Beautifully Damaged: Aptly named

 I received a free copy of this book from the author via Voracious Readers Only in exchange for an honest review. This review may contain spoilers read at your own risk.

First off, Thank you to Laura Pavlov for writing Beautifully Damaged and thank you to Voracious Readers Only for allowing me to read this phenomenal book.

Hoo boy, you had better buckle down for the roller coaster ride this book will give you. It will make you laugh, cry, curse, pull your hair, and swoon over the sweetness.

I am a sucker for second chance romances and this book did not disappoint. From the moment Peyton (I hope I spelled her name right) sees Jackson again I fell in love and wanted to protect both of them while also wanting to shake them and shout that they belong together.

My heart broke when Jackson kept being all I need to leave her it is for her on good and never once did he realize that he made her happy until he did as he promised himself and left to go to Miami. When he realized what an idiot he was I kept waiting for him to come back and I was all he had better damn well be grovelling on his hands and knees begging for her to take him back. He didn't but what he did was sweeter.

I full on cried when it came to the letter Joseph wrote to Jackson because it was what he needed to hear, but was too stubborn to listen to. I can go on and on about this book, but I think it is best if you read it for yourselves. If you love second chance romances this book will not disappoint.

500 out of 5 stars.

Silvered Serpents (Gilded Wolves 2)

 I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This review may contain spoilers so read at your own risk.

The Silvered Serpents by Roshani Chokshi is phenomenal. Infinitely better than the first one and I devoured it in three days. I fell in love with almost all the characters (it took me a long time to love Severin with his whole I need to be a god to protect people phase and I could not stand Laila still because she is always whining about something).

Enrique and Zofia are my two new favourite characters because the way they interact is priceless and I wanted to wrap them in bubblewrap and place them high on a shelf so the author could not hurt them. (Spoiler: the author does hurt them). Enrique had me at the going into a volcano and coming out wanting chocolate and marshmallows (a boy after my own heart) and when he struggled to protect Zofia because he was all "not her" I was dying and in a puddle wanting to hug and stash them away somewhere. Hypnos is still a favourite because he is unabashedly himself in a world where people frown upon who he is.

Kudos to the author for having such a diverse group of characters and I never saw the twists coming. Not with the Muses or the Doctor.

This book hurt but it was magical and it immersed me wholeheartedly into the story. There were still a couple of inconsistencies but nothing that took away from the story. It was better than the first book because in the first one I forgot so many times that we were supposed to be in Paris, but with this one it was hard to forget because the author added details and reminded you of where you were. It was also a lot more diverse in settings, which I adored and now I need to read the third book. I need to know what happens.

500 out of 5 stars.

Highly recommend.

Gilded Wolves

 The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi is one of those books that you should not go into with high expectations. This book was so hyped that I could not lower my expectations and did not enjoy it as much as I wanted to. 

The beginning was slow and confusing with a lot of flowery writing that made me feel like I should give the book an extra star because it was not it's fault that it was so hyped up that I wound up with unrealistic expectations. However, the ending did pick up and I did enjoy reading it, but wished that the beginning did not exist.

I cannot express enough how much I did not like the beginning or Laila's character (she rubs me the wrong way). Be warned there are a lot of inconsistencies in the book to the point I could not figure what the characters were supposed to look like anymore. And Tristan's characterization suddenly went left field and I kind of wish there was more of a lead to into it because it was suddenly like bam he's the complete opposite of who he is.

My favourite character was Hypnos because he is such a delight to read. He never really strays from who he is and he embraces himself flaws and all.

This book is destined to be a four out of 5 stars. (It was going to be four to add to the three because of the hyped up aspect, but the ending saved it and brought it up to an actual four. Just to confuse all of you.)

This is a tricky book to recommend because the second book is infinitely better than the first and you need to read the first to get the second book. (Although there is a lot of retelling of what happened in the first so if you want to skip this one you probably could). 

Fairy Disappointing

Fairy Sight by Patricia Bossano is not an YA/Adult fairytale like it claims to be. 

I had to DNF at 25% in and most of it I skipped because holy hellmatoes was it hard deciphering what visuals the author wanted the readers to take away. The words were super flowery and long winded to the point I was getting a headache by the time the sentence ended.

There is also one point where the author must have copy and pasted because it was the exact same description for the fairyland as it was in the beginning. Also, it lies she is not seventeen but eighteen years old as well as eleven and fifteen. I kind of wish the book had started with her being whatever age she is supposed to be 17 or 18 and went from there.

I got so bored that I found myself taking multiple breaks to the point where I started to read other books just so I would not have to torture myself with this book. I wanted to be dragged in because I love fairy tales or anything with fairies and human princesses/princes.

Maybe one day I will continue to read it, but during these times it is not quite the escape I was looking for in a book.

2 out of 5 stars.

If it was for middle grade or younger it would be 4 out of 5 because it reads that way.

The Redpoint Crux: Giselle or Phantom of the Opera?

The Redpoint Crux by Morgan Shamy is interesting. I thought that when it said "dying girls" that the girls would be the ones dying, not the men. My main issue with the book is that it should have stuck with Giselle or The Phantom of the Opera, not both. And I found the reason for why the girls were dying a little far fetched. And I have so many questions the more I sat on the book and thought about it. Believe it or not I read this book over a month ago, and I am struggling to come to terms with the book. I bought a kindle edition hoping the formatting would not be so weird on that one, and maybe the book will make sense.

I liked Red and Liam, for me they were the most believable characters and I could see a love interest between them, but I could not see it for the characters that do wind up getting together. It felt false to me, but that could just be me.

It was not a "oh wow where has this book been all my life" story for me, and for that reason I am giving it a 3.5 star rating.

Not What I was Expecting

"Some vendettas have more lives than others.

The gods walk among us. Some lurk in the shadows, masquerading as mortals; others embrace their celebrity status, launching careers from Hollywood to Capitol Hill.

One of them just murdered Cairn Delacroix's mother."

This is the first bit from the blurb of This Eternity of Masks and Shadows by Karsten Knight.

Oh boy, where to begin with this book? For someone who is supposed to be a bestselling author of over four books I was expecting better world-building and characterization. Maybe that was my problem, I expected it was going to be good and wound up in a river of disappointment because I feel awful for saying this but for a majority of the book it felt like the characters were going through the motions. There was no real I feel for you let me root for you to get what you want. I had no clue what the characters wanted half the time and I almost gave up on this book fifty times because the characters were one dimensional. They did to slightly get some definition toward them nearing the end of the book, but half of the characters were already dead by that point.

I found most of the story unbelievable and have you ever heard the sound a Canadian Lynx makes? I could not take Squall, the Canadian Lynx Cairn's mother smuggles across the border from Canada, seriously and I laughed every time the lynx came onto the scene. I wanted so much more then this book was willing to offer like a relationship between Cairn and her dad. Honestly, the dad could have been left out entirely and not affected the story at all. He seemed more like an afterthought than an actual character that is crucial to the story.

Cairn gets what she wants the moment we get told what she wants (her best friend Delphine to return her feelings of affection) within the first three pages which turns me off because I want the characters to work for what they want. I want to root for them to get their love interest but when you take it away within the first minute of the book I am going to be rooting for something to happen that splits them apart. I need something to root for. 

Another problem, most of the book is us being told what is going on and not being shown what is going on. I wanted to hold onto something concrete to immerse myself in the world, but I could not even do that and it hurts so much to have that happen in a book.

This book has so much potential if the author fleshed out the characters (the gods were more human than the humans), took a deep breath and showed us the world (how did the gods come to walk among humans? Why are they real? Is every single god and goddess in existence out there in the world? If gods are reincarnated and possess the abilities of that myth why do their children not possess any of these abilities? Why did the author pick the gods and goddesses that he did? If there was a second book would he play around with the gods and goddesses some more? Does he not realize that Roman and Greek gods are one and the same so he should have had Mercury also say Hermes and he did not as additional names.) The list could go on and on, but the general gist is that this book could have had a higher review if it did not feel like the author got lazy and could have benefited from reading Save The Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody (coincidentally, I was also reading this at the same time as this book and this book hit home on everything this book was missing.)

2 out of 5 stars.

A book that delivers on it's promise

Emberhawk by Jamie Foley is an incredible novel because it does what it sets out to do. You want elementals walking the world playing with all the pathetic humans? You got it. You want a potential war between different groups? You bet it is in here. You want a diverse cast with characters that struggle and have their moral compasses challenged? Right here. Girl shoots boy who winds up being an enemy solider with her dad's arrows? It is so here.
This book I cannot sing its praises enough because it is refreshing that the blurb is what actually happens in the book. The world-building was effortless and I finished it in three days and regretted when I got to the last page.
I have already bought the first book and preordered the second book. I will not say much about it except that this a book I would recommend reading to understand what I mean about it being a breath of fresh air.
5 out of 5 stars (500 out of 5 stars)