**spoiler alert** Despite the rating I’ve given, I did ultimately enjoy this book. I will read anything that Emily Henry writes as she has become one**spoiler alert** Despite the rating I’ve given, I did ultimately enjoy this book. I will read anything that Emily Henry writes as she has become one of my favorite authors. However, having read some of her other works I definitely feel that this is one of her “weaker” books.
For some reason, I almost felt like Poppy and Alex didn’t really click. While her other couples felt very developed and I could felt their chemistry on the page, Poppy and Alex felt very flat and I was missing that spark that Henry’s other couples seemed to have. I also just felt a little annoyed with the both of them because I felt like their problems could’ve been solved a lot sooner if they had gotten past their own stubbornness and simply talked with each other instead of avoiding the conversation and going about the whole ordeal in a rather immature way.
There was very little character growth until the very end, so instead of feeling organic and developed, the “growth” and “change” they underwent felt rushed and I felt like the two of them didn’t really learn anything.
The other problem I had with this book was the back and forth between the past and the present. I’m personally just not a fan of when a book does that because I don’t like having the flow of the story abruptly interrupted like that unless it’s a chapter that really adds to the overall plot and I felt like most of the chapters set in the past could’ve simply been shortened and interwoven into the chapters that took place in the present. In “Happy Place”, the flashback chapters really strengthened the story and showed us just enough of the past to help us make sense of the present. I just don’t think it was as successful with “People” but I also recognize that this was only her second novel so perhaps Henry learned from this book about how to better incorporate flashback chapters.
Despite all of that however, I did ultimately enjoy this book by the end and I’m very glad I read it because it gave me the chance to explore more of Emily Henry’s backlist works. I’m definitely excited to finish the rest of her bibliography and see what stories she goes on to write in the future!...more
This book has some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read. Berry did such a beautiful job creating her contrasting atmospheres of love and war—soThis book has some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read. Berry did such a beautiful job creating her contrasting atmospheres of love and war—so much so that I swear I could almost feel myself being physically transported to France and Britain during the First World War. I loved the four main characters and their love stories. They were all so well developed not only as couples but as individuals and I loved how Berry took the time to make them their own people with interests and journeys that heightened them as characters and in turn their relationships, both romantic and platonic, without making their whole personality their love interest. I also loved how she included the Greek Gods and would intersperse their perspectives throughout the story. Overall this was just a beautiful book and I highly recommend and encourage everyone who is considering reading this book to go pick it up and start immediately!...more
This was my first Ali Hazelwood book and I have to say, I really enjoyed this more than I thought I would! The first chapter was a little confusing foThis was my first Ali Hazelwood book and I have to say, I really enjoyed this more than I thought I would! The first chapter was a little confusing for me because I felt like I just got bombarded with information about the world and the dynamics between the three species but the more I kept reading, the more I began to understand everything. I loved the relationship between Misery and Lowe—they’re dynamic was great and I absolutely loved seeing how he progressed to being a nuisance for her to the person that she would come to love and trust the most after a lifetime of cruelty and being closed-off from others, except for Serena, because of it. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone thinking about reading it and I definitely think I’ll be delving into Ali Hazelwood’s other books because of how much I loved this one!...more
**spoiler alert** 2.75/3 stars I was unfortunately very disappointed with this conclusion to a trilogy that I loved so much in the beginning. I think**spoiler alert** 2.75/3 stars I was unfortunately very disappointed with this conclusion to a trilogy that I loved so much in the beginning. I think that the first 400 pages (!!) could’ve easily been condensed into 100 but was drawn out for the sake of filling space. I would rather Kemmerer had made the book shorter but with more action and romance. The beginning dragged quite a bit and the characters spent more time wallowing and talking than they did actually doing anything. The fierce, determined and intelligent characters that I grew to love in the first two books were unrecognizable until I finally reached the last 100 pages.
I was also so disappointed with the lack of Tessa and Corrick’s romance! Their relationship is one of the reasons I fell in love with this series in the first place and to not even see them reunite until 75% of the way through was just disappointing. To spend so much of the book on the Ostriary plot line, one that ultimately ended up going no where and brought relatively nothing to the overarching plot, was such a waste of time. Now I look back on the second book and think that Kemmerer easily could’ve done away with the entire plot line and should’ve focused solely on Kandala. Or at least not let a story line that would ultimately have very little impact on the characters overall take up 75% of the book and cramming the remaining loose ends into the last quarter.
Also, this is just my personal opinion but I absolutely hated Rian. I understood his deception and motivation in the second book because he ultimately had good intentions, but here I just wanted to smack him! He could never own up to his mistakes, never take responsibility for his actions, if something went wrong it was always someone else’s fault, and he was willing to sacrifice his own people to the dictatorship of his evil uncle (and betrayed everyone around him) just so he could get petty revenge on Corrick. The fact that this character took up so much space in the story (again when he contributed almost nothing to it) just heightened the disappointment I felt at the end.
Overall, I am just very sad with the conclusion to this much loved trilogy. It’s my sincerest wish that she release a companion novella that follows Tessa and Corrick after their wedding so that I can get a glimpse of the all the sweet, romantic moments that we were robbed off in this book....more
It was such a joy to return to the world of the Narrows and to be reacquainted with some of the characters from the main duology! The only negative thIt was such a joy to return to the world of the Narrows and to be reacquainted with some of the characters from the main duology! The only negative thing I have to say about this novella is that it wasn’t long enough! I definitely think Young could’ve made this a full-length book, however, I do think she was clever in that she gave us a taste of the Narrows to satisfy us for now, but there is enough left unresolved by the end that suggests she’s not done telling stories from this world. I know she has other new projects in the works that she wants to publish first, but I definitely think that with the way she left things at the end of this novella that she’s definitely going to be planning a return to the Narrows at some point and I can’t wait!...more
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