cassie_happened's reviews
543 reviews

Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King

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dark funny mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio

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dark fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No

2.5

A Vile Season by David Ferraro

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adventurous dark emotional funny medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Bridgerton but make it gayer and add vampires
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The City in Glass by Nghi Vo

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emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman

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dark emotional tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

conflicted feeling on everything but ursula. they could never make me like you ursula. 
The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

not what I was expecting in the best and worst way possible
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Pansies by Alexis Hall

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emotional slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

ARC provided by publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

PANSIES is an outlier when it comes to Alexis Hall books for me. Typically, I love theur books. The Spiers series in particular has had some stand out books for me. The last one, FOR REAL, might be my favorite Hall book hands down. But I also believe that not every author writes for every one of their readers. Different topics appeal to different people and the like. Before this novel, I had never read anything even remotely close to the bully trope. I do think it differs from the enemies to lovers trope tremendously, as I think there is a more equal playing field when it comes to power and animosity. Whereas in a bully romance, the power is usually more one sided. Coming out of this novel I can confidently say I do no like bully romances. 

PANSIES features many of the things people loved in Hall’s other books in the series. Two people set adrift in the world and looking for something that they find in each other. It includes Hall’s stellar mastery of the craft of writing and is chock full of emotion and grief and pining. These are all things I enjoyed in the previous novels as well as this one. I have no qualms with the writing.
What I didn’t like was the romance itself (ok that’s a lie I saw the appeal and divorced from the bullying aspect I thought it was sweet). So, what I get from a bully romance is the initial tension between the two romantic interests stems from the animosity the two had for each other. And that’s what seems to be happening here. Alfie never really apologizes for what he did to Fen and Fen reads as though he’s being bowled over by Alfie’s attempts to get with him, smothering any protests he might have had about being with Alfie. The romance doesn’t feel earned? Alfie also seems to be dealing with a healthy dose of internalized homophobia that he slowly works through throughout the novel, and it colors a lot of his interactions with the people around him. I do not blame him for feeling this way but the way he handles some of these out bursts left a bad taste in my mouth. It is also never explicitly said what Alfie did when bullying Fen all those years ago and while that doesn’t matter because bullying is bullying, it matters when Fen is bringing it up and Alfie is constantly downplaying his actions and his involvement. This is my stance on this book and this particular trope, but I loved Hall’s last romance that contained an age gape romance that many people did not like. It is all subjective. 

This is all not to say I did not like the characters themselves. I think Alfie does a lot of growing throughout the novel and it’s sweet to see him reconnecting with his parents and his old friends.
Fen also grows by accepting help and learning to live with the grief over his mothers passing.
I liked the parts of this book that weren’t entirely focused on the romance between Fen and Alfie the most. The last 30% of the book did pick up but again I kept coming back to the origins of the romance.