meg_'s reviews
489 reviews

This was my first fiction read of the year and I truly disliked it so much, which was very disappointing. The writing itself felt really juvenile. There was a lot of telling rather than showing what was happening or how the characters were feeling.  The plot itself was so disjointed and just absolutely wild that I had to suspend my disbelief significantly to continue reading, which I just don't think should be the case when it comes to a romance book.

The other piece that I found to be one of the main factors that I disliked was how infantalized Archer was throughout the series. Not only from how Bree treated him but how the entire community treated him. I don't have too many more thoughts other than that I felt like this read like a 15 year old wrote it and I really am sad I paid money to purchase it lol. 

I'm not going to give a star rating on this because it is nonfiction and largely includes information about a person's life and experiences but I found there to be a lot of really helpful tangible strategies throughout the book. Would highly recommend to any foster/adoptive parents. 

I have a deep love for these books and this one did not disappoint. I am obsessed with Julian Haites. Like I want every good thing in the world for him and there is just absolutely no way that I can root for the other man in Magnolia's life after reading this book and these moments from Julian's perspective. I also think Daisy Haites is an absolute badass and Christian is the sweetest male main character in this fictional world. But if I'm being honest, I'm reading these books solely for Magnolia and Julian at this point. I love Magnolia and the fact that other people love her so much and understand her magnetism and angel status, while internally she is constantly questioning herself. And I especially love the dynamic between Daisy and Magnolia because of all of this. 

This was great, I love these books, I will forever be obsessed. And Julian Haites deserves to get the girl. 

This was just fine for me. Not great, but not bad either. Very middle of the road. I think that the magic system and the overall premise were just super overdone and the characters were pretty basic so all around it didn't hold my attention to well. To be fair, December was a really bad reading month for me so I felt this way about a lot of the books I read this month. Ultimately none of the book was memorable enough to stand out or feel truly engaging. 

I have complicated feelings about this book. Because I do love a sapphic romance with a cast of diverse queer characters and a super lovable gay friend group. However, I really did not enjoy reading about either of these main characters. There were times where I felt like it didn't make sense why these two women even liked each other because the only thing they really had in common was soccer. Their personalities were polar opposites and I felt a lot of the time that Grace just basically tolerated Phoebe, but didn't love her. I recognize there is nuance to that, but this just didn't feel as enjoyable of a read as my previous book from this author. It seems like Meryl Wilsner is a hit or miss author for me and so far I've only genuinely enjoyed one of the books she's written. I will undoubtably read the next one she puts out though.

This was overall good, I just don't have too many thoughts or too much to say about it at this point. I think I wasn't as invested as I needed to be to truly enjoy the story in the way it deserved. I think most people would definitely enjoy this, as long as they were comfortable with moving forward after reading the identified content warnings. 

This was a cute and easy read that I genuinely enjoyed. I think the characters were really well developed and felt easy to relate to. The dynamic that the TV show brought in was fun and made the story more engaging, and Astrid's journey of self discovery throughout was a more hard hitting element that I wasn't expecting to read in this story. 

Overall I liked this read, it just wasn't necessarily one that stuck out to me or that I'll be thinking about for a super long time going forward. Hence, the medium tier rating. 

I have complicated feelings about this book. I'm going to start with my positives. Similarly to the first book in this series, I still am absolutely obsessed with Magnolia Parks as a character. I think she is vibrant and loveable and even when she is being annoying or has her head up her ass I still love her. I also absolutely loved the relationship within this story between Magnolia and

Julian Haites. I LOVE JULIAN HAITES and I truly feel like he and Magnolia are way better suited for one another. 

As I established within my review of book one, I am not a huge fan of BJ so this was a bit of a struggle to get through for me. I do think that this book provided so much more context for their relationship and the reasons they feel so intricately tied to one another. I also think there was a clear reason established for why BJ did what he did that lead to the end of their relationship that didn't just feel like a flimsy excuse. 

On the negative side, I do think that BJ continued to do things to Magnolia that were objectively toxic. That made it really hard for me to feel happy about the overall arc of this book. Especially with the fact that I freaking love Julian.

I think the reason Julian and Magnolia's relationship ended was really dumb and a cop out. It was done in a way that could have been super damaaging to Magnolia considering her history of being cheated on and never feeling like shse's enough for others

Lastly, this book was way too fucking long. It rambled on for five million years and I feel like so much could have been left out without it impacting the plot too intensely. 

The ending was devastating (as is required with the end of all Magnolia Parks Universe books) and as per usual, I can't wait to read the next one!

I'm going to keep it brief. I have an unhealthy love for these books and Daisy and Christian were just wayyy more loveable to read about than Magnolia and BJ's toxicity. Christian is such a thoughtful and sweet guy and I love him. I love Julian Haites despite all of his many flaws. Lastly, the ending of this book genuinely hurt my feelings. Can't wait to read the next one! lol

I have so much to say that I'm not sure where to start with this review. I really did not enjoy this second installment of this series. I'm going to try to break it down into primary reasons why so here goes. There will be lots of spoilers that I will try to cover up as I am able!

1. Length and Pacing. This book was soooo unnecessarily long. Over 600 pages of this book all for what I feel was very little pay out when it came to world building and truly understanding the threat that is posed and how to address it at the root rather than just putting a bandaid over it. Beyond the length, the pacing of this story felt so weird to me. So much happened and it felt like the plot was constantly jumping all over the pace that it made it hard to feel invested in anything that was happening before dynamics shifted so significantly that the previous plot point almost didn't matter any more. 

2. Plot. Oh my word this was alllll over the place plot wise. I was lost about the reasoning for so much of what happened. The first chunk of this book where we are coming to terms with the fact that

Brennan is alive and Violet didn't know

happened so quickly and then they were immediately back at Basgiath. The first chunk of the plot at Basgiath truly felt so pointless. There is this whole conflict between Violet and the Vice Commandant that seemed to have no reasoning behind it, but still has such high stakes for Violet in the end. Additionally, the "collaborate with other quadrants" challenge or second year test was so out of place and I genuinely feel that could have been cut out of the book completely without any major plot points being effected.

Ultimately, the plot goes from Violet being with the rebellion in Resson, back to Basgiath, back to the rebellion, all to end up right back at Basgiath. Like what was the point of any of it!?

3. Stakes. There are so many points in this book where we are told by our narrator  that things are super dangerous or that people are going to die and we are made to believe that each of these situations are super high stakes as a result. But for each of these situations it's told to us rather than shown to us. This includes the final climax of the book where Violet says there is no way that her entire squad will make it out of the battle alive and the they still all do despite the build up of how HUGE the

hoard of venin is described to be.

It just makes it really hard to care about anything that happens because the stakes just feel non existent.

4. The romance/relationship. I didn't love this relationship in book one. It felt nothing like the enemies to lovers I was promised and these two were move love at first sight without knowing anything about one another. In this book it just got worse. They are almost obsessive toward each other despite the fact that I still feel like neither of them actually know anything about one another. Violet did not even know about Xaden's past long term relationship and literal betrothal. I just don't understand this undying love we read about when it feels like there's been no development to that love that we've read. It feels again like more telling rather than showing by this author.

Lastly, I wanted more dragons. I feel like there was very little flying/fighting in this one and I think that contributed to how bored I was the whole fucking book. Those are my main gripes, but I feel like this convinced me I won't be continuing to read this series.