doodlebeanz's reviews
69 reviews

A Curse for True Love by Stephanie Garber

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I was fully invested in this book from the first chapter, I was hanging onto every single word… up until the last 25%. Once

Eva gets her memories back

, the flow of the writing and the pacing of the story changed and I definitely lost the thread pretty quickly. Part of my 2025 reading resolutions was to be less critical of books and to just enjoy them, so I am still giving this book a 4.5 bc it did have me in a chokehold for the first 75-80% of the story and I did like it as an ending to this trilogy, BUT I did have some serious issues with it, plot wise.

Spoilers ahead !

Firstly, the climax of the book happens just pages before it ends, and the build up to the ending was mediocre to say the least. Every complication or conflict that Eva faced was dealt with in the same page/chapter. By the end, it was just like... that's it? Many actions occurred in the book and then were never brought up again - like Apollo becoming murderous (killing a 14 yr old boy for no reason… killing guards… torturing Eva’s tutor over a note when he knew he was the one who wrote the note… okay), Castor (Or Luc? We’ll never know) killing The Fortuna’s and the inn people, etc. Like why mention it if it had no impact on anything??

Secondly, the Valors. The Valors were a huge part of the series, they were talked about in every single book… but their storyline in ACFTL was SO underwhelming. Aurora especially. She was set up as some big bad villain with an evvvvvil plot brewing, only for it to be revealed she just had a crush on Jacks CENTURIES AGO and “was more or less defeated by him punching her in the head offscreen” (quote from a Reddit thread which I loved). I get Apollo was technically the main villain, not Aurora, but like... why? Apollo’s descent into evilness and murdering innocent people made little to no sense. He was doing it all under the guise of protecting and saving Eva, because he loved her so much, but then he was about to sacrifice her to become immortal…. What?????? That doesn’t even line up w anything he has done in the entire book… The vague reasoning for this was sort of explained away in a few sentences, something about what his father told him & wanting to be remembered? It was just so confusing. Up until the end of the second book, I had sympathy for him. He had been manipulated and placed under several curses. It would make sense why he hated Jacks and tried to make it work with Eva. There was a lot of potential, but a lot of it just didn't really make sense.

Most importantly imo, the biggest issue was that Jacks was absent for a BIG part of the book, AND we didn't get a satisfying payoff of seeing him and Eva happy together. Apollo is defeated, and everyone just kinda walks away unscathed… with no repercussions… with no consequences… nothing… just they kiss and then boom, story ends. I had a lot of unanswered questions like; why does he eat apples? If he's immortal and Evangeline is human, does that mean she'll die way before him? And, the biggest one of all, HOW DID EVA SURVIVE THE KISS?! Right before she kisses him, Aurora confesses that the curse she placed on Jacks is twisted due to the story curse, and it’s the “only the girl who could *never* love Jacks that would survive the kiss”… which makes no sense… bc Eva def loves Jacks… Some ppl on the internet say that it has to do with True Love’s Kiss and all that, which makes sense, but there was no explanation of that being the cause. Neither of them even ask about it… they just kiss and then Eva ‘faints’ and the reader is obv led to believe that she’s about to die but she just says she’s breathless from the kiss so she fell… then the book ends. IT MAKES NO SENSE HOW SHE SURVIVED!

Also, we never see Luc, Marisol or Tiberius again, which was weird considering they were pretty prominent characters before. Like why was Luc even in book 2 as an imposter..? That storyline went no where fast. He just popped up randomly… I thought he’d play a bigger role in this book, but nope, he was only mentioned 1 time I think. Also, Chaos/Castor got no repercussions for killing an entire Great House? that storyline was abandoned… Lala wasn’t in the book enough either and we never know if she gets a resolution with her first love, Dane, who is now out of the Valory Arch, which is SO overlooked and not explained at all.

This book either needed 150 more pages or way less of Eva trying to remember in the first 250. I wouldn't have minded a later release date if it meant a bigger book to adequately fill all the holes and jumps made. There was just so much left unexplained. And even if the vibes of this book are fantastical and romantic, the true love aspects of magic and curses weren’t really properly expanded on to make sense when the ending came about.

All in all, I did enjoy this book about 80% of the time and I am happy with the B&N extra epilogue that I got, but I still wish more things were explained. At the end of the day, Jacks & Eva will forever live rent free in my mind and I love them fiercely. OUABH was my first fantasy book last year, and it opened my eyes to start ACOTAR and now TOG so I feel fully indebted to this series. I loved it regardless of my negative review!

The Ballad of Never After by Stephanie Garber

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I was SO hyped to finally get my hands on this book, and it didn't disappoint... a lot. I read OUABH as my first read of 2024, so I found it fitting to read TBONA as my first read of 2025 bc I am cheesy. I am happy that I read it, it was sweet and fun and magical and very fairytale-esque, but it did let me down in terms of writing. I felt the writing was VERY repetitive and juvenile, and since it has been a year since I read OUABH, maybe that is something I overlooked before or maybe the writing was different in this one, I'm not sure, but it was VERY repetitive.

If I had to read about how Evangeline wanted to trust Jacks but just couldn't one more time, I would've thrown the book out the window. There is nothing I hate more in life, reading and my own personal life, than a wishy-washy, will they won't they moment. I know it adds to the angst of the story, and again it has been a year since I've read the 1st one, but in this book specifically, Evangeline was just ANNOYIING. her inner dialogue/inner thoughts were so immature and young and just... not realistic. I get that she is a bit naive, and I love her for it, but I felt in this one she was especially naive and purposefully turning her head away from the huge red flags that were in front of her.

I also thought the entire search for the valor arch stones was over and done so fast? like I know it's not a trials and tribulations story, I know, but I thought there would be some level of difficulty in them finding the stones? but day one, Eva was finding the truth stone... then she found the youth stone... and then she magically stumbled across the mirth stone. Chaos already had the luck stone. it all seemed too easy? idk I don't know what I expected. I guess I would've wanted more of that aspect to be written about instead of Evangeline and Jacks doing... whatever they were doing.

I did REALLY love the whole Merrywood thing. I hope we get more insight into that in the next book. I loved the whole Robin Hood feel, along with The Hollow. it all felt sooooo fairy-tale like and I just loveeeed it. The book was quite slow for the first 200 pages, and I was worried I was going to dislike it entirely, but then once the Merrywood 3 got brought into the story, tying in with the Archer and the Fox story, I was hooked.

The ending got me. It wasn't like jaw dropping by any means, but omfg I was wide eyed and as soon as I closed the book I said '...well that's not good. at all.' lmao.

I never fully trusted Apollo, I never fully understood what was going on there, but for him to just steal her memories?!!! And was it even Apollo who did it? I found it interesting that the man who claimed to be Evangeline's husband wasn't described in a way for the reader to know who it was... I understand its bc she doesn't recognize him herself and the story is from her POV (plus cliffhanger, I know) but its killing me to think that it may be Castor/Chaos and not Apollo and that the Valors are actually evil ppl and are planning to do some horrific shit now that Evangeline doesn't even remember that she's a key and an important part of the story/legend.

I've heard mixed reviews on the 3rd book, and I am a bit anxious going into it, but I refuse to read any negative review until I finish it. I accidentally read a 'meh' review of OUABH in order to familiarize myself once again with the story, and I will NOT be doing that with this one (its not necessary bc I just finished it 12 hrs ago but you know what I mean). I am going into this book w zero hopes and expectations and I am sad for this series to end but I am also desperate to know how Jacks' and Eva's story ends and I hope they end up together bc it makes so much sense <33

You Shouldn't Have Come Here: An absolutely gripping thriller from ‘the queen of twists' by Jeneva Rose

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.5

This book was... odd. Right at the end, it took quite a turn. The story changed and it felt like there were two different books inside one, if that makes sense. The entire time you're made to feel one way about Calvin and his family/the town, which seems obvious as a reader, but then out of literally no where (and not in the fun sort of way where a twist just slams into you, it was literally out of nowhere. it did not make a lick of sense) Calvin just becomes a different person. AND Grace does as well.

There were hints along the way that Calvin was a psychopath who killed Bri Becker, of course, but him suddenly becoming psychotic and trying to drag Grace back inside and all that just felt like lazy writing. There were no indicators early on in the book that Calvin was purposefully messing with Grace's car, or how he bought all the books just for her, or that he installed the lock wrong. In any good thriller, these things would be sprinkled through in a more subtle way... in this book, you'd read about Calvin installing the lock and then 2-3 chapters later, after a day has gone by in the story, Grace notices that it's backwards but then continues to sleep there... like what?! Also, Grace in and of herself was a horribly written character. I sort of figured out that she wasn't all daises and sunshine pretty early on, and how everyone in the town was saying that she didn't fit in and something was off about her, but her sudden change into a psychopath was out of no where as well.

Besides the badly written characters, the plot was pointless in the end.

The entire story was about Calvin and his weird little town in Wyoming, how everyone seemed suspicious and kinda creepy and mysterious. Calvin's brother was seemingly a bit crazy and creepy, Grace heard a scream in the middle of the night on her first night, animals acted sporadic and weird, there was another missing girl who looked just like Grace... but none of it mattered in the end. I thought Grace was going to low-key be Bri's sister, out looking for revenge on the man who hurt her but nope. Grace (or should I say Avery) was just a psycho who liked to stay at random airbnb's and kill the host??? like okay, that makes TOTAL sense. There was no connection to the missing girl - in fact, Bri is introduced very early on in the story, Grace FINDS HER NAME IN A GUEST BOOK BUT THEN IT IS MAGICALLY GONE WHEN SHE CONFRONTS CALVIN ABOUT IT BUT THAT IS NEVER EVEN EXPLAINED EITHER, and then when Grace finds Bri out in the backyard caged like an animal, Grace just lets her loose and doesn't even care about her? Like what the fuck was this story? What the fuck was the point? Why did Grace have her hair dyed and blue color contacts in to look EXACTLY LIKE BRI if Bri didn't even matter to her and she had no connection? Literally nothing in this story made sense now looking back.

The writing was odd, as well. Some sentences were just oddly put together, and some of the things that the characters said - especially Calvin - were even odder. Like how he compared a handjob to "the sensation you get after you felt a jerk on your fishing pole (literally)"... and how he compared women to turnips and how Grace was an onion but it wasn't an overly complimentary notion... and when Calvin thinks to himself: "she was everything and she was nothing, which made her the perfect amount of something"... wtf does that even mean? Like, the writing structure was just weird. It felt like it was written by multiple different people - like one person would write one paragraph and it would flow nicely, and someone else wrote another where weird things were said and the structure was off.

This book was quick and fun in the beginning, but I found myself skimming a LOT. I worried that I would've missed something, but honestly, it is just all filler until the last chapter. nothing in this book matters. Just read the first 2 or 3 chapters and then skip to the last one... the whole plot of the book becomes redundant once the 'twist' is revealed. Better yet, just do not waste your time with this book. I have so many god damn questions... off to read other people's reviews I go!

One by One by Ruth Ware

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The Couple at Number 9 by Claire Douglas

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

There was never a dull moment while reading this book. The one main flaw for me... I have never dealt with a person who has dementia, so I am not sure if this book depicted it well, but it got a little annoying to read. Gran would have these intense moments of clarity and then would forget immediately, and I knew it was for the sake of the story and it being suspenseful and tense, but it just didn't seem that realistic to me. Again, I've never experienced talking to someone with dementia (especially about a murder), so it may be a realistic description, but as a reader, it seemed contrived.

The twists and turns were great. I figured out the big twist about half way through, but it was still shocking when and how it was finally revealed. I love stories where one person's POV is in the past, especially in letter/note form, and the others are in the present. You get little pieces of information that the other characters don't yet have and it makes it way more fun as a reader. I love playing detective on my own and putting the pieces together. I saw this book hyped up by a bookstagrammer and their other recommendations (recently) had led me astray, but not this one! I can't wait to pick up another Claire Douglas book soon!

Content Warnings

The Good Lie by A.R. Torre

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dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Check trigger warnings before going into this book. Touches on many sensitive and disturbing topics.

The whole psychiatrist working with an attorney was interesting, but boring. It was written in a slow way, and I sort of wish that we got chapters from the killer's POV (like in notes/letter form, maybe) instead of getting pieces of hints from Gwen's POV. I thought this book would be getting into the mind of a psychotic killer, but instead, it was just a regular thriller that sort of fell flat by the end. The story was great up until the end when the killer is revealed and everything kind of falls out of whack after that. The story seemed pointless after, along with everything else that was revealed. At the end, I just felt really bad for the young boy who escaped (his trauma of the entire ordeal/the grooming/the sexual abuse/etc).

Rob's character in general was so confusing...

I thought they were going down the plot line of him being the killer AND him having DID which would've been INSANE to me. It would explain his weird mood swings and how he'd go from being kind and loving to cold and mean. (ie., the scene where he gives Gwen the ring and then sleeps with her then in the morning he accuses her of lying and just storms out of the room away from her).

From a fellow readers goodread's review:

The incident with Luke and the stolen keys didn’t add much to the story because we find out from Rob anyways that Randall’s MO was young girls. And the lost keys only led to Gwen running to Rob. I understand the need to throw red herrings and distractions but this didn’t really add anything to the story overall.

• What happened to Rob’s dead wife?! I thought there would be a huge revelation or link but it seems the main purpose was to give Rob a sad backstory.

• I've never studied law but the conflict of interests between Rob and Randall seemed too farfetched for Rob to be his attorney. Though I was willing to overlook this.

Content Warnings

A Familiar Stranger by A.R. Torre

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

"This is such a smoothly written thriller with plenty of scandal and mystery, and I find it extremely easy to jump right into Torre’s world and enjoy the ride. I guessed some of the surprises, while a few others (one HUGE one in particular) never even crossed my mind. That huge one took me a little time to get used to, and I’ll be very curious to see what other readers think.

Regardless, I couldn’t help but to fly through the pages to find out what would happen next, and really didn’t want the story to come to an end" -- from another Goodreads review

--

I listened to this book in one day, it was addicting and I couldn't stop listening. The biggest twist of them all I did not see coming, and the other smaller twists were equally as surprising sort of. The story got a bit draggy at the end, but overall, it was a fun and intriguing ride! AR Torre is definitely one of my new favorite authors!

Holiday Hideaway by Mary Kay Andrews

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4.0

Cute for Christmas!!

Look Closer by David Ellis

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I have seen this book ranted and raved about on social media & it was recommended by a good friend, which is why I was so excited when it arrived in my Libby library. I connected with the story immediately and found myself invested and very curious. The fast paced storyline kept me flipping the pages quickly at the start.

"My connection began to waver when I got a third of the way in. I give this book a lot of credit for the countless twists and turns that keep the reader curious and guessing right until the very end. However, the twists and turns were too far fetched for me to buy into and the manipulation was over the top. As more twists and manipulation happened, it simply became too much. I didn’t believe anything that was happening after the halfway point." -- from another Goodreads review

The story dragged on too long, too many twists and turns, and it got pretty draggy and boring. I just finished it because I wanted to know how it ended + I was hoping it would get better... unfortunately, it fell flat for me. I am really starting to re-think booktok/bookstagram popular books. They never quite land for me. :(

Resting Scrooge Face by Meghan Quinn

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3.75

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doodlebeanz's reviews 69 reviews

doodlebeanz's reviews
69 reviews