THE POISONS WE DRINK By Bethany Baptiste

March 5, 2024 by Leave a Comment

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

THE POISONS WE DRINK By Bethany BaptisteThe Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste
Published by Sourcebooks Fire on 3/26/24
Genres: Fantasy & Magic, Paranormal, Urban Fantasy, Young Adult
Pages: 474
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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Love potions is a dangerous business. Brewing has painful, debilitating side effects, and getting caught means death or a prison sentence. But what Venus is most afraid of is the dark, sentient magic within her.

Then an enemy's iron bullet kills her mother, Venus's life implodes. Keeping her reckless little sister Janus safe is now her responsibility. When the powerful Grand Witcher, the ruthless head of her coven, offers Venus the chance to punish her mother's killer, she has to pay a steep price for revenge. The cost? Brew poisonous potions to enslave D.C.'s most influential politicians.

As Venus crawls deeper into the corrupt underbelly of her city, the line between magic and power blurs, and it's hard to tell who to trust…Herself included.

Short and Sweet Review

Venus brews love potions illegally, but she does what she needs to keep her mom and sister afloat. In this book we see a divide between witches and humans. When Venus’s mom Clarissa dies from an iron bullet, Venus’s world is turned upside down, but when Venus is offered the chance to make a difference for witches and get revenge on her mothers killer by the grand Witcher, Venus accepts. All Venus needs to do is brew poisons that will have politicians follow the wishes of the grand Witcher. The further Venus goes on in this scheme the more she realizes that everything around her is corrupt and she doesn’t know who to trust including herself.

This was an interesting take on a book about witches. It takes place in current times but the country is divided and there’s laws that are going to be voted on soon that aren’t favorable to witches. Venus isn’t too worried about that yet, she’s more focused on making potions for customers. We see that Venus cares about her family and after the death of her mother she really feels like she has to keep her sister Janus safe. I think Clarissa’s death sets everything in motion, we see Venus start to work for the grand Witcher and stop the vote against the witches. There’s a lot going on in this book and I thought the pacing was off. There were times where things were picking up and then other times when it was so slow that it made me feel like I’ve been reading this book forever. I was thinking this book could have been a part of a series but its just a standalone and it kind of made sense why it was so long, but thinking back it could have been cut down a bit. I liked seeing the different types of magic that the witches had. Venus has a good support system behind her but we see through the book that Venus starts to lose herself and really has to dig down deep to remember who she is and what she should be fighting for. Venus had a romantic interest, Presley, but I feel like there was really no time for romance in this book. The book is good and you get some glimpses of amazing writing and story telling but there’s points in the book where it drags and you just wonder why everything has slowed down so much. The pacing is almost like a rollercoaster ride and not a fun one when it comes to keeping your attention.

Overall, I did like the story it was interesting and the world is really something different. Venus is a character that will have you rooting for her and just wanting her to be safe and get everything she wants especially with all that she’s been through. The only downfall was the length of the book and again the pacing, but besides that its a good read.

Filed Under: Reviews

YOU WILL BE MINE By Natasha Preston

January 3, 2024 by Leave a Comment

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

YOU WILL BE MINE By Natasha PrestonYou Will Be Mine by Natasha Preston
Published by Sourcebooks Fire on 2/6/18
Genres: Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 306
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
Buy on Amazon

ROSES ARE RED

VIOLETS ARE BLUE

WATCH YOUR BACK

I'M COMING FOR YOU

Lylah and her friends can't wait to spend a night out together. Partying is the perfect way to let loose from the stress of life and school, and Lylah hopes that hitting the dance floor with Chace, her best friend, will bring them closer together. She's been crushing on him since they met. If only he thought of her the same way…

The girls are touching up their makeup and the guys are sliding on their coats when the doorbell rings. No one is there. An envelope sits on the doormat. It's an anonymous note addressed to their friend Sonny. A secret admirer? Maybe. They all laugh it off.

Except Sonny never comes home. And a new note arrives:

YOUR TURN

Short and Sweet Review

Lylah and her friends love to party, but one night when getting ready the doorbell rings and an envelope is left on the doorstep and then one of her roommates ends up missing. The notes keep coming and more of Lylah’s friends are put in danger.

This book was one of those books that makes you wonder if the main character has brain cells. Lylah’s friends are going missing but her and her roomies that are still alive think it’s smart to sneak away from their security detail just to get some alone time. The culprit in this book is cutting out peoples hearts and it’s just a bad plot used from an episode of Criminal Minds. Also Lylah isn’t a Nancy Drew, her and her friends pick one person they think can do it and decide to blame that person for everything and of course they end up being wrong. Anyway the actual culprit was off their rocker and had some real dependency issues going on. While Lylah’s friends are being slaughtered like pigs she’s out and about thinking about her crush Chace and trying to get closer to him because she’s had a crush on him for like ever.

Overall, not a good book. I read most of Prestons books and I don’t love them but I’m always hopeful that one of them will be good enough for me to change my mind and this book just tilted the seesaw to the no don’t read anything else by this author! Anyway, this is like a bad horror movie where the characters make you want to slap your forehead and shout out “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

Filed Under: Reviews

THE CELLAR By Natasha Preston

January 1, 2024 by Leave a Comment

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

THE CELLAR By Natasha PrestonThe Cellar by Natasha Preston
Series: The Cellar #1
Published by Sourcebooks Fire on 3/1/14
Genres: Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 344
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
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Summer is trapped in a cellar with the man who took her—and three other girls: Rose, Poppy, and Violet. His perfect flowers. His family. But flowers can't survive long cut off from the sun, and time is running out...

Short and Sweet Review

Summer is kidnapped by some man calling himself Clover and she’s locked into his cellar with three other girls who he calls Rose, Poppy, and Violet, and Summer becomes Lily.

Honestly there’s not much to this book. Our main character was kidnapped and now she has to figure out how to survive and escape. Summer is trapped in the cellar with three other girls who have been there longer than her and tell her to play along because if she doesn’t she’ll be killed. We have three POVs Summers, her boyfriend Lewis, and the kidnapper Clover. I will say I enjoyed Summers the most but I did like how Clover’s gave us an insight into why he was doing what he was doing. This book reminds me of a famous case that happened during the 2010s. I will say I enjoyed the ending of this book or at least I think I did, I was on a NyQuil kick when I got to final chapter.

Overall, this book was okay. There wasn’t a lot to it, a majority of the book just follows the girls life in the Cellar and we see Clover find more potential victims and Lewis try to find Summer. I plan on reading the sequel to this book just to see what it has in store.

Filed Under: Reviews

THE GRIMROSE GIRLS By Laura Pohl

November 20, 2023 by Leave a Comment

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

THE GRIMROSE GIRLS By Laura PohlThe Grimrose Girls by Laura Pohl
Series: Grimrose Girls #1
Published by Sourcebooks Fire on 10/26/21
Genres: Fairy Tales & Folklore, Fantasy & Magic, LGBT, Mystery & Detective, Retellings, Young Adult
Pages: 267
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
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After the mysterious death of their best friend, Ella, Yuki, and Rory are the talk of their elite school, Grimrose Académie. The police ruled Ariane's death as a suicide, but the trio are determined to find out what really happened.

When Nani Eszes arrives as their newest roommate, it sets into motion a series of events that no one could have predicted. As the girls retrace their friend's final days, they discover a dark secret about Grimrose—Ariane wasn't the first dead girl.

They soon learn that all the past murders are connected to ancient fairytale curses…and that their own fates are tied to the stories, dooming the girls to brutal and gruesome endings unless they can break the cycle for good.

Short and Sweet Review

Yuki, Ella, and Rory are still reeling after the mysterious death of their best friend Ariane, and they’re just trying to make sense of it all. Ariane’s death was ruled a suicide but her friends know she wouldn’t even attempt to swim in the lake so they know something is up. Nani is a new student at the academy and she ends up rooming with Yuki and Rory. Nani’s appearance ends up setting in to motion the investigation into Ariane’s final days. The girls end up finding a book Ariane was looking at that has fairy tales and Ariane was connecting the fairy tales to students and how they would die. Following this lead the girls find out that Ariane wasn’t the only death at the academy.

This book was interesting and I loved the premise. Each of the girls is very different, Yuki is the protector and Ella is the caretaker, while Rory is rough around the edges and has a lot of emotions. Nani is one who I’m still trying to figure out, she came to Grimrose to learn more about her dad and she finds another mystery instead. Each girl gets their own POV and I didn’t have a specific one that I liked but I feel like I couldn’t really get to know them as well as I would have if the book was longer and just one POV. I did like that the fairy tale stories were connected to how someone would die, and these aren’t Disney fairy tales these were like the Grimm Brothers versions. The mystery was good and I loved the setting of the academy and the darkness of it all just set the mood. This first book is pretty short and I feel like there were a lot of things left to be answered. I’m interested to see what’s going to happen in the next book, and I’m hoping for more development and more of a connection to these characters.

Filed Under: Reviews

NIGHT OF THE WITCH By Sara Raasch and Beth Revis

September 22, 2023 by Leave a Comment

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

NIGHT OF THE WITCH By Sara Raasch and Beth RevisNight of the Witch by Beth Revis, Sara Raasch
Series: Witch and Hunter #1
Published by Sourcebooks Fire on 10/3/23
Genres: Fantasy & Magic, Historical, Paranormal, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 416
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
Buy on Amazon

Fritzi is a witch. The lone survivor of a brutal attack on her coven, she's determined to find her only remaining family member and bring the hexenjägers—zealot witch hunters—to justice for the lives they ended. To do this, she will need to take down their leader, the merciless and enigmatic Kommandant Dieter Kirch.

Otto is a hexenjäger—but that's just his cover. Years ago, the hexenjägers burned his innocent mother alive, and he has been plotting his revenge against the people who tore apart his family ever since. And now the time has come for them to pay for what they've done.

When Fritzi and Otto are unexpectedly thrown together, neither is sure they can trust the other. The reluctant truce fueled by their common enemy takes them from the city at the heart of the hexenjägers' power to the wild and mysterious Black Forest. As old truths come to light and new dangers are revealed, Fritzi and Otto uncover a horrifying magical plot at the center of the hexenjäger attacks that leads back to Kommandant Kirch . . . but their own growing feelings for each other may be the most powerful magic of all.

Short and Sweet Review

Fritzi is the only survivor after her coven was brutally murdered by the hexenjägers (witch hunters), and now she’s made it her mission to find her only surviving relative, her cousin Liesel. To accomplish her mission she’ll need to take down their leader, Dieter Kirch. On the other hand we have Otto who is one of the hexenjägers and Dieters second in command. Ever since the hexenjägers killed Otto’s mother he’s been planning his revenge. When Fritzi and Otto meet they’re weary of each other ones a witch and the other is a hunter but they both have a common goal.

I feel like Night of the Witch was predictable, We have Fritzi a witch teaming up with a rogue witch hunter and the villain was just weird and felt like his motive was just to be powerful and in charge. Fritzi encounters Otto and his fellow witch hunters while on the search for her cousin, which is when Fritzi becomes imprisoned herself. When the two have time alone Otto explains that he’s been working to free the other witches that are set to burn and he needs Fritzi’s help to do it. This is where things get weird because we learn how Fritzi and Dieter are connected and then Fritzi escapes with Otto and Liesel and they learn that they’ve been picked to be a Goddess’s chosen one and warrior. We also learn that there are different kind of witches, out main character Fritzi uses herbs to cast spells, while her cousin is able to control fire. I didn’t like the romance between Fritzi and Otto mainly because it felt too easy in a sense, they were supposed to be enemies but not really since Otto isn’t who he’s portraying to the world, but the romance between them felt forced and a little to instant for me. Honestly the book was slow and I think it was due to all the world building, but also the villain just seemed too predictable and the ending was ridiculous especially when you read the epilogue.

Overall, I liked that this book did have historical elements in it, but I wish there was more going on to keep my interest and hopefully in the next book there’s more action and character development. Night of the Witch was an okay book and I’m still on the fence of whether I would want to continue the series.

Filed Under: Reviews

FOUR FOUND DEAD By Natalie D. Richards

April 10, 2023 by Leave a Comment

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

FOUR FOUND DEAD By Natalie D. RichardsFour Found Dead by Natalie D. Richards
Published by Sourcebooks Fire on 5/2/23
Genres: Horror & Ghost Stories, Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 282
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
Buy on Amazon

Tonight, Riverview Theaters is closing forever, the last remaining business in a defunct shopping mall. The moviegoers have left, and Jo and her six coworkers have the final shift, a shift that quickly takes a dark turn.

First a stranger arrives with a chilling accusation. Then the power goes out and their manager disappears, along with the keys to the lobby doors and the theater safe, where the crew's phones are locked each shift. The crew's tension turns to terror when Jo discovers the dead body of one of her co-workers.

Now their only chance to escape the murderer in their midst is through the dark, shuttered mall. With its boarded-up exits and disabled fire alarms, the complex is filled with hiding places for both pursuer and pursued. In order to survive this night, Jo and her friends must trust one another, navigate the sprawling ruins of the mall, and outwit a killer before he kills them all.

Short and Sweet Review

The Riverview Theaters is closing forever, it’s the last business that is open in a now closed shopping mall. All of the customers are gone and now it’s time for Jo and her six coworkers to clean and lock everything up. Their manager is the only one with the keys but once the lights go out he’s nowhere to be found and one of Jo’s coworkers is found dead. Now Jo and the rest of her coworkers need to find a way out and the only way is through a mall that is getting ready to be demolished.

The premise of this book is what got my attention, but I think the execution fell short. Everyone is locked in this mall and they know the only way to survive is to leave the theater and go into the mall. I thought there’d be more of a mystery as to who was trying to kill the group but the killer is revealed at the beginning. The motive for why this person was chasing the group down wasn’t revealed until the last couple of chapters. Jo our main character wants to be a doctor so we see her trying to help those who end up getting injured, she also has ptsd from an incident that happened when she was younger which is why she froze when she saw the killer’s gun. I like the idea of running through an abandoned mall and its dark and you have to find your way out but this was just overkill, the killer was just deranged and the reasoning was not all there. I didn’t remember most of the characters I thought there were too many and I was really waiting for the death toll to get up to four. I think the best part of this book was the little snippets of news articles and emails from people close to the victims. I think the book could have been better if we didn’t know who the suspect was so early on or maybe someone snuck in and did it.

Four Found Dead, had an interesting synopsis that draws you in, but the execution of the book just falls short. I thought I’d be a fan of this book but it just didn’t happen.

Filed Under: Reviews

THE LOST By Natasha Preston

March 9, 2023 by Leave a Comment

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

THE LOST By Natasha PrestonThe Lost by Natasha Preston
Published by Sourcebooks Fire on 3/26/19
Genres: Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 306
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
Buy on Amazon

It's a fight for survival in a building designed to ensure that no one makes it out alive.

In Piper's hometown, teenagers keep disappearing, and everyone assumes they're just a bunch of runaways. But when yet another person vanishes, Piper and her best friend Hazel suspect something more sinister is going on.

So they decide to investigate, determined to learn the truth. Their search for answers leads them to the source of the missing…and their captors. Piper and Hazel suddenly find themselves locked away in a secluded property in the middle of a privately owned forest.

But the building isn't only meant to keep them imprisoned; every room is a test to see if they can make it out alive.

And failure means being lost…forever.

Short and Sweet Review

Teenagers in Piper’s hometown are going missing. Piper and her friend Hazel get the bright idea that they should investigate. Piper and Hazel go to a party and end up leaving with two guys who are the actual kidnappers. The girls are taken to some secluded warehouse in the middle of the forest. In the warehouse there are the other teens that have gone missing and they inform the girls that there are six rooms made to torture them. Each room is made to break a person and if they can survive it they may be able to make it out of this situation alive.

This book read like an episode of Criminal Minds. Piper and Hazel were naive, like why did they think that they were going to be the ones to solve this mystery of missing teens and then they ended up getting taken themselves. In the warehouse they meet four other teens who have been there a various amount of time. The different rooms are: sound, light, sleep deprivation, temperature, one with water, and one where there was supposed to be like a fight to the death. Room zero is where people fight to the death and it’s mentioned but Piper never goes to that room. In this place Piper tries to take on the role of a leader which doesn’t go over well with everyone, and Hazel just gets insufferable, the situation obviously isn’t ideal but she is the biggest pessimist in the room. Anyway we see Piper endure some of the rooms and we see other characters come and go into them. The main thing everyone wants to do is get out alive and see their families. The captors are deranged and honestly I think the best thing about this book like I mentioned before was that it was like an episode of Criminal Minds, it really added a lot of suspense to the book. In the end there was another captor who just came out the woodwork and you can tell that everyone who came up with the idea of kidnapping people and making them endure such crazy things is not right in the head.

Overall the concept was great but the characters were horrible and so was the ending. I think that’s a common theme in Preston’s books, the endings just throw me off so much that the book becomes off-putting to me. This was an okay book but I don’t think Preston’s books are really for me.

Filed Under: Reviews

FOUR DAYS OF YOU AND ME By Miranda Kenneally

January 7, 2023 by Leave a Comment

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

FOUR DAYS OF YOU AND ME By Miranda KenneallyFour Days of You and Me by Miranda Kenneally
Published by Sourcebooks Fire on 5/5/20
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 356
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
Buy on Amazon

Every May 7th, the students at Coffee County High School take a class trip. And every year, Lulu's relationship with Alex Rouvelis gets a little more complicated. Freshman year they went from sworn enemies to more than friends after a close encounter in an escape room. It's been hard for Lulu to quit Alex ever since.

Through break-ups, make-ups, and dating other people, each year's class trip brings the pair back together and forces them to confront their undeniable connection. From the science museum to Six Flags, New York City to London, Lulu learns one thing is for sure: love is the biggest trip of all.

Are Lulu and Alex meant to be, or are they better apart?

Short and Sweet Review

Four Days of You and Me follows the relationship between Lulu and Alex. It’s over the course of four years so I’m not sure why the title is four days but that’s a problem for another day. Each year their class takes a field trip and each year Lulu and Alex’s relationship gets a little more complicated.

The premise sounded cute but the more I read the more I thought that these characters were toxic! I like the idea of going on a new field trip each year and seeing how their relationship progressed but they were both dramatic and kind of self centered. I also didn’t like how it would alternate from past to present it just seemed all over the place. We see Lulu and Alex date to them breaking up to Lulu being jealous if he’s with someone else even though she broke up with him it was just a headache. It was a constant “he loves me he loves me not,” situation with the two of them. At the end of the book I thought they should have just gone their separate ways. These two are not a couple that I liked or even shipped, there was no connection it was just a hot mess.

Filed Under: Reviews

BURN DOWN, RISE UP By Vincent Tirado

December 24, 2022 by Leave a Comment

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

BURN DOWN, RISE UP By Vincent TiradoBurn Down, Rise Up by Vincent Tirado
Published by Sourcebooks Fire on 5/3/22
Genres: Horror & Ghost Stories, LGBT, Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 308
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
Buy on Amazon

For over a year, the Bronx has been plagued by sudden disappearances that no one can explain. Sixteen-year-old Raquel does her best to ignore it. After all, the police only look for the white kids. But when her crush Charlize's cousin goes missing, Raquel starts to pay attention—especially when her own mom comes down with a mysterious illness that seems linked to the disappearances.

Raquel and Charlize team up to investigate, but they soon discover that everything is tied to a terrifying urban legend called the Echo Game. The game is rumored to trap people in a sinister world underneath the city, and the rules are based on a particularly dark chapter in New York's past. And if the friends want to save their home and everyone they love, they will have to play the game and destroy the evil at its heart—or die trying.

Short and Sweet Review

For the past year teens have been disappearing in the Bronx and no one has an answer about what’s happening. Raquel usually ignores these things but when one of the disappearances hits close to home Raquel knows she needs to help. When Charlize, Raquels crush’s cousin goes missing and Raquels mom contracts a mysteries illness, the girls team up to investigate what’s going on in the Bronx.

The book starts off with us seeing Cisco, Charlize’s cousin going a little crazy and he asks Charlize for help but eventually he ends up going missing. Raquels mom was in close contact with Cisco and ends up having to be quarantined and put in a medical induced coma. The girls don’t really know what’s going on but they find out that Cisco was playing a game called the echo. Essentially the Echo is played at like 3 in the morning and there’s a set of rules and if you break one of those rules you’re in trouble.

This book was so good, it was creepy and at some points I really did regret reading it at night. The echo was interesting because it takes the people who play to a dark chapter in their city’s past and in this case it took Raquel and her friends to the period of the Bronx burnings. I liked Raquel even though this whole situation was scary, she faced it head on twice! If it were me I would have no parts of playing the echo game. This group of friends were resourceful and had each others backs which I appreciated because everyone needs a good support system and Raquel had that. There was some good history in this book, I’ve never heard of the Bronx burnings before reading this book.

Burn Down, Rise Up will keep you up at night, and its a good kind of spooky that’ll have you flipping pages until you find out what’s really happening down in the echo and whether our protagonist can survive this game!

Filed Under: Reviews

H2O By Virginia Bergin

December 21, 2022 by Leave a Comment

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

H2O By Virginia BerginH2O by Virginia Bergin
Series: The Rain #1
Published by Sourcebooks Fire on 10/7/14
Genres: Dystopian, Science Fiction, Young Adult
Pages: 354
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
Buy on Amazon

.27 is a number Ruby hates. It's a number that marks the percentage of the population that has survived. It's a number that means she's one of the "lucky" few still standing. And it's a number that says her father is probably dead.

Against all odds, Ruby has survived the catastrophic onset of the killer rain. Two weeks after the radio started broadcasting the warning, "It's in the rain. It's fatal and there's no cure," the drinkable water is running out. Ruby's left with two options: persevere on her own or embark on a treacherous journey across the country to find her father—if he's even still alive.

Short and Sweet Review

Ruby is hanging out at a friends house when the panic begins that something is wrong with the rain and it ends up being all the water. The rain is deadly and one drop hitting you could kill you, Ruby ends up surviving but its been two weeks since the initial rain storm that started everything and now drinkable water is running out. Now Ruby has decide whether she wants to stick it out on her own or try to go to London and find her dad.

This was an interesting book because it’s all about your survival instincts and Ruby has to learn to think about herself if she’s going to make it. After the first storm, Ruby was with her mom, baby brother, and step dad, but eventually it’s just Ruby. When it’s just Ruby that’s when I thought the book started to pick up mainly because we get to see how she’s going to survive on her own and make the trip to London. Eventually she meets up with someone from school Darius and a girl that he found and they begin to travel with Ruby. This is where things started to go downhill. I thought Ruby was better off on her own, there was nothing wrong with Darius he honestly had a lot of good input but for some reason Ruby always wanted to argue with him, most of their dialogue was Ruby shouting at him. She also started to make some questionable decisions. The book is written in a way in which its Ruby writing about her experience. I didn’t mind the writing style but I did mind how a promising character seemed to forget what she should be focusing on.

Overall the premise is interesting and I may read the sequel just to see how everything ends.

Filed Under: Reviews