hann_cant_read's reviews
454 reviews

Ran out of time on my libby hold, but bought the physical copy to finish instead.

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"