Book Review: The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller

The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Okay…this book right here…brought it a month ago, had it on my kindle for the longest time and just never read it, and now that I read it, I still can’t stop thinking about it. Enemies to lovers, she fell first, the Shadow King is basically Gojo Satoru but with Shadow Magic? Bruh, I CAN’T with this book. I still love it though, but this book just took me places I didn’t even think was even possible.

My favorite characters in the book are Alessandra, Kallias, Rhoda and Hestia (I think that’s her name). I really enjoyed how Alessandra made a plan to kill Kallias once she became queen, but then, slowly but surely, she was falling in love with him without thinking about it. I think that was my favorite parts in the book-how she started to slowly fall in love with him without even thinking about it, asking him questions about his life, asking him about his shadows, just getting to know him. And when he was having problems, Alessandra came up with ways that actually helped the kingdom that I knew she was the perfect queen.

But Kallias…lemme talk about him for a minute. I thought he was just some old king who has this shadow magic that isn’t that scary. Until Alessandra went through him on that carriage ride, and the first thing I thought of once he explained how his shadow magic works was, and I wrote this down in the book: ‘He’s bloody Gojo.” Because yes, Gojo has infinity and can turn it off when he wants to, but Kallias has Shadow Magic. Homeboy can also turn it off and on if he wanted to, thus he’s fantasy Gojo…darn it.

But that little mystery of Alessandra killing her first love and making it a disappearance was kinda…stupid, in my opinion. She killed him, left him for dead, and then after a couple years later, people are hunting her down so she can confess that she did kill Hektor. When she told Kallias…all he did was laugh at her. That’s all he did-laugh. Apparently it was funny to him that she killed him so he won’t do it, and I was like…okay…cool beans, my guy…but was it that funny? Was it?? (Apparently to him, it was).

Another thing that I really liked about this book was the advice Alessandra gave to her friends. Some of them hit me while I was reading this book, and I was agreeing with her one hundred percent, even told Rhoda to go after her manservant. I really liked that about Alessandra, while she was trying to go through with her plan to kill Kallias so she can be Queen. But after the miscommunication trope rearing its ugly head again when Kallias found the poison to kill him along with finding out that his brother was still alive and parading around as Leonidas I think the name is and was trying to kill him was fun to read. But other than that, I really enjoyed this book. Might not be my favorite, but it was good nonetheless.

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Book Review: The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh. My. God.

This is the coziest book I’ve ever read in my life, and on top of that, I really didn’t care about the romance. All I cared about was the Nowhere House, and the people that lived in the house. I wanted to hang out with Ian, Ken, Lucie, Mika, Jamie, Altamira, Terracotta and Rosetta and stay in that house so much that I wished it was real. I really liked the everyday life that happened in the house, and I wished that they were real-that’s how much I really loved this book. The romance in the book was down on my list of things about this book that made it really good, I just loved how cozy and how I wanted to live in the Nowhere House.

But the romance in it was pretty nice and cozy as well. I really liked Mika and how she’s tutoring the girls on their magic, and how slow and sweet their romance got, even though Ian was asking so many questions and had tried multiple times to lock them up in a closet so they can kiss (me too, Ian, me too). But this is the first time I’ve ever read a grumpy x sunshine trope, and I have to say, it has been done well. But as I said, I really didn’t care about the romance at all. All I cared about was the people in the house and how they are living, thriving, and honestly minding their own business when it comes to the children and going out and having fun and learning how to control their magic.

My favorite child out of all three of them has to be Rosetta. Yes, she actually caused a little tornado in the bookstore, but she’s actually very sweet and kind and also very sure of herself when she wants to get revenge on Terracotta, who didn’t steal her puzzle from her room. I also love the fact that Rosetta can get serious when it comes to learning magic, and also comes up with really good ideas. I also like Terracotta-she kept cracking me up when she kept coming up with ways to kill Mika because she didn’t want her there, and I also liked how she defy pretty much everyone when she wanted to float in the air and ride a stick as if it was a broomstick.

The ending was the most funniest one ever-when they locked Edward in the shed because they reanimated the corpse of Lillian, and how it turns out Primrose is the sister of Lilian and that her name was Peony. But I really enjoyed this book, it’s one of my favorite ones this year, right next to From Lukov from Love.

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Book Review: Gods and Monsters by Shelby Mahurin

Gods & Monsters by Shelby Mahurin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The end of an era for me. I’ve read the first book three times, the second and this book one time, and I have to say, I’ve never had so much fun reading these books and enjoying myself getting to know these characters and making them a part of my bookish family, because I really love this series so much.

Gods and Monsters has a bunch of action, romance, drama, magic and more. It brings in the mermaids and gods of old, and it has a character I was shocked and surprised to love so much after not liking her in the last two books. But she has grown on me, and she has became one of my favorite characters, right next to Lou and Reid. Even though it opened with a possession (Cool spell, still possession), from there it lead to a journey with twists and turns that I wasn’t even expecting.

Lou and Reid, my babies, were apart, then Reid did a thing that made me have a Come to Jesus meeting with him, but he got them back. I really liked how Lou fought back against Nicholina and saw through her past and the voices inside her. I thought she was Gollum for a long time because of the way she talks. I was waiting on her to do that “gollum, gollum” thing Gollum does, but Nicholina did not-instead she talked really weird and she made me want to pull my hair out each time she does that. Then when Reid told Lou that “I will make my way back to you” and pull the string that made him lose his memories, I was confused that I wanted to read on, because I didn’t need sleep, I needed answers for what he’d done.

The introduction of the melusines was pretty darn cool. I actually wanted to live there because of how cool their world was. I liked how they had other ocean animals as pets, and how they can switch from having two legs or having fins. Their leader was alright to me, nothing to run and tell mama about, TBH. But the one thing-or person-that surprised me was Celie Tremblay..who knew how to break into stuff and actually helped Lou break into the safe at Chateau le Blanc-SHOCKINGLY.

I really didn’t like Celie in book one and two. But in this book she grew on me as she was both a lady and also a knowable thief and how she helped Lou with the door. Yes, Lou is now La Dames des Sorcieres and can do some very powerful magic, but Celie is powerful herself, even helped Belterra’s people get to safety from the blood witches.

This is my favorite book of the series, and I’m so glad that I read and loved it.

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