hann_cant_read's reviews
431 reviews

The final straw for me was when Dax Facetimed Gemma on her Samsung phone, but there were so many inconsistencies throughout this I was going insane. Which is a shame because it's such a cute premise.

Dax thought she was a stalker who broke into his store and knows intimate details about him (including where his sister works) in the beginning but then NONE of her behavior is suspicious to him after he thinks she’s cute, even though she just shows up at the bar he frequents and really wants to join his super random curling team?

Once we get past that, Dax knows NOTHING about her in this timeline except she’s reluctant to date him, keeps putting a halt on the flirting, but instead of reading the signs he won’t stop until she talks to another dude and he's salty about it?
He says he and Sunny only talk at curling and aren’t close then why do they have a secret handshake and why was HE the one giving her a ride home and why is HE the one she’s texting that she got to work safely?
Why would the super random friends/strangers of Gemma's invite Dax to their wedding?!?! They have never met him and for all intents and purposes this is their first date and they aren’t even that close to Gemma so it's weird enough they're inviting her when they just saw her randomly out one night.

I don’t understand why Elliot looked familiar / looked like Stuart. That was never explained im very confused.
Sex positive does not mean you talk about your hookup the night before in front of your six year old.
Kiersten went from “Trent is my best friend” to that man bought me a mop as an anniversary present in literally one chapter. Zero consistency.
She doesn’t put a lot of weight into the act of sex, but had a sex DREAM about him once and tensions were weird for weeks? And couldn't hook up with AU Dax because it might be weird with OU Dax? Make it make sense.
But literally, when her having a Samsung phone was a key point in her realizing she was in an alternate universe, you think they would remember he can't Facetime her.

Cardan is baby girl, and I will never get enough of Jude's little gay husband.

Tortured hero with eyes only for the heroine? Sign me up.

It's a historical romance, so I have to suspend some of my feminist ideals or else I have no business reading this genre, but overall very sweet, very dark, very steamy.

This is not the kind of book that you can turn your brain off and just read. 

The world building / magic / political system is so vast and complex. Some books you notice things you didn't on the 2nd read through - this book I found myself flipping back through passages WHILE I was still reading to check notes. It's one of the few fiction books I've read that annotating was less of a cute aesthetic and more of a necessity to really keep your thoughts and predictions in order.

I felt like I was trying to solve this mystery alongside the Main Characters, and I felt all the tension and confusion and grief that they did. 

I will eat up anything Emily Henry writes, and this was no exception.
Somehow she managed to make fake dating a believable scenario? As per usual I was giggling and kicking my feet because the banter is absolutely unmatched.
I think the ending felt a tad rushed for my taste, with a few of the conflicts being resolved a little quicker than I personally think made sense, but overall, just another delicious meal served a la Emily.

I think it's important to note that this isn't a retelling, it's much more of a story inspired by some of the lines / events / plot points in MacBeth.

Ava Reid is such an atmospheric writer and some potentially universe-jarring things I personally can overlook because of her writing style.

This book is marketed as a feminist retelling. It certainly is a book with a woman. I enjoyed it, and maybe if her coming into her own as a woman

and a witch

had been paced more evenly than I would be more inclined to agree with it. 

One thing that I initially liked, but quickly became frustrated with was the way Roscille rolled over at every turn. It started out very realistic - she was a scared 17 year old in a foreign land without a single friend. I liked that her ideas backfired a little in the beginning. But she never really owned up to that or grew from it, or had any semblance of agency in the outcomes until almost the very end. Her "plans" never consisted of more than one step, and when that one step didn't drastically improve her life she would have another panic - which is even more frustrating because we're told right from the begining that Roscille is really smart and observant. None of these things actually come through in any meaningful way in the text.

I don't really understand the reasons why MacBeth elevated her status over his right hand. She didn't do anything particularly earth-shattering, in fact she failed to

kill Lysander

after which MacBeth immediately put her in charge of

the whole fort AND getting information from Lysander?

It just didn't make sense.

Speaking of

Lysander. I detest insta-love, and that's what this was. The characters felt so flat and the connection between them was barely developed. We learn eventually that he's can't be compelled by her, which would have been an interesting dynamic to explore further as Roscille learns what it is to trust a man she can't control, but we never get that far.

The story in general was paced very awkwardly. I didn't feel any real growth in Lady MacBeth until

suddenly at the end she has a sudden drastic personality change and embraces her power to defeat MacBeth. It comes out of nowhere.

I did enjoy a lot of this story though! As always the vibes are immaculate. And I really love this version's interpretation of "no man of woman born shall kill MacBeth"

My first impression was that I loved it, 5 stars, no notes. After I sat with it for a little while I did have a few critiques that brought it down to a 4 stars for me, but ultimately I still absolutely enjoyed it.

This book was beautifully written, and honestly the pacing was great. The author was able to jump back and forth in time in a way that felt natural and didn't detract from the present-day story.

The attempted suicide happened much earlier in the book than I was anticipating,

and while it was a tense moment, because it happened so early I knew that she was ultimately going to survive (whether through it failing, her changing her mind, someone saving her, etc. I didn't know exactly) but I did know she would make it through

That being said, the flashbacks to Phoebe and Matt's marriage slowly falling apart was so much more emotional for me.

All of the different feelings she has with the failed ivf / miscarriage, the way her husband distanced himself from her because of her depression, and how that spiraled into him having an affair with her friend.

It was balanced with humor but it made my stomach churn.

A lot of the complaints I read said that they didn't like the callous way the author joked about suicide and depression, and I actually disagree - it felt so realistic to me, the sarcastic and flippant way that Phoebe treated everything once she made her decision. She had stopped caring about being alive, and I think that really came through in her humor.

I loved all of the Wedding people because they were so unlovable. Each one had such human characteristics of so much love to give, but also so selfish in their own ways. The contrast of so many different ages interacting with Phoebe also created an interesting dynamic for us to really see different sides of her.

I also saw people critiquing Phoebe for her relationship with Gary. I see what conclusion people are drawing, but I think they're over embellishing what actually happened. Which is nothing. We're in Phoebe's emotionally over-stimulated brain thinking about a man she has a crush on. Multiple times she had opportunities to cross the line and she didn't. She just thought about what would happen if she did. 

Most of my critiques from both a character and story standpoint come toward the end.

Phoebe is a better woman than I am, because fuck Matt dude. She forgave him so easily. I would have made him sleep in his car. The fact that he was essentially abandoning a baby that he had helped raise for two years was completely ignored in favor of Phoebe's closure which I also thought was odd.
Speaking of closure.
Everything tied up just like way too neat for me. It felt like we're being given a vague "...and no one knows what the future may hold..." type of ending, but we're also being spoon fed some very specific puzzle pieces that fit together a specific way.

I read the book previously in physical form. On the audio re-listen I wasn't a huge fan of the voice actor that read. She didn't do a bad job by any means, but her tone didn't really capture Misery's sarcasm and humor the way I read it.

I think I'm in the minority, but I actually loved the first book from Wren's POV.

This one felt a little short to me in terms of rebuilding the trust lost in Stolen Heir, but (of course, just like everyone else has mentioned) the heavy dose of Jude and Cardan made up for a lot of the shortcomings in the book.

I think the politics and betrayals were fascinating and well thought out. The plot itself was really intriguing, but the pacing and (as mentioned before) the relationship development wasn't as strong as it was in the first book.

Wren just kind of eventually gives up being mad? Oak doesn't really do anything to deserve it her forgiveness. But on the flip side, he also just never stays mad at her even though what she did to him in retaliation was brutal? They both just kind of get over it? I don't know, it felt kind of loose.

Even after learning Wren's motivations for the big political upheaval, it still felt like there were decisions that she made that weren't explained. The chemistry and tension between Oak and Wren was definitely more palpable in the Stolen Heir.

The pacing was tough. It draaaaagged in the first half, and then the last quarter things were happening so fast it was almost confusing. It felt like the characters were making plot essential decisions before they knew what they were doing.  

10/10 Jude and Cardan teaser though.