When the lovely Emma @ Miss Printrecommended that I read The Diabolic, I took her seriously. For one, she knows what she's talking about. For another, I traded for the damn book over a year ago, so why even had I not read it yet? 🤔 So I read The Diabolic, very much enjoyed it, and raced to request the sequel!
I will say it was extra-nice to have the events of The Diabolic so fresh in my mind. And The Empress absolutely didn't disappoint. It was really mostly a win, so let us talk first about what I loved, while being vague enough to not spoil anything for either book!
The plot was so wonderfully twisty! Ohhh I love a twist. And it is so hard these days for me to feel genuinely surprised by a plot twist. But The Empress shocked me over and over again. The author isn't afraid to go there. It is dark, incredibly so at times. I think this ties into my first point, and how the author isn't afraid to make some shocking choices. But it's more than that- it's dark in a way that makes sense to the world. Makes the reader feel what it would be like to live in Nemesis's situation. Moral gray areas FTW! The characters all have to make so many decisions. To betray or be loyal, to kill or be killed, and so much more. It isn't even just Nemesis that has to grapple with these tough calls, all the characters face really hard choices. And is there a right or wrong? It kind of reminded me of The 100, where all the choices might be crap and in the end, the characters just have to do what they think is best. And we all know that if I am comparing something to The 100, I clearly loved it. Space adventures! Who doesn't love space adventures? I feel like the worldbuilding in book two was even better than in book one. I understood the world so much better, understood a lot of how things got to the current point. Lots of questions that I had were answered, and the worldbuilding became so much more believable to me! The ending blew my damn mind. Like, jaw on the floor. And now I have to wait a year for book three. Sobs.
The only thing that prevents me from going full five-stars is that there were a few times that the political aspects of the book took over a little too much and I found myself skimming a bit. But otherwise, this was an incredible sequel and I cannot wait for more of the world and the characters!
Will I Read the Sequel:
Um, clearly.
Bottom Line:
Filled with impossible decisions, dark twists and turns, and characters who basically can't seem to catch a break, this sequel was a fabulous follow-up!...more
This one sounded quite exciting from the synopsis. And definitely perfect to read for the Halloween season! And while it was creepy, there were certain aspects that fell short for me. Let's first discuss the things I enjoyed though!
The plot itself was really quite interesting. This house clearly had a lot of secrets, and weird shenanigans happening at every turn. Really, there was not really a dull moment in the book. It was on the shorter side, but the pages were used well and the story moved quickly. The characters definitely act like typical teens. It's quite refreshing, really. They were all unique personalities for sure, and sometimes it was pretty clear that they weren't thinking things through. They all also had secrets that I think they were more worried about than the scary ass dolls that were trying to kill them. Which let's be real, is exactly something we'd feel in our teen years. I was definitely invested in the outcome. I wanted to keep reading to see what would happen to the characters, and what the secrets of the house were. The character development also kept me quite interested.
Of course, there were also some things I didn't really care for, so here we go:
Some of the language choices and thought processes were... weird. Look, I know I am not a teen, but I have literally never heard a human being of any age say "fuck-a-doodle-doo". Ever. And I really never hope to again. This gem, along with many others, was delivered by Dylan. Over and over and over. He was probably the most frustrating character, and not just linguistically. A lot of his whiny behavior I could kind of excuse as teenage angst, but then there were times that I just couldn't anymore with his nonsense. And Paul spends half the time thinking about marrying Violet, a girl he's spoken to literally once before this. Insta-love is rude enough when the characters aren't physically fighting for their lives. I feel like I didn't get as many answers as I'd have liked. Not about the house, not about the characters. I just wanted a bit... more from the ending, really. It wasn't bad, but it just wasn't enough. Even though there were a lot of creepy aspects to the story, I never fully felt them. Of course I understood on a logical level, but it never fully segued into anything that actually made me feel creeped out. And even though the stakes were, again, logically high, I didn't feel them as such.
Bottom Line:
While the plot and characters were quite intriguing, it just missed the mark in a few ways.
This book was really cute- and quite unexpected! When I first started it, I think I expected it to be a certain… way. I don’t want to say much, becausThis book was really cute- and quite unexpected! When I first started it, I think I expected it to be a certain… way. I don’t want to say much, because spoilers. At first, I was a little wary. In fact, I didn’t really like Matty, the main character, at all in the beginning. He treated his mom like she was overreacting about the loss of her marriage, and he was kind of a jerk to his best friend at times. But luckily, Matty undergoes a significant amount of character development during the course of the story, so I needn’t have worried.
I loved the mystery surrounding Priya, and how Matty just couldn’t help but fall for her, even though he was unconvinced of her story of being an alien being. What I really enjoyed the most though was watching Matty evolve and learn a lot of hard lessons about growing up. He grew to realize that his parents were human, and there’s really no turning back from that. He learned empathy, and he learned to walk in other people’s shoes. But more than anything, the ending of this book wholly blew me away. I will say no more than that, but if you’re a person who worries about lackluster endings (I know I am!) I promise that this book will not disappoint.
Bonus points: It is set in small-town Pennsylvania. Of course I was giddy about that.
True story, I wasn't a huge fan of We Were Liars, so maybe this author and I are simply not meant to be? A lot of the time, I was kind of like "what am I actually reading?" I didn't really like the characters (though I also didn't know that I was meant to) and since things were told in reverse, I felt like there wasn't a ton of point as the story went along. But I think this is probably a case of being me, and not the book, so if it sounds interesting, hope you have better luck!...more
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