Idk what to call it but there is zero romance whatsoever. Sex scenes, yes, and some weirdly obsessive lust from all the characters but not romance. Maybe the people hating on her and judging the authors morals based on her fiction books are just classifying this incorrectly 😂

This was good but I expected it to go a little deeper. It felt like all of they could have been said in one chapter and I would have gotten the same amount out of it. I did like the humor and positive feel, and the author does a great job narrating the audiobook as well.

The organization and writing of this book wasn't my favorite, and it definitely was less memoir than a book on activism issues. It was honestly not that personal, even though other reviews have said it is.
I don't love transcribed interviews. But there were parts of the book that I really did like (the parts about her own life and experience) and it does bring up some topics that are important to consider. 

Fun side note I checked out this book bc someone I follow here on storygraph read it, and I saw the title and thought "Cool! I'm a tiger too!"

It started off funny but then turned full-on porn (should have been more prepared for that given the huge TW at the beginning lol) and the sex scenes JUST KEPT GOING like it was so uncomfy and that is all there was to it 😅 
I liked the premise but when I read books like this I end up cringe-skipping. Maybe I'm just vanilla but I cannot listen to dirty talk in a novel, and please stop using such obscene words with no warning omg

This one is much better than the first book of the series, in my opinion. The first was just ok and this one was pretty enjoyable to me. 
Definitely courageous of the author to write a whole book starting the series off with a non-endgame couple. I interpreted that as bad chemistry, but it turns out she was trying not to get readers too attached. This whole second book was pretty obvious and predictable but I think it was interesting and kept me engaged because I liked the characters. I also got used to the author's writing style. Definitely skipped through some R rated parts (but even those are less violently graphic in this book than a lot of romance novels these days. So thanks for not assaulting my ears, I suppose). 
I wouldn't call this book a great work of art or meaningful in any way, but as a fantasy romance novel it is decent. I don't know what's coming in the rest of the series, so I hope there's more to come with plot since we've exhausted the intense romance side of things tbh. I'd be happy to see more of Cassian, seems like a character that is getting set up for more face-time but who knows. I'd also appreciate different perspectives like maybe the sisters or someone entirely new. 

This was fun, but parts of it were really disappointing to me. 
I kind of hate the idea of dating apps and have yet to use them (probably why I'm still single) so it was kind of funny to read about the whole friend group trying it out. I really like the first half of the book.
Tbh the oversharing on the dating app between the two was wayyy too much for people who "haven't met". It was weird more than refreshing. Of course honesty is the best policy, but like... on the app? Before sharing numbers or meeting or anything? I don't think of myself as closed off but that would make me so uncomfortable.

I hated how the ML reacted to the FL keeping a secret profile, and hated how when he comes back to her, she accepts all the blame. Like, she comes clean and he literally ghosts her, taking away the entire friend group with his awkwardness (which is clearly her only friends and support). Why would this make her want to open up more to him? I get that she shouldn't have lied, but their communication problems are so obviously not one sided. She has been putting more effort in all along. He shouldn't be punishing her and she shouldn't be ok with it. The friends like Ed are better to her than Reed and seem to understand her. (And like how did he not figure it out way sooner?)

This was fine. I did enjoy it during some parts but with how popular it is I guess I expected it to be a bit different. I didn't know anything about it going into it. I expected to get sucked in a little more, whether or not it was good literary work, since that's usually the case with fantasy romance. But it took me a long time to care at all about the main characters and by the end I still didn't feel very strongly connected to the story. 
The writing was ok, but not impressive. The world building and character development was meh. The chemistry wasn't really there for me. But I did like that the FL showed a lot of weakness along with her strength. Sometimes this type of book creates such unbelievable characters that I just get too annoyed. I wouldn't say I related to her but she did feel realistic and I liked that she needed a great deal of help. And that people helped her for their own reasons and not just "she's pretty" or ~love~ 
I'd like to get to know her sisters more and I liked the characters of Alice and Reese (don't know if I spelt that correctly since I listened to the audiobook) 
I will keep going with the series :) 

It is pretty funny but it's not really my style. I have too many other things to read to keep going on this... DNF at almost 2/3 through.