shereadytoread's reviews
713 reviews

This book was a fun ride. Fast-paced, good horror and a fun format of mixing online content, found footage and the story itself. There was descriptive body horror, classic ghost, possession, dark entities and more. I enjoyed the paranormal show plot device and thought it worked well.

However the haunted hotel is its own character and point of view and it moves in different tenses and at some points seems to have knowledge of things that happen outside of the hotel which didn’t make sense. Without that piece I think this would have been nearly a 5 star read!

What I didn’t enjoy about this book, I think someone else may really enjoy. This book is exclusively audio and it has a full cast recording. Every character is played by their own actor and you hear the background noise like cooking in the kitchen and noise on the train. 

But because you have all of this, the entire book is dialogue. There are no descriptions and context, you hear exactly what is happening all the time. It was more like listening to a play or podcast than a book. That isn’t what I want out of my reading experience but I think it can be great for other people. 

The actual romance was sweet and lighthearted. Two people bonding over their shared love of a nostalgic game show and it’s pretty lighthearted. Fake marriage shenanigans abound! You do have to suspend some disbelief with this one but that’s pretty normal for a rom-com! 

Disclosure: I received a free ALC through Libro.fm and Simon and Schuster Audio.  

This is probably the most subjective view I have ever written because I think this is a pretty well-written romance outside of some of the fantasy worldbuilding holes and under other circumstances it would have been a higher rated read ... but it's not because it didn't make me happy haha. 

Honestly, for a lot of this book, it was just a big downer as far as holiday romances go. If this had been sons of two rival companies with no fantasy element, I think I would have loved it a lot more, or even a fantasy/magic element with no holiday involvement.

When I consider the joy of holiday reads and holiday romances specifically, we get the combination of the warm and fuzzies of Christmas with the warm and fuzzies of a romance's HEA. So much of this book is spent framing Christmas as exactly the opposite: commodified, making no real difference in people's lives, not bringing any true joy because it's just one day, not worth investing in etc. It was just a lot of harsh and negative themes to combine with a romantic comedy about a joyful holiday. And that's not to say holiday romance cannot involve tough family dynamics and harsh themes, but all of that was attached to the holiday itself rather than just being a part of the characters. 

My other critique was the loose fantasy elements. By framing it as holiday magic, the author creates a magical world/population and a normal world/population, but the rules seemed very hazy and slapped on when it served the story, rather than preestablished lore of the world. If there was less focus on the magic and fantasy, it wouldn't stick out as much when it doesn't line up. There either needed to be much less fantasy or much more, but it tries to work a hard line instead.

The history and perspectives in this collection are wonderful. To have firsthand accounts of Stonewell as well as general information of society and queer culture at the time, is an invaluable resource. It also links to other projects of information and history gathering that are accessible. 

My single complaint is I wish there was more clear organization to the book. It is split into "Before Stonewall" and "After Stonewall" but further division within these sections would have served the book (and readers) well.

Meh. It wasn't great and it wasn't terrible. We lean on a lot of large stereotypes for characterization since the book is so short. I think if this was longer, we could have more interesting characters and less shock value statements just to drive home who is good(?) and bad in the story. 

I think if you are a fan of ambiguous short stories, you may really enjoy this collection but overall it was not for me. There is a lot of different perspectives on queer identities and I enjoyed the variety in that aspect. Also I didn’t realize that many (maybe all) of the authors were Canadian until multiple stories seemed to be set in Vancouver?

I wanted to love this one a lot more than I did. The poems were pretty good and the prose wasn’t bad, but there was not a single story that really “grabbed” me. I almost DNFd this a few times because it wasn’t really holding my attention and I wasn’t looking forward to continuing, but because it was on the shorter side, I pushed through. 

This was a phenomenal read. A South Asian apocalyptic science fantasy that lends us to floating cities with the remains of humanity. It also had some interesting dark academia elements that I enjoyed. This book excels at deeply complex characters with complicated relationships and internal turmoil related to their morals, loyalty, and conflicting goals. 

The book follows two POVs, Iravan and his wife, Ahilya. Personally, Ahilya read as the main character to me. She has a well-rounded world with romantic, platonic and familial relationships as well as ongoing conflict with the systems and institutions of the city. While the POVs are even throughout, Iravan’s POV is primarily dominated by the “mystery” and magic elements of the book, while Ahilya’s POV has more variety. 

Any book that is 500+ pages and makes me sit for an entire evening just to finish it, is a 5-star read in my book. 

This book was September’s Alliterative Titles selection for the Diversify Your Reading book club. Join us here: https://bookclubs.com/join-a-book-club/club/diversify-your-reading-2

This was a book with a super interesting premise and very dark horror for YA. My biggest complaint was the POVs in the story. It is told from the 1st person POV of each of the 4 characters. However, their voices were not distinct enough to fully separate one from the other. In addition they spend the large majority of the book together so you are switching POVs within the same scene just to get some internal thinking. I would have loved this book with a 3rd person omniscient narrator or just sticking with the POV of our “villain” character throughout for the secret background. The other characters have very little to add as most of the secrets are held by one character so their POVs didn’t reveal much for me. 

The body horror, gore and imagery was really good. It is a slight emotional/romantic subplot but it isn’t the main focus of the story and didn’t take away from the dark parts of the book. 

DISCLOSURE: I received a gifted ARC and eARC from the publisher. No review was required and all opinions are my own.

I enjoyed this book, but I did feel like it lacked direction a bit. To be fair, the author himself recognizes uncertainty in writing the book and in the direction that his “social experiment” took. While I think the author’s cause is very noble and he was seeking to do (and in many ways did) a wonderful thing, the other struggles a bit to reckon with the potential and actual harm that some of his guests faced. He does own up to making poor decisions and is very reflective in the ways that he has at times perpetuated the same concepts that he is now fighting against. I wanted to see a bit more care given to the effects on the guests themselves and further work in preventing that same potential harm in the future. 

Overall, I think this book has a lot of wonderful things to say and points to make about how we engage in community with those with whom we fundamentally disagree. As we live in an increasingly polarized world, it becomes impossible to fully avoid or cut off anyone that disagrees with us, even if they are actively harming us or other members of our community, they are still a part of that community. It asks a lot of questions about how we balance justice, safety and the need to move forward. 

This author never claims to be a professional organizer, therapist or advocate, which is at times a strength and at times a weakness for the book. It approaches the concepts but doesn’t have the real language to fully explore them or offer many tangible paths forward on the larger questions; but it does offer some small approachable steps when dealing with strangers.

I received a free printed copy from the publisher. No review was required and all thoughts are my own.

I enjoyed the twist in this one!