rachaelarsenault's reviews
234 reviews

This was a pleasant, lighthearted little read. I enjoyed following Jenny and Blake as they got to know each other and eventually fell for one another, and the setting was sweetly idyllic. 

First of all, I loved the post-war setting of this story. All the commentary on colonialism, imperialism, war and its aftereffects - spot on. Definitely one of my favourite parts of the story. 

I also really enjoyed the magic system, and how the ancestral magic of Iryans contrasted with the dragon magic of the Langlish. The religious lore was also really interesting, especially regarding the three Iryan deities. However, I do wish we had gotten to see magic explored more on page, especially with Elara learning a new magic system. 

The way the characters were built up and connected to each other was great as well. I felt for Elara and Faron's sisterly bond, even if it was understandably fraught at times. Both sisters also had a complicated relationship with Queen Aveline, which was interesting to explore, and I loved the little details we got about their backstories going to war together as children. 

The romance was a mixed bag for me. I really liked Faron and Reeve's relationship and how they navigated the longstanding tension between one another. Elara and Signey I was less invested in, maybe because they lacked the same degree of backstory and build-up. And I hugely appreciated the casual queer rep in this story. Forever something I love to see, especially in fantasy novels. 

The overall conflict was built up well, suitably high-stakes, and easy to get invested in, and I understood everything the characters did to achieve their ends. However, on a scene-to-scene level, the conflicts were usually very low-stakes. Obviously smaller, lower stakes conflicts are still important to a story, but this just ended up feeling like the overarching plot and individual scenes didn't match up in terms of their narrative weight for most of the story. I also felt that the focus of these smaller conflicts was often misplaced, especially where Elara was concerned. Late in the book, when she's concerned for people she's met since becoming a dragonrider and regards them as family, it doesn't land emotionally for me as a reader because I didn't actually see much interaction and bonding between her and the people in question. 

I also have mixed feelings about the climax. On the one hand, I liked some of the twists, particularly in terms of two characters essentially swapping circumstances, and another ending up as good as dead but maybe saveable. On the other hand, another major twist didn't land for me because I can't be shocked by a betrayal when the traitor was heavily broadcast as untrustworthy throughout the entire book. It's not a case of "I trusted you because I didn't know who else to turn to and now it has inevitably backfired." Instead, it read more as, "I was wary at first but grew to really trust you and now it turns out it was all a trick and a trap." It just didn't land for me. 

The fight scenes were also not my favourite, unfortunately. They tended to be pretty glossed over, which is frustrating knowing that the core characters in the story are women who went to war as children and are now back to war as adults. A lot of tension was also killed by one character we had never really seen in any kind of fight before taking on the most powerful enemy almost single-handedly and doing very, very well, to the point that I was confused when the book ended without the enemy being defeated. 

Overall, this was a really promising book with a strong premise, great characters, and interesting magic and politics, but it ultimately landed a bit flat for me. 

Contemporary fantasy is my jam. Contemporary fantasy with dragons and sorcerers? Sign me up!

I loved this takenon dragons and magic; loved the complexity of the history between dragons, slayers  and sorcerers; loved all the characters - I just loved this book! It was a perfect storm of a lot of really fun, interesting elements with great writing, stakes, and pacing.

I received a digital ARC through NetGalley in exchange for honest review.

More detailed written thoughts can be found here:
https://medium.com/@rachaellawrites/magical-and-delightful-bi-panic-an-arc-review-of-this-fatal-kiss-2bcec35f6fce

And if you want my off-the-cuff thoughts in video form, you can find them here:
https://youtu.be/wUVKO79oGYc?si=rtXpEcTZKuFY2Kta

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This was such a fun read!

The shorter chapters and three POVs helped make the story quick to read, and it was easy to get sucked into the world. I loved the variety of spirits and supernatural creatures seen throughout, the way they interacted with each other (especially the sisterly bonds of all the water nymphs), and how they fit within the mortal world.

The characters were also really well crafted and interesting. Kazik struggles with his faith and desire for community while finding it impossible to fit in because of his magic and calling to protect humans from spirits. Gisela struggles with selfishly pursuing her own ends, but is motivated to do so by the desire to return to her life as the selfless sister who dedicated her whole life to caring for her little brother. And Aleksey... ooh, boy, the struggle with his darker side was so juicy. I appreciated how well everything was laid out with his situation - I called elements of it VERY early on, which is a testament to how effective the hints and foreshadowing were.

And the romance between the three of them? So fun, and tense, and confusing for everyone involved.

I also loved how queer this book is. Gisela, Kazik, and Aleksey are all attracted to multiple genders, one of the water nymphs is trans, and several are lesbians. While the world isn't queer normative, there's minimal presentation of queerphobia in the text.

I have only two tiny complaints. Some queer rep was a little too ambiguous. I recognize that the characters maybe wouldn't have the language available that we do today, but it's quite unclear what Gisela and Yulia's gender identities actually are. Both express a sense of not being female, and I believe Gisela specifically commented about not feeling male, either, but use she/her pronouns and use feminine-coded language. And while I say that might be a symptom of the time period, I really can't be sure because I don't know what era this is? Buses and landlines phones exist, but there's no clear indication of what decade this book is set in.

Overall, however, this was an excellent read! Looking forward to seeing more of these characters in the future, if that ending is any indication.

This was a beautifully written collection of essays. It definitely veered more in the direction of memoir and personal reflection than dense academic rigor, which I personally prefer, and I think this collection would be very accessible for most readers. I appreciated the exploration of complex topics and the ways they overlap and intersect, such as indigeneity, poverty, sexual violence, queerness, etc. Definitely looking to read more work by this author. 

I recieved a digital ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a solid, enjoyable read. While the writing style wasn't completely to my personal taste, I appreciated the way the story handles issues like OCD, GAD, and ED, and thought the romance between Greg and Julien was very sweet.

Loved the worldbuilding here and how the narrative actually realistically grappled with the implications of a prolonged winter. The way the supernatural was integrated into the mundane world was also great - I'm a sucker for that trope. And Knox and Ellery were both really interesting characters (the whole cast was wonderful, to be fair) and I thought their relationship was very sweet. The third act conflict was also EXCELLENT, with logical high stakes, great pay offs, and well-crafted tension. 

This was a solid and enjoyable book, but nothing that blew me away. The characters were interesting, I was really engaged by the backstory and side conflicts, and I appreciated how very queer the central cast was. I would probably try other books by this author in the future.

The main thing holding this back from a higher rating is that I think it was too long (over 600 pages for my library ebook), and it got very repetitive, at least where Delilah and Claire's internal monologues are concerned.

I received a digital ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I felt so seen reading this essay collection. It holds a wonderful breadth of voices, experiences, and perspectives, and I feel like any reader could gain something from at least one of these essays. Some pieces felt very casual and anecdotal, while others presented more of a sense of academic rigor, which will also appeal to a range of readers.
 
 Some essays I loved more than others - and a couple were a bit of a miss for me - but overall this was an extremely solid anthology.