hann_cant_read's reviews
454 reviews

I had tried to read this traditionally and ended up dnfing because I wasn't in the right headspace for it. I just re-picked it up, but went with the audio this time and it was a game changer. I ended up falling in love with the story, and I actually liked it better than the first one by the end.
Some points were predictable (but I'm a firm believer that predictable doesn't always mean bad - better a predictable storyline than a wild twist that makes no sense...aka my issue with the first book)
Some plot points I didn't predict and I was pleasantly surprised with the reveals. They were set up so nicely!!
All in all, I recommend the audio version and that's definitely how I will be reading Wisteria when it comes out.

I was really excited about getting this arc with where the first one left off, and while ultimately I did enjoy it, it took me a while to get into it / get through it.
In defense of the actual book vs the arc, the formatting for the arc was terrible. Sentences would be broken into multiple paragraphs, words between two lines would be mixed up, it was rough and choppy and didn't help me get into the story when I was trying to figure out the sentence structure.

That being said, I think the beginning was still a little slow. Once I got to about 30-40% through I sped through it muuuuch quicker.
I think the characterization seems a little two dimensional - Io tries to see Thais and Ava as multi-faceted people when they aren't directly in front of her, but the minute she's interacting with them they fall back into their specific archetypes (not just how Io sees them, but literally in how they act.)
The ending, however, picked up really really well. I was getting extremely frustrated with Io and how long it took her to realize that

that she needed to use her fate thread to kill the gods

but I absolutely loved the callback to

the fate thread existing "outside time" and so not only was it able to kill the god's of time, but also immediately grow back

Thank you to netgalley for the e-arc.

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

This is marketed as an enemies to lovers story, but all the enemies happened off page before we met them. There were flashbacks, but they really did more to mess with the flow of the story than provide any real context. It almost felt like I was reading a sequel, like I has missed something.
The pacing was choppy. We kept switching pov's but the reasoning felt arbitrary. We weren't learning anything new from these people - Alexi just kept repeating how obsessed she was with Jerusalem, and Jerusalem just kept repeating all the people she was angry at and how much she liked killing.
I had a hard time with the language use. Jerusalem was previously a slave and her verbiage that mimicked that made a lot of sense, but it wasn't consistent - especially in her narration voice. It was very jarring having her voice bounce around the way it did. On top of that there were weirdly modern phrases being used. With the amount of dialogue in this story it really became an annoyance that wasn't easy to ignore.
I really wanted to like this book - the premise sounds amazing. But our main characters were just so one dimensional I couldn't invest in them. 

Thank you to Netgalley for the audio arc.

This felt like I was re-reading Legends and Lattes but with Tea this time instead of Coffee. 
And I love healthy communication, but this just felt like they were explaining WHY their communication was so healthy the whole time. You don't have to keep telling me, just have them communicate. 

I did actually really enjoy the narrator though! I would absolutely listen to other books she's narrated. 

These two lovesick idiots were killing me.
It was cute, and cheesy as it was supposed to be, but man.
We never got an actual explanation / apology from Rhys about the betrothal issue that broke them up in the first place - it sounds like it was all a misunderstanding anyway but for some reason they never discussed it, even though it was severe enough for her to hold a NINE YEAR grudge.
Speaking of which, they were not acting 28/29, specifically Vivi. If it had been like three years later and they were 22/23 their behavior would have made so much more sense.
I still don't understand the reasons they couldn't be together toward the end.

He owned a travel company. He could literally do that from anywhere. And even if he didn't want to move they have those stupid travel stone things. There's no such thing as long distance with travel stones.

It's possible I'm biased, but anything Leigh Bardugo writes is an insta-buy for me, and this was no different.
It started a little slow, it took a little bit for me to get to know who Luzia was. I will say, part of that was absolutely the point though - she has spent so long hiding herself that she also needed to relearn who she was. It was a journey we took together.
Santangel. Maybe I just have a thing for emo sad boys but he had my heart right away.
While it's written in 3rd person, each chapter is from the pov of different characters throughout the story. Personally, I love how that gives us a way to see Luzia as other people see her - and how their view of her changes over the course of the story.
The only thing that was a little tough, was (as this was set in Spain) a lot of Spanish terms were used. I don't think it's a negative by any means, and most of the terms I could parse out just from context clues, but it is something to be be aware of going into it.

The prose is so hard to get through. Every single paragraph is trying to end with a dramatic punch, eventually the effect is diminished and nothing actually makes an impact.
The world building is so clunky and for attempting to be political intrigue, each nugget we learn feels like an after thought. Nothing happened the entire first chapter except our main character just listing examples of why Colonizing Empire = Bad. We got it. The info-dumping monologues (both internal and via speech!) were killing me. Worse than being morally gray is just being annoying. 

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this one. It definitely felt like the middle book in a trilogy. More like a bridge connecting two stories than an actual story in and of itself.
The first half really dragged. The author kept teasing a reveal that seemed so obvious, that it was just annoying that it took the entire first half of the book for Lore to realize it (or come to terms with it, really).

I think the goal of the first half was really for Bastian's descention arc, but it just wasn't very smooth. (Bastian hating but eating cantaloupe could have been such a good clue if both of those things hadn't been told to us at the exact same time.)

There were some weird interactions that didn't quite make sense. Lore as a whole was just kind of a blank slate for whatever the plot needed in that exact moment. 

Lore told Gabe that something was off with Bastian, but he said she was wrong. But later, when Lore is talking to Alie, Alie mentions that Gabe noticed Bastian was different, and instead of being pissed that Gabe brushed her off when he clearly agreed, she's nervous that Gabe is noticing?

It also doesn't make sense to me why Lore withholds the random information that she does, other than to make the plot seem more mysterious.

These people are on your side! Plus her requesting the group to tell Bastian things when she KNOWS telling him is as good as telling Apollius so why is she even asking?

Also, Lore was extremely boring in this one. While she didn't have a lot of agency in the last one, she at least understood that and was making the small decisions she could to try and make the best of the situation. (She knew her limitations!) But in this one she's just sad and confused and the story is playing out around her. Even as she has this insane power she's just kind of...there. I know part of it is to draw parallels between her dynamic and Nyxara's, but because it went on for so long with nothing happening it just felt like slugging through the story.
That being said, the second half went a LOT quicker, and while the God lore was a liiiitle bit info dumpy I found myself really interested in that background history.
My last point of contention is the dialogue sometimes felt weirdly modern but only randomly. It wasn't a huge deal but it just felt a little jarring at times.
I do think, because of the pacing of the last half that I'll end up reading the third one when it comes out. I'm curious to see where the story goes.

Thanks to netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.