r.bookish

hello everyone! happy blogmas day 3! today i am going to be talking about act cool by tobly mcsmith. i gave this book 4/5 stars. i honestly really liked this book, but i feel like it took me way to much time to read this book, which kind of took away from the plot of the book.

trigger warnings- transphobia, deadnaming, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts, religious bigotry, homophobia, dysphoria, suicide, mental illness, lesbophobia.

one thing i really liked was that august felt so real. like, i don’t really know how to explain it, but i feel like he was someone who almost jumped off the page and that it was just so cool to see august kind of come to life. like, i think he was a character that you could probably see yourself in someway, shape or form. and i honestly really liked how raw he felt and all of his feelings throughout this book just felt so raw and honest, and i think it was just really cool to see his feelings and through some of the parts of the felt that you could also fell what he was feeling, which i think was just so cool and just done really well.

and i also really liked how they constantly talked about the theater and him acting and about his day to day life with him doing all of it. i honestly really liked it and that they never really pushed it to the side, and that it always stayed at the forefront of it all. like, i feel that they could have completely pushed it to the side and kind of made it be this side plot to everything else happening in august’s life. so, i think it was really good and that i think it was really cool to kind of see the theater aspect of his life and just never stopped talking about it, which is something i liked.

but, one of the things about him that i really didn’t like was that he had about 50 different personalities for everything he does. like, at school he is trying to be this cool, funny guy that everyone knows and likes, and then there is the flirty guy for parties and then the acting guy and then the nice and quiet guy at home and then this humble guy on social media. which, i get that you might need to put on a face or personality to be well received and to have people like you, but this just felt like too much. like, if he was different from at school vs at home, i could understand that, but it just got to be to much for everything that he did, he got a new personality.

but, i did honestly like all of august’s inter thoughts about his identity, not even about how they dealt with the topic of his identity. like, i think it was really cool to see august and his spiral about his family and about how he thought about how his family worked and all of this. which, i think was something i really liked and seeing most of his inter thoughts about how it all played into each other.

kind of playing into all of his personalities, i really hated all the lies, and like i don’t mean to his parents about him still dressing as a girl, cause i understand why he did that, i mean more so to all of his friends and everyone that he came in contact with. like, there was so many lies throughout this book with who he had a crush on and then what he came back and said to those supposed crushes. and also how treated his aunt throughout the book really just annoyed.

i also think that they tried to put way to much into this book. like, it always isn’t a bad thing, but i feel like there was just o much happening with his school and him acting and him finally getting to be who he is and him with his aunt and his parents. like, i feel like there was just way to much happening, and i almost think it could have been broken into multiple different books, like they don’t even need to follow august. like, they could have had august’s story deal with his parents and then coming to new york and coming into his skin and this coming of age story. and then maybe another about theater, since even though i liked the theater plot line, there was just to many things to follow and to deal with.

one thing that McSmith did really well was talk about emotional topics very well. like, with this book and even stay gold, i think that so much of this book is something that is really emotional and that will stick with you for awhile. and i think it was just really well done with how they talked about all of the emotional topics and about how they dealt with everything and how everything was talked about in care and you could tell that McSmith dealt with all these topics and everything you could tell meant something to them.

granted, i do feel like there was a lot of drama with her friends and crushes and all of this. like, i feel like there was so much drama with everything that was happening. for me, i think there was so much that was happening with his friends and his supposed crushes, and i think that they just had so much happening and that there was so much. like, i feel that a lot of this book kind of came out as soap opera, with the friendship drama or the romance drama or the cheating, like i think it just didn’t work for me and i think it just didn’t fit for this book, in away.

anyway, that is all for today! i honestly liked this book, but i of course good books still have their issues, but i do think it was still really good overall.

hello everyone! happy blogmas day 2! today i am going to be talking about the books i’m excited about that are coming out this month. there honestly isn’t to many of them, since i feel like there wasn’t to many books coming out this book came out, but i still want to talk about them.

you’ll be the death of me by karen m. mcmanus. ivy, mateo, and cal used to be close, now all they have in common is carlton high and the beginning of a very bad day. type a ivy lost a student council election to the class clown, and now she has to face the school, humiliated. heartthrob mateo is burned out and working two jobs since his family’s business failed. and outsider cal just got stood up, again. so when cal pulls into campus late for class and runs into ivy and mateo, it seems like the perfect opportunity to turn a bad day around, they’ll ditch and go into the city. just the three of them, like old times, except they barely left the parking lot before they run out of things to say. until they spot another carlton high student skipping school and follow him to the scene of his own murder. in one chance move, their day turns from dull to deadly and it’s about to get worse. it turns out ivy, mateo, and cal still have some things in common, they all have a connection to the dead kid and they’re all hiding something.

if this gets out by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich. this comes out December 7th. at 18, Ruben Montez and Zach Knight are two members of the boy band, Saturday, which is one of the biggest acts in America. with their bandmates, Angel Phan and Jon Braxton, they are the four teen heartbreakers and also best friends backstage. but, cracks are starting to form, for one, Ruben confides in Zach that he is feeling smothered by their management to stay in the closet. on a tour through Europe, with unrelenting schedule and minimal supervision, they rely on each other more and more, and their very close friendship becomes a romance. but, when they decide to tell their fans, they realize that they never have the support of their management.

heart of the impaler by alexander delacroix. this book comes out december 7th. ilona csaki has no desire to marry the voivode’s eldest son, but love and marriage are the least of her worries. the royal family’s enemies have always tried to put an arrow through her back, and if anyone discovers her blossoming feelings for her betrothed’s cousin, andrei, and younger brother, vlad, she may just wish they’d succeeded. beneath the shadow of impending war, the only battle that will be deadlier than the one for ilona’s life will be the one for her heart.

the coldest touch by isabel sterling. this comes out of december 7th. elise beaumont is cursed. with every touch, she experiences exactly how her loved ones will die and after her brother’s death, a death she predicated buy was unable to prevent, elise is desperate to get rid of her terrible gift, no matter the cost. claire montgomery also has a unique relationship with death, mostly because she’s already dead, technically anyway, claire is a vampire and she’s been assigned by the veil to help elise master her rare death oracle powers. the trouble is, claire and elise aren’t the only paranormals in town, a killer is stalking the streets and claire can’t seem to shake the pull she feels towards elise, a romance that could upend the veil’s mission. but, as elise and claire grow closer, elise begins to wonder, can she really trust someone tasked with securing her loyalty?

anyway, that is all for today! it was honestly a shorter post, since i feel like there wasn’t enough books coming out this month. but, i do feel like these books sound so good and i can’t wait to read it.

hello everyone! and happy blogmas day one! today i am going to be talking about all the books i want to read this month. honestly, i’m probably not going to read half of these, but i still can’t wait to read these and to hopefully get to read these.

circe by madeline miller. in the house of helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the titans, a daughter is born. but, circe is a strange child, not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power, the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves. threatened, zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the minotaur, daedalus and his doomed son icarus, the murderous medea, and of course, odysseus. but there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and circe unwittily draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the olympians. to protect what she love most, circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

married by morning by lisa kleypas. for two years, catherine marks has been a paid companion to the hathaway sisters, a pleasant position, with one caveat. her charges’ older brother, leo hathaway, is thoroughly exasperating. cat can hardly believe that their constant arguing could mask t6he mutual attraction. but when one quarrel ends in a sudden kiss, cat is shocked at her powerful response, and even more so when leo proposes a dangerous liaison. but, leo must produce a heir within a year to save his families home. catherine’s respectable demeanor hides a secret that would utterly destroy her. but, to leo, cat is intriguing and infernally tempting, even to a man resolved never to love again. the danger cat tried to outrun is about to separate them forever, unless the two wary lovers can find a way to banish the shadows and give in to their desires.

love in the afternoon by lisa kleypas. as a lover of animals and nature, beatrix hathaway has always been more comfortable outdoors than in the ballroom. even though she participated in the london season in the past, the classic beauty and free spirited, beatrix has never been swept away or seriously courted, and she has resigned herself to the fate of never finding love. has the time come for the most unconventional of the hathaway sisters to settle for an ordinary man, just to avoid spinsterhood. captain christopher phelan is a handsome, daring soldier who plans to marry beatrix’s friend, the vivacious flirt prudence mercer, when he returns from fighting abroad. but, as he explains in his letters to prudence, life on the battlefield has darkened his soul, and it’s becoming clear that christopher won’t come back as the same man. but when beatrix learns of her friends disappointment, she decides to help by concocting pru’s letters to christopher for her. soon the correspondence between beatrix and christopher develops into something fulfilling and deep, and when christopher comes home, he’s determined to claim the woman he loves.

the corpse queen by heather herrman. soon after her best friend, kitty, mysteriously dies, orphaned seventeen year old molly green is sent away to live with her ‘aunt.’ with no relations that she knows of, molly assumes she has been sold as free domestic labor for the price of an extra donation in the church orphanage’s coffers. such a thing is not unheard of, thee are only so many options for an unmarried girl in 1850s philadelphia. only, when molly arrives, she discovers her aunt is very much real, exceedingly wealthy, and with secrets of her own. secrets and wealth she intends to share, for a price. molly’s estranged aunt, ava, has built her empire by robbing graves and selling the corpses’ to medical students who need bodies to practice surgical procedures, and she wants molly to help her procure the corpses. as molly learns of her aunt’s trade in the dead of the night and explores the mansion by day, she is both horrified and deeply intrigued by the anatomy lessons held at the old church on her aunt’s property. but with doctor lavalle’s lessons are a heady mixture of knowledge and power and molly has never wanted anything more than to join his male only group of students, but the cost of inclusion is steep and with a murderer loose in the city, the pursuit of power and opportunity becomes a deadly dance.

ace of spades by Faridah Abike iyimide. welcome to Niveus Private Academy, where money paves the hallways and the students are never less than perfect, until now. because anonymous texter, Aces, is bringing two students’ dark secrets to light. talented musician devon buries himself in rehearsals, but he can’t escape the spotlight when his private photos go public. and head girl chiamaka isn’t afraid to get what she wants, but soon everyone will know the price she has to paid for power. someone is out to get both of them, someone who holds all the aces and they are playing way more than a stupid high school game.

white smoke by tiffany d. jackson. marigold is running from ghosts, the phantoms of her old life keep haunting her, but a move with her newly blended family from their small california beach town to the embattled midwestern city of cedarville might be the fresh start she needs. her mom has accepted a new job with the sterling foundation that comes with a free house, one that mari now has to share with her bratty ten year old stepsister, piper. the renovated picture prefect home on maple street, sitting between dilapidated houses, surrounded by wary neighbors has its secrets. that’s only half of the problem: household items vanish, doors open on their own, lights turn off, shadows walk past rooms, voices can be heard in the walls, and there’s a foul smell seeping through the vents only mari seem to notice. worse, piper keeps talking about a friend who wants mari gone.

dark and shallow lies by ginny myers sain. la cachette, louisiana, is the worst place to be if you have something to hide. this tiny town, where 17 year old grey spends her summers, is the self proclaimed psychic capital of the world, and the place where elora pellerin, grey’s best friend, disappeared six month earlier. grey can’t believe that elora vanished into thin air any more than she can believe that nobody in a town full of psychics knows what happened. but, as she digs into the night that elora went missing, she begins to realize that everybody in town is hiding something, her grandmother, honey, her childhood just hart, and even her late mother, whose secrets continue to call to grey from beyond the grave. but, when a mysterious stranger emerges from the bayou, a stormy eyed boy with links to elora and the town’s bloody history, grey realizes that la cachette’s past is far more present and dangerous than she’d ever understood, suddenly, she doesn’t know how she could trust. in a town where secrets lurk just below the surface, and where a murderer is on the loose, nobody can be presumed innocent, and la cachette’s dark and shallow lies may just rip the town apart.

payback’s a witch by lana harper. emmy harlow is a witch but not a very powerful one, in part because she hasn’t been home to the magical town of Thistle Grove in years. her self imposed exile has a lot to do with a complicated family history and a desire to forge her own way in the world, and only the very tiniest bit to do with gareth blackmoore, heir to the most powerful magical family in town and casual breaker of hearts and destroyer of dream. but when a spellcasting tournament that her family serves as arbiters for approaches, it turns out the pull of tradition is strong enough to bring emmy back. she’s determined to do her familial duty, spend some quality time with her best friend and get back to her real life in Chicago. but, on her first night home, emmy runs into talia avramov, a badass adept in the darker magical arts, who is fresh off a bad breakup, with gareth blackmoore.

a lesson in vengeance by victoria lee. in the catskills mountains, the centuries old ivy covered campus was home, until the death of her girlfriend. now, after a year away, felicity is returning to graduate. and she even got her old room in the godwin house, the exclusive dormitory rumored to be haunted by the spirit of the five dalloway students, who are believed to be witches. the school doesn’t talk about it, but the students do, and before her girlfriend died, felicity was drawn to the dark, and she is determined to leave that behind now, all felicity wants is to focus on her senior thesis and to graduate. but, it’s hard when dalloway’s occult history is everywhere, and when the new girl won’t let her forget. it’s ellis haley’s first year at dalloway, and she already has a following, a prodigy novelist at seventeen, ellis is a so called ‘method writer.’ and she is eccentric and brilliant, and felicity can’t shake the pull to her, and ellis asks felicity to help research the dalloway five for her second book, and felicity can’t say no.

it ends with us by colleen hoover. lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. she’s come a long way from the small town in maine where she grew up, she graduated from college, moved to boston, and started her own business. so when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named ryle kincaid, everything in lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true. ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant, but he’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for lily, and the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn’t hurt. lily can’t get him out of her head, but ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing and even as lily finds herself becoming the exception to his ‘no dating’ rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place. and as questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts about atlas corrigan, her first love and a link to the past she left behind. he was her kindred spirit, her protector and when atlas suddenly reappears, everything lily has built with ryle is threatened.

autoboyography by christina lauren. three years ago, tanner scott’s family relocated from california to utah, a move that nudged the bisexual teen temporarily back into the closet. now, with one semester of high school to go, and no obstacles between him and out of state college freedom, tanner plans to coast through his remaining classes and clear out of utah. but when his best friend, autumn, dares him to take provo high’s prestigious seminar, where honor roll students diligently toil to draft a book in a semester, tanner can’t resist going against his better judgment and having a go, if only to prove to autumn how silly the whole thing is. writing a book in four months sounds simple, four months is an eternity. it turns out, tanner is only partly right: four months is a long time. after all, it takes only one second for him to notice sebastian brother, the mormon prodigy who sold his own seminar novel the year before and who now mentors the class, and it takes even less than a month for tanner to fall completely in love with him.

our violent ends by chloe gong. so, i’m not going to talk about what this book is about just to avoid spoilers, but this is the second book in the these violent delights series.

you’ll be the death of me by karen m. mcmanus. ivy, mateo, and cal used to be close, now all they have in common is carlton high and the beginning of a very bad day. type a ivy lost a student council election to the class clown, and now she has to face the school, humiliated. heartthrob mateo is burned out and working two jobs since his family’s business failed. and outsider cal just got stood up, again. so when cal pulls into campus late for class and runs into ivy and mateo, it seems like the perfect opportunity to turn a bad day around, they’ll ditch and go into the city. just the three of them, like old times, except they barely left the parking lot before they run out of things to say. until they spot another carlton high student skipping school and follow him to the scene of his own murder. in one chance move, their day turns from dull to deadly and it’s about to get worse. it turns out ivy, mateo, and cal still have some things in common, they all have a connection to the dead kid and they’re all hiding something.

you’ve reached sam by dustin thao. seventeen year old julie has her future all planned out, move out of her small town with her boyfriend, sam, attend college in the city, spend the summer in japan. but then sam dies and everything changes. heartbroken, julie skips his funeral, throws out his things, and tries everything to forget him and the tragic way he died. but a message sam left behind in her yearbook forces back memories. desperate to hear his voice again one more time, julie calls sam’s cellphone just to listen to his voicemail. and sam picks up the phone and in a miraculous turn of events, julie has been given a second chance at goodbye, but the connection is temporary. but hearing sam’ voice makes her fall for him all over again, and with each call it becomes harder and harder to let him go. however, keeping her otherworldly calls with sam a secret isn’t easy, especially when julie witnesses the suffering sam’s family is going through. unable to stand by the sidelines and watch their shared loved ones in pain, julie is torn between spilling the truth about her calls with sam and risking their connection and losing him forever.

anyway, that is all for today! i honestly can’t wait to read these books and i think it reading even a couple of these will be so good, since i hope to read a lot of books i’ve wanted to read for a while, or at least for a long time this year.

hello everyone! today i am going to be talking about all the books i read in november. i honestly had a very good reading month and i really liked so many of these reads and that some of them surprised me, but in a good way. and i honestly can’t wait to talk about so many of these books.

all these bodies by kendare blake. i gave this book 5/5 stars. i honestly was so shocked by this book, and i honestly completely loved it and the story just shocked me so much that i had to give it 5 stars. like, the characters and the plot were just so amazing and i loved how it all played out, that it just felt so wrong to give this book anything less then 5 stars.

the gilded wolves by roshani chokshi. i gave this book 3/5 stars. honestly, i wished i liked this book more, since the writing was so beautiful, but this book honestly confused the hell out of me. like, the plot made zero sense to me and i didn’t understand any of the characters and their relationships and how they all were connect and then their jobs. like, this just didn’t make sense to me, at all.

loveless by alice oseman. i gave this book 3/5 stars. i honestly liked this book, but at the same time i felt kind of let down by all the hype of this book. like, i think so much of this book was just a mess and there was so much happening, and i feel like the ace and aro rep was barely talked about, more just friendship drama and about the play drama.

november 9 by colleen hoover. i gave this book 4/5 stars. i honestly didn’t expect to like this book as much as i did, and i honestly feel like this was a very good book. like, i did really like the romance, and i feel like, for the most of the book, i think it was a very good book. but, i do think the last 50% of this book was kind of a mess and it annoyed the hell out of me. like, i also think the whole ‘twist’ was just so shitty and i hated it.

the wit and wisdom of bridgerton by julia quinn. i gave this book 2/5 stars. i honestly didn’t have any expectations of this book, so i didn’t really know what to expect to happen. but, i feel like this book was just so shitty and i think it was just an unneeded plot and that i really didn’t like it and it really did nothing to happen in this story.

escaping from houdini by kerri maniscalo. i gave this book 5/5 stars. this was a reread, so i don’t really have to many thoughts, but i do think it was a really good book and i honestly really liked this, and i think it was a pretty good, but i think the whole love triangle was stupid and they should have made it be known more that audrey rose would always pick thomas.

becoming the dark prince by kerri maniscalo. i gave this book 5/5 stars. i honestly really liked this book, and i think it was so cool to see the whole relationship between audrey rose and thomas and not to have to much drama, and just vibes so it was just really cute.

bad girls never say die by jennifer mathieu. i gave this book 3/5 stars. i liked this book, and i did really think it was cool to see a different take on the outsiders, and i think seeing a female version of it all was super cool. but, i do wish that this book was queer and we got to have a queer version of the outsiders. but, i still think it was a really good book.

heart bones by colleen hoover. i gave this book 4/5 stars. this was a really good book and i do think it was really cool to have this book not have the stupid plot twists, kind of like november 9. and this book was really addicting and i think the romance and the plot was really good. but, i think some of this was a mess, but i think it was still a super good book and i think the plot was done really well.

as good as dead by holly jackson. i gave this book 5/5 stars. so, this is a reread of the general book, but this time i read the american version. i honestly really really loved this book, and i feel like this book was just so good and i completely loved this book and it was just an amazing book.

tempt me at twilight by lisa kleypas. i gave this book 4/5 stars. i honestly really liked this book, and i honestly really did like the ending of the book. but, i do think that most of the book was really good, but i do wish we got more of the hathaway’s as a family and more family moments. but, i do think it was still really good, even if harry did kind of annoy me a little bit.

these violent delights by chloe gong. i gave this book 4/5 stars. i honestly don’t know why i didn’t like this book a lot the first time, but i did honestly really loved this book and i think it was just such an a great book. like, i really loved this writing and the way the romance progressed. and i think that this completely deserves the hype that it is getting, and i really liked the characters and all their relationships.

anyway, that is all for today! i honestly had a really good book and i did like them. but, i still kind of hope i have a better reading month next month, since i think tvd kind of slowed me down a lot.

hello everyone! today i am going to be talking about the books i hauled this month, but also talking about blogmas and what my plans for it are. which, i didn’t haul to many books this month, so it will be quick to talk about that and then in the end we can talk about blogmas.

the silent unseen by amanda mccrina. this book comes out april 5th, 2022. poland, july 1944. sixteen year old maria is making her way home after years of forced labor in Nazi Germany, only to find her village destroyed and her parents killed in the war between the polish resistance and the ukrainian nationalists. to maria’s shock, the local resistance unit is commanded by her older brother, tomek, who she thought was dead. he is now a ‘silent unseen,’ a special operations agent with an audacious plan to resist a new and even more dangerous enemy sweeping in from the east. and when tomek disappears, maria is determined to find him, but the only person who might be able to help is a young ukrainian prisoner and he last person maria trusts, even as she feels a growing connection to him that she can’t trust.

the summer we forgot by caroline george. this book comes out march 8th, 2022. darby and morgan haven’t spoken for two years, and their friend group has splintered. but, when the body of their former science teacher is found in the marsh where they attended camp that summer, they realize they have more questions than answers, and even fewer memories. but, the group reunited friends begins to suspect that a murderer is stalking the coastal highway 30A, and they must try to recover their memories as quickly as possible, before the history they can’t remember repeats itself. and as tension rises and time runs out, darby and morgan begin to wonder if they can believe one another, or if they can even trust themselves.

the vicious grace by emily thiede. this book comes out june 28th, 2022. with only weeks left until a hungry swarm of demons devours everything on her island home, alessa is running out of time to find a partner and stop the invasion. when a powerful priest convinces the faithful that killing alessa is the island’s only hope, her own soldiers try to assassinate her. desperate to survive, alessa hires dante, a cynical outcast marked as a killer, to become her personal bodyguard. but as rebellion explodes outside the gates, dante’s dark secrets may be the biggest betrayal. he holds the key to her survival and her heart, but is he the one person who can help her master her gift or destroy her once and for all?

she gets the girl by rachael lippincott and alyson derrick. this book comes out april 5th, 2022. alex blackwood is a little bit headstrong, with a dah of chaos and a whole lot of a flirt. she knows how to get the girl, keeping her on the other hand, not so much. molly parker has everything in her life totally in control, except for her complete awkwardness with just about anyone besides her mom. she knows she’s in love with the impossibly cool cora myers, she just, hasn’t actually talked to her yet. alex and molly don’t belong on the same planet, let alone the same college campus, but when alex, has a bad breakup, discovers molly’s hidden crush as their paths cross the night before classes start, they realize they might have a common interest after all. because maybe if alex volunteers to help molly learn how to get her dream girl to fall foe her, she can prove to her ex that she’s not a selfish flirt. that she’s ready for an actual commitment, and while alex is the last person molly would ever think she could trust, she can’t deny alex knows what she’s doing with girls, unlike her.

okay, so for blogmas, i’m going to be posting 31 different blog posts for the month of december. not all of them are christmas related, most of them are book reviews, but i still am honestly so excited and i can’t wait to do this. but, i am still really excited to do these and to celebrate christmas this way.

anyway, that is all for today! it was honestly a very short review, but i still really can’t wait to read any of the books, to hopefully like them and to honestly hope they all are really good.

hello everyone! today i am going to be talking about how we fall apart by Katie Zhao. i gave this book 3/5 stars. i honestly didn’t hate this, but i didn’t really like it. honestly, the saying grace for me is that it was such a quick and easy read.

trigger warning- adult / minor relationship, toxic friendship, suicidal thoughts, fire / fire injury, death, racism, bullying, emotional abuse, suicide, toxic relationship, drug use, violence, drug abuse, self harm, blood, grief, gaslighting, abandonment, mental illness, sexual content, stalking, suicide attempt, outing.

honestly, i think my biggest issue with this book is that this book is pretty much one of us is lying. like, most of the actual plot points in this book is really really similar to oouil. which, honestly, i didn’t really know going into it. but, i feel like this book was something that i didn’t like, and that it was just so bad. like, i think if you want to read this book, i would honestly just read oouil, since that is just the better version of this book.

but, also a lot of this book does revolve around mass texting the whole school, which doesn’t happen and cannot happen. and i think that it was just so stupid that they had this be one of the central part, yet that could like never happen. i know it is something that is so small, but it was something i googled before for a different book and it said that it can’t happen, so with this, it just got to annoy me. and like i guess the whole mass texting the whole school is just trying to make it different from oouil.

one of the things i really liked in this book was nancy. i can’t tell if her experience with her being an Asian american and if that rep is good, but i honestly liked the backstory and her plot with that throughout the book. like, i think it was just really good and i honestly really liked seeing her talk about it throughout the book. but, i also really liked the plot with her being on a scholarship kid in a very rich school. it is something that i can honestly relate to so much, and i feel like with how it all was shown in this book i could see myself, in someway shape or form, so i really liked that they did a good job with showing the struggles with it all.

but, i do think a thing with this book that kind of put me off was how that this book just felt so young. like, i think this book did read kind of young and something that i didn’t really care for. like, i think it was something that i didn’t like, but i feel like it was something that younger teens could like. and i think it just read really young, and also just things that younger teens would like. and just the way they talked just seem very young.

with that, i feel like the mystery wasn’t something i really liked. i think it was something that was not very high stakes, like it just felt like it wasn’t something that i was on the edge of my seat for or that i was so nervous about. like, i think with the whole reveal about it all. like, i think that who it was honestly kind of easy to figure it out and to tell who did it. like, i don’t think the states about the Proctor was that well. like, i think they needed to up it or something. like, yeah there was some threats here and there, but i feel like nancy was the only person that had the big stakes, with having her scholarship being taken away. and like i wish they did raise the stakes for other people and just made the reveal be bigger.

then for the who done it, i feel like the suspense with it all wasn’t there. kind of like i already said, the stakes weren’t there so i really didn’t like how they all did it and how everything kind of fell into place. and i feel like the school didn’t help with it all. since, it was such a competitive school, i think a lot of this book was just, the kids trying to figure it out but then they just go to class, and there was a lot of time were they were stuck into the school. like, i think the school setting was just so boring and i really didn’t like it. and i mean, the whole setting just didn’t work and i wish they had something else there. and the whole reveal really just fell short since there was just so much thrown at you in three seconds.

and i guess at a couple points the stakes were kind of high, but i feel like they still could’ve been higher. like, they could have had more drama or something else in this plot that left more for each of the characters. like, i feel like a lot of this book just came out to be really surface level, like with everything that went down there wasn’t any consequences, and if there was, it was barely anything. and like it’s not like the allegations were something like they stole a lipstick from the store or they didn’t pay for their lunch, it was like drugs and inappropriate relationship, murder, like they never really had anything come out from it. like i think each of the characters pretty much got a slap on the neck and told not to do this again.

with that, i feel like on an emotional level, i couldn’t connect with the characters / the relationships of the characters. like, i think the only one i ever connected with, but not even that deeply, was nancy. like i don’t think they built up the relationship between the four of them, plus the dead one. like, i feel like it was something that i wish i could connect with the characters and the different relationships, but i just couldn’t. like, i feel like it was something that i wish i could like the relationships and them, but i feel like it was just not done well enough.

anyway, that is all for today! i feel like this book was a huge let down, since i would have loved to read and like a more diverse dark academia book, since they are really white. but, i just didn’t like it, and i probably could have read one of us is lying if i wanted to do it.