Study Guide

Overall, this was a fun take on Beauty and the Beast - though, to be honest, I thought Beau started out more like a Gaston than a beauty, while Grace was both (inner) beauty and (outer) “beast” all rolled into one.

But, reading this story, I kept wondering how any of us ever made it through high school. I mean… oof.

On an absolutely personal note (your mileage will definitely vary): I may be jaded, but I found both Grace and especially her mother at times a bit too preachy for my liking. I would have liked the message to be a bit clearer on the aspect that it’s totally okay to not always be okay with the unfairness of life. You can’t control everything that is happening to you, and sometimes life - and other people - just suck. And it’s perfectly fine to acknowledge that. You don’t always …

Interesting world-building, familiar tropes (fated mates, enemies to lovers, shared bed, tortured MMC, etc), lovely read. Not as spicy as I'd hoped (but then I've been hopelessly spoiled lately). I'm looking forward to reading the next part of the series. 

Recommended if you like fae + dark romance though!

<spoiler> This book has a cliffhanger ending. As for spice, you'll get some of that, but quite tame. It will get your heart beating a little faster, but didn't do more than that for me - that said, it's not like every book has to^^
I just went into this and was promised spice by the "one quote to recommend this book" content and was left a little... restless hehe)</spoiler>

This is the first book in a very long time where the characters felt so real and I wished I could be IRL friends with them. It'll be interesting to see if anything I read for the rest of the year even comes close to this book!

do i think someone created AIDS?
maybe. i don't doubt that
anything is possible in a place
where you can burn a body
with less outrage than a flag

the entirety of bare is one of the most beautiful things i've ever read and now i want to read everything that danez smith has ever written

A disturbing book indeed, the first of Cross's I've read. I suppose it's unfair to dig into the blindness thing, but the horror side of it was readable. I would try another of hers, this didn't repel.

Unfortunately I wasn't grabbed by this at all. It took about half the book for us to be set up, the military working is very poorly executed and the dreams and cutaways lay bricks for future novels. There was no sense of a worthwhile single story to the book, the spiking was never satisfactorily handled and the way in which abnorms fight, despite their supposedly very differing abilities lent the whole work a feeling of unreality that I couldn't overcome to enjoy it at all.

Despite a few strange things (the lack of sex, for one, at this age) I found this very compelling and interesting. I’ll enjoy seeing what happens next with these factions and powers, and although there was a sense of fanficism about the book it was still an engaging and well-written work.

This novella captured my attention from the first page and never let go of it. The writing is sure, determined and the subject of the Collyer brothers who died in their own home after "collecting" tons of junk, so as they couldn't really be mobile, is fascinating. It is a real, true story of hoarding from the 1940's and it is painted with a deft hand. We get a glimpse of Homer, the blind brother in the narration, Langley, the more mobile brother, the narrator who is trying to save them, tell their story but realizes he is inept at doing so, and the investigators who find the bodies. This novella is rare in that you can feel the tension and emotion behind the veil of distance that Matt creates with his writing. Sure, sure handed writing. 5*s.