imskylow's reviews
262 reviews

What even is this? I’m so, so confused. Listening to 6 hours of this book was a struggle. I can’t imagine listening to the full 18. 

The tone of this book was hard to grasp. We have dukes, lords, balls, carriages and swords which makes it feel like it’s meant to have a historical sort of setting but the characters use contemporary slang and swearing. Also, I can handle swearing but some of the things Rin Chupeco strings together makes absolutely no sense. It feels like a middle schooler who just learned how to swear is writing this and it really takes me out of the moment. It’s honest to god cringey. 

The character Remy is so strange. He brutally exterminates vampires but is also best friends with one? I don’t see how that friendship can work. He’s also cold blooded and rough but at the same time so stereotypically gay. Like at his secret home, he reads fashion magazines and cares for succulents. That is such low hanging fruit. It also feels like Chupeco can’t decide whether Remy is a lone wolf or a lonely outcast. 

The two other main characters, Xiaodan and Zidan have such achingly similar names that it didn’t matter how long I listened, my brain kept mixing them together and it was a bit irritating. 

The weapons in this story are bizarre and over the top. You’ve got swords within swords within swords that all expand out and detach and shoot fire and have chains and spikes. Like I feel like I’m watching some over the top action anime where you know nobody in real life would actually be able to fight with these contraptions. It feels so hokey and goofy. Like, less is more with weaponry. Sure you can have some mystical aspect but don’t be pulling out a full armory from a single blade.

Honestly, I was given the ebook version of this story as an ARC by NetGalley but it was so hard for me to get into it that I had to switch to Spotify to listen to the actual book. That didn’t help either. I think I have to admit defeat with this one. It just isn’t it. I don’t recommend.

This is an allegory of what it’s like as a young woman being taken advantage of by an older man. It’s about healing and trusting yourself, learning you aren’t alone and that it isn’t your fault. This book is a lightly fantastical, dark academia with gorgeous imagery of the sea, the rain, and the feeling of drowning in trauma (without necessarily being specific). There’s romance but it’s slow burn. I really liked the plot and the over all cold, wet, and dreary vibe to it but the story wasn't exceptionally gripping or intense. It was more poetic and symbolic than anything. I'm not sure I would have liked it as much if I hadn't listened to the audio book and had the names pronounced for me. Listening also helps the story progress a bit quicker than it would have taken reading the text.
If you have the patience to work through the book, I recommend. Just don't expect a fiery and intense romance. 

 I really disliked the voice for Eris. It doesn’t feel like she was written to be a whimpering, breathless sort of girl but more of a seductive, raw-voiced yet bold woman. Someone who sounds like she knows what she wants. She’s written like an alpha woman who isn’t going to take anyone’s shit but the woman reading for her (who is the same female voice for all the books.  Not that I mind! I thought she did a great job with the rest!) didn’t make her sound like the intense and sensual powerhouse she should be. It made it hard for me to be interested in Aphrodite chapters. I liked all the other characters and how they were read though. 
Yay for a poly positive book. I think they made quite the charming polycule; though, I think Eris and Adonis should have talked more and worked through the prevalent issues in their relationship rather than slapping polyamory on like some sort of band-aid.
Yay for male-female platonic friendships that stay just friendships too.
Yay for briefly mentioning male recovery time between rounds. It’s such a small thing but most erotica these days act like all men can keep going and going and going. All it took was a few words and it really grounded the scene. A++ 

 What are you people smoking? What is it about this book that had the masses on BookTok in a chokehold? I finally get around to listening to this (not even reading it! LISTENING) and I couldn’t stand to finish it. I listened to 8 hours of it and could not be begged to finish the last 5. It’s time for a book bash, kids. (Punches will not be pulled. If you don’t agree, move along. It’s just my opinion).

Where to begin with the myriad of things I didn’t like about this book…

Maybe I should start with the fact that the first 30% of the book had almost nothing to do with ice skating or hockey. They spent more time at an exclusive club off campus than on the rink. And then, the rest of the book continues like you would assume from a book with a figure skater and hockey player on the front. One joins/tries the other sport out of necessity and they bond over it. Boom. Plot of the story. 🤯

The next thing that irked me was how unenjoyable these characters are. There is not a likable bone in Anastasia’s little body. I guess she’s just visually attractive to Nathan? Or maybe she just plays hard to get? I just really didn’t see much of her personality that drew me to her character. She was so introduced as such snippy and frustrating person. I thought Aaron, her skating partner, was a more dynamic character with a more compelling back story even though he’s antagonistic. Or even Henry was more interesting, with the gay moms and how he actually knows how to take care of a woman. He’s a sweetheart.

Another thing: there was almost NOTHING intriguing about the smut. Nothing kicking-my-feet-and-making-me-squeal about it. I think resistance, tension, or an exceptionally well built relationship helps the sex scenes become more enticing or have more of a payoff. There’s none of that. They just have bang and then Anastasia goes back to being prissy, grouchy ice skater out of the bedroom.

Look, I am a connoisseur of smut but if you’re going to write in that much detail, you need to include other details as well. Nate has zero refractory period. He can just bang and bang and bang. And while that might be true for some guys of 21, it is unusual. Also, the effectiveness of a condom plumets when you use the same one for three rounds. So while the smut might mostly spicy and erotic, it had me groaning in my head.

One of my biggest pet peeves of the spicy books of today is that authors skip over relationship building moments. We don’t get to see the actual scenes or chemistry of the couple just existing or hanging out together. It was the sentence (it might be worded slightly different, to hard to remember exactly) that really made me mad: “I love hanging out with Anastasia when she’s sober. She so talkative and has so many thoughts and opinions”. What the hell? She’s a human, of course she has thoughts and opinions. But what are they?? Why do we not get to see them bonding outside of sex? Why don’t we get to see any cute or silly conversations? Books like these that use time lapse phrases rather than show actual conversations make me so unreasonably angry. It removes all chemistry from the characters. No, I’m sorry. I don’t know if you two actually work together.

This is a lesser pet peeve but still one that bores me: the fact that a therapy appointment (or plural I don’t know if there was more later) was written into the book. It’s not the inherent concept of therapy that I dislike, if fact I think many characters from many books should be going, it’s the fact that points of the story we have already experienced are reexplained. It feels like we’re being spoon fed the morals of the story over a recap. Either unfold the story/scenes entirely within the therapy session and skip over them outside of it OR have the characters experience the story and then just skip over the therapy session. I don’t want the story experienced and then retold to me in a boring therapy session. It’s like watching a rerun.

I honestly don’t recommend this book if you’re looking for well written romance or smut with likable characters and an intriguing storyline. It really felt unimaginative and super predictable. I’m glad I got it from my library and didn’t buy it like I was planning to. 

 This books was so much more than I ever could have expected. I guess I really do get caught up judging books by the covers and so when I was recommended this one I didn't think it would get this high of a rating out of me. I also don't generally like second chance romance but this was something else. I was blown away.
First of all, I love the rhythm and pacing of this story. I absolutely love how the story unfolds flipping back and forth between timelines of the characters teenage days to their late twenties. The slow discovery and peeling back of what has happened to Macy and Elliot to have them lose contact kept me strapped in, binge listening to this book. I laughed out loud, was embarrassed for the characters during awkward childhood moments and, towards the end, I even got a little teary-eyed. The love that Christina Lauren weaves into her book is so thick and palpable. This book honestly took me on a ride and it's easy to feel what a passion project this was.
Lauren does a great job building up these characters and their personalities and fears. She really unfolds their likes and dislikes and interests in a way that you really feel like you know them and grew up alongside them in the closet library. It's honestly made me want to ask everyone and anyone what their favorite words are. (Currently, mine is susurration). You get to see the characters young and geeky grow into themselves and know what has impacted them into becoming the people they are at the end. Though the love they share is dreamlike and almost too idyllic (the key word is 'almost') it feels real and right that they should feel the way they do. Too often these days, romance books will summarize relationship building scenes to just skip to the romantic or steamy moments. This book doesn't do that. There are INDEED steamy moments but it's built on the all of the foundation of little conversations and experiences Macy and Elliot have gone through together.
I highly recommend this book. 

This book was difficult.
I don't mean that it's at all boring or dense or has weird pacing. I mean that the stories within this book are extremely difficult to consume. It's painful— not as painful as those who had to live it— but painful nonetheless. Knowledge can be that way sometimes. I found myself really putting off listening to this book or only listening for short segments because of how overwhelming and devastating so many stories were. It's simply so much easier to live in the ignorance, to close your eyes, plug your ears and turn away. But we shouldn't do that. As Americans, but even more broadly, as <b> humans <b/> we must progress collectively and that means opening our minds and hearts to those suffering. I won't lie, there were many times I got emotional many times for my black brothers and sisters suffering merely due to prejudice. The wrongful convictions, harsh sentencings, and pure violence that they experienced and still do experience is sickening. Bryan Stevenson and everyone a EJI are angels on earth and we need more people like them— more stone catchers. Because of this book, I also feel inspired to be a stone catcher in my own life where I can and a shoulder to cry on when it's needed. Obviously, not everyone is a lawyer but I think I could do more to support those who cannot fight for themselves.

2.5 I really liked the premise of the book and the mysterious supernatural aspect of it. I liked many of the characters and the setting and the magic system too. However, the thing I disliked was so overwhelmingly glaring it was hard to get through this book. What makes it worse was that it was the main character Natasha. She is incredibly infuriating and unlikable. I understand she's going through it with her sister missing but she doesn't need to harm her relationships with her friends in the process. She acts as though her opinion is the one and only correct opinion and can't see anyone else's perspective. She fixates on her conclusion on the situation and isn't nice about asking for help either. She's just anger and brashness with absolutely no redeeming qualities. Della, on the other hand, is a fabulous character with interesting conflict and motivations. Honestly, any time the two characters interacted I wanted so much for Della to ditch Natasha in the woods for being a brat. I didn't find myself rooting for the romance that bloomed between them at all. I felt like Della could do better.

 It's by no means literary but it sure is entertaining. It's giving 2014 Wattpad realness but written by an adult. 4 hours of just getting railed by angsty men. No one tell my mom I listened to this. 

This is purely speculation, but methinks someone is paying for reviews because it is beyond me how many people have rated this book above 3 stars. Honestly, it's wild. This book is very poorly written and under-edited. It feels as though Jeneane had absolutely no beta readers or legitimate editors. After I realized fairly soon into the book that this belongs somewhere in the deep, dark depths of kindle unlimited, I decided to take a red pen to the book. I circled, marked, and crossed out miss spellings and redundancies, circled anything that was worded in a confusing unclear way, and marked up ever moment the story was at all unbelievable or disturbing, which was quite a bit even though I am a connoisseur of smut and fantasy. This book feels like a raw dream journal that never went through the creative process of making sense, which, in turn, made the story structure and dynamics hard to consume as a reader. 
The introduction of the story takes a good 90 pages and the entire book isn't even 400 pages long! The characters are incredibly difficult to enjoy. The female main character is as flimsy and as fluid as water. You cannot get me to believe that a biologist, no matter how scatter-brained, would forget a high-end microscope (it's mentioned that it costs as much as a car) in the woods. You additionally cannot get me to believe that she would then not spare a second to change out of her "going out" clothes but instead wears a little black dress (that hardly covers her assets) and HEELS to go search the woods. Not only is Callie, the main character, ditsy but she morphs into different characters as the story proceeds suddenly having a "dark side" or suddenly having her one wish be that she find love, when initially, all this girl wanted was to swear off love and a personal life and join a society of wildlife biologists. Then we have Mendax, the Prince, who to be completely honest has no redeeming qualities. I understand that he's not meant to have any as a dark/villainous character but there should be SOMETHING that attracts the reader and FMC. Alas, there isn't. We don't even really get to know what Mendax looks like aside from dark hair and blue eyes. You don't even learn he has pointed ears even until page 216. Additionally, the way Jeneane describes his "smoke wings" causes me to believe she doesn't know what wings are. I struggle to imagine wings you can grab and choke someone with. There is no build up in the romance of the story. 
With the love story, Mendax flips like a coin. He goes from hating Callie and all humankind to not being able to live without her and waxing embarrassingly poetic. It's cringey and riddled with cliches that belong on 2014 Wattpad. However, their first "romantic" interaction isn't even all that romantic. He eats her out pushing her face into a blanket and the consent is very, very dubious. For the rest of the novel, Callie battles her 'feelings' for Mendax even though he is objectively awful and has subjected her to multiple types of abuse including maiming and the attempted r*pe from a forest bog. Within the love scenes between the two main characters, Jeneane seems to lose all sense of anatomy. I spent time rereading multiple instances in which Mendax would need at least three hands to maneuver as described. 
I understand what Jeneane was trying to accomplish here. I do. The short synopsis actually drew me in! I love bad boys and magical bad boys are even better. However, this book needed several more drafts and professional eyes before publishing.
Lastly, the next time Jeneane O'Riley writes the word 'amber' will be much, much to soon.