kays_reading_journal's reviews
325 reviews

Wow leavening a review five months after I read it oops. But I found old notes so:

There were many Harry Potter references :( can only hope they aren’t in the authors newer works. 

The notes I took are a tied in with the sequel too, but I enjoyed reading parts and had to drag myself through other parts. (Especially the sequel)

I think I can see why this would be a lot of peoples favorite, but it wasn’t mine. 

I took notes on the treatment of a side character (mind you it’s been five months so I don’t remember exactly). However it felt very obvious to the reader (me) that a SC had many autistic traits, and the MC treated them pretty horribly. Some of the traits: don’t understand jokes, bad with people/un social, and nerdy

Content Warnings: There’s a full list at the bottom but I wanted to elaborate on something: there is a deaf character whose hands are restrained therefore he looses the ability to communicate.

Aiden Thomas is the author that got me back into reading after college and is the author that just got me out of a slump. 

He pulls the perfect amount of emotion out of a reader while balancing it with humor. 

I won’t lie tho I don’t love all the characters. I adore Teo and Aurelio so much, but Niya just gets on my nerves. 

I’m all for redemption, but I wasn’t a fan of how it ended up being handled here. Kind of tied into this, I feel like the horridness of how the characters were treated was glazed over.

I mostly mean I cannot believe that the semidioses forgave Xio so quickly, when they barely apologized (if it happened, I don’t remember it). More specifically, Dezi is treated absolutely horrendous. Taking away his ability to communicate for himself and with others. Especially when his power revolves around touch, it was unnecessarily cruel.

I watched a three hour recap of the first book on YouTube before picking up the sequal, and I think if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have enjoyed this so much.

Truly such an incredible memoir. Got me out of a slump because I was just craving to read more and more. 

Finished it in the middle of this week and was already teaching my family lessons I learned from it. 

I don’t share a lot of traits with the author, but this text was so utterly relatable. The way she uses stories from the Quran to relate to events in her own life is incredible. It’s a type of storytelling I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. 

I will 100% be reading their essays that are on their website as well. 

Dnf at 59%. I just didn’t really love the romance plot line that was forming. I wanted more of the spying/ adventure plot and that was just moving too slow. If I was physically reading I might have just skimmed pages and kept reading, but it feels too disorienting to skip through an audiobook 

I feel bad comparing books but also the books are compared in the acknowledgements so-
I enjoyed this more than legends and lattes! If I remember correctly, this book has more action and romance. I think the characterization was pretty similar, but the added action definitely held my attention a lot more. 

I’d say it rides the line on qualifying as cozy fantasy. Don’t get me wrong- it’s definitely cozy, but I do think the action might be a bit much for those who are looking for a cozy story to pass the time. 

No star rating yet. I enjoyed a lot of it. 

However, it was published in 2022 yet there’s a HP reference. This is made worse by the fact that the FMC’s best friend is trans (this actually slipped by me, I was listening to the audio and never heard this).

As for the rest of the book:

While I still enjoyed the romance, it wasn’t my favorite aspect in the beginning. I was much more interested in Chloe’s path to raising Willow. 

During the second half, I became a bit more invested in the romance. I was glad that the book brought up Warren’s anger problems and how he was dealing with them, but I don’t know that the way it was all handled will sit well with everyone. 

Listening to the scene where his anger comes out the most, jarred me. 

Most of the content warnings will be in that section, however i did want to mention the anger. There is a scene where a male character yells towards the female character and punches a wall. 

This is advertised as a cozy sapphic paranormal rom-com. I personally felt like it fit more as a mystery romance, and I didn’t feel the coziness too much past the initial description of the town. While it was obvious that death would be involved due to a character being a ghost, there is also attempted murder later on in the book as well. 

In the first half, I stayed for the mystery. I didn’t really feel any chemistry between the two characters, so my interest was held by the investigation into Lou’s death. 

In the second half however, this flipped. The chemistry started growing, and the mystery felt forgotten and quickly wrapped up at the end. 

I’d say it’s got an average amount of Worldbuilding for a cozy paranormal romance, but I did find it odd that Jordyn only interacts with her family in the very last chapter, and there’s a major conflict between the townspeople that’s never cleared up. 

Overall, I do think I’d give the authors another try. 

Thank you to the authors for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

The first few stories had a really strong start, but I started skipping some a little ways in as they just didn’t grab my attention. Then one of them mentioned HP and that was kinda the last straw. I get that this was published in 2020 but 🤷‍♀️

•the boycott against SMP has officially ended today so here’s my review:

•there’s a HP reference. I mean cmon, I would think readers could feel safe from that in a book published by a trans author in 2024, but I guess not. Yes, it is from a character we’re supposed to dislike, but it’s still there. (I don’t remember what exactly the reference was)

•the chapter titles were hilarious, the author has the perfect amount of humor

•this has the soulmates trope and while it is confusing at times, I still enjoyed it

•some of the descriptions are very gory, so beware if you don’t enjoy that

•conclusion: it’s been five months since I’ve read this and while I remember pieces, I don’t remember a whole lot. I know I enjoyed it, but that I enjoyed the authors debut series more. Will still be picking up the sequel.