blurrypetals loves books

originally posted dec. 30, 2025 - ★★★★☆

I've followed Ellis on social media for a long while, so this is hardly my first foray into his work. I've really enjoyed the handful of spooky comics I've seen on his social media in the past, so I thought this would be right up my alley!

And, for the most part, it was! While not every comic was a hit, they were all illustrated very well and most of them were properly icky or spooky!

originally posted dec. 18, 2025 - ★★☆☆☆

Between DNFing both this and The Lady Rogue, I think I just need to stick to Jenn Bennett's contemporary stuff.

I do at least think this had a strong start, as things get moving pretty quickly, but it feels like Molly gives in to the manor's gaslighting so easily, which is kind of disappointing after seeing her be so smart and confrontational at first.

I honestly just got so damn bored so soon after Molly decides to stay. It felt like we were retreading stories like The Sandman and Bluebeard but it wasn't doing anything different or interesting with its time.

originally posted dec. 18, 2025 - ★★☆☆☆

So, apparently, between this and The Everlasting, I guess it looks like I like the whole Lady Knight thing more in theory than in practice.

I was initially taken in by the writing style, as well as by Samara McLaren's narration on the audiobook, but soon enough, I felt like I was being told a story and not shown.

It also had an issue of just, not doing any telling or showing. I didn't understand what was going on most of the time, what Locke even was for a great amount of the time I spent with this book.

I also couldn't get invested in whatever the hell Kier and Grey had going on. I've been known to be a cuddly person, but good god, the touching is endless with these two. Friends do not behave this way. It's too much for the whole, "He can't possibly like little ol' me!" racket to be believable, it's something that's clearly sexual and/or romantic, I don't see Grey misconstruing all of this this badly.

originally posted dec. 17, 2025 - ★★★★☆

This felt like a comfortable happy medium of Hall's work for me. It wasn't as wonderful as Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake or Boyfriend Material, but it has a lot of Hall's usual charm and humor and that's really all I need.

And it was easy to outdo the total disappointment that was Paris Daillencourt Is About to Crumble, in my opinion. I felt like this book recentered around the television show in a way Paris didn't (at least in the spot where I left off with it; I don't plan to read the rest to find out) and use the show to have our two leads grow and change together. It's lovely!

originally posted dec. 11, 2025 - ★★☆☆☆

I haven't read much of Cale Dietrich's work, just The Love Interest several years ago, but I felt rather similarly about this as I did about that book: the premise was better than the execution.

The characters were nothing but archetypical cutouts and had little to no actual chemistry throughout the whole book. I don't even remember either of their names, but the demon was attracted to and basically in love with the human instantly. Can we please not? For the love of god.

originally posted dec. 8, 2025 - ★★★★★

Sometimes when I'm told a story is emotional, that it made you bawl your eyes out, it puts me so on my guard I don't end up feeling affected because I'm so prepared for it.

I felt certain this was going to be one of those times. Everyone was posting about how emotional this book made them, so I didn't think it would affect me since I felt so prepared for whatever might happen.

I couldn't have been prepared, though.

It's taken me a long time to write this review because of how emotional it made me. I had to step away from it for a long while. It was so good for my heart in the end, getting to experience this book.

Joan's story is so inspiring, so touching, and the relationships she has throughout this book are realistic, it all feels like a clean cut straight into your heart. Everything with her career is incredibly well-written, too, and the time period sets the perfect stage for a lovely, gentle feminist message.

Because this whole book is about women, about romance and relationships with them, about friendships with them, about sisterhood, parenthood with a daughter, everything about what it means to be a woman.

originally posted dec. 3, 2025 - ★★☆☆☆

While I was a fan of Charles' A Charm of Magpies books, this just did not land for me at all. It wasn't bad, necessarily, but I didn't feel like it fulfilled the promise of its premise.

The characters are one of the biggest issues here. I felt like everyone was a 2D cutout of a character archetype, never really progressing into anything meaningful or original. I was so excited by the prospect of a spooky yet cozy mystery with a queer couple at the center of it all, but it just didn't have the magic it needed to elevate it into anything special or new.

originally posted dec. 1, 2025 - ★★★☆☆

Unlike many of Myers' readers, I haven't watched a ton of her content online. I've definitely watched some, though, and I always found her to be incredibly relatable, funny, and poignant, so I was very interested in how this might translate to her memoir...

...and it, uh, didn't? That might come off as a little mean, but I really just don't think Myers' best traits as a storyteller do not shine through in this particular work. Elyse is a warm, funny, interesting person, and that shows very occasionally through this book, but more than anything, this book reads as if Elyse never wanted to write a book in the first place.

This also comes off as possibly mean, but it definitely strikes me as something that would never have been written if some agent, manager, publisher, etc. had never approached Myers. There are certainly points of light here, some very sweet, relatable things, but all these points are stories I’ve seen her tell with better humor and more interesting storytelling in her videos.

originally posted nov. 26, 2025 - ★☆☆☆☆

I feel like I need an adult. It was nothing more than morbid curiosity that got me to the end of this book. I don't even know how this book landed on my radar but however it got here, I'm upset at that person or algorithm responsible for putting this in my space.

This book has an incredible premise. A lady knight stuck in a time loop where she's always killed against a blood knight decides to try a political marriage instead of a 21st try at fighting. That's great, so interesting, and I was really excited at the idea of the Roman mythology and how it might mingle with the mythology of demons, especially ones that feed on blood like vampires...

...and my heart dropped the moment Alira revealed she was a daughter of Venus, the goddess of fertility, and she experienced a heat, I knew I was not in for the interesting fantasy romance this book made itself out to be.

It was a massive whiplash, as well, to go from reading Marissa Meyer one moment to this complete trash that had poor worldbuilding, bad characters, even worse dialogue, incessant and unsexy fucking, a near nonexistent relationship built between the two main characters, and so very, very much wasted potential.

originally posted nov. 26, 2025 - ★★★★★

While this is certainly my least favorite book in the trilogy, I still have so much love in my heart for this book.

Mostly, my issues with it simply lie in how quickly everything moves after the attack on the arena, how quickly everything is revealed and resolved.

originally posted nov. 24, 2025 - ★★★★★

Just as I said in my re-review of Renegades, I think I definitely have everything I love about this book covered very thoroughly in my original review for this book.

I will say, a small criticism I have about these books is that the side characters just don't have the same kind of life to them as Adrian and Nova do. That isn't to say they're bad characters or that I dislike them, but they just don't have as much dimension.

That being said, it was so much fun to revisit this book. There was so much I forgot about this one, including but not limited to the ending in the catacombs and Max's quarantine. I don't know what I was smoking when I said this one didn't have the same action as the first book, because the ending of this book is incredibly action-packed.

originally posted nov. 20, 2025 - ★★★★★

When I went to Marissa Meyer's event in my hometown promoting The House Saphir, there were a fair few questions asked by my fellow attendees regarding the Renegades series, one of which was whether or not the spinoff/sequel teased in Supernova would come to pass. Well, she said yes, it would, once she was done with her current fairytale retelling universe...so of course I had to reread these books, too.

Everything I said in my thankfully-thorough review from 2018 below here still rings completely true. I love these books. I think Meyer sets up the conflict between Adrian and Nova so well here, what with both of their secret identities as well as their roles as Renegades and Anarchists.

originally posted nov. 12, 2025 - ★★☆☆☆

So, I think this one's really on me. I've liked what little of Harrow's work I've read, and I really enjoyed her short story, The Six Deaths of the Saint, which I assumed some of this book's DNA might have come from.

I just could not hang onto this one, though. I felt bored, tired of the time loop, and uninvested in Una and Owen's love story. I didn't feel like any of it was motivating me to continue on, to find out what happens next.

originally posted nov. 6, 2025 - ★★★★☆

This was so, so much fun! While it wasn't my favorite thing of Meyer's, I did like it a little more than the Gilded books while still greatly appreciating the connections this had to the world of Gilded.

I thought the sisters and their banter were wonderful, and I loved the way their magic and gifts worked in this world. I remember really enjoying the magic of Gilded in a similar way, so I'm glad she's continued building on that.

I also loved the dynamic between Mallory and Armand, what with her lying to him about what she and her sister are capable of and the mistrust they have for one another. It definitely was a bit of a throwback to the Renegades days!

originally posted nov. 3, 2025 - ★★☆☆☆

I really could have benefitted from rereading my review for All This Twisted Glory. Seriously y'all, this meeting could have been an email.

I've honestly been putting off writing a review for this book for almost 2 weeks because I was just that bored and annoyed with it. It really feels like Mafi was going to make this whole thing 2 or 3 books but her publisher made her draw it out as painfully long as was humanly possible.

This whole story, ever since the second book, has been nothing but one big loop: Cyrus pities himself, Alizeh tries to comfort him, they get upset with themselves and each other, nothing happens, lather, rinse, repeat.

originally posted oct. 31, 2025 - ★★★☆☆

originally posted oct. 31, 2025 - ★★☆☆☆