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Book Review – Scythe by Neal Shusterman

/ Leighton Jae Williams / Leave a comment

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

This will be a spoiler-free review.

Hype is a strange beast. On the one hand, it can get you pumped up for a book that then meets or exceeds your expectations, and you get a certain high from enjoying a book that others have enjoyed. On the other hand, it can give you unrealistic expectations for a book that then doesn’t meet those expectations, and then you’re bummed because you really thought you would love that book. My experience with Scythe was of the later variety.

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Book Review – Zenith by Sasha Alsberg and Lindsay Cummings

/ Leighton Jae Williams / Leave a comment

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

This will be a spoiler-free review. For my spoiler-y thoughts, check out my Book Breakdown on my YouTube channel, which was posted on 4/18/2018 (My Channel).

I went into this book having read and watched a plethora of negative and/or rant reviews about it. I knew the general plot of the book, I knew about the trigger warning for rape, and I knew about the Spiced Rigna and how “hope is a raging asshole.” So when I cracked the spine of the library book I’d borrowed (because obviously I wasn’t going to spend money on a book people were shitting on right and left) I thought I was in for a dumpster fire. I thought I would be trudging through the book from beginning to end, rolling my eyes at the awful writing and wishing I hadn’t decided to review it for my Book Breakdown. Then, the unthinkable happened.

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Book Review – Burro Hills by Julia Lynn Rubin

/ Leighton Jae Williams / Leave a comment

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

I was given an eARC of this novel via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This review will be spoiler-free.

I’d like to get this out in the open right away: I was disappointed with this book. Now, this may have been partially my fault. I think I went into it with high expectations, hoping it would be similar to one of my favorite novels, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. Not that I wanted it to be the same plotline. Rather, I was just hoping it would hit me as hard as that novel had. I wanted this book to make me feel something, and it just didn’t deliver.

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Book Review – The Elysian Prophecy by Vivien Reis

/ Leighton Jae Williams / Leave a comment

Rating: 3/5 Stars

I was given an eARC of this novel by the author in exchange for an honest review. This review will be spoiler-free. (Disclaimer: I meant to finish and review this novel before its release date, but since it was only sent to me a little over a week before publication and I had other obligations, I wasn’t able to. Sorry!!!)

The best way I can describe this book is to say it was enjoyable. Not great, but not bad either. A true three out of five stars. I was actually considering giving it 3.5 stars, but enough issues piled up by the end that I couldn’t justify the half star.

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