sotnasck's reviews
413 reviews

Could the worldbuilding be better? Absolutely. Could the court intrigue be more developed? Sure. Could it be richer, more colorful? Possibly. Regardless, I loved this book. What it lacked on everything else, it absolved itself with its characters. I've seen much about Jude and Cardan around and am glad to say they did not disappoint.

Buddy reading this trilogy with Ailin, with whom I share many favorite characters, and so now we must cry over Cardan together.

This was only okay up until the last 10 or so chapters, then it really hit me and I was holding back tears?

I really enjoyed how this is not a story about two teenagers falling in love right before going to college and giving us the classic "I met you at 17 but you're the love of my life" thing. This is about change, and fear of the future, family and home, about meeting people who make an impact in your life no matter how much time you spend with them, about how wonderful things are worth taking that risk no matter how scary.

The characters are very real and relatable in different ways. At the beginning I was more in tune with Fitz, but that changed throughout the book and I got closer to Juniper. But regardless, I felt joy with the conclusion of both their journeys. And how glad I am with that ending... Some might say it's bittersweet, but to me it felt very appropriate and right.

Books that feature writer characters are always very close to my heart... And this one was a delight. I love Morgan Matson's feel good summer books. It's always exactly what I need to cheer up a bit. Good characters, good relationships, good balance of family, friends, romance. Everything was on point in this book. Lovely and cute.

For my tenth birthday, my grandmother and my mother decided to make a big birthday party. They did all by themselves, the food, the decorations, everything... My mother is a very talented woman and I mean this when I say that the decorations were beautiful, it was ballerina themed. Anyway, back then pictures were not digital and we had to use films and print the pictures. My aunt had just bought this very nice camera that could use a bigger film and so we would have more pictures, and my mother agreed and that made my aunt responsible for photography and registering the party. The party was beautiful and my mother and grandmother were very proud. But a few days later we found out that my aunt had forgotten to put the film inside the camera and so all the pictures taken during the party doesn't exist. We have nothing of that day besides 4 pictures that were taken by one uncle who took pictures of his son in front of the table with the decorations. There are no family pictures, or me with my friends or even just me, the birthday girl.

Now that's the kind of thing that happens. Stuff really do go wrong no matter how much plan and thought go into the event. But in the case of this book I gotta say that at some point, enough is enough. For a book so long it wasted too much of itself on things going wrong at the wedding instead of the characters, who had so much potential by the way. The family conflict and Charlie figuring out that life is not as we make it to be are two great and interesting plot points that I had to wait too long to get to it and then it went by a bit fast.

I feel like it would have been much better if the story was focused less in the wedding, 60% of that cut and it would make no difference on the plot and only make it flow easier. Such great characters that were not explored, which for me is a first in a Morgan Matson book. The strongest of the book is of course the family dynamic, that was pretty great. I just wish there had been more of it.

Buddy read with my "agreement" squad Ailin and Heather, thanks for the quarantine read girls!

Alright, this has way less sword innuendos than I expected so take from that what you will. It was an enjoyable and cute read, nothing more than that. And the reason for this is that I kept waiting for more to happen, for more development, more drama, more faire shenanigans, more romance (in a romance book? that's weird I know) but it never came... Another point, that was raised in our discussion, is that the book would have benefit greatly from Simon's POV so it was too bad that we didn't get it.

That being said, I did enjoyed what I got. Especially Emily's relationship with her family. I wish the second book was about Emily's sister April, I'd read that.

What a way to level up from the first book! I LOVE IT. The things that bothered me on the first book were toned down and that made the reading much better for me, dialogues were improved, the tone matched the plot, things didn't felt out of place...

Liv and Mack are just great and I love them, as characters, as a couple, as partners, as everything they offered me in this book. It's funny, delightful, heart-warming, and hit in all the right spots. The new characters were such a solid addition (I confess I was afraid to be stuck in the same circle of characters as it seems to be the case in the romance books I've read before). Even the rooster and the hens are a great touch, not even joking here.

And I love Liv. What a woman, Mack is lucky to have her.

It was an enjoyable read, but nothing else. It was nice but it felt like something was missing between the characters, like their romance was lacking something, some development, some push, some chemistry... I don't know. Something. And while I liked January and appreciated her, I couldn't care less about Gus. Gus has the charisma of a door handle. The thing about their romance is that it was pretty boring. I was more invested in the family drama than anything else. In fact, if you cut out Gus and leave January dealing with the loss of her father alone in that lake it would make no difference to me. And I understand the importance of Gus being the one to show January that happiness and love was still possible after the devastating truth about her father, but well, did he had to be like that? Every single character in the story are more interesting than him.

Anyway, the kudos goes to everything else...

January and her friend, her mother, the belief in the power of looking at the world through brighter lenses, the overcoming of broken hearts and broken spirits. To this book having no unnecessary drama (it tried a bit, but just for a few pages), to cool lesbians Pete and Maggie and their labradors, to me constantly picturing they were out by the ocean when instead the book takes place in Michigan, to January's father and his letters. The letters were very beautiful.

I feel very 50/50 about this book.

Part of me can't understand why the guys in the book club would talk the way that they do, it's weird. Aside from that, the idea was good... It simply lacked on its execution a bit. The book club was cool, so my issue is mainly the dialogues. And not only that but some choices of words were crass (? for lack of a better word) and felt out of place. 

The other part of me though, was into the relationship of the main characters and rooting for them to save their marriage, work on their problems as individuals and as a couple. I was invested and I enjoyed the characters and plot. I was invested especially in Liv and Mack as characters so having a book for them will be nice, and I'll read it because this series is a fun and entertaining read.