eemilycolleen's reviews
531 reviews

Bride by Ali Hazelwood

5.0

you know what. YOU KNOW WHAT????? do! you! know! what!!!!! five stars. ali hazelwood has enough confidence to power an entire nation. if she ran for president she would have my vote.

i do think this wants badly to be as unhinged as, like, literally any sterek fic and nobody, not even ali, can replicate that kind of deranged energy. but this is an extremely serviceable romance novel, and she clearly is coming to the genre with a WEALTH of love, and i will follow her wherever she goes next. three cheers for trad pub knotting, the moms of tiktok will eat this shit up 

Seasparrow by Kristin Cashore

4.0

sometimes love is just a bunch of baby foxes opening their wee baby eyes to see a girl trained her whole life to hide, and also you’re on a boat 🦊

thought this didn’t really pick up steam until kera tried to kill hava and then i blew through it in like a day. much quieter and perhaps not as effective as winterkeep (or of course bitterblue, angel book), but still extraordinary; kristin cashore really can write ok!

Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat

adventurous challenging mysterious tense fast-paced

5.0

like watching stardust back in 2007 but 100% more of the word “insouciant.” 

cs pacat is a VISIONARY. her confidence is astounding. where she falters doesn’t even matter because she maintains such a rip-roaring pace throughout that you just ride the wave of fun all the way to hell. this is not a perfect book, she is not a perfect writer, but MY GOD DID I HAVE A BLAST. wish she’d give more than one pov chapter to her favorite bitchy blondie boy, but who can be perfect in this universe 

The Stars Undying by Emery Robin

3.5

 reminded me of the queen of attolia in the best ways. oh to be a haughty princess liar in space!! i think i was pretty unprepared for how dense this felt to parse; i felt VERY at arms length for the first 100 pages, but gracia’s unreliable narration was so precisely my shit that i got sucked in anyway. it turns out i probably need to up my cleopatra education tho 

The Fake Mate by Lana Ferguson

2.0

lana ferguson absolutely FEARLESS for writing the most normcore omegaverse possible for her trad pub girlies..... feels right for my first het romance of the year. i did not think this was good, BUT i did enjoy the doctor setting and the derek shepherd shoutout. absolutely nonsense third act conflict. CONFLICT CAN BE EFFECTIVE IF YOU PUT SOME HEART INTO IT, Y'ALL!!!!! CMON 

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

3.0

not nearly as smart or compelling as it thinks it is, but still great fun and compulsively readable. the ending make me laugh, which is all you really need from a satire. every time she thinks to herself how gross chinese food is! hilarious. i do think anyone who read this should also read Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou, which is similar in a lot of ways but WAY more unhinged

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

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

4.25

thought this felt LONG and verged on preachy in some places but the narration is so so so good that it didn’t really hamper my enjoyment at all. not to be that girl but it made me miss holden caulfield in the best ways. SO delightful on audio. all-time great usage of ocean as metaphor!!!!!! spoiler alert but love loved that it ends before he gets there!!

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

4.0

that’s MY teenage eugenicist xenophobic transphobic fascist blondie bitch!!!!!! this is not a perfect book but lord did i have fun. it moves RIP ROARING fast in the back half, maybe a little too fast, but i was so convinced by number one commander dickhead kyr that i didn’t mind. LOVED the halfway twist. in its best moments this book reminded me wholeheartedly of animorphs — the ellimist would have a field day with the wisdom, and unfortunately i just Know my depressed 12-year-old fighter pilot rachel has got that (fascist) dog in her.

for whatever it’s worth, i found the relationship between kyr and avi WAY more interesting than that between kyr and yiso, but this is almost always my curse (see: nik nik in the space between worlds)

Glitterland by Alexis Hall

3.0

sometimes in this messy life you just have to read some alexis hall. loved darian, iconic love interest, more books should have darians 

10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall

4.0

one of the most classic alexis halls i’ve ever read. read it in one afternoon. loved jonathan of course, what a dick :) i do have some notes — there’s way too many side characters as always, and i don’t feel i really got to the heart of who the narrator was, which made fully getting swept up into the romance hard. maybe i would’ve felt more immersed via audio? wish i could capture the lightning in a bottle of boyfriend material again, SIGH!! still, a delightful read, great bants, laughed out loud multiple times, etc