Matthew Anthony Kojo Telles's Blog, page 2

The Rose Society (The Young Elites #2)

Adelina's mental degradation is clear to see as soon as the book starts. How constant dark thoughts that keep returning invade her being, coupled with hallucinations (or maybe her power subtly taking over her mind) keep her from feeling normal. Three weeks have passed since the end of the first book, and only pain and suffering is left for the two sisters. They aren't just sitting there and letting the world screw them over, they are attempting to fight back. They have run away to a place much safer than they were before, but they are looking for other elites to join them in their cause since the daggers have obviously abandoned them.

This book switches between the point of view of Adelina and Raffaele, so we can see two sides of the same coin. They both want the same thing, but they are going to be going about it in a different way from the other, and one is significantly more experienced in this field than the other. There is, however, another perspective within this and that is Teren. The one who believes that he was brought into the world to remove all the Elites from this world although he is one himself.

This character changing is something that Marie Lu is really good at, having done it in her book, 'Legend' and the subsequent series that arose from that book. I am not the biggest fan of having multiple protagonists, but with the way she does it, (how she never says 'I' while using another perspective) and how excellently she executes it I am not opposed to her adding this to the books.

There is a lot going on in the relationship between Violetta and Adelina. There is a lot of strain, and resentment (the latter particularly on Adelina's side) but there is also a deep love and bond between the two. Moments such as when her sister is getting close to a man called Sergio she starts feeling jealous that he is taking her sister's attention away. It isn't particularly healthy, but it is a definitive sign of a bond between the two. The main thing that is hurting their relationship is how Adelina handles the people and her willingness to kill. She wasn't like that before, but after so many things happened to her in quick succession, she has rightfully started to break down. The only difference between her and any other person breaking down is that she has powers that can inflict extreme amounts of pain on people, and get them to kill themselves. Rather than a support system, she is able to get her revenge and take over the whole kingdom, which is her only goal. As long as she and her sister are safe she doesn't hold much regard for life - although if another person can be easily saved and they are considered by her to be one of 'her people' then she is more than willing to help with whatever the problem is.

Adelina starts to grow closer to the Elite they had been looking out for - and had managed to barely convince to join them after killing a ruler of society - and they end up kissing. Through this, it is revealed how much she still misses Enzo, as she constantly has to remind herself how he isn't Enzo and is completely different. It is unfair to him but is something that she cannot get away from, especially when she has all the voices in her head convincing her that certain things are right and wrong and influencing her decisions. But within this, she also starts to fall deeper into her dark thoughts. The voices become louder and more intrusive, and her ability to kill without remorse (even feeling happy at first) is something that has come to fruition and that cannot be denied. While in a heightened state after killing someone she even loses control over herself, wanting to kill more and nearly going after her sister. She reigns herself back in, but comments on the fact that she is already forgetting the face of the man she killed, showing that she is growing cold to such drastic action as killing someone.

The relationship between The Queen and Teren slowly starts to turn sour as he comes to learn that her supposed 'hatred' for all the malfetto's was just because that stance was useful to her at the time and they were getting in her way. Now that Raffaele has proposed an alliance between the two she is more than willing to comply with that request, provided they become loyal to her. This obviously caused a rift to start to form between The Queen ad Teren, mostly from The Queen's side as he is unwilling to change his view and even goes directly against The Queen's orders because he thinks it is what she would want. After a night when Raffaele sleeps with her, Teren, in a fit of rage, aims to kill him but gets caught by The Queen and demoted from his post as her most important soldier.

After a confrontation between the Roses and the Daggers, Enzo is revived and tethered to Adelina (while she has disguised herself as Raffaele) and they fight, only stopping because the inquisition are arriving. Raffaele locks himself in his room, and while it seems to the others that he is sulking, he is actually doing research as well. He is wondering why Lucent's wrist seemed like it was broken from the inside. When he looks at his old text labelling the feeling of every Young Elite that had joined up with them he realises why. Her bones had been previously described as light and airy. Although now that she has used her powers a lot more they are more brittle and hollow. This means that the more the Elite use their power the more they start to become consumed in a way that could relate to their power. For example, it would perfectly explain why Adelina is slowly starting to fall into madness and seeing things that aren't there; because her ability to tell real from fake is diminishing. This would explain the voice in her head, seeing things when they aren't actually there, her constant mood changes, and her joy when murdering people. This is all related to her mental deterioration.

With this in mind, Adelina ends up in a situation where they have captured Teren, but instead of killing him, she takes him with assurances that she would rather die than see the Daggers rule the kingdom. He foolishly believes her and once they enter the throne room she manipulates him and not only amplifies his anger but also forces images into his head of The Queen with Raffaele. As a final nail in the coffin, she makes it look like The Queen is a malfetto causing Teren to kill her. She only lowers the illusion after the fact. After running away in the chaos, they fight in the sky, Adelina and her crew with the Daggers who just arrived a bit later on. In the ensuing fight, Gemma is killed and we can really see the split in emotions between her love for her friend, and her delusions over why they hold hostility towards her and her indifference to them. She even assumes, that when Gemma turns around on her ship while they were flying next to each other it was because she wanted to slow down the ship and talk to Adelina which just is only realistic in a fantasy world.

When Enzo was first training her in the first book it was mentioned that she wasn't getting a hold of her power because she wasn't feeling threatened enough even while she was getting beaten, and losing the fights and I think this is one trait that has always been there. One that would explain her indifference towards the death of her friend. She doesn't view reality from the same permanent fixture that we do. Only this time the effect is amplified a lot, and she is willing to brush things off that are as significant as her friend's death because she believes in her cause forgetting that after she accomplishes her goal what is left for her if all her friends are dead?

This comes into effect once she takes over the throne, having forced Enzo to burn all the troops that had come alongside Maeve, killing them all. She has captured Teren, although she is unwilling to kill him and she has a conversation with her sister where Violetta tells her about Raffaele's conclusion about how their power is draining them and Adelina doesn't believe her, the voices in her head now coming out of her own mouth and saying what they want to say. Violetta removes her power and a fight ensues where Violetta ends up giving the power back and running away. I thought that the imagery created in the scene after where Adelina is sitting on her throne, waiting for the satisfaction to come in knowing that she has now achieved what she had been looking to do this whole time but as she waits, and waits some more nothing ever comes. I can just imagine the image of her sitting on the throne, a deranged smile on her face that alters turns into sobbing.

There were some parts of this book that I didn't like as much, such as the fighting using her power. I thought it was a little basic, and it felt like the same thing was happening, although it was always described differently, and there wasn't really any variation of her power failing or anything (while in a fight) which I thought was something that could have been done to add an extra point of interest and tension to the book. I did like how Marie Lu showed the deterioration into madness that eventually drove her sister away, and the explanation of how their bodies weren't meant to handle this much power which is why they are breaking down the more they use them made a lot of sense to me. I thought there could have been a few more scenes where her power started to betray her in crucial moments and it messed up something that they were trying to do.

The story, for me at least, wasn't the most compelling for some reason. The constant going to different places, fighting, maybe recruiting someone and then leaving to another place wasn't something that I particularly enjoyed.

Overall this book was pretty good, and I would recommend it, and the first two books (as they are what I have read so far) of the series. It has been well executed so far, but something has pulled me away from the characters and I don't feel that usual bond that I always get when reading stories - especially trilogies.

7.3/10

The Young Elites

Adelina Amouteru is a survivor of the blood fever but is also about to be burnt at the stake for murder. Left in isolation for an amount of time she cannot remember and she is starting to get used to, and accepting, the thought of dying. Reminiscing about how that came to be she looks back on her childhood, and how she grew up together with her wonderful mother, sister and horribly abusive father. How the bleed fever was spreading around when she was younger and Adelina, her mother and her sister Violetta, all contracted it with Violetta being the only one who turned out okay. Their mother died and Adelina had an eye so swollen that it had to be removed with a hot knife and tongs.
Their father was abusive to each sister in a different way. While Violetta was abused in more subtle ways, for she was the more beautiful of the two sisters (in the public's eyes) and didn't have 'flaws' like a missing eye, that didn't mean that she didn't suffer. Things like buying clothing too small, or shoes that didn't fit her feet so that she'd be in pain and struggle, which he enjoyed. On the other side of things, he was much clearer with Adelina, as he broke bones, and did a lot more 'typical' abuser abuse against her.

Because of her being a malfetto she is ruining her father's reputation and not allowing him to do business like he previously would thus he decides to sell her off, before the legal age, to someone much older who already has a wife. Overhearing this conversation she wasn't supposed to be involved in she runs away, her sister waking up but not saying anything about coming with her.
This part, the part where one character is willing and ready to fight against the system, while the other is too scared to do anything and would rather live an unhappy, horrible, but predictable life than break the rules reminds me of another book I read recently called, 'Cinderella is Dead.' The main difference between the two is that the contrasting characters and their motivations were shown much more clearly in this book within the first 10 pages compared to 'Cinderella is Dead' which was always lacking in that aspect, and repeated itself too much. It was nice to see something that I had noticed in the other book being done excellently here.

As she tries to escape, her father finds out quickly and catches up to her on horseback before she can traverse far. He yanks her off, not letting her escape and as he is berating her she feels something snap inside of her. Her new power, one that she knows nothing about, is activated and strange creatures come and torment her father until he gets run over by his own horse. While she didn't cause his death - for which she later gets arrested - she was still one of the parties involved in his death (he deserved it though). And this moves her onto the last day that she is supposed to be alive, with her father still haunting her and unable to get past the fact that, although unintentional, her sister was the one who condemned her to death. Her inner thoughts seem calm but that is moreso because she is weak from fear, resentment, hunger, and betrayal. She is scared, she is petrified and she hasn't accepted her fate, but she is still struggling and certain that she is going to die.

Enzo, also known as 'The Reaper' saves her while she is on the metal stake the fire lit beneath her feet. This is when we are introduced to others who have powers (like Enzo) and I think this is the right point for it to have happened. We got all the information we needed to establish the story, her backstory, the fact that people can get powers from a disease that kills most, the 'Young Elites' who are a collection of these shunned people and that moves us onto the next phase of the story which is about her time learning about the wider world.

They have already moved past the frolicking of kids and that child-like innocence - thinking that you can change the world solely by being a pacifist - and they are ready and willing to murder at will. Just as Enzo does for one of his friends who works at a 'brothel', Raffaele, after he is abused by a client. Without mercy, he ends his life in a brutal fashion. Although they are on the side of most people living, they are willing to sacrifice almost anything to get what they want. While this is the most realistic setting after everything that happened, it isn't the one that is most likely to bring change about.

Although they try and separate themselves from all the other people, including the people in power that they are trying to remove, they aren't that different at all. They are willing to kill people in brutal fashions, Raffaele wanted to kill Adelina in case she wasn't able to control her power, they don't save people if they aren't suspected to be useful to the group. I also believe, from everything that they have said, that they would kill Adelina the second she decided to leave their group, even if she just wanted to go live a peaceful life.

Teren, a character introduced to us, but not to Adelina, hates himself (for what I assume is having power) and punishes himself by inflicting wounds on himself, and tries to make up for what he is by helping the queen take down the king and kill all the malfettos. This self-hatred is unlike what Enzo feels, as he loves himself and views their power as a gift, not a curse that likens them to an abomination. He starts to blackmail Adelina with threats of harm coming toward her sister. She never sees her sister, but he gives her items that belonged to Violetta as proof she is alive and wants her to betray the Young Elite group by providing information in exchange for her sister's life. She is hesitant, only going along with so her sister doesn't, even going to reveal what happened and tell Enzo but after overhearing a conversation where one of the other six young elites tells Enzo, who she likes (and thinks he likes her back) that none of them trusts her, or like her, and only tolerate her, she sort of falls into despair as these are the people that she liked, and thought were finally going to give her a place to belong. Through this eavesdropping, she also learns that Enzo might be interested in her only because she reminds him of his dead lover.

Her decisions after this are completely understandable when put in the situations she was in. She was abused by her father after her mother died and barely survived the disease that killed her mother. After several years of severe abuse, where her sister is also being abused (the only one she cares about) she ends up running away, killing her father and then getting sent to death, only being saved at the last second by the leaser of the Young Elites group in her area. She is an outsider in this group, and treated as such by most and only given the time of day by half of them. Through this she starts to trust them but has to balance saving her sister on the side, who is being held and threatened to be killed if Adelina disobeys, and just as she is about to tell Enzo, the one she thinks deeply cares for her, she overheard one of the six saying how none of them actually like her and just tolerate her. After going through all that it is no wonder she ended up snapping and leaving the facility in the middle of the night to go to Teren and tell him everything she knew about everyone within the Young Elites group within their sector.

While there, having finally seen that her sister is safe, she listens to Teren's offer, realises that he wants nothing more than to just keep her in a prison and lock her down so she can't do anything and decides not to betray the Young Elites. In the room, she learns that Violetta is an Elite and has always known she was one and how power is the suppression of other powers, which means she is extremely useful. However, while escaping she learns that Dante had followed her and instead of listening to anything she has to say he attacks, and once he has subdued her, says that he is going to get her to answer Enzo. She has always hated Dante, and he was the one who initially drove her to maybe talk about the identities of the Young Elites, so she snaps and accidentally ends up killing him because of the image of her deranged father which still haunts her.

Adelina is prone to mistakes, this was clear when she accidentally killed Dante and is as true now as it was then. Teren had killed the king just before meeting with Adelina and had also started his raid everywhere to find all the Elites which meant that her actions of not telling him didn't amount to much as Raffaele was captured and used as a bargaining chip to get Enzo, who Teren didn't know was alive, to fight against Teren. They had grown up together, and they trained together so when Enzo revealed that he was actually the Reaper it caused quite a disturbance.
Now, why did I mention how Adelina is prone to mistakes? Well, that is because while Enzo and Teren are fighting there is confusion as loads of guards come running in - Adelina estimates in the thousands - and she loses track of everyone and accidentally uses her power on Enzo instead of Teren which allowed Teren to easily end the fight and kill Enzo.

The rest of them escape, but not without heavy loss. Raffaele and the others listen to her explanation and chose to abandon her, leaving her and her sister alone because he views her as a threat, as he did all along. It is in this moment when they are left together, while Adelina is breaking down and Violetta is comforting her that she realises that is all she wanted. She wanted someone to unconditionally love her and what better person than the sister who she loved and was willing to sacrifice it all for?

The first book ends here which is a pretty good place to end it. There were a few things that didn't feel properly fleshed out in this, mainly the transition from being unable to control her power to be able to do it. I personally thought it should have been more of a struggle. And there were also the relationship I didn't really care for and the only ones I actually liked being Violetta and Raffaele. I didn't really feel any connection to the other characters and even when Enzo died I didn't really care. Maybe it was that he just didn't appeal to me but I thought that it was something to note.

Overall it was a good book and I would recommend reading it.

7.5/10

It Ends With Us

It Ends With Us

'It Ends With Us' is a romantic, new adult, fiction piece looking at the life of Lily Bloom. The book does a great job first introducing us to Lily and her inner thoughts. Specifically, at this moment, her thoughts on and of death. Having just been to her the mayor, her father's, funeral, and having given a eulogy at the funeral she says that she isn't considering suicide, and maybe she didn't end up on the roof of the building she was staying in because she was contemplating suicide but now she is on a ledge on top of the building and thinking about how much she hated the experience of going to her father's funeral, and of how she isn't going to be committing suicide.

When you're thinking about something so much, to the point where you're almost reassuring yourself that you aren't going to die tonight, there might be a slight contradiction between the words being said the what is being implied.

While she is on the roof, definitely not thinking of throwing herself from it, another person is introduced into the fray (whose name we learn is Ryle Kincaid) and the first we see of him is being extremely fragile, and then assaulting an innocent chair. After noticing that she is there, on the side of the building, his nerves begin to show, and Lily, who definitely isn't considering suicide, decides to come down after a little convincing from Ryle.

They learn about each other and find that they have more in common than they previously thought. They share secrets, more than anyone would be willing to share with a random stranger they met just that night, except they are both in a place emotionally where they don't really care about that, and it feels like the instant attraction between them isn't only physical. It transcends that, and there are sparks of an emotional relationship between the two brewing.

But we also start to learn about Atlas, who was Lily's first love, and the first person who she cared about romantically. She doesn't mention how they broke up at this point in the book, but there are assumptions made considering how he was homeless when they first met, and her father was the mayor of a town which instantly brings to the front the possibility that her father forbade them from seeing each other by hanging money over her head that she would need to survive at that age.

Lily quits her job six months later and opens her own flower shop. She hires someone called Allysa, her new employee, who messages her husband and her brother to come after Lily has a fall and she finds out that Ryle is Alyssa's brother. They act like they don't know each other, but as time passes, and Ryle starts wanting her more (even literally begging her, on his knees, in her house to let him have a one-night stand with her) and at Alyssa's birthday party, where she has brought a 'date' (her gay friend) with her Ryle starts getting jealous. This jealously ends up having him run up to her as she is leaving the apartment and carrying her back into the bedroom. To prove that he actually likes her and that he isn't just using her, she requests him to not have sex with her, and they end up sleeping together without doing anything sexual that night.

In the morning she tells Alyssa how they had met before, and she starts to give Lily a warning about her brother before he walks into the room and interrupts Alyssa. This is the first warning sign that maybe he isn't the best person to pursue, even if he is devilishly handsome, and is willing to throw away his pride to be with her sexually, that doesn't mean that he is going to be good in a relationship and if they're seeing each other casually then it means he can continue to have his one night stands that he so loves and she can't really say anything because they haven't established what they are doing together. If his own sister knows that he doesn't have a good track record with relationships, then maybe there is something wrong with his mindset when dating people.

"When he was wiping that cow 'crap' on me, it was quite possibly the most turned-on I've ever been."

Because she is still occasionally reading her old diaries about the man she first had sex with, Atlas, we can see the contrast in her relationship with him, and her relationship now with Ryle. While what she has with Ryle now is hot, heavy, and contains a lot of sexual tension, her relationship with Atlas was filled with a lot more like a friendship and just loving the other's company. They would tend to her garden together, she would help him with food and showers because he was homeless, and he would be there to comfort her when her father started hitting her mother and her mother rejected her help.

Her dislike, or rather apathy towards her mother, is understandable as she continues reading the diary entries. Especially in a certain moment where her father is choking her mother out and she jumps on his back to try and get him to stop, causing him to fling her off and causing a gash to form on her head. Her mother takes her to the hospital, and you think,' Okay, at least she is probably going to do something now that her child has been hurt.' which is also what Lily foolishly though as her mother doesn't tell her to tell the truth, she tells her to lie and say that she slipped on some ice. Like the final straw, it was probably at that exact moment that all love she had for her mother as her protector, as her caregiver, vanished and was instead replaced by resentment.

Back to the relationship between her and Ryle, even when she starts getting infatuated with him, and tells Alyssa how fast they are moving because he is going to come with her to a restaurant and meet her mother, Alyssa doesn't seem to share her excitement or even pretend to think that is a good thing. I think this only further shows how Lily is letting herself get too swept up in the relationship because she is finally receiving some attention from someone not named Atlas, who she hasn't seen for many years, and it is something that she doesn't know how to deal with. She is too naive and too willing to trust people are good, not even taking the hints and signs from his own sister that dating him might not be the best move. You'd have assumed that after she had started reading the diaries again she would look back on her relationship with Atlas and realise how much of a solid foundation that had, even if they never clarified their relationship like she and Ryle hadn't, but she didn't and instead just moved on as if there was nothing wrong.

Their relationship does seem to be going really well between the two of them when they are together (they don't have much time together, and haven't even been on a date) but at the restaurant she sees Atlas working as a waiter. He tells her that he was in the military for eight years, which means he only got out when she first met Ryle and her father died. Although she thinks she got over him, her words sound more like she is trying to convince herself that is the case, rather than it actually being the case. They are both in relationships, having found them around the same time, a year ago, and she starts to cry in her car after he tells her that he wishes they had met over a year ago, obviously implying that he hoped she wasn't seeing anyone.

However, as the diary entries keep increasing I slowly realised that while her and Atlas' relationship was more built on love, there was also the fact that she was fifteen and he was eighteen when they started whatever it was that they did. He also asked her when she was turning sixteen. This was definitely a bit creepy, but something about how hard life had been for him made the gap a little less weird, though it of course didn't absolve what he did.

One thing I always like to avoid doing in books is the mention of how happy it is when things are going really well. If this is done right at the end of the book it is clarification, but in the middle, or at the start, you just know something bad is going to happen really soon. So when Lily mentions, multiple times, how happy she is and how everything is going perfectly I started to cringe because then I knew that something was going to shatter this honeymoon phase that they were in with their relationship.

I cringed, even more, when I read the next few scenes, seeing how impulsive Ryle can really be and how irrational he can get when angry. It really shouldn't have been a surprise, considering how much anger we used on a chair when we first were introduced to him. I think the difference between him and a normal person, because almost everyone has hit an inanimate object, is that while a normal person might just kick it once and be done with it, their anger had dissipated, he continued after, letting the anger overwhelm him completely and then moving onto drug still even though at that point you'd assume his anger would have vanished. Flirting like they had done a lot before, Lily decided to try something different and invited him over on his day off, with the promise of food while only wearing an apron. He brings over some vintage wine, which she drinks a lot of and starts acting like a normal drunk. Getting very risky, like talking about how he fingers her while on a call with her mother and also laughing a lot when something bad happens like Ryle pulling a burned casserole out of the oven without wearing gloves. Laughter is a normal reaction for people who a drunk to a lot of things and isn't indicative of their real opinion but as with everything in his life, and also like I suspected, he lets things take him over too much and this time it was anger at something not aimed at him. He pushes Lily and she falls down hitting her head on the cabinet, although she doesn't know it at that moment, it is the first time she realises what her mother felt because instead of getting completely angry at him, after pushing him away from checking on her on the floor, she goes to check on him. She hopes he isn't like her father, but instead of just seeing the worry in his eyes she sees come panic as if he knows his career is going to be over if this is revealed. She dismisses those thoughts as, 'that was just a one-time mistake because he cares a lot about his career, right...?'

It might have been a one-time mistake, but hurting your partner in a fit of rage isn't something that you get another chance to rectify, but unfortunately Lily doesn't see it that way and although she knows that what he did was wrong, she sees her laughing while drunk as wrong even though she doesn't see it as bad as what Ryle did, she still excuses his behaviour to an extent. A lot of things that occur are so easy to overlook in a relationship as red flags but are then so easy to see once you're out of that relationship. I think the main thing that she overlooks when at dinner with Alyssa, Ryle and Marshall (Alyssa's husband) is that they are both not willing, to tell the truth about what happened and how she how the facial injury. I think if she resolved herself to tell the truth she'd realise just how bad it sounded, 'Hey Alyssa, I was drinking a lot of wine and Ryle burnt himself on the casserole dish which caused me to start laughing and because I was laughing Ryle pushed me really hard across the room which is how I got this injury." when said that like it sounds horrible, and it wasn't like I embellished anything. This perfectly encapsulates how people in an abusive relationship can start off thinking that everything isn't a big deal and before they know it their confidence is gone and they are being constantly abused by their partner. It is so easy to fall into this cycle but so hard to read about someone falling into it herself, even after she had disdain for her own mother for staying with an abusive man until he died.

At the restaurant they see Atlas who puts two and two together, having seen her and her mother being abused before, and having been horribly abused himself, he knows the signs. In fact, it's strange that more people didn't. One has a bruise on the corner of her eye and it is also swollen and the other has bandages around his hands. Of course, he didn't directly hit her, but the two injuries are linked in that one caused the other. He defends Lily by going after Ryle but they are eventually split up and Ryle thinks that Lily is cheating on him until she explains otherwise. His behaviour in the car, when he threatens to leave her as he didn't want drama in his life (the reason he didn't pursue relationships in the past) is very strange and almost like he was testing the waters on what he could get away with. She doesn't bite and calls his bluff to which he backs off and apologises. What probably would have happened if she had apologised was that he would have held it over her head, or at least that is the vibe I was getting from that interaction.

Atlas again shows his superior thoughtful ability as he ends up bringing her a present to the flower store, one that he bought three years prior, which is a book with Ellen Degeneres on the front (he also gives her his number in paper form at this time). It is also signed with words that he asked Ellen to write inside to which she starts 'fake' crying. Again, convincing herself that she doesn't still love him and isn't still hung up on him. She definitely isn't No way is that possible...sigh.

Ryle and Lily start moving really fast, and on the night that she meets his parents they decide to have a small little wedding in Vegas with only her mother, and then Ryle's family. As always, when things look like they are going swimmingly something has to come down and ruin it, and as it was in the past, Ryle is the person that decides that he is going to be a massive c*** and ruin everything. He finds the paper in the back of the phone with Atlas's number on it and he calls it, wondering who it was. Once he finds out it is Atlas, he doesn't do something that a normal reasonable person would do and confront the person about maybe cheating, no, he does the exact opposite and assumes she is and then pushes her down some stairs in another fit of rage. Although the first time she should have definitely broken up with him, I can understand why she was willing to give him a second chance even if I disagree with it, the second time there is no room for argument and everyone knows it is wrong to give them another chance but when you're in that situation it is extremely hard to convince yourself that the other person is going to do it again. They will shower you with love and affection to make up for what they did, and while that looks nice on the surface there is always a hidden agenda, especially when he tells her that she fell down some stairs while we, and she, knows he pushed her. She does the right thing, feels the hurt and kicks out him and doesn't give him a chance to talk to her because he doesn't deserve one.

When she arrives at the flower shop, after getting a new phone and Alyssa calling her, she sees both Ryle and Alyssa there and waiting and although Alyssa already knows that it was Ryle who caused her injuries she acts like that while Ryle has done something wrong, he has a way of explaining it away. That way turns out to be that he was the one who accidentally killed his older brother by shooting him six times while he was still extremely young. This is a trauma. It is an explanation for his behaviour but it doesn't excuse any of it at all. The only reason he is telling Lily is to make her feel pity towards him in hopes that she will forgive him and give him another chance. She shouldn't but after learning everything I currently know about where Colleen Hoover is taking this story, I think we can all guess what she does next, even before it happens.

She doesn't think that what he did was bad, which of course it was, but she is comparing what he did to her to what her father did to her mother which is not something you do. Not only does abuse come in all shapes and sizes but one thing that she misses in all this, is that she doesn't know how her father treated her mother before she was born. Maybe the compassion was still there and he lost it sometime after she was born. We don't know, we will never know, but we do know that what he did to her was abuse. And it doesn't stop there.

Later on, he buys an apartment without her knowledge and although she likes it she is a bit miffed that he did it without consulting her first. There is also the fact that she is trying to work through his behaviour with him, and give him another chance and it looks like it is working. In the first fight they have, he ends up breaking a vase and instead of the usual, going off at her, like he had done before he walks out of the apartment and calms down before coming back and agreeing with her side of the argument. At least, up until then, it looks like everything is going swimmingly because shortly after they have another fight that starts after he reads all her diaries, which she doesn't know at the time, and he also starts drinking whiskey which is the worst combination. He grabs her, annoyed and hurts her with how hard his grip is. He bites deep into her shoulder, leaving marks, and when she tries to get away he pins her down underneath him on the bed, proclaiming how he doesn't think that he has shown her that he is better than Atlas so he is going to show her he loves her more and looking like he is going to rape her. He headbutts her after she bites his tongue though and when he is asleep calls Atlas. He saves her and takes her to the hospital where she finds she is pregnant, but there is more to it than that as you can't get over someone you love that quickly.

It was incredibly hard reading about how she loves him, hates him for ruining everything they had, loves him more and is disgusted with herself for trying to find ways that what he did wasn't that bad. Eventually, she speaks with her mother who tells her not to take him back and make the same mistake she did.

There are many times when it looks like she is going to take him back, but reminders of that one night plague her thoughts and rightfully stop her. It isn't until her daughter is born while Ryle is there that she asks for a divorce, listing everything he did to her, and what would he say to their daughter if she came to him and told him that a boy was doing that with her. It was the final straw and he understood.

Later, 11 months to be exact, Lily encounters Atlas, who she had told she needed space from, and after dropping Emerson, her child, to Ryle she runs back to him and they start what could have, should have, started long ago. Their lives together and since they already know everything about the other they know they fit together perfectly.

I definitely recommend this book.

9/10

How to Kill Your Family

The first thing, and the one that is the hardest to miss, is the cold and emotionless voice with which Grace thinks. She is in prison, for a crime that she didn't commit but doesn't seem to care about that fact. She is more annoyed at her cellmate trying to become friends with her, and that the actual crime that she did commit is going to go unseen.
She says it casually, as if it is the most normal and expected thing in the world, that she killed six members of her family and then went on with her life as if nothing had happened, with no cares in the world.

One thing about the construction of this book that made it a bit less palatable than I would have liked is how long some of the paragraphs are. At least at the start of the book, there isn't much dialogue to break up the constant thoughts, planning and observations inside Grace's head which sometimes makes it a bit harder to read than necessary.
Even though there were parts that were harder to read because of the lack of paragraphs, that didn't mean that there wasn't a lot of humour in this book. It sounds counterintuitive, but within a book about a character murdering her whole family, there are a lot of funny one-liners or whole paragraphs that make it easier to read. Even after just committing a murder it is hard to get away from the humourous, callous way in which Grace thinks about the murders of her family. It adds a certain character to the book that you don't get to see from ones that utilise dialogue more. It is something that differentiates this book from others but also makes it readable.

Not only does Grace hold animosity towards her paternal family, but also towards her mother. She believes that it was her stupid choices that put them in the situation that they were in. They never had much money, didn't have a lot of support, and Grace was always jealous of the other people who had fathers and mothers in their lives. It is understandable for someone to think this way, and to think that her mother was naive for ignoring the plethora of red flags because there was a tonne, but people do stupid things and it is how they respond after the fact that hold the real weight. It is never explicitly said, but the way she talked about her childhood and the way she talked about her mother did go to show how she did hold some resentment towards her, even if she did love, and appreciate what she did for her while she was a child.

But as with murdering people, there is always going to be hypocrisy and, especially in this situation, assumptions made that really shouldn't be. For example, one of her cousins had gone low contact with the family a few years ago, not even showing up to his grandparent's funeral, and yet she still plans to kill him. It isn't because of what he did and who he is, because from the outside looking in he looks like a good person. Volunteering at different places, not speaking to his family (which must have been a horribly hard decision) and seeming like a genuinely nice person. But because he has shared the last name with the family that she wants to eradicate from the earth, he is having to be killed.

As her mother died when she was young she was taken in by an upper-middle-class family who she first came to know through their son, Jimmy. They were close, but by this time revenge was already hard set in her heart. She was able to be swayed a few times, but her jaded look on the outside world, and assuming the worst in people before even meeting them, is something that she wasn't able to get rid of, and something that eventually convinced her to move out of their house to carry on plotting her revenge plan against the Artemis's.

One thing, one rule, that she was aiming towards was to try and leave the women out of it. Like her mother, they potentially had also been ensnared by the charm of the family that turned out to be a lie. She held sympathy towards these women, as long as they had actually been conned, and weren't actually horrible people themselves like her grandmother was. After killing her uncle, she goes to the funeral and her aunt spontaneously gets up, telling everyone how horrible the uncle was and how everyone is only there to 'grieve' because he had a lot of money and then leaves. Grace appreciates this and decides that she, as her mother had, didn't deserve any more hardships as she had been through enough already.
This is a trend of her hating men more than women, but I think in the upper echelons of society, where men have the dominant gender for a long time, it isn't hard to start blaming all those powerful and rich men for a tonne of problems that they themselves caused before acting like the victim.

One thing I did notice that was done really well was to make every kill a different situation. It never felt like it was a repeat of the same situation, which really made the book feel like a bunch of mini short stories. This made the book a lot more readable, as because it is written in the form of a diary of sorts, there is less dialogue than you would usually expect from a prose book. That doesn't mean it is bad by any means, but that does mean that it doesn't retain attention as much because being inside someone's head all the time gets exhausting, and you'd like to see them talking more with others and get their thoughts and feelings out that way. It does mesh well with her character, who doesn't seem to like anyone really, but an explanation doesn't make something suddenly unavailable.

The ending of this book was definitely something that I didn't expect, but there were obviously hints. The clearest one was after she killed her cousin, how she felt like someone was watching her, but as it was never confirmed, only a feeling that she got while she was on some experimental drugs.

This book was good, and very well put together don't be discouraged by the fact that this review is shorter than the rest. That is only because the way this book is written there is less to say about the plot, as everyone already knows what is going to happen, and we already know the personality of the main character which is fleshed out fully throughout the whole book.
While the ending was something that I didn't expect, I am not sure if I liked it or not. There is always something nice about something unexpected happening, and it even hinted at it beforehand, but that doesn't mean that it is revealed that she had a brother who has not only been watching her the whole time but also knows that she committed the murders and even killed their dad himself.

I really think that this plays into Grace's narrative about males. He was only able to form that initial relationship with their father because he was a male. If Grace tried to do that the outcome would have been much different. It is also why when he mentions that he just had more cards it feels more insulting considering everything that Grace believed.

Overall, although it was hard to read sometimes, I did like this book and would recommend it.

8.2/10

Sister Dear

Although we do learn that Eleanor is going to court during the first chapter there is a lot that we still don't know about the story and a lot that gets hinted about but isn't told to us at that moment. This is good for the book, as it allows for more exploration and explanation to be done. It is told to us plainly that she has done something wrong, and that someone had died - which she blamed herself for - but we do not know if this is true, or if there is more to the story.

Her father has pancreatic cancer, which is known to be the cancer with the lowest survival rate out of them all, which instantly brings out a lot of sympathy for her character for us readers, and allows us to be more forgiving towards her actions. Even though we do not know what actions she has committed yet. We also see that her mother isn't nearly as kind as her father is towards her. Her actions of ignoring Eleanor in favour of her golden child sister, Amy, had a massive effect on Eleanor growing up and still to this day is something she thinks about.
This is when she learns that her parents have been keeping a massive secret from her. Her father, who has raised and loved her, isn't her biological father.

While going home, angry at this revelation but finally realising that her father is the person who raised her, not the one who is associated by blood, she is attacked, robbed, assaulted and threatened. Only being saved from further harm by her neighbour, Lewis Farrier. He is attractive, built and caring. She thinks that he is way out of her league so doesn't even bother considering anything, but that could be moreso to do with her self esteem being lowered by her mother treating her as the scapegoat.

Her body image isn't the only thing that her mother ruined for her. Her self blaming for things that she had no control over is also something that has been deeply ingrained into her being. Her father dies while she was knocked out in the hospital and instead of the usual sorrow, she blames herself for being alone. Not the mother who abandoned her and doesn't care about her, not the sister who never realised her struggle, not the cancer which had taken away her father. She blames herself for all of it instead of the circumstances and people around her. She didn't get to tell her father how she really felt after not parting on the best terms, but what tipped her over the edge was her mother who, at that moment decided to tell her that she shouldn't stay to see her dad and instead should leave the hospital. In one of her most emotionally vulnerable states, she is told that she has done enough as if she is the cause of her father's worsening condition.

In her grief, and while looking for family, she does things that a person in the correct state of mind wouldn't do. One of her hobbies is taking pictures of things, with her favourite part being to take pictures of people who don't know that she is taking pictures. It sounds creepier than it is, as it is more like she loves to capture the raw, natural emotions of people in public areas. This does start getting a bit creepy after she starts to look up her newfound family and finds out that they work and live close to her. With this newfound knowledge, she starts listening in on their conversations, and taking pictures of them candidly, without their knowledge. The dark inner thoughts and impulse control that she doesn't have started to take over.

After one of these misadventures, she also comes across an opportunity to take Victoria, her half sister's, ring after she forgot it. She instantly regrets it, but after seeing how well Victoria is living and being jealous of everything that could have been hers, she decides not to return it. Not only does she decide that, but she also starts letting the intrusive thoughts win. And instead of brushing them off and trying to calm them down she encourages them and wants to see how much more she can take from Victoria. Essentially becoming a version of her mother.

She has only really encountered her biological father up until now, but the combination of everything that happened to her, such as her father dying, her mother being as horrible as she usually was, caused Eleanor to snap and her hatred towards the whole family, not just her father who was actually horrible to her, starts to come together. Things that she usually would have jumped at, a date with Lewis, or a new commission for creating a website, are all thrown onto the back burner as she directly contacts her sister and starts working on a website together with her, and working her way into Victoria's life as well.

Through this worming, she also starts to find out that Victoria and her husband Hugh aren't as perfect as they look on the outside. Things like Victoria flinching when he touches her or losing all her enthusiasm soon after he arrives home. There is something going on inside her marriage that is causing her distress, and instead of wanting to figure it out and help her sister, she wants to find something that she can use over them if need be.
At first, she felt bad and had moments where she questioned herself, but as time went on, this questioning grew less and less. She didn't fear what she was becoming anymore, she recognised it and started to feel a trill that she was so perfectly infiltrating others' lives, all to take down her biological father for rejecting her attempt at creating a family after she lost the last one who cared about her.

One thing that struck me about her actions was one scene where she contemplated what it could be like to be Victoria. Dying her hair, talking to herself while trying to imitate Victoria's voice. It started to get creepy and hint at something. Although on the surface it just looks like she was jealous of Victoria's life and loving parents who will give her the tools she needs to succeed.
But within this want to be Victoria there is something else inside her. They want to be accepted by the family. Victoria is sweet towards her. Energetic, and enthusiastic and she starts to love spending time with her. She had a sister when she was younger, Amy, but that relationship was only one because they thought they were biological sisters. With Victoria it is different. She doesn't know that they are sisters and yet treats her as one which only makes Eleanor more appreciative.

Her relationship with Lewis starts, and everything is looking up. Apart from her keeping her biological relationship with Victoria a secret from her, Eleanor's life is finally looking up. This is when the book takes a turn and feels a little bit crazy to read.
Victoria comes over to Eleanor's place and not only tells her that Hugh, her husband, has been mentally abusing her but recently started to physically abuse her as well after she accused him of having an affair. Not only does she drop this bombshell, but she also tells Eleanor that Lewis has been cheating on her, providing a picture as proof. The first half of this book has been crafted perfectly to justify all the feelings that we see. All the hurt, pain, change, want, and craving that we know is all justified throughout the first half which really elevates this book into a higher bracket than I had initially put it in.

And even with this, it doesn't end here. Things start to click into place. How Victoria acted when they first met and how she was so accepting of Eleanor as if playing up to her ideal family, or how her ring was left in the bathroom randomly when that is something that is extremely unlikely to happen, or when there was no build-up for Hugh being framed as an abuser and how everything started to fit together too perfectly. It all accumulated until we were left with a Victoria who had set up Eleanor, knowing that she is her sister, but framing her for killing Hugh in cold blood.

We never knew if Eleanor was crazy or not, and there were things pointing to the fact that she was the whole time. That she wasn't sane of mind, that she was a crazy stalker but that was only slightly true. While she did stalk, and she did do things that made us see her as someone who is crazy, that doesn't mean that she was the craziest one in the story. In fact, even after knowing all that she was one of the best, morally, characters in the whole book which tells you a lot about the other characters in this book.

This book was excellently written and the pain I felt at the end of it was like no other. I had come to care about Eleanor a lot, and the fact that not only did Victoria frame her and get her sent to jail for 18 years (by manipulating Eleanor's lawyer) but she also took Lewis, acting like a grieving widow and potentially becoming Eleanor's daughter's stepmother. I personally felt betrayed as I had trusted her to lead Eleanor down a new path and become the family that she had lost. But that was never to be, and by the time I finished this book I realised just how well the characters had been captured, which was why I felt so betrayed, and how well the environment that Eleanor lived inside had been crafted so that her every step made sense, and could be viciously exploited by her 'caring' sister.
Her grief over just losing her father, her mother blaming her and then her biological father rejecting her new attempt at a family which caused her to spiral. How she was able to latch into the thoughts of revenge but grew fond of her sister once she realised that Victoria was providing everything that she wanted from the family that never loved her. Everything perfectly set up the betrayal and yet it was hidden, in plain sight, the whole time.

I loved this book, even though the ending was hard to read, and would love it if there could be a sequel as the catharsis would be absolutely amazing if there was revenge and revelations involve.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book, as it is very well written, and emotional and creates such a brilliant environment. I did have a few criticisms of this book, such as there could have been one or two hints towards Victoria being a psychopath, such as little slip-ups either in her stories or in her emotions. Psychopaths have to learn how to mimic the emotions that everyone else has naturally, and although they can get very good at it, there is no way that she wouldn't have some tells, even if they were just observed, but not recognised as anything, by Eleanor. Or how there were certain scenes when the characters didn't really feel real and I don't mean in the way that a person with no emotions would feel, but moreso in the way that they felt like characters on the page. There was also the part that started everything, where Victoria left her ring on the bathroom counter. I think that this was a relatively unrealistic scenario and that there were a lot more calculated ways for Victoria to start their 'relationship'. That doesn't take away from the overall book though, as, for me, those things are more minor than they might seem described here.

8.5/10

book: Sister Dear
author: Hannah Mary Mckinnon

Cinderella is Dead

Everything that we need to know is quickly established as we are told that there are balls held every year for girls to get married and that our main character, Sophia, is in love with a girl, Erin, which isn't accepted in this society. We also learn about how Erin isn't as accepting and willing to break the rules to be with the one that she loves, and would rather just go along with what is expected of her because it is less hassle.
What we know about Sophia's family dynamic is that her mother takes the balls very seriously. Not only is her mother very invested in Sophia finding a good partner at the ball and standing out, but her father is also extremely invested in her ability to stand out from the crowd and be picked above all the other girls as the one who is the most desirable. What they both want, her mother the most, is that she finds someone who doesn't beat her, and treats her like she deserves to be treated, which is commendable on her part considering the alternative to this is getting Sophia arrested and all her families assets taken away.

One thing that I found really funny was the assertion, in the rules six created by the king, that one had to have a copy of the cinderella book in their house. It is something that in our world would be completely absurd, rather than something that would have to be followed consistently. Also, I would say the same about the fact that they have to keep a portrait of the king up in their house at all times but I think that there is less to laugh about with this matter considering certain countries actually force their citizens to do this. Such as North Korea with Kim Jong-il, or Vietnam with Ho Chi Minh.

While the invitations sent out may seem heartfelt, and make the ball seem more like an option, and something set up specifically for the girls chosen, the fact that the invitation also says that failure to comply will result in imprisonment and seizure of all assets from the immediate family really ruins the image that they are trying to portray about the ball on the outside.

I think that this quick listing of all the information we needed to know how this place, while looking nice, beautiful and like a utopia on the surface is nothing more than a way for the king to keep his citizens constantly thinking about something else and not allowing them to worry about what he is doing. I think that Kalynn allows us to gain all this information as quickly as we did, learn about some of the most important characters while not allowing it to be overwhelming is very well done on her part. She recreated a very interesting premise based on the Cinderella fairy tale and with the beginning being the most important, as you have to draw your readers in, it does a very good job of creating this feeling.
I do think that there could have been more tension during the first part of the book because although there was a lot going on, there were guards all over the place, and yet it didn't feel completely necessary. We knew that none of them was going to get captured, so Kalynn could have added something to create more tension. For example, creating a situation where Erin or Sophia was captured and were only able to escape from that situation because of the sacrifice of another person. This would have made the opening scene seem more needed in my opinion.

The fact that this marriage is basically arranged between the two parties allows the young girls to be paired up with people who don't deserve to be married. It is mentioned how many women carry bruises on their necks because their husbands don't treat them like any decent human being should treat another. I think this perfectly illustrates the dangers that may be faced because of the ball, moreso than all the things we already know about.

There is a lot of description about the place that they live in, Lille, which is something that instantly sticks out and gives clues as to the world that the author is trying to build. It also shows that the author is trying to impart a greater meaning to this environment. The reason for this is unknown, but the best assumption, the one that makes the most sense, is that Kalynn is trying the make the environment part of the cast. Everything a character does is able to do dictated by their environment, and creating a specific environment that is also intertwined with the story allows for a lot more characterisation of the environment than if there wasn't.

This regime should be rebelled against, but that doesn't mean that it should be without a reason. We are shown that Sophia is very against this regime, but for it to hold more weight we need to see the reason behind this decision. An inciting incident is something that drives our main character towards her goals (I know that this is Erin, but their relationship isn't explored at the start at all, and that is something that takes away from this book a lot and makes it very hard to get into) and we don't really get to see this. We get to know that she does want to rebel and that her mother is against this regime, but there is no sense of urgency that allows the start of the book to be more in line with what is expected (not everything has to be in line with that, but there are guidelines for genres and form for a reason).

After everything goes wrong at the ball predictably, we are introduced to another character. Constance knows about all the secrets that the kings have been hiding, and is going to fight, or die, trying to expose the generations of kings. We all knew that this society was built upon lies, his dictator behaviour wouldn't have been needed if the truth was told, but we still watch as Sophia has to come to terms with the fact that basically everything she has been told about the story of Cinderella has been a complete lie. She suspected that there were some parts that were lied about to make the story seem more appealing but she didn't know that basically the whole thing was made up to better control the citizens.

The second half of the book, once Constance was introduced, was a lot more interesting when compared to the first half. There was a lot more going on, and the character interactions felt a lot more genuine. The plan that they had to execute was also a lot more interesting and the stakes were raised. Things started to make more sense and the construction of the story was a lot more fruitful in creating an excellent story when compared to how the first half of the book until the ball went.

I did enjoy the last plot twist, as I had never fully accepted that there could be trust between those characters but the way they revealed that she wasn't to be trusted at all was very well done. Although she definitely did betray them and tried to kill Sophia, that doesn't mean that she didn't actually help them somewhat. Things such as raising Cinderella, telling them all the stories of the past, even if she embellished her own, and also everything we learned about the horrible things that the kings have been doing for generations. She obviously told them this, which was why it was so surprising to learn that she hadn't been on their side. To what extent she wasn't we will never know, but we do know that she was never fully against them.

Once we reached the ending, the finale was disappointing, in that I had been expecting more. There were not many other ways that this book could have ended because of how powerful they made the final person they fought. They weren't someone to be delicately trifled with, and the finale had to happen in the way it did, but that doesn't mean it doesn't end up losing points because of it.

Do not be silent.
Raise your voice.
Be a light in the dark.

The final message given was very relevant today, as oppression in different countries is all over the news. It is more talked about across the world than ever before because social media allows us to finally see how people function when put into completely different situations.
Situations in real life about oppression are like the Ukrainian people, while under siege by the Russian army and struggling to fight back, are still rejecting African people are their border because they are black. Oppression knows no one, cares for no one and only wants to harm. It isn't stopped by war, as war only further enhances it.

I liked this book, and the middle part was definitely the best part, but overall there was a lot of disappointment as I saw many things that could have been improved in this book. I would say that it is a fine read, and would recommend it, but not strongly as something you should go out of your way to find and read.

author: Kalynn Bayron
book: Cinderella is Dead

6.5/10

Verity

Our main character isn't used to living in the big city, nor is she used to seeing people getting their heads popped under the wheel of a truck, but that is what happens one morning and this is the establishing scene that tells us about our main character. She used to live in a small city, where there was community and people communicated with each other with regularity, but once she moved to Manhattan this sense of community disappeared, as shown by the first scene where a man is killed in a brutal fashion because he was on his phone while crossing the street and not many seem to care, as they are also on their phones too.
This tells us that in this world people's empathy goes out the window once they have lived in a big city for an extended period of time, as shown by a friendly passerby, Jeremy Crawford (although she does not know this yet), that notices all the blood on her shirt, from the man that was run over, and asks if she is okay.

As she has been looking after her cancer-ridden mother for years, she is familiar with the equipment needed, but also mentions that she, 'forgot to hide the morphine' which gives us another big insight into her character and how she acts in private. Whether she is addicted or not, we do not start out knowing, but we do know that she dabbled from time to time, even though she shouldn't have been doing it.

After being offered a deal worth around half a million to finish writing three books in a series started by Verity, his wife, she agrees and goes over to their house to check over Verity's notes. Their house is basically a typical horror movie setting. Dark grey roof, with the black stone covered outside only broken up by the vines swinging down, and climbing up the left side of the house. The comparison is to what her mother died of, cancer, and this personification of the house is only further enhanced by the blood-red door. Red doors in a lot of different cultures signify warmth, welcoming and protection, and once she enters it can be theorised that maybe she now needs that protection from the cancers (the vines) that have been spreading throughout the house up until now.

"It isn't really love at first sight until you've been with the person long enough for it to become love at first sight." - Verity

While going through notes to better understand the direction that Verity wanted to take the books in, Lowen finds an autobiography, unfinished, but with a lot of details about Verity's life. It starts with her telling the reader how she was able to meet Jeremy and lets us know more about her as a person, which is excellent because in real life at the moment she is trapped in her bed, unable to do anything but blink and barely any muscles. The first chapter of the autobiography ends with an admission that seems out of place and does look like it is going to lead to a more interesting place. That her life, might not be as closeted as her life first seemed like before Lowen found the autobiography.

Back with Lowen, Colleen excellently creates an ominous foreboding atmosphere even through scenes as simple as Lowen thinking that Verity might have moved her head to look at her while she was in Verity's office.

Between the two worlds, the world of Verity's mind within the autobiography, and the world of Lowen in the present, there are strange and weird things being displayed. Things can mostly just be chalked up to paranoia, but the more we look, the fewer sense things make. The fan is in a cold room, is something that you would assume a nurse wouldn't do for a patient who cannot move, but also something that you can chalk up to forgetfulness which is also something that you can say about the nurse saying, specifically, that she left the TV on and yet when Lowen goes up there it isn't. Always deniability.
Sometimes it is almost like Verity isn't injured at all, and that she is perfectly fine physically, only acting like she is unable physically for reasons that we do not know.

There is something very wrong with Verity's thinking and we learn that this wasn't something new and had been happening since she had first seen Jeremy. She, herself, knows that there is something wrong with her thinking, her obsession, which is why she starts writing in the first place. It is also why she tried to do almost everything possible to make sure that not only will she not give birth, Jeremy will feel sympathy for her even if she was what caused it. It didn't seem like she ever wanted kids, and once she gets pregnant it is clear that not having one would have been the right choice for her mental health and relationship with Jeremy overall.
While she did dislike the thought of the girls when she was pregnant with them, and dislike them more when they were finally born, the latter could be explained by postpartum depression. Her disdain, and lack of care towards the kids that she already had, combined with the postpartum depression could only make the emotions of hate and fear that they would take Jeremy away from her worse.
Pregnancy does a lot to people and one thing that can change in a person in a multitude of ways when pregnant are hormones. There is no telling what a pregnant person will feel from one day to another PTSD, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, panic attacks. All these can be directly caused by the hormone changes during pregnancy and if not treated and left unattended it can fester and become a lot worse. Verity's lack of ability to sleep because of the baby, her thinking that Jeremy is going to love her less once the babies come and even her trying to do what she did and scaring her baby are all things that a normal pregnant person wouldn't do. But it is something that a very small percentage are capable of doing, and considering her emotions were very all over the place before she become pregnant it is no wonder she struggled and her mood suffered even more. She wasn't okay, didn't know she wasn't okay so wasn't able to get the help that she desperately needed.

Lowen has one quirk that is presented as more than what it is, and that is her sleepwalking. She has been sleepwalking for a very long time, and normal sleepwalking wouldn't be weird, but one of the scars that she has on her hands is because of sleepwalking. The first time that she was bought a lock because it was said to be good for sleepwalkers, she woke up with a broken wrist and blood all over herself.
This starts flaring up once she starts taking Xanax again and she ends up waking up in Veriy's bed alongside Verity herself.

As we learn that Verity's hate for Chastin is dissipating it comes into her mind that Harper is going to kill her and this develops deep resentment for her as she doesn't want the kid that she just started to love wholeheartedly to be killed off by one that she actively hates.
Every moment where we think we are seeing something proving that Verity is faking her injuries or that she is completely fine it is thrown out as we start to doubt ourselves and wonder whether Lowen is actually seeing Berity or is so obsessed with her, having been researching her for weeks, that she is starting to lose her mind and see things that aren't there.

The constant tension in this book has been masterfully crafted. On every page that gets turned, I am always wondering what is going to happen next? Is something bad going to happen? Are we going to get a shocking reveal that will change everything?

The evolution of Lowen as a character leaves me unsure of what I am supposed to think of her. She seemed very normal at first, but once the story continues I feel like her true character is revealed and I don't know what to think of her. She is someone that makes me question the validity of all her claims. I never know if she is telling the truth or if she is playing everyone a fool and I think that is something that Colleen has to be heavily praised for. To be able to create this kind of lasting, thick, tension within the air is something that not every writer is capable of doing, and it seems that she is able to do it with ease.

One thing that I feared throughout this whole book was that everything we knew about Verity was false. After all, we were learning about her through something that she wrote and anyone can write anything at any time. Especially since she wrote fictional novels where her characters were villains. This was a thought that was always lingering around in my head, making me question everything I read and everything about Verity's 'autobiography'.
Was it real? Was it fake? I don't know the answer to either of these questions definitively but if I had to choose, I would say that it was fake. I believed that Verity didn't kill her children and that she wasn't as mentally ill as her autobiography made her out to be.
One thing that was mentioned multiple times throughout this book was people's inability to separate the author from their own work, which is something that Corey is there to first represent, and is something that happens to Jeremy. He reads Lowen's book and is the one who decides to pick her out to continue writing his wife's book (Additionally in this part, Jeremy's refusal to read his wife's books past the first one clouds his judgement over whether the manuscript was real or fake). Lowen also did this, as she started to properly fall for Jeremy as she started reading more and more of Verity's autobiography, which would obviously portray them as a different person to who he really is and further shows how characters in this book love falling in love with characters that aren't real, or that have been changed for the better.

There are questions that support the manuscript being real, such as why would Verity need to describe what happened during times when Jeremy was around when he was she was writing the letter, how Amanda, being the one that Verity had said was the person who told her to write like she was a real villain, they could have asked her whether she did, or didn't, (I personally think that this is debunked because Jeremy already disliked her because she was cheating on her husband, and seemed to dismiss over her worry towards his wife), or how Jeremy seemed to believe that the manuscript was real as he was the main focus in it and would've known if certain scenes were altered and changed and that is where we get onto the next part. I don't trust Jeremy as a character.

We never really saw him much in person, it felt like we were mostly seeing him through Verity's eyes instead. He had researched before meeting Lowen and obviously knew about her, and yet he acted as if it was the first time meeting her. In almost the same way that Verity started to become obsessed with Jeremy, Lowen started exhibiting the same kind of behaviour which I think further supports Jeremy not being a good character and this is because it shows a certain behaviour pattern to get women to fall for him very quickly and then tie them down to him. Not only did it happen to Verity' but he also finished inside of Lowen, and then we move over to Lowen being a villain as well.

The main thing that supports, this is the fact that when Jeremy finished inside her, even if they had only been together for a short while (and while he was still together with Verity) she made sure that she was going to get pregnant. This isn't something that a normal person does, and I think it does support the fact that she wasn't all that stable as a person.
There was also the fact that she was taking Xanax while in the mansion, and it is something that can have major side effects on the person taking it. Yes, it obviously doesn't affect most people, but it can. The most relevant side effects that it can potentially have are memory impairment/memory loss, and increased anxiety. She was always worried about Verity and wondering what is going on, she is jumpy and nervous all the time, which could be because of her heightened anxiety leading to her not remembering certain things about her life and omitting them because she does not know they exist any longer.
Another part of her character that I thought was supportive of her as a villain was her change from the start of the book. When the book first starts and she sees someone getting killed, she has a violent horrified reaction. This is the reaction that a normal person would have to see someone's head getting squashed in front of them, and she also mentions here that most of the city folk didn't respond to what was happening and kept crossing the street as if someone hadn't just died. Compare that to her reaction to Jeremy killing Verity and we can see a clear change of heart, and the callousness that she holds is on full display. She is not worried about Verity dying, no, she is more worried about Jeremy being caught for her murder which is why she tells him to kill her in a specific way, one that she learned through reading Verity's manuscript, and one that will leave no evidence that it was a murder and not just a normal accident.

I think me asking all these questions and coming up with all these theories shows how amazing this book is. One of the best of its genre I have ever read and the favourite book I have read. It kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time, and I was always wondering what was going to happen next. Whether there was going to be another twist and turn, which there always was.

I would absolutely recommend anyone to read this book, whether you like the sound of it or not. It is magnificently written and in the ending, where we are left to question everything that happened within the book and wonder if everything we knew was real, if it was made up in the mind of the villain we were reading from, or whether we were reading about a villain. We can only speculate and come up with theories about what was the truth or not.

9.4/10

book: Verity
author: Colleen Hoover

Defector (Variants #2)

Alec and Tessa's new budding relationship is the first thing that is pushed onto us. We already know how much they care for each other from the first book and knew they were going to get together from the end of that one, but we finally get to see what their relationship consists of when they are locked in a facility and potentially being hunted by other variants. What it also shows, more subtly, is that while she may have got what she wanted, and was able to get together with the first person who properly showed her care a love, that doesn't mean that all the insecurities that she constantly worries about have disappeared.
She still holds the worries that she isn't good enough, that she doesn't deserve love, which affects her ability to retain normalcy in her relationship with Alec, even through his constant reassurance.

It is then that we learn that agents are still disappearing. We have known that there is another organisation out there for people with variations, Abel's army and that they are either kidnapping people, or the people are willingly leaving their posts to join that other organisation. No matter which is the real reason, it doesn't help Major in any of his decisions, or the ability to stop the agents from being on the other side.

Speaking of Major, he is a character that is very hypocritical. He gets annoyed at Abel's army for allowing kids to kill other people, and yet he puts kids in dangerous situations all the time. Although their methods are different, and they think much differently from the other, their overall lack of care for life, and only caring about the talents of the people that they 'possess' is one thing that they share in common, and one thing that makes them the same genre of person.

I was glad that instead of showing that Kate had some kind of meltdown when Alec broke up with her and moved on with Tessa. She wasn't someone who was out for vengeance and she also wasn't someone who was very hurt from the whole thing. She was a strong woman, and even before when we knew both Holly and Tessa disliked her, it always seemed like she wasn't overly meant to them, and that they only disliked her because they were jealous. Not only was she more experienced, but she was also an expert when it came to her emotions, and seemed like a much better fit inside the organisation than either of the other two. Her power isn't the greatest, so I am sure that she felt some jealousy towards the other two as well, but that doesn't make her a bad person. In fact, she is one of the most morally righteous people, not only in the organisation but also in the whole book.

In this book, Tessa finally started to realise just how much some people babied her. Not Holly, or Kate, but Major, somewhat, and mainly Alec. They, especially Alec, only wanted to keep her the same, but the whole organisation and business they were in didn't allow anyone to be safe. Alec's care is nice, but can't lie and say that seeing Tessa brush it off as if it was nothing wasn't satisfying.

Learning more about Alec's power made me realise just how hard it would be to even be friends with someone like him. You'd be constantly worrying, even if you trusted him completely, about what could potentially happen if he one day decides to do something. If something drastically changes you'd always be questioning him first. If I was Tessa I am not sure that I'd be able to deal with that constant anxiety. It would be too much.

As we learn more about the two different entities, the FEA and Abel's army things start to make sense. Criticisms that I had of the first book are further explained by new information that fits in and perfectly gives reasoning as to why that was the case. People that I thought weren't fitting to be given titles that they owned were brought into question and I think that this added a lot to this book. It makes it seem more real, and because a lot of questions that I had about the first book were answered in this one.

By the time the ending of the book started coming up I and I checked if there was a third, I was annoyed to see that there wasn't and that there probably isn't even going to be a final book in this series. There were a lot of questions left unanswered, and a lot of things that I was still questioning.

For example, we can see that Alec cares for her very much, even if what he has been doing isn't worthy of her trust, it doesn't diminish her feelings. Also, what about Kate? She was one of the most interesting characters to me, and also the one I could see joining Tessa on whatever she does, with them becoming good friends. Her story was left off in the middle of everything. Learning more about Major, and why he is so insistent on everything being done the way that he wants it to be done would've been a great part of this continuation. We know the bare minimum about him, and, of course, learning more about what makes him tick only makes him a more interesting character.

There was also a new character, Penny, who we probably would have learned more about, as she would've had a lot of information having worked in a bar for varients for so long. There also would have been Devon who, although he isn't new, is someone who has much less experience in these situations when compared to every other agent that has been introduced previously. We could have also seen where their budding relationship would lead, as their change from friends to more than friends was much more natural than her and Alec. She even showed hints that she liked him in the first book as well, which further shows how their relationship would've been healthier than her and Alec.

And finally, moving on to the ending. Spoilers ahead, so skip this part if you aren't interested in knowing what happens in the final moments of this incomplete trilogy.

Okay, so in the final parts of this book, Tessa meets with her brother, learns about his power, which is memory manipulation, and then get, basically get an information dump of sorts. We learn about almost everything that we didn't know before, including how Zach and Abel had been looking for her the whole time. They had apparently even tried to find her when they didn't know that she had a variation, which is something that she always assumed was the case, and they only started to come after her once it was revealed that she had powers. The timelines matched up, but there was only her conjecture based on the things she had been told. Nothing from the actual source up until this moment when she is talking to both Zach and Abel.

The most annoying part of this book and the one that doesn't allow it to get a higher rating is the way it ended. There was so much room for extra things but we will probably never be able to explore that, and instead are left with Tessa getting some of the painful memories edited by Zach. I thought that this was very weird, as although they are obviously painful, we didn't get to see how it explicitly affects her. Of course, as the reader, we can tell, judging by how she acts, that she is deeply affected by her past, but it doesn't ever seem that she latches onto this. Another thing about this moment is that what I would've hoped to see from a second book is the exploration that although you can alter memories and make them less painful, it isn't always the right thing to do. You lose something within yourself, something that makes, you, 'you' and I think this would've been explored more thoroughly if there was the next instalment of this series.

Overall, would I recommend this series? It depends. I did like it, but I wasn't deeply affected by the knowledge that this series isn't going to get another final book. There was more to be explored and talked about, and although I do care, the fact it isn't doesn't change too much for me. I would recommend this series if you don't care that it doesn't have an ending.
Don't come in expecting the world because all you're going to receive is a chunk.

7/10

Imposter (Varients #1)

The powers are introduced in ways that make sense and assume we read the back cover and know the general gist of the story. They have supernatural powers, it is something we should already know, and it moves past that point very quickly. What was more interesting to me was the way they introduced those powers. It was done in a flowing thought process, as if it is something we are already supposed to know, and is just being reiterated because sometimes that is how people actually think.

All within the first chapter we get a clue into who each person is. Whether it be by their subtle actions, or their more clear ones. For example, Tessa, once she gets out of the first predicament she is put into and is being dried with a towel, wishes that she could be snuggled up in Alec's chest instead of snuggled up in the towel. It isn't subtle, but it is only one line and is treated as a common occurrence in her head, which I personally believe can allow more immersion into the book when done correctly. Especially for smaller details that aren't directly relevant to the storyline, and are things that set the story more than anything.

One thing I would have liked more from this was establishing the main characters. Yes, characters did have things about them put into these first few chapters, but within these chapters, you are trying to get your reader to read more of your book, and make the characters seem interesting. There is only so much that a very intriguing plot can do for a book at the start. It isn't something that is needed necessarily, but I do think that it is something that could improve this book specifically because of the way it is written.

Just as I was starting to wonder how long she had been associated with the organisation because her reactions weren't that of someone who had been there for a long time when they told us. Two years was how many she had been a part of the agency. Willingly given away by her mother into the arms of Major, their leader. Now, knowing that she was going to have to be put into an extremely dangerous situation, having to replace a person who was attacked and suffered serious brain damage while having not been out in the field beforehand.

Anyone in her situation would feel the same fear, pressure and everything else that comes from their life being put into harm's way.

What Tessa did to Alec was completely unjustified, and that gets close to being unforgivable. What this showed us about her character was that she is immature, acts based on what she wants and rather than the potential fallout of her actions. She regrets getting caught, of course, but that doesn't prove anything as while she did show regret beforehand, by the time she did it some of the trust was already broken. This instantly puts her in a situation where she is looked down upon by the reader. Instead of instantly getting us to root for the downtrodden character they make her easy to dislike, even with her harsh past and present that are still being established.

I thought that this would hold more weight over her mind when she was interacting with Alec later on, but it seemed to be all but forgotten for her, which was something that I believe she would do based on what we know of her.

But on top of what it showed about her character in a negative light, it also brought to the forefront how she is a deeply flawed person because of her upbringing. Mentioning how her mother got extremely angry at her and they would have to move when she involuntarily changed into another person, how she had been locked in the closet while her mother was beaten by one of her partners, and that her mother wished she had never been born. With this accumulation of horrible things that have scarred her, together with her being given away by her mother to an organisation that doesn't care about her feeling it is no wonder that she instantly latched into the first person who showed her any affection, Alec. As the book carried on I started to understand her decisions more, and sympathise with her actions and feelings. It is also why, when put into a loving family she starts to wonder if she could just live with them her whole life, and not have to worry about anyone else anymore.

When we were first being told about Tessa's life and introduced to the fact that she had been giving up to a secret organisation that have special powers, the book took on a certain tone. There was always anxiety, but there was a level of familiarity and comfort. This part also felt like the typical teenage spy books, which was decent but was lacking compared to what the second half provided. In the second half, even after only a couple of chapters into being Madison, there was an instant difference. It felt more like the teen mystery-thriller genre, which fit in with the writing style much better. The only difference, of course, is our main character not having lost her memory, or struggling to return to normalcy after being attacked, but knowing everything that happened, and trying to piece the mystery together.

There were so many different plot points in this book that although it added to the book most of the time, there were moments where I wondered whether it was really necessary. The whole precedent of this book is that the things that would generally be the main plot points are now not, with the main plot being behind the scenes, and to do with the fact that she has powers and is part of the secret organisation. This change doesn't allow Susanne to add as much to the side, which is something that she doesn't fail in doing, for the most part.

Throughout all these different plot points it didn't really feel like Holly was Tessa's best friend. It felt like she was more of a device to have a connection to home base and make anything that happened there have more impact. I would have liked her character to interact with Tessa beyond just being a communication device. For us to learn more about her, the interests she has and her life. That, or don't have her being a best friend, just a friend.

Major's arrogance, and Alec's tendency to treat her like a kid come back to bite them as they keep a suspect on the list that she has long removed because she is the one interacting with these people the most, as the potential murder victim, so she has the best insight. But Major trusts his instincts more than what she believes based on what she knows which brings about the question of why did he send her on the mission in the first place if he was just going to dismiss her feelings about who and who wasn't the killer. Unless he genuinely viewed her as expendable and disposable.

I think that the relationship between Alec and Tessa didn't feel natural. I didn't really latch onto any chemistry between the two characters, and because they introduced us to them after they had already been introduced to each other, especially since they interacted within the first few pages, it removed some of the tension that could have been created if we had some kind of knowledge, even if it just ended up being a flashback, of all the moments alluding to how Tessa fell in love with Alec. It felt incomplete without more information.

I did think that it was very clever to not have her know what she is on the inside, but able to change her appearance at will on the outside. That contrast really helped make those scenes more impactful and by Susanne's own words, it was intended.

Overall I thought that this book was decent. I hope the second one adds to this series and maybe helps plaster over some of the things that I thought could have been done better. I would recommend reading it.

7.1/10

book: Imposter (Varients #1)

author: Susanne Winnacker

You'll Be the Death of Me

Ivy's life is introduced to us through a skype call with her mother as they prepared to fly back from San Francisco. The expectations set upon her aren't really by her parents but are extremely high all the same. You can tell that her parents are the kind to support her but be disappointed if she failed in what she was doing, which is why she tries so hard. She doesn't want her brother, who is the real genius of the family, and the one that Ivy holds a little bit of disdain towards because of his overachievements, to be the one to introduce her mother. She volunteered the be the main person running the planning for the award ceremony, as she doesn't want her brother having all the attention, and still wants to be seen as helpful, and needed by her parents.
Having just lost the school election she doesn't want to go into school until later, which is something she expresses to them, but they try and comfort her by telling her that it isn't a reflection of her abilities and that people who don't deserve things are able to swindle their way into getting them all the time.

Mateo's life is hard for a different reason. His mother has osteoarthritis and so he has to work multiple jobs to pay the bills. His cousin, Autumn has lived there since her parents died. His mother offered to take her in, even though she is only family to her my marriage, not blood. Mateo and Autumn are close, not extremely close, but they do look out for each other and help the other when needed without question. While he works those two jobs, she has taken on three. Even with all the jobs, each other them have they are barely getting by.
They didn't used to struggle that much, as his mother owned a bowling alley, which net them decent profits. This was until a random kid fell down, hurt himself a lot and then his parents decided to sue. It drained all their money and she was eventually forced to sell the place to Ivy's dad, James.

Cal has two dads. One is called Wes, and he is the dean of Carlton college. Wes is the one that he will talk to about the more personal things in life, such as relationships - of which he has had many. Cal likes to draw and has been drawing webcomics for a long time. He has still continued drawing to this day. Some of these comics include his former friends, Ivy and Mateo, which his new maybe-but-he-isn't-sure-yet-girlfriend, thinks is the best one he has drawn.

All three former friends are coincidentally drawn together again, having once skipped school together which is how they became friends in the first place, repeating their actions once again and skipping school together. Their unlikely group leaves the area, driving a bit away and ends up coming across the guy who won the school election instead of Ivy, Brian Mahoney. Knowing that he is supposed to be giving his speech, but is instead out, far away from the school, Ivy decides to follow him as she takes school seriously and doesn't want the person who took her job to be slacking off. Mateo and Cal follow shortly after, worried that she might get into trouble because Brian is known to have a bit of temper. When they enter they see someone's sneakers, still on, but they aren't moving at all. Ivy faints after seeing the needle, not the person, who they don't get a good look at, as police sirens grow louder, but they are able to get away, having come into the building without permission.

This is when things start to spiral and you realise that all of them have something to lose. Some kind of stake in this case, whether they like it or not. The old friendship, old feelings start being drawn to the surface, even only after their first encounter with each other after all that time had passed. They investigate, trying to put the pieces they find together while also finding out things about the other that they never knew.

Cal dating someone he should be,
Mateo's cousin doing something she should be and he knows about it,
Ivy hiding a secret that she accidentally caused pain to certain people while trying to get back at her brother.

They're all hiding something and all of it connected to the solution. The stakes in this book don't feel as high as in Karen's other book, because the events that occur happen across one day's time. Because things aren't allowed to fester, and emotions don't really have as much time to boil over, it reduces how much impact this book really hold which is why I don't really think that it is up to the standard of her other books. Of course, books can be told in one day, there is no doubt about that, but with this storyline, it doesn't really mesh that well together.

I thought that the storyline between Mateo and ivy was rushed. She did to him that she regrets, Cal also came between their relationship in the past and did something that he now regrets. In response to what Ivy did, Mateo said some horrible things to her, things that definitely would've taken longer to rectify than what was shown to have actually happened between them. Their fit together also didn't feel fully authentic.

That was part of the main problem I had with this book. Some of the characters felt like they should've got more time on the page, whether it was just in a character's head, or actual interactions. The dynamics that they had needed to be further explored as well. Emily needed more time on the page. She is Ivy's best friend, someone who had her back the whole time and yet we only got to see her through text or interviews. I thought that was very strange and there needed to be more of her, rather than her just having one certain role.
Mateo and Ivy had apparently been in love for a long time, him showing it with his actions, and her with her thoughts, and yet we didn't really get to see much of them when they were younger. When these feelings would've developed. It also always felt like she was thinking about him a lot more than he was of her. Like her storyline was to get together with her, plus a little more, while he was much bigger.

Yes, this is nitpicking, but it is something that brings the book down from being on the same level as her, 'One of Us is Lying' and 'One of Us is Next' books.

Overall I do like this book. Karen has got a great ability to create tension with her words, and always creates an interesting story, although the final reveal wasn't as satisfying as I had expected, as I had greater expectations in mind over what was going to be shown, and who, or what was doing to be the one who killed Brian. I think there were a lot of lost opportunities in this book, which is why rather than being a bad book, it is disappointing. I had been expecting more, which doesn't mean that this book was bad because it wasn't - it was good- but it does mean that I didn't feel as strongly in favour of this book as I would have if another author had written it.

Would recommend it but if you're buying this book because you liked her other work, don't expect it to be as good as the others, especially, 'One of Us is Lying' and 'One of Us is Next'.

book: You'll be the Death of Me
author: Karen M. Mcmanus