Book Review: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is my first time reading Miss Silvia’s work, and I have to say….I enjoyed every bit of it.

This book is about a girl named Noemi, and how she was ordered by her father to go to High Place, where her cousin, Catalina, is. Catalina wrote a strange letter to her uncle, asking him to send her cousin up to High Place, where the Doyles live. When it looked like Noemi was about to say no, her father made her her a deal: go and see what’s going on with Catalina, and when she comes back, that’s when he’s going to let her enroll in National University so she can study anthropology. She agreed, and off she went to the Mexican Countryside to High Place, where her cousin was with the Doyles.

When she got there...oh boy. The Doyles basically laid down some rules for her, and each time Noemi does something outside of the rules, they turn into the King and Queen and does the lovely Black Panther meme, “We don’t do this here” each time, and it frustrates her that this family is like this. Soon weird things start happened to Noemi-like she starts to have deams of the past, about what happened to Ruth and how she shot everyone and left Howard Doyle alive, and what happened in the past with Doyle and his incestual marriages, and also started to have dreams about her brother in law and Catalina’s husband, Virgil. She also started sleepwalking again while she was having these dreams, some of them really, really bad (mostly about Virgil, which makes me go yikes sometimes).

And Catalina. Poor Catalina. She’s stuck up in her room, not being able to get out because she’s sick. So Noemi is doing things for her, like going to a medicine woman named Marta, who gave her a tincture. Catalina took too much and had a seizure, which worried her, but the family thought that Noemi brought opium that triggered the seizure, but she really didn’t, and Francis, the boy she is close to and has to speak Spanish to because of the walls and the thing called the gloom that is in the house can hear

Speaking of the gloom, the whole house is covered in mold and darkness and they don’t believe in lights...I probably would’ve survived this house or left the moment I start having freaky dreams. But the worst part is that Howard Doyle is a “god” who lived for a three hundred years by transferring himself into the mind of someone else, have children with someone in his family, and then prepare them so they can be vessels of some sort. But she is going to marry Francis, the guy she liked.

But, you know those Doyles. Always one step ahead of them.

First they did the wedding backwards-they feasted first, then went up to dying Howard’s room to get married. But then after the wedding, things didn’t go so well. First off, Virgil came into her room and tried to rape Noemi, but thanks to the gloom she pushed back from him, knocking him out and taking the tincture he had in her pocket. Then she ran to Catalina’s room and tried to leave with her, but oh no, that didn’t happen.

The maid went feral and nearly choked the hell out of Noemi, but when Francis came and tore her off of her, she tried to choke Francis, so she pretty much killed her with the razor, but they weren’t fast enough for Florence. She darted out, in the hallway, WITH A GUN, and forced them into Howard’s room, where the doctor was tending to him, and said that it was time. They told FRANCIS to come to the old, pustible old man and they bowed their heads, said something before Catalina grabbed the doctor’s scalpel and stabbed the hell out of Howard’s eye.

Before they could even leave the room Florence and Noemi fought with a gun, and Florence broke Noemi’s hand before Francis tore her (I swear I feel for this boy because good god he’s been thrown all over the place) off of his new bride and shot her after rolling around fighting like wildcats. Then once Florence was dead and Noemi shot Howard, she, Francis and Catalina ran out of the house and underground, where they found the source of the gloom…

In which freaked me the hell out because IT WAS FUCKING AGNES.

Agnes got buried alive, and a whole lot of fungus and mushrooms and everything sprouted around her, and Francis and Catalina told Noemi not to look, but she did. And she saw what happened to poor Agnes, BUT OH NO

Like his (not-so-sucky) counterpart from Devil May Cry, Virgil appears, saying that Howard will die, and that he controls the gloom now, telling Noemi to drop the knife, and that “I should’ve let you bite your own tongue (paraphrasing),” when he and Francis were fighting. BUT THE GOOD THING WAS THAT CATALINA KILLED HIM WITH THE KNIFE BY DOING THE SAME THING SHE DID TO HOWARD. Then they escaped while the house was on fire, and then at the end, Francis slept for two days, the good doctor Camarillo helped them, and they kissed three times.

I have to say, this book broke me and it deserves TEN out of TEN stars. I loved it so much, and EVERYONE SHOULD READ IT.

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Book Review: The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #3) by Holly Black

The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black is my last and final book of the Folk of the Air series, and also my last book for a while, since I pre-ordered How the King of Elfhame Learned How to Hate Stories. I’m going to be sad to miss these characters I’ve grown to love and hate, and admire, and wanted to throw into bloody faerie hell if I get the chance (or Jude does) one day. But for now, let’s hop into the book review of Queen of Nothing.

So it starts off with Jude and her exile and how she was spending it. She spent it taking care of her brother Oak and her sister Vivi, while also taking job for the faerie-for example, fighting Grima Mog on the roof and threatening to burn her red cap off. But during that fight with Grima Mog, she learns that Cardan, her husband, High King of Elfhame, bastard I want to yeet off a mountain and never see ever again, might be looking for a new seneschal. That surprised her, and once she won the fight against Grima Mog, she goes home and….

...and Taryn, her twin sister is there.

Taryn, who married Locke and then turned around and killed him. I was gonna do it, yeet him off some cliff and leave him there to die, but Taryn comes to Jude, asking her to go back to Elfhame because she’s going to be on trial for Locke’s murder, and she needed her to go back. Also Taryn’s pregnant with Locke’s baby, so that’s a shocker too. Then another shocker (I swear, I’m going to get more shocked to the point that I’m gonna have a heart attack-not really, though) Heather, Vivi’s ex-girlfriend, comes back to their lives after she got traumatized by the faerie the first time she was there, and also Vivi pretty much glamourizing her.

Jude decides to help Taryn, and she goes back into the faerie world, going to the court pretending to be her sister, only for Cardan to notice her (ah duh) and escort her to the back...when all hell broke loose. Jude went with some of Madoc’s men to go to his camp, findig out that Madoc wants to start a war and going right in and challenging Cardan to a duel for the crown (crown hungry, as my mama would say).

Jude tries to figure out how to escape while trying to pretend that she’s her sister, but then she was found out by Oriana, who knew that she wasn’t Taryn, and she helped her escape, but then Cardan and the Bomb came, and Cardan made a promise to take away her exile and to come back to the castle. She agreed, and they go back-but not before Madoc and her got into a fight and he wounded her, and Grima Mog, Taryn, and Vivi showed up, stopping him from killing her.

So they take Jude back to the castle where she’s healed and she is now reconized as Queen of Elfhame, and the people didn’t like it. They wanted her to rebuke her title, but she didn’t want to, especially when Madoc came to Hollow Hall and pretty much demanded a parley from Cardan, but Cardan had a mean girl moment when he snapped the crown in two...and turned into a huge serpent.

And now I know why there’s a bloody snake on the cover on the book.

Cardan turned into a serpent and everyone either screamed or ran away, leaving Jude to take care of the court while trying to figure out how to get Cardan back from being a snake. But at the same time she took care of some little things for herself, like getting a new knight, making Grima Mog her Grand General, and having her family there while she was making terrible decisions. But then when Madoc and the Court of Teeth came into court to make another deal with her-make Madoc the ruler behind Jude (like that was going to happen), and to bind the snake with the golden binder, making Cardan bound to her.

Though she didn’t like the idea (I sure as hell didn’t), she agreed to it, and they went to the battlefield, where the serpent was waiting on them. Jude had the binder with her, in her hands, but as she walked forward, she realized that she didn’t need it (I mean, she was in really beautiful armor) and just told him that she loved him...before cutting the head off.

All hell broke loose in the background, but then Madoc came to her, turned her around, and said “I will bend my head to you, and only you.” to her ear when Cardan appeared out of the dead serpent and said that the king is back, stopping everyone from fighting. They come back to the castle and have a feast, where everyone is pardoned, including the dismemberment of the Court of Teeth and Madoc living the rest of his days in the mortal realm, and Oriana going with him. Heather and Vivi are starting over, and Taryn has been pardoned for the murder of Locke and have been given his home and lands.

At the end, they went to the mortal realm, and Cardan went, and they had pizza of every topping you can think of thanks to Oak, and at the end, since I have the exclusive edition, he basically wrote letters to Jude that she never gotten thanks to Lady Asha, and they were so funny that I had to laugh at some of them, though the last one made me crackle when he wrote her name a hundred times, then PLEASE JUDE at the end.

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Book Review: Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass #5) by Sarah J, Maas

Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Okay...this book RIGHT HERE guys....holy hell it was beautiful.

Dorian is the King of Ardarlan, but he’s traveling with Aelin and her court as Aelin and Rowan are trying to find some allies so they can go to Terrasen and Aelin can take her crown...or so she thought. The humans that was going to help her turn their backs on her, so she went to find some allies...in the Pirate King Rolfe, which refused her but then after helping defend Skull Island (and Lysandra being a badass turning into an actual sea dragon) to being a sneaky bitch about it and rallying Ansel to help.

But then there were others to help her-

For example, Manon Blackbeak, Wing Leader to the Blackbeak coven-and a Crochan Queen. Her. Thanks to the beating she’d gotten from her grandmother, who revealed to her that she is the last of the Crochan Queen, and that she killed her half-sister (well forced to). Shocked and wounded, she got on Abraxos and flew off to Aelin’s ship, where she became a prisoner for a while, then became Dorian’s lover (I SHIP THEM DAMMIT), and she has no idea if her Thirteen is still living or dead, since they’re scattered.

And Elide...who met Lorcan and was traveling with him, pretending they were married... I loved that, so much. They met up with a traveling troupe for a while until the ilken found them...and reveled who she really was (she was using her mother’s name) and that she was carrying a Wyrdkey to give to Aelin that Kaltain Rompier gave her in Queen of Shadows. Then they reunited with Aelin and Manon, which I’m happy about, but then Lorcan almost got bitten by Garviel, but then Elide got in the way and got bitten, and OH BOY did Lorcan get mad as hell (because he’s very protective of her).

BUT MAEVE….I thought we left her in Heir of Fire, but her ships are here, and she gave Aelin an ultimatum...but she wasn’t there, because she and Manon went into the Witch Mirror, and she attacked, and Rowan and the other tried to shield the rain of arrows, but some hit the other men. But it turns out that it was a distraction to get to the shore, where Elide was, and oh boy...that’s when I wanted to rage. Nicely.

No, not nicely, because I got mad at the end.

First off, Maeve pretty much started to control Lorcan, Gavriel and Fenris by using the Blood Bond, cutting off both Lorcan and Garviel, then when Aelin and Manon came back from the mirror, which was also fucked up because of what Elena did and Nehemia did and Rhiannon did, Aelin had to surrender herself to Maeve after she couldn’t beat her. And Maeve revealed so much terrible shit she did to Aelin, the things she did too Rowan...it was too much that she surrendered. And then she dd the most horrible thing I can’t believe she’d do.

She called on her cadre, Cairn, to first beat her ten times and Maeve wanted her to count, but she didn’t do it. Then that damned bitch put her in a iron coffin with iron chains, and strapped a beautiful mask on her face. In the end, once they were gone, everyone was pissed off at what happened-Elide was pissed with Lorcan, Aedion found out the plan that Aelin came up with-since she isn’t going to be alive enough to live her life the way she wanted it, and Rowan and Aelin got married way before this happened, and I hope to god that everything works out, because I really want Aelin to get back to her husband and live her best life. Fuck Maeve and I hope she dies in a blood-soaked faerie hell.

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Book Review: The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan

The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

CW: Mentions of Rape

So this is my first Courtney Milan book, and I have to say...I actually enjoyed it. Yes, there is a mention of rape in this book, because the female MC, Serena, was forced upon by a dumb-ass duke, annnd she’s pregnant. Oy. So what does a pregnant woman do when the baby daddy wants nothing to do with her? She stands outside the house everyday, hoping that the Duke can fix it.

Well, the Duke did...sending a man named Hugo Marshall, aka the Wolf of Clermont, to deal with her. The Wolf of Clermont was known to be a pugilist who has done some dark-ass shit for the duke, and then one day he met Serena, who’s hellbent on getting her revenge on the duke for forcing himself on her, and they fall in love, slowly. Even the passing of notes was cute, when he asked her to marry him, and she wrote, ‘Congratulations, you have scared me (I’m paraphrasing) and on top of that the wedding was adorable (though Hugo couldn’t remember any of it).

The consumating of the marriage...I felt that deep in my soul (have no idea that it would do that, but can I say that Courtney Milan writes really good sex?), but then Hugo had to mess it up when he said, ‘This is why I didn’t want to consummate the marriage’ afterwards, but when they did, the pin idea when they trade pins for an act was the most beautiful thing I ever did see before they consummated the marriage. But when he just...left her there so she can go to her small farm...I was mad as hell about it. She kept thinking that he loved her, and he would turn around and come back to her.

But I was really glad when Hugo got the truth out of Clermont-that he did indeed force himself on him. Hugo gave him a punch to the stomach and left to go to her, and that’s when they reunited (after writing letters back and forth to each other.) The last chapter in this novella was when we meet Robert and Marshall at Eton, where they find out that they’re brothers, and that’s when the ball started to roll…

I am going to read the next book in this series because it was so damned good! Can’t wait to read more!!

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Book Review: T'Witches: The Power of Two by H.B. Gilmore & Randi Reisfeld

The Power of Two by H.B. Gilmour
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book...I’ve read this book when I was a kid. I loved it as a kid? Now? I still like it, but...but now as I sit here and finish reading this book...I like it just a little bit less. Yes I’m older and reading this book makes me feel like I’m back in Elementary School again, but as I read it now, for nostalgia reasons, I realize that I’ve quite...outgrown this book and the world, but I still fell in love with it.

This book is about twins named Artemis and Apolla, who had to be separated because of evil warlock named Thanatos (cool name for a warlock, yo) is hunting down the baby girls for evil (now who does this sounds like? Hmmm….oh hello Klaus Mikaelson back when you hunted down doppelgangers to break a spell...and also Thanos from the Avengers). Ileana and Karsh, the ones watching over them, separated them so Thanatos wouldn’t find them.

Years later they meet again, but under different names-Alexandra “Alex” Fielding and Camryn “Cam” Barnes-and they are totally different people. Alex is a goth kid that changes her hairstyle almost every single day, but she can read people’s minds, and Cam is a preppy kid who can see the future. They met when Cam’s family went to Montana to Big Sky, where they met and saved a family who was about to fall from a ferris wheel. After doing some enchantments, they fix the ferris wheel so the family doesn’t fall.

Of course, the first time they met they didn’t think that they were siblings at all. But once Alex’s mother died and Karsh flew her to Marble Bay, that’s when they realize they were (well, after two things happened to the twins that they couldn’t explain and they had to get a DNA test to find out if they were), that’s when weird stuff started happening.

First, a very popular singer, Marileigh Cooper, has gone missing. Cam and Alex are trying to figure out what happened to her so they can bring her back home safely. Secondly, they start to have weird dreams about a man (who turns out to be Karsh) and they learn a couple tricks from him. While they were trying to solve the case of Marileigh Cooper, they find that Alex can read minds and Cam can see the future (not like Raven, sadly…)

But the solve the Marileigh Cooper case, finding out that Tonya Gladstone fake-kidnapped her so she can rescue her and bring her back home so they can be friends...yeah no, that didn’t happen. Because Cam and Alex found her, but at the same time they ran into someone (Thantos) before Ileana and Karsh dealt with him. In the end, the pop singer is safe and everyone’s fine. I don’t know if I’m going to read the rest of the series or just stop at book one (i fact, I’ll just stop at book one) but it’s an okay book. Might pick it up in the future.

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Book Review: Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan

Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My last and final book in the Kevin Kwan read-a-thon I didn’t even know I was doing, and I have to say, I actually enjoyed it. This book, though it made me long for the days of going to Shanghai or New York with Rachel and the Shang-Young family, but reading about the Chruchills and being in their world was a refreshing thing. The sad thing about the whole entire thing was Lucie’s annoying fucking fiancee, Cecil Pike. Honestly, I can tell right away when I met him that I didn’t like him: he treated Lucie like a fucking barbie doll, he didn’t know her at all, and on top of that all he wanted was to use her for Instagram likes and stuff, and he’s also so very fucking dramatic, and I couldn’t stand him.

But let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Let’s start with…

CAPRI

Lucie is invited to go to Capri by her best friend, Isabel, who’s getting married to Adolfo de Veechi. Coming along with her is her cousin, Charlotte Barclay, because Lucie had never been anywhere by herself, and she needed a chaperon (why. Why does she needs one? She’s fucking grown) but when she gets there, she meets George Zao, and….survey says...she hates him. Like really hates him. But how can she hate him when he kisses her in an ancient ruin? How can she hate him when they nearly had sex during the wedding reception, and then had to stop because of a drone catching them in the act? Why did he come back to check up on her when a man had a heart attack, and she froze on the spot? Not even the beauty of Capri can get Lucie away from George Zao, but she was wrong...totally wrong.

THE HAMPTONS/NYC

Lucie is engaged to Cecil Pike, and everyone in her family loves/hates him (I hate him with a passion). Everything that happened to Lucie in Capri is over...so over...or so she thought. Because once again, George and his mother appeared, and once again, Lucie cannot stand it. She tries so hard to get rid of George and his mother, but it has became useless. George and Lucie’s brother has been hanging out, and there was a movie where a certain scene was in it...and Lucie lied to go to the bathroom, but instead kissed George and told him to fuck her (in which I would like for this to happen, please...like seriously, I want this to happen). She freaked out as soon as she said that, and left him standing there, speechless.

Then when she found out that Rosemary Zao is moving into her apartment, she does the most horrible thing ever: write a really terrible recommendation letter to make sure that she never gets the apartment, and she tried to do a smear campaign against her when Cornelia Guest was in the bathroom, and she overheard her. Lucie caught up with her, and Cornelia said:

Lucie, I’m really trying to stay out of your business, but it seems like you won’t let it go. Who are we kidding here? You were in the middle of a takedown, a total smear campaign. Now, I don’t live in your building, I don’t know any of these people, and this really doesn’t concern me, but please have some self-respect and stop trying to bullshit me. Because the only person you’re deceiving is yourself. And from the looks of it the only thing you’ll succeed in doing is pissing off your mother.

….burn, am I right??

But at the end, Lucie apologized to Rosemary and she and George went back to Capri to live there (yay) and also they went back to the grotto where they kissed the first time. Also they’re together, so I’m very happy about that.

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Book Review: Wicked Fox (Gumiho, #1) by Kat Cho

Wicked Fox by Kat Cho
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book piqued my interest because 1.) foxes and 2.) the beautiful cover on the book. So when I picked it up and read the first pages, I knew I fell in love with this book. This book and this world sucked me in, and I couldn't stop reading. It read like an actual K-Drama that I would totally watch a couple seasons of, because holy hell this was a really good book.

So this book is about Gu Miyoung, a gumiho who moved to Seoul because something happened to her in Osaka, and on top of that, we see her hunting down her prey. Then once she steals the gi of her prey, she gets into a fight with a dokkaebi. At the same time a boy named Jihoon comes in the photo with his small dog, and that's how the ball got rolling. I love the fact that Miyoung's mother was also a gumiho, but to be controlled by her own daddy by her fox bead, which, might I add, was messed up. Honestly. SO. MESSED. UP. And then the thing with Jihoon’s Halemoni was messed up as well-including the fact that Miyoung had to sneak into the hospital to try and save his halemoni, only to find out that she can’t.

But the stories inbetween the actual story, of the gumihos throughout the years got me. To follow the stories and tales about the gumiho was very interesting, and I hoped that the author writes more in the next book (that I’m going to pick up and read soon because OMG I love them so much??). But my favorite out of all these wonderful characters has to be Junu the dokkaebi. He cracked me up the whole entire time and I loved him, and I hope he’s in the next book because I would love to see him again. (also he kinda reminds me of Magnus Bane but different? I can't place my finger on it, but he does.)

I really do reconmend this book because in my head, I saw it as an anime/K-Drama and I wanna read more!!!

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