YA Review: Personal Demons Series

I do series reviews now and then, and I enjoy them. It's also a really good way to go through certain books in my review pile. If you want to see more of those, you can click this link now that I've updated all of them so they have that label on them. (Past!Me, you're not helping here.)

Personal Demons by Lisa Desrochers

Published: September 14th, 2010 by Tor Teen
Genre: Paranormal YA
Binding: Paperback
Page Count: 365 plus acknowledgments,
Part of a series? This is the first of the Personal Demons trilogy.
Got via: The library.
Amazon / Book Depository / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): Frannie Cavanaugh is a good Catholic girl with a wicked streak. She's spent years keeping everyone at a distance--even her closest friends--and it seems her senior year will be more of the same...until Luc Cain enrolls in her class. No one knows where he came from, but Frannie can't seem to stay away from him. What she doesn't know is that Luc works in Acquisitions--for Hell--and she possesses a unique skill set that has the king of Hell tingling with anticipation. All Luc has to do is get her to sin, and he's as tempting as they come. Frannie doesn't stand a chance.

Unfortunately for Luc, Heaven has other plans, and the angel, Gabe, is going to do whatever it takes to make sure that Luc doesn't get what he came for. And it isn't long before they find themselves fighting for more than just her soul.

But if Luc fails, there will be Hell to pay...for all of them.

Review: This was something. It was a book! It was definitely a book. I wouldn't deny that it's a book. I read almost four hundred pages of it, so it was definitely a book. I just, you know, wouldn't say it was a very good book. Because honestly it was not very good. Now, to be fair, I think this is actually quite like the Dark Divine series where if I had read this in 2010 or 2011, I probably would have liked this a lot more. I liked Hush Hush at one point and I'm sure if I reread that today, I'd realize how wrong I was... sidenote, if you like Hush Hush you'd probably like this.

The problem is, I'm old and jaded now, and I have way less patience for things these days. The plot to this is next to non-existent, there's a buttload of not well done Instalove, the characters are just kind of boring and flat, it is really, really dated at times, it can be super cheesy, and the writing is not that good to carry all that.

There's one more thing I think I'm going to talk about in  the series review, but for now, that's about my thoughts. The book has no queer characters, maybe one character of colour but it's super hard to tell because the book doesn't really say, and like... just no diversity at all, to be honest. There's one formerly fat character and I'm just glad it doesn't come up much because I honestly found when it was talked about, it was terrible. Just all full of grossness. I'm going to keep reading because I have all three of these, but this one really didn't do much for me besides kind of annoy me.

I will say that I think it's different that it switches POVs between Luc and Frannie, and I liked Luc's voice a whole lot more than Frannie's, but I think that's actually somewhat overused. Three or four POV switches in each chapter is a little much. Two out of five roses, because it was at least kind of fun.



Original Sin by Lisa Desrochers

Published: July 5th, 2011 by Tor Teen
Genre: YA Paranormal Romance
Binding: Paperback
Page Count: 398 plus acknowledgements.
Part of a series? It's the second book in the trilogy.
Got via: Tor sent it to me for review consideration like eight years ago - to be fair, I didn't request it or anything. It just showed up one day. So I don't feel as bad that it's so late.
Amazon / Book Depository / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): Luc Cain was born and raised in Hell, but he isn’t feeling as demonic as usual lately—thanks to Frannie Cavanaugh and the unique power she never realized she had. But you can’t desert Hell without consequences, and suddenly Frannie and Luc find themselves targeted by the same demons who used to be Luc’s allies.

Left with few options, Frannie and Luc accept the protection of Heaven and one of its most powerful angels, Gabe. Unfortunately, Luc isn’t the only one affected by Frannie, and it isn’t long before Gabe realizes that being around her is too…tempting. Rather than risk losing his wings, he leaves Frannie and Luc under the protection of her recently-acquired guardian angel.

Which would be fine, but Gabe is barely out the door before an assortment of demons appears—and they’re not leaving without dragging Luc back to Hell with them. Hell won’t give up and Heaven won’t give in. Frannie’s guardian exercises all the power he has to keep them away, but the demons are willing to hurt anyone close to Frannie in order to get what they want. It will take everything she has and then some to stay out of Hell’s grasp.

Review: Well, I'll give the book this - the writing in this is slightly better. There's less constant talk about how people smell and not nearly as much trying to be "cool" and "hip". However, I found most of the characters in this really flat if not straight up boring and unlikeable (and not intentionally unlikeable) and there were plot elements that I found straight up disgusting.

Let's go into that first, because it's my biggest problem. In this book, Luc is raped, and Frannie gets angry, says he cheated on her, and breaks up with him over it.

Yeah, no that's it. The book says things like "he was tricked into sex", but he's basically magically roofied. The character made him think she was Frannie with magic, and he barely remembers it afterwards. He didn't cheat, he was assaulted. He literally loses his humanity briefly because he was raped, and Frannie, even after she's had the same character put the magical roofie whammy on her, only says she "kinda" doesn't blame him and still says he cheated on her. That is probably the worst thing I've ever read in a book. His assult is entirely about Frannie and how bad she feels because he was raped.

What.

Now maybe the book doesn't want to address this because it'd have to address how often it says that Frannie uses her "Sway" on her sexual/romantic partners. This, I remind you, is a magic power she has that makes it so she can influence people to do what she wants. She wants someone to leave the room, she thinks it really hard, they want to leave the room. She wants to have sex with someone, and she wants them to want her, and they do. And they literally say it's her "Sway" working on them, partly.

Book, do you understand consent? Do you understand that coersion during sex is bad? And that "but I can only make them do things they would want to do anyways" is not consent?

Sex in general in this book is really weird. There's a lot more sexual content but it feels super gratuitous and most of it, besides how perfect and special Frannie and Luc boning is going to be their "first time" (which is talked up a lot), is related to demons or evil in some way. Almost every single person we see or hear about having sex is either an actual demon or literally going to Hell. Because, you know, lust is a sin unless you're lusting after your boyfriend or the actual angel you have the hots for, or something. Also, Frannie has graduated high school and is going to be moving across the country soon, and her family is still weirdly invested in policing her sexuality. I just... the way sex is handled in this definitely projects a "sex is dirty and you should feel bad about it unless it's super special magical looooooove sex", you know?

Also this still has no queer people unless you count the literal succubus. Don't worry, though, because Frannie takes the time after the succubus almost assaults her to affirm that she's still StraightTM! I was really worried she might be queer! Also for some reason, it's not her fault she almost had sex with the succubus but it is Luc's.

The book has no fat rep and continues to be vaguely fatphobic whenever it can (apparently wearing a D-cup means you can't be fat - sorry, "heavy" - I'll tell my bra that when I take it off), and still lacks in diversity constantly. The music references still are super dated to the point of cheesiness, the lack of cell phones is really starting to show, there's random STD shaming, random body shaming, girl hate, girls who act like fourteen year olds instead of high school graduates, the plot still takes six years to actually plot and it's super weak when it does, the whole "psychic" thing is ignored for 330 pages and barely is used when it does come up, and the writing just can't carry it.

Sometimes Luc's voice is okay, but Matt and Frannie both annoy the crud out of me, and I think the rape plotline being called cheating is completely disgusting and ruined the book for me. Half a rose for Luc's voice now and then, and honestly I barely want to give it that.



Last Rite by Lisa Derochers

Published: May 8th, 2012 by Tor Teen
Genre: YA Paranormal Romance
Binding: Paperback
Page Count: 365 pages plus acknowledgements
Part of a series? This is the third and final book. No novellas or short stories that I know of, either.
Got via: The library.
Amazon / Book Depository / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): In this final installment of the thrilling, edgy Personal Demons series, the battle between Heaven and Hell has become critical, and Frannie Cavanaugh is right at the center of it.

With the help of the powerful angel Gabe and demon-turned-mortal Luc, Frannie has been able to stay one step ahead of the forces of Hell. But when the demons killed Frannie's best friend and destroyed her brother, they raised the stakes. If Frannie wants to keep her family and friends safe, she knows she has no choice but to go on the run.

Their best defense is the power Frannie has been struggling to master, but her attempts to hone her skill go horribly awry. If Frannie doesn't learn fast, the consequences could be devastating--even apocalyptic.

What happens when you can't outrun Hell...or trust the ones you love?

Review: Well, this one starts with Frannie "kinda" realizing Luc might not actually be at fault for his own rape but still wondering if he might have wanted it.

Good start.

The thing about this one is that for the third book in the series, it's incredibly boring. Most of the book is angst and talking, angst and talking, angst and talking. The plot is very, very weak and it takes forever to actually show up. And, frankly, I thought the whole set-up of how the plot was resolved was pretty cheesy.

There were some plotholes/consistency errors from the last two books and some sloppy editing. I have like four notes of that, so that wasn't great in here. The divesrity is still absolutely terrible.

Honestly I don't have that much more to say. I just did not like this book at all. I was only offended by some parts of it, at least, but I was bored and annoyed by the rest. One rose out of five.



Series overview: I honestly was hoping to like this. I still do like this genre and I always want to enjoy the books I read, but this just did not work for me. The mythos honestly was depicted pretty goofily at times and it seems like this takes all the worst tropes of paranormal YA of 2009-2011 and combines them all. There were, now and then, a few things that I thought were a little unique, but they were just buried under so much awful that it's not worth it.

I wouldn't recommend these, sadly, unless you're like... my mom. I'm giving them to her before I return the library books because I think she'll enjoy them, but she's not a very critical reader, lol. I will give kudos for the covers for actually looking like the characters, but I also can't take them seriously because they're so melodramatic. And I honestly can't tell what's supposed to be going on with them, like what scene they're supposed to be.

That's about it, I think.

Peace and cookies,
Laina

YA Review: Star-Crossed Series

Every now and then I like to do a review of a series when I have all of the books. It's fun - or at least it is for me.

Aries Rising by Bonnie Hearn Hill

Published: March 2nd, 2010 by Running Press Teens
Genre: Contemporary YA
Binding: Paperback
Page Count: 278 plus some bonus stuff
Part of a series? Yes, this is the first of three in the Star-Crossed series.
Got via: The library.
Amazon / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): Logan McRae is your average high school sophomore, trying her best juggle the chaos of friends, guys, school, and parents. So when she finds a magical book called Fearless Astrology, all she wants is to change her sucky life.

In order to get into the summer camp of her dreams, Logan needs the recommendation of her irritable English teacher Mr. Franklin. She also has her eye on Nathan, the hottest guy in class. And when the Gears, a group of unknown students, start causing trouble in school and out, she decides to identify them using her new found knowledge of astrology.

Her Goals: to impress Mr. Franklin, get a date with Nathan, and keep her column in the school newspaper.

Review: We're not off to a great start. I definitely did not love this. It's okay, but there were a lot of things that irked me to no end. The biggest thing to me is how very immature the book and its characters were. I would have bought the book more if the characters had been in the twelve to fourteen age range because they do act very, very young, and the voice is pretty young as well. At one point Logan and her friends use a dressform in costume to be a fake her and that is just - weird.

There's also a lot of mean girl/girl hate stuff that I wasn't a fan of. It seemed very unnecessary. And of course, there were very few characters who weren't white, one token less than able-bodied character who showed up for all of two seconds, no real fat characters, and absolutely nothing for character who weren't cis, allo, and straight. There was a point where I thought the book was going to surprise me by having a character turn out to be queer, but they went super predictable instead, and to be honest, I felt a little queerbaited. The book goes so far as to, when romance is brought up, call it "boy/girl stuff" as though those are the only options. I also thought the texting was incredibly unrealistic, even for 2010.

I want to say this was like a fun, fluffy read but it had a few too many frustrating moments. Let's hope the next books are better.

Taurus Eyes by Bonnie Hearn Hill

Published: May 4th, 2010 by Running Press Teens
Genre: Contemporary YA with some paranormal elements
Binding: Paperback
Page Count: 265 plus some bonus material
Part of a series? This is the second Star-Crossed book. Obviously. It's not like I'm going to read them out of order :P
Got via: The library.
Amazon / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): Logan McRae is spending her summer at the camp of her dream, thanks to her discovery of a special book called Fearless Astrology. Far away from home and her friends, she now finds herself faced with a new set of challenges.

In order to secure a coveted writing spot in the camp's anthology, Logan must impress her instructor, Henry Jaffa, a renowned journalist and one of Logan's heroes. She feels confident that she will shine with her brilliant astrological piece about Sun signs, but Jaffa throws a wrench in her carefully wrought plans when he switches everyone's topics.

Now Logan has to compete with camp cutie, Jeremy, who is much more interested in their shared topic about the ghost of an obscure dead singer. Logan has only the stars to guide her as she tries to win the respect of her idol, write a stellar essay, and capture the heart of her newfound crush.

Review: I'm still not a giant fan of this series. This one does feel slightly less shallow, but it still fell into a lot of the same traps as the first book. Logan's lack of motivation and independance really annoyed me this time around. So much of the plot isn't because of something she wants, but because of something the boy she likes wants. Also, book summary/back of the book? She's 90 minutes from home. People where I live go further than that to go grocery shopping. And she goes home for the weekend. And her friends come up to visit her. Honestly, I wish she had been further away because if she'd had to stand on her own two feet more.

The girl hate was super strong in this one, too. Literally on the second page it was obvious who Logan's rival was going to be. Two pages to designate a girl to hate, who Logan literally declared her "enemy". And half of the reason that Logan seemed to hate her was that she had boobs. So many of the comments about her are body shaming and gross.

On the plus side, while there are still no queer people, no disabled people, no fat people, there were a couple more POC in this one. Minor characters, but they were there.

Also the girl on this cover is in, like, all the things.

Gemini Night by Bonnie Hearn Hill

Published: October 12th, 2010 by Running Press Teens
Genre: Contemporary YA
Binding: Paperback
Page Count: 229 plus bonus material
Part of a series? It's the final book in the trilogy.
Got via: It was sent to me for review consideration in November of 2010.*
Amazon / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): Starting her junior year, Logan McRae is excited about her internship at "CRUSH" magazine. But she is not so excited about her new boyfriend Jeremy's travel abroad in Ireland. Logan's in over her head trying to balance school, love, and friends, while trying to solve an astrological mystery--the fate of a Gemini is "star-crossed."

Will Logan find out who is in danger before the "CRUSH" Halloween costume party? Can she prove to the publisher she deserves her own astrology column? And will her relationship with Jeremy survive the distance? Only time will tell as Logan continues to reach for the stars

Review: Oddly, I think I liked this one best. The setting of celebrities and a fashion magazine and all that stuff fits the more fluffy tone of the book way more than other things. Even with the drama/somewhat series mystery at the end, it seemed to fit better. It reminded me more of that book I read a while ago... Killer Cruise. I actually wish this had been more like that, and embraced the fluff a little more.

I honestly wish I had liked this more, because it had a lot of potentional. It's an interesting premise. But it frustrated me too much. There's just as much girl hate in this, and again, it's incredibly white, not queer, and basically not diverse at all.

Series wrap-up: The thing is, these are not overwhelmingly terrible books. They aren't. A few years ago, I probably would have thought they were really cute. But they are very much a product of their times, and I don't much like that time in books. The constant girl hate and slut shaming gets so old, the celebrity references kind of date it, and the complete lack of any form of diversity whatsoever besides a few token attempts is exhausting. They are so average that I was very frustrated, and the times when the books seemed unrealistic or not the best researched, only added to the frustration.

Last to address the astrology stuff - I know that some people believe very fiercely in astrology, and all the more power to them. But the way it's handled in the book did not really work for me. Logan reads two books about astrology and is suddenly an astrology expert, to the point of solving mysteries and it being considered that she would get an astrology column in a magazine. Every single person fits their astrological stuff so well that Logan can guess peoples' Star signs upon meeting them and she's always right. It is incredibly improbable.

Astrology in the book is almost borderline treated like magical - unless people are freaking out and treating it like Logan has started doing drugs. I think in real life people would treat it more like a strange hobby, not in the extreme ways they do in the book. I find it very odd. And there was a little too much of it. I started skimming heavily towards the end.

I think there is definitely an audience for this book. I just do not think I am that audience. How young the voice seemed compared to the actual age of the characters didn't work to me, and it did a lot of things I didn't love. I could break it down and give ratings to each of the books, and one might squeak out a little higher, but on average? I think two roses sums things up well enough.



*Yup. That is in fact six and half years ago. Avoid depression if you can, kids, I don't recommend it. Despite the fact that it's been a ridiculously long time, I still want to review things I agreed to, even if it's just a matter of personal pride. I gave away a couple that were sent to be unsolicited that I had no interest in, and I've dnf'ed a couple I just couldn't get into, but darn it I want to at least try so I feel better.

Other notes:

- Making toast makes you a foodie now? Is it supposed to be a joke when her dad says Logan inherited his "foodie genes" when she puts peanut butter on toast?

- Fun fact, since they live in California and the age of consent is eighteen, if any of them have sex, a bunch of these relationships are technically illegal. I did not have enough suspension of belief from enjoying these to ignore that I knew that.

- The first book accidentally implied a student/teacher relationship twice and I got so grossed out.

- There were some typoes, and I'm not sure if it's because I wasn't enjoying the books very much that I noticed them more, or if there were just more? One particularly bad example from the second book.

- Seriously, these covers confuse me so much. WHO are these girls? I literally have no idea. It's like random stock photos.

- Okay, I know 2010 was a while ago, but it was not impossible to find a record player then, was it?? In California. Near San Francisco. I THINK EVEN IN 2010 YOU COULD HAVE FOUND A HIPSTER WITH A RECORD PLAYER. Also they never actually played it so.

I think that's everything. I'm sorry this wasn't more positive!

Peace and cookies,
Laina

MG Review: Wintercraft Series

I've done this series review thing a couple times now and I enjoy it even if no one else does, and since I've already actually reviewed the first book in this series before, I thought it would be more interesting to do it this way. This might actually be posted on a day that's not a Monday because I have a bunch of scheduled posts and I think we might have to do more than just Monday posts. Let's try it for now!

Wintercraft by Jenna Burtenshaw (also called Shadowcry in the US)

Published: May 13th, 2010 by Headline Publishing
Genre: Fantasy MG
Binding: Paperback
Page Count: 278
Part of a series? I mean obviously.
Got via: They sent it to me sometime after I reviewed the ARC. Kind of showed up out of the blue.
Amazon / Book Depository / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): Ten years ago Kate Winters' parents were taken by the High Council's wardens to help with the country's war effort.

Now the wardens are back...and prisoners, including Kate's uncle Artemis, are taken south on the terrifying Night Train. Kate and her friend Edgar are hunted by a far more dangerous enemy. Silas Dane - the High Council's most feared man - recognises Kate as one of the Skilled; a rare group of people able to see through the veil between the living and the dead. His spirit was damaged by the High Council's experiments into the veil, and he's convinced that Kate can undo the damage and allow him to find peace.

The knowledge Kate needs lies within Wintercraft - a book thought to be hidden deep beneath the graveyard city of Fume. But the Night of Souls, when the veil between life and death is at its thinnest, is just days away and the High Council have their own sinister plans for Kate and Wintercraft.

Review: I didn't have a computer to look up my old review of this, but I think I liked it. I don't want to read my old review until I've finished typing this up because I'm weird like that. Rereading it, I did enjoy it. I just didn't love it. I'm not sure if it's more kind of a genre thing where I'm learning I'm not really a big reader of this type of fantasy, or if it's more the book, but that's where I am.

The beginning especially has a lot of background and it's a fairly heavy info dump. Since this isn't my absolute favourite genre to begin with, that doesn't help me out so much with not getting a little lost. It may pretty typical for the genre, but it doesn't work for me. I mean, Kate wakes up in the first chapter and describes herself in a mirror. That's a little stereotypical. And speaking of typical, I think the dynamic between Edgar and Kate is very, very typical for this genre, and I don't think it really does anything special with their friendship. I wish Kate had had more female friends... or any female friends... or more good feale characters in general.

To be honest, I remembered almost nothing about reading this the first time, and I don't think this is an overly memorable book. At the end of the day, it's good and I have no glaring problems to point out besides some ableist language that doesn't seem necessary, but it never wowed me.

If you're a big fantasy fan, or know a kid who is (although sensitive readers may want to know there's a lot of on-screen death), I'd say this is fine, but not outstanding.

On to the next!

Blackwatch by Jenna Burtenshaw

Published: It was originally published April 1st, 2011 by Headline Publishing, this edition was released June 26th 2012 by Greenwillow Books.
Genre: MG Fiction
Binding: Hardcover
Page Count: 310 pages
Part of a series? Duh.
Got via: The library which is why this cover is different from the other two. I know. It bugs me, too. We just have to deal with it.
Amazon / Book Depository / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): "Deliver Kate Winters and be spared.”

Kate is the one person gifted enough to work the magic held in the ancient book of Wintercraft. And everyone wants her, either to lock her up or to use her as the ultimate weapon. Her rare power is being able to walk freely through the veil between life and death, and she cannot control it.

Hunted by the Blackwatch -- the elite assassins of the enemy -- and by her own people, Kate flees deep into tunnels beneath the graveyard city. And she is still inextricably linked to the murderer and traitor Silas Dane, who has crossed the ocean and walked straight into the enemy's hands.

As the Blackwatch closes in, Kate and Silas will face terrors that only they can keep from destroying Albion. And time is running out.

Review: I'm going to be honest (as always) - I read this over a week ago and I just didn't feel like writing the review of it. This one is more engrossing than the first, but it still never screamed "Read Me!" There's thankfully less world-building via info dumping, but it does play a fair amount of catch-up at the beginning and I'm kind of meh about that. It's not done badly, but it doesn't draw me into the beginning of the book.

I think my biggest complaint, though, is that not a whole lot actually happens. Kate gets chased by bad guys a lot and... mostly that's it. There are obviously a few important plot elements, but it feels like a lot of filler.

It's pretty much just fine. I didn't dislike it, but it didn't do much for me. And these days, I want books to wow me!

Legacy by Jenna Burtenshaw (Also called Winterveil in the US)

Published: May 10th, 2012 by Headway
Genre: MG Fantasy
Binding: Paperback
Page Count: 280 pages
Part of a series? I guess I should say it is just a trilogy.
Got via: It was also sent to me for review consideration. No, not the second book. Yes, that's two copies of the first book, one of the third, none of the second. Yeah, I found that pretty amusing, too.
Amazon / Book Depository / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): The veil which marks the division between life and death is falling. Lost souls are seeping through to roam Albion's graveyard city of Fume. Kate Winters' recent memory is lost.

Relieved to be heading home to Albion, Kate can't shake the feeling that Dalliah Grey, the woman she's supposed to be working for, is not to be trusted. Disgraced warrior Silas Dane plans to rescue Kate and save Albion from the advancing armies seeking to profit from the confusion. But the veil will not be easy to repair and Silas knows sacrifices have to be made. Kate must return to the dark secrets detailed by her ancestors in the ancient book of Wintercraft and learn from their mistakes to save herself.

Review: Again, this one was just kind of fine. It opens with a random new POV who immediately dies. And I'm really not a fan of that. It feels like it's just a way to brag about how awesome your characters are. Otherwise, there's not much new from the first two books. It wraps up the series well, but it doesn't do too much forme. I don't even really have that much to say. It kinda feels like I'm just finished and I want to move on now and I hate saying something like that, but it's unfortunately true.

Really, I just... don't have anything else to say about this book.

Series wrap-up: Wintercraft is a decent middle grade fantasy series. I enjoyed it, and I'm glad I finished the series. However, it feels fairly standard for the genre, and because the genre is not my favourite to start with, I don't think I would reread it. While enjoyable, it doesn't stand out as particularly special or really very memorable. I think others could definitely enjoy it more, so I think I'll pass this one along. I have too many books, like way too many, and I don't need to keep books I don't love or want to reread, so I'm probably going to pass these alongs to someone else.

Other notes:

- I saw someone ask recently if adult POV could work in modern middle grade and YA books. I said I thought it could, but only in MG and not YA. The Wintercraft series is probably at least 40% or more adult POV and it works fine. However, there is some headhopping that does not work.

- If you ever see characters named Laina in books, they might actually be named after me. I certainly volunteer my name enough! There's one in the second and third books and I'm not actually sure if it is or not? Probably not, but there are a few out there that are!

- If you must read my old review of this, here's a link. Bear in mind it's six years old. I was eighteen. Whoa.

Okay, I think that's it for now. Hope you enjoyed this!

Peace and cookies,
Laina

YA Review: Hourglass Series

Since I have all three books in this series, and we kind of need to get through some of the backlog of my review stack, it's probably easiest just to put them all in one post. This is just going to be one post, but I might have a couple more series posts in the future. Well, at least one, probably. We'll see what happens.

Reviews for the second and third book will probably have spoilers for the ones coming before them respectively, and the series summary will probably have spoilers for the last book or the entire series as I talk about my feelings for the entire thing.

This might be long.

This will probably be long.

Hourglass by Myra McEntire

Published: June 14th, 2011 by Egmont USA
Genre: YA Paranormal Romance
Binding: ARC
Page Count: 397 in the ARC, 390 in the finished version according to goodreads.
Part of a series? Yup, this is the first book in the Hourglass series.
Got via: Egmont sent it to me for review when they, you know, still existed. I'm sorry. We're getting closer to the present though!
Amazon / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): For seventeen-year-old Emerson Cole, life is about seeing what isn't there: swooning Southern Belles; soldiers long forgotten; a haunting jazz trio that vanishes in an instant. Plagued by phantoms since her parents' death, she just wants the apparitions to stop so she can be normal. She's tried everything, but the visions keep coming back.

So when her well-meaning brother brings in a consultant from a secretive organization called the Hourglass, Emerson's willing to try one last cure. But meeting Michael Weaver may not only change her future, it may also change her past.

Who is this dark, mysterious, sympathetic guy, barely older than Emerson herself, who seems to believe every crazy word she says? Why does an electric charge seem to run through the room whenever he's around? And why is he so insistent that he needs her help to prevent a death that never should've happened?

Review: This is another one I probably would have loved if I had actually read it in 2011. I still liked it, but there are certain things that bother me more now. We'll wait to get to those. Good stuff first. I adore the idea of this. I love the creepy ghost-type things, and as I was reading this, I realized how long it'd been since I read an amazing YA paranormal. I don't think Hourglass quite got me to amazing, but I liked it enough to keep reading, and to be excited about future books.

These characters have a lot of potential. I loved the dynamic between Emerson and her brother. A much older sibling relationship can be really interesting and different, and I really enjoyed seeing a relationship between an older teenager and her adult brother who had become her guardian when their parents died. He's supportive, but at times unsure of how to handle the promotion to parenthood, and I'm excited to see more of that dynamic. I do think Emerson could be somewhat flat, and I wanted to know more about her interests and her wants, but she's fine for a main character. Her voice can be really cute sometimes, and does have some little quirky bits that are nice.

And I did appreciate that there were a number of characters of colour - but at times that had some issues. Emerson's best friend Lily gets a lot of comparisons of her skin to food. And compared to a dog at one point. It's meant to be a good thing, that she's very loyal, but it's... uncomfortable. Every POC character is from somewhere outside of the US. They are all immigrants. All of them. That has some unfortunate implications.

There's also no fat people, or disabled people besides Emerson (and I will get to the issues of that element), or queer people. Why is everyone so straight? Every single person? Really?

For the most part, I like the romance in the book. It just isn't anything incredibly unique, honestly. It's kind of the same tropes you see a lot with the same problems you see a lot. Mostly with boundaries/controlling behaviour, although to be fair, both of them cross some. (Breaking into someone's apartment to snoop in their bedroom is weird and not okay even when you're a girl, Emerson. Not cute. I don't care if you had keys. That's weird.)

There is a bit of a love triangle, so if you're sick of them, this one might not be for you, but this is the kind I actually like better. Just because you met someone like a week ago and were attracted to them, doesn't necessarily mean that you're not going to be attracted to other people you meet. I like that more than books that tell me that the romance is huge and epic and soulmates and together forever - except wow, here's this new person! Kind of a rant there to say I didn't mind the love "triangle".

So what's left. PG-13 stuff - there's some language, some kind of scary bits, nothing I would say needs an especially mature reader to handle. Basic YA content. The cover is great. It's really cool, and I like how it kind of fools you so you're not exactly sure what's going on until you look twice. It reminds me weirdly of Alice Through the Looking Glass. (Book, not movie.) I like it! Thumbs-up.

Oh, boy, now it's time for my big complaint, isn't it? Okay, settle in, folks. This one is going to take a minute. There may be spoilers. I'm going to give some credit here to Alyssa at the Eater of Books, whose review of another book made me think of a lot of things I'm going to talk about here.

Part of the premise of this is that Emerson has been commited because of a combination of depression and seeing ghost-things. This happens often in books and movies, although a lot of the time the reveal is that the protagonist isn't "crazy", but is actually seeing ghosts/monsters/whatever. I won't say I haven't enjoyed books with that theme, because I have. But the problem is... this is a problem. This is ableist, and borderline dangerous. We owe teenagers better than to tell them that antidepressants and other psychiactric medications change you, that they make you dull, or a zombie (and yes, Hourglass uses the word zombie), or unable to feel things. You know what makes you not able to feel things? DEPRESSION.

Emerson says she has anxiety. Emerson says she has depression. But so much of the book takes the time to tell us she's "not crazy". It tells us that she went off her medications without telling anyone and that's treated as completely fine. Did you know going cold turkey from some antidepressants can make you incredibly sick or even kill you? The book intertwines Emerson's mental illness with her seeing ghost-things a lot, but she had a mental illness triggered after her parents died. It was exasperated by the ghost-things, yes, but not caused by them. There's a really big problem with this narrative. It creates stigma. It's irresponsible.

I don't like these narratives. I don't like the line about "crazy people" not getting to "claim self-control as a personality trait". I don't like the talk about "chemicals". I don't like that there seems to be a line drawn between Emerson who's "not crazy", and people who are. She was mentally ill. THAT'S OKAY. You can just... have a mentally ill character without needing to excuse it, or separate your character from the scary "crazies". I would not ever call this disability or mental illness representation. I winced every time something happened in this vein.

Now to wrap this up. Would I recommend this? I... don't know. I honestly think it's going to depend on how the other books are. If they continue to get better as I hope they will, I think I could recommend this very carefully for some people, with notes on the problematic aspect of the mental illness element. I love the atmosphere, and the characters are good. There are plot elements that I won't spoil that I think are really unique, and really fun to read. I still want to read the other books in the trilogy, and find out what happens next. And you guys know I kind of love the "secret school for kids with magic powers" idea.

So I'm going to give this one three out of five roses. The ableist elements bother me a lot, but there's enough good stuff to pull through.



Other notes:

- Why is Emerson's sense of smell so strong? I don't think you can smell cereal from across the room. That's odd.

- Emerson. It's not okay to tell other people that someone's pregnant before they've announced it. She literally tells people that someone is pregnant ten minutes after they peed on the stick. If the worst happens and that person has a miscarriage, do you think they want to tell that to all the people you told, Emerson? Boundaries!

Timepiece by Myra McEntire

Published: June 12th, 2012 by EgmontUSA
Genre: YA Paranormal Romance
Binding: Hardcover
Page Count: 325 plus the acknowledgements.
Part of a series? It is obviously the second book in the Hourglass triology.
Got via: The library.
Amazon / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): Kaleb Ballard was never supposed to be able to see ripples - cracks in time. Are his powers expanding, or is something very wrong? Before he can find out, Jonathan Landers, the man who tried to murder his father, reappears. Why is he back, and what, or whom, does he want?

In the wake of Landers' return, the Hourglass organization is given an ultimatum. Either they find Landers and the research he has stolen on the people who might carry the time gene, or time will be altered - with devastating results for the people Kaleb loves most.

Now Kaleb, Emerson, Michael, and the other Hourglass recruits have no choice but to use their unusual powers to find Landers. But where do they even start? And when? And even if they succeed, it may not be enough...

Review: Well, look at what surprised me! First of all, I was not expecting the POV change, since I didn't read the summaries to avoid spoilers. That works so well. First of all, Kaleb was one of my favourite characters in Hourglass. And I enjoyed Emerson's POV, but I thought the series was going to go that kind of cliche YA trilogy where the epic love of the first book is suddenly not so epic for the second book until you have to wrap things up in the third book. I'm not saying that can't work, but you know. We've all read it more than once, and I'm not terribly fond of it.

Timepiece says, "Nah, we're gonna go somewhere else," and I say, "Okay!"

A lot of things are just better in this, and I'm glad about that. Lily's character is much more fleshed out in this, along with her grandmother and her family history, and it's lovely to see that given time and care. It gets a little bit "pair the spares" (and it's a touch predictable that these two characters would have a romance), and the romance is pretty fast, but they're super cute and have a ton of chemistry so, whatever. I'm good with it because it's done well.

I also really, really enjoyed Kaleb as a narrating character. He has a lot of depth and a very sweet center hidden under a buttload of guilt and not so amazing decisions. He's always interesting, but it's wonderful when he grows and shows off his depth. He can definitely be a little obnoxious at the beginning of the book, but when you get past that, he gets a lot better. My favourite part that describes him perfectly is that he's big as a house, wearing leather, covered in tattoos and piercings... and he bakes cookies when he's depressed.

The plot works really well both as a sequel and to carry over into a third book and wrap up the series. I'm really excited to read the third (seriously, it's staring at me right now and I want it). I don't think the book is amazing at using all the character it has in groups at once, like with, say, the Naturals series that y'all know I love.,. It has more of a tendancy to divide the characters into two or three. But honestly I don't have any major complaints about this one. There's still a bit of ableism with Emerson's premise like I talked about, but because we're not in her POV, it doesn't really come up so much, and that helps a lot with me enjoying the book.

So, final verdict: Three and a half roses, and a short review because I desperately want to read the third book already.



Other notes:

- Seriously, this one does not have the scent fixation. Emerson, what's your deal with your sense of smell? That might be your other super power - the ability to smell a bowl of cereal from across the room.

Infinityglass by Myra McEntire

Published: August 6th, 2013 by EgmontUSA
Genre: YA Paranormal Romance
Binding: Hardcover
Page Count: 293 plus the acknowledgements.
Part of a series? The third book in the Hourglass triology.
Got via: The library.
Amazon / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): From the moment the Hourglass group violated the rules of the space time continuum to rescue a murdered loved one, time has been in flux. People from other centuries slide into our time, intruding into our space, threatening our world.

Frantically seeking a way to turn back this tide, the Hourglass begins a search for the legendary Infinityglass, tracking it to the city of New Orleans, a place where the past rests easily with the present.

Quiet, reliable Dune, the group's favourite geek, is selected to travel to the Crescent City and somehow retrieve the renowned object.

But there's a problem.

Because the Infinityglass is not an object, it's a person.

A beautiful, headstrong dancer named Hallie, a girl so enticing Dune can't take his eyes off her.

And time is not on her side.

Review: This one is also pretty good! I did have a few issues, but it was mostly enjoyable. This one has duo POVs between Dune and Hallie, and Hallie's voice is so different from the previous books. I really enjoyed her voice most of the time, and the duo POVs are unique to this book in the series, and work pretty well. Dune and Hallie are super flirty, and the build-up and tension between them is probably my favourite part. The tension is great.

Overall, I do think that this is a good way to finish out the series. Everything is wrapped up nicely, and I didn't feel like anything was unfinished or left hanging. The setting of New Orleans was cool, if a touch underused. This is a very fast-paced book, and I enjoyed it for the most part.

But I did have a few issues. I'm not altogether fond of the way these books handle sexuality, specifically the sexuality of the teen girls. It doesn't get into major sex-shaming, but there are parts that get annoying. At one point Hallie's dad basically says "no guys and girls sleeping in the same room" which... he doesn't actually really know them? Like he assumes two guys and two girls means two hetereosexual couples. Who are teenagers. Maybe your guests were going to be fifty year old lesbians, didja think of that? He's essentially policing not only the sexuality of his own teenaged daughter, but of girls he's never met. And it's kind of icky, not gonna lie.

Other parts have some unfortunate implications.

First of all, Kaleb has taken out his nose and eyebrow piercings and only left his ear piercings because apparently happy, well-adjusted people don't have non-ear piercings. That's pretty much the only reason. Apparently they don't shave their heads either. The idea that people only do body modifications or alternative looks because they're having emotional pain is really, really annoying. I'm probably gonna have purple hair here pretty quick. It's not because I'm messed up emotionally, it's because it looks cool. Happy people can have eyebrow piercings.

Second, there is some fatphobia. At one point, Hallie stops needing to eat. She's a ballet dancer. The idea of a ballet dancer not having to eat is... not such a great idea. She also says something about dancing three times a week keeping her thin - that's annoying mostly because there are fat ballet dancers. Gonna go ahead and assume that people in a ballet troupe dance more than you, Hallie. Weight is not that simple. And Dune starts working out for "fear of turning fat". If it was just these two characters, it would be annoying, but I'd be like, "whateve". But there is NOT A SINGLE FAT CHARACTER in any of these books. Not one. So you're losing points for fatphobia. If you have NO fat characters, you don't get to have characters who are afraid of being fat without me critcizing it. What kind of message are you trying to send with that?

At one point, Dune says to another character that "you either have a maid, or you're OCD." OCD is not an adjective. This is more ableism, which this series definitely has a problem with.

Probably the last thing I'm going to talk about is some of the unfortunate implications with Dune. I enjoy his character, but there are things that I looked at twice and I'm not sure are so kosher (especially since I'm a white girl over here). His nickname is Dune because he raced over the sand dunes as a kid to get to the beach. Are you... are you entirely sure there's not more than one kid in American Samoa that does that? Most kids like the beach. I'm kind of assuming that extends to most Samoan kids. At the beginning of the book, Dune also cuts off his dreadlocks to look more professional (his words, not mine) and at one point, Hallie says she likes him better without them because she can run her hands through his hair. I'm not going to make a judgement call here, since these things are really complicated, but I'm gonna warn you about that so you can make the decision one way or the other of how you feel about that.

As a book, I enjoyed it, but I worry a lot that that's privilege talking. I do think this book had issues, but it was enjoyable. I think some of the problems might be things others don't want to read, though, so I'm warning you guys. My final thoughts on this book are - I liked it. Would I recommend it - carefully. With the things I've mentioned in mind, maybe. Overall, I'm probably only gonna give it three roses. I'm glad I finished the series, and I'm not angry at the book, as much as it might sound, but I don't think everyone would necessarily love it.



Other things:

- If you put bread in the toaster and start it toasting, and then you start cooking bacon, your toast is gonna be cold and rock solid by the time your bacon is done. So either you have psychic bacon powers, Hallie, or someone knew you weren't going to have any bacon that wasn't you, and had you start the toast for convenience.

Okay, my series summary:

If you like somewhat tropey YA paranormal romance, you're probably going to enjoy this. If you're sick of certain tropes, you might hate this, honestly. Time travel is not something I personally see a lot in YA, and I really enjoyed that premise. The author is pretty good at writing exciting romantic relationships, and the cast is not entirely white. How well that's done is not up for me to decide, so I'm not gonna try.

Many of the decisions this series took surprised me in good ways. Character choices, plot decisions, and even POV choices surprised me, which considerably toned down almost all of the predictability.

Something that was entirely predictable was the "pair the spare" tendancies. By the end of the third book, basically everyone was dating someone, and I don't think writing established couples is the author's strongest suit. Everyone gets very cutesy and overly perfect. And maybe that's my bias, but I found it a little annoying. Have a fight or something, people. And, of course, everyone is straight. Over a thousand pages total, multiple cities, and not one character is queer? At all? Not one?

Now, the ableism problem. The big problem is that the series at once tells me to take mental illness seriously by saying how bad it would be if Emerson was in a mental hospital, but also makes jokes about it by saying people with very clean apartments "are OCD". The book wants me to believe that I wouldn't want to read a book about a girl who was severely mentally ill and physically scarred, and tries to use that possibility as shock value. I don't think throwing a line into the third book about Emerson still has bad days dealing with depression fixes the mixed messages throughout the series, especially not the borderline-dangerous ones about medication.

I honestly think the author is very talented, and I would be interested in future books. I enjoyed this series, but I don't think the author was ready to tackle certain things in this book that she tried, and the inexperience does show at times in mixed messages and hopefully unintentional problematic themes. I think this series can be fun, but I know those issues could hurt people, so I can't recommend it wholeheartedly. I have a lot of mixed feelings, but I think I've laid them out as clearly as I can.

I hope you guys enjoyed this at least a little, and hopefully it was helpful and informative!

Peace and cookies,
Laina

YA Review: The Dark Divine Trilogy Part 2

So here's part two of that post! If you missed part one, check it out here.

The Lost Letters of Brother Gabriel by Bree Despain

Published: November 10th, 2011 by Egmont USA
Genre: Paranormal YA like the other books
Binding: Ebook
Page Count: 18ish
Part of a series? Yes, it's 2.5 in the Dark Divine series.
Got via: The library.

Summary (from goodreads): Brother Gabriel, Daniel’s mentor and an ancient Urbat, plays an important role in The Lost Saint as well as the upcoming conclusion to the Dark Divine trilogy, The Savage Grace. We were first introduced to Gabriel in The Dark Divine when Grace recieves a book of ancient letters that Gabriel (a young monk at the time) wrote to his sister during the Crusades, detailing his search to know more about the Urbat. The book of letters ends just before Gabriel falls to the Urbat curse, leaving us to wonder what happened to him in the following years to turn him into the man he is today.

Most of Gabriel’s letters were written during the thirteenth century, and later translated and compiled by an Orthodox priest in the eighteenth century. For whatever reason, some of Gabriel’s letters were lost after translation and did not make it into that original book. But good news! A few of these “lost letters,” detailing Gabriel’s fall to the Urbat curse and his quest to seek revenge on the man responsible for his demise, have recently been “discovered” by the indomitable crew at Egmont USA, and are compiled here for your reading pleasure.

Review: First of all, I refuse to call this a novella because it's barely twenty pages long. It's pretty much a short story. That just kind of bugs me. Now, because Egmont closed its door, you can't really buy this anywhere, so finding it is probably going to be a bit difficult. I got lucky in that my library's ebook system had it, so I could just download it. Funnily enough, though, I looked it up one day, and the next someone else had checked it out. So apparently someone else in Saskatchewan is reading the same series!

Now this is not something like the Darkest Minds novellas where they're an additional story that expands upon the universe in the series. This adds to the backstory some. And it's interesting, yes. It's very stylized as letters, and that's cool, although I'm not entirely sure the whole "Old English" thing carries through consistently and that probably would bug some people.

It's a cool bonus. Is it essential? No. If you can find it legally like from a library, check it out if you're into this series. But don't worry about it if you can't.

Although I will say, this is my favourite cover of the series. I love the ombre fade of the cloth from dark to light, and honestly, I like that there isn't a model. I mean, are you going to have a naked monk rolling around in fabric on your cover?

...actually can we have that? No, I'm kidding. Mostly.

The Savage Grace by Bree Despain

Published: March 13th, 2012 by Egmont USA
Genre: YA paranormal romance
Binding: Hardcover
Page Count: 488 plus acknowledgements
Part of a series? It's the third and final book in this series.
Got via: The library.
Amazon / Book Depository / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): Wrestling with the werewolf curse pulsing deep inside of her, Grace Divine was finally able to find her brother, but it nearly cost her everything.

With her boyfriend, Daniel, stuck in wolf form and Sirhan's death approaching, time is running out for Grace to stop Caleb Kalbi and his gang of demons. If she fails, her family and hometown will perish. Everything rests on Grace's shoulders.

The final installment in The Dark Divine trilogy brings Daniel and Grace's love story to a breathtaking conclusion.

Review: Now, following my favourite cover in this series, this is probably my favourite book in the series. This one is the longest book in the series, with the most time between books between this one and the second book, and it shows. Even though it's longer, it's much, much faster paced. For probably at least half the book, a lot of the book is about Grace's parents while also forcing her to be much more independant and not rely on others to make decisions for her. The new characters acquired at the end of the last book are awesome, very funny and very interesting, and many of the existing characters really shine. It also has a pretty epic battle ending that is extremely satisfying to read.

Out of the three (I'm not counting the short story), I read this one in the most unbroken amount of time. Grace is most proactive in this one, and there's a little less focus on the romance. At times, the romance can still get a bit overdramatic, though, I will say. Especially when Grace gets jealous so easy. It's supposed to be this love to end all loves, but she gets jealous of pretty much every girl who looks at Daniel. Mildly, sure, but it's still there. But a little less focus on that sure helps, I have to say.

Now, were there things that bothered me? Yes. Let me start with this one - Grace's magical werewolf powers. Healing people? Awesome. Healing her mother's mental illness? Healing her mother's OCD tendancies and catatonic state with her magic werewolf powers? No. That's not okay. That's cheap. That's taking an easy shortcut to everything literally being magically fixed instead of treating it with the reverance and respect it deserves. That is ableist, and frankly that's the place where I stopped reading for like three days straight because I was so irritated. It's straight up offensive, as far as I'm concerned.

Also, it would have been nice if Grace's mom had been given a concrete condition instead of vague catatonia and "OCD-like tendancies" and "her own designer brand of bipolar disorder". It just feels cheap, like it's using the stereotypes of these disorders but not actually going so far as to actually put those things on the character.

And why would you when you can fix them with magic werewolf powers instead of therapy and medication? That would be harder than instantly fixing things. Also, because of the strong link between the mythology and religion, you almost get to the point where the narrative is saying "religion OR treatment". Obviously I'm not religious myself, but I don't think faith can't be a part of healthcare, be it physical or mental. But if you're saying you have to choose between the two, that's problematic.

Some of the wolf stuff is still kind of cheesy, and some of the earlier action scenes can be, too. Honestly, all the religion talk is just not my thing, and I think it gets preachy at times. The references are still super dated. Grace's voice also changes some. I like the changes, for the most part, but it's a bit jarring when the second book took place ten months after the first, and this one takes place ten minutes after the second, and she sounds different than she did "ten minutes" ago. Everyone is still straight, glaringly straight at times (there's a fair amount of pair the spares - the world is not this painfully hetereosexual, and no, not all girls swoon over boy chests), and mostly everyone besides a few small side characters are still white and thin and pretty. And obviously disability representation pretty much sucks.

This one is somewhat less predictable, though. This is gonna be a spoiler, so skip it if you wanna, but it's not huge. At one point, Grace's 13 year old sister takes about five minutes to guess everything that's going on in the last two books. And frankly, that about sums up my entire predictability complaint. Because yeah. Predictable. It gets better in this one, but let me just say the thing that I realized the other day that you probably have guessed if you've read this far - the first book and entire trilogy's title is a spoiler. Their last name is Divine. Just think about that a moment. Connect the dots there.

Yeah.

Also, there's a touch of weird gross sexism now and then. Like, I just don't find guys getting violent at other guys over jealousy about their girlfriends funny, or romantic, or sexy. It's just scary and possibly abusive. And I'm not cool with that.

Probably my last complaint would be - wolves still don't work this way. They just don't. I don't want to go into it again. I'm too tired to go there again. My soul is exhausted, guys, and my mom wants this book, so I'm about done. Oh, except this cover - what is going on on this cover? Like are this girl's legs like five feet long? I seriously can't figure out how to make this cover work. Where are her hips? Also, it doesn't match the others as well. The model's skin isn't black and white, and there are no toenails to give us neat nailpolish colours. Half of me wants to be sarcastic and be like, "Hey, she rolled over finally!" But that'd be too mean, and I wouldn't really mean it. I'm just too snarky for my own good.

So to sum up, I liked this one much better than the second book, but the ableism really threw me off. That's not cool, book. Therefore this one gets higher marks than the last one, but lower than it could have had it avoided all that nonsense. But all in all, it was generally exciting, mostly dramatic without being overdramatic, and actually enjoyable. There were enough things I liked better than things I disliked that I'm okay with giving this one a solid three and a half.



Other notes:

- You... cut bananas with the peel on, Grace? For cereal for your little brother? You specifically say you're cutting through the thick peel. What are you doing here? I don't understand.
- There's random places where "He" is not capitilized when referring to God and that kind of bugged me.
- There are only a few occurances of cursing in these books, and it just doesn't seem realistic when there are, like, supernatural street gangs and creepy demon things and really old scary bad guys. Some of these people should curse.

Okay, I suppose at this time I should do a summary of my thoughts on the series as a whole, shouldn't I? So to do that, for the most part, I liked these. Am I going to read them again? Probably not, because man that second book was kind of hard to get through. That was definitely a sophomore slump. Do I regret reading them? Also no. Am I going to keep the two I own? I'm not sure. They might go in the maybe pile.

I do think they tend to be quite dated. The third one is probably the least dated, trope-wise, but the other two use 2009/2010 YA lit tropes heavily, so if you're over those, you're not going to be into these. I don't think they're so amazingly written that they're going to win you over. The writing is good, and best in the third book, but it's not life-changing. I definitely would have liked them when I was younger more.

So I suppose you just have to ask what you're going into these for. If you're going into them more for supernatural fluff than anything, you'll probably have a good time, and the third book will probably be better than you expect. My mom has read the first two in like a day straight and if I don't give her the third one by the time she gets home from work

I hope this was helpful, or at least enjoyable, and I do thoroughly apologize for it being so late with them. I'd feel really bad if I just never posted it at all, though, so better late than never, right? I have to be catching up on my review pile soon, right? Right?!?

Alright, I think that's everything! Thanks for reading.

Peace and cookies,
Laina