What_Kel_Reads

 This was freaking delightful. These books are such a treat. The way I absolutely LOATHED this book. What a piece of garbage. This is one of my all time favorite book series. I love the world Brynne Weaver created so much. Hannah Bonam-Young is one of my new favorite authors. These books don’t seem like books I’d gravitate towards, but I have devoured every single one of them. I was not ready to have a mirror held up to me to deal with my own family issues, but here we are. Take care if you read this and have a crappy family. I felt like this one was overhyped, but the audiobook was fantastic. This book was a total snooze fest. I was so bored the entire time. This one felt so different from Hannah’s other books, but I REALLY enjoyed it!

Man, I’m obsessed with these books. The Never After series is probably my favorite series of all time because each story is just SO 👏 GOOD 👏 This one is an Aladdin reimagining, where the Aladdin character is a whiney little bitch, the Jafar character, Julian Faraci is a snack, and poor little Yasmin Karam has no choice but to marry him and suffer under the weight of his muscles and good looks. I devoured this one. If there was one thing I could ask for in my life, it’s that Emily McIntire write more of these stories because I’m almost at the end of the series and I’m not ready. 😭 If you’re into dark romance and alternative views to the fairytales we grew up with, run, don’t walk to these. If you don’t like them, read them anyway. She just might surprise you.

 A little backstory - I have been obsessed with the Wizard of Oz since I was a child. Something about this story just hooked me and didn’t let go. In high school, I was blessed with the creation of Wicked, the musical. Last year, we finally got the screen adaptation we’ve all been waiting decades to see. Do you see where I’m going with this? It’s no surprise to me that my obsession carried over into this book. I read it in one sitting. I’m not even sure I breathed while reading this. I absolutely LOVED the creativity and updates that were made to the story. I also loved watching our female villain try to wrap her mind around her feelings for her mortal enemy. This book gets all the stars from me. I loved it so much.

 This book has brothers waging war against each other, enemies to lovers, and political betrayals set against a royal court backdrop and I could not have been more ready to read it. Tristan is ruthless and will stop at nothing to take over the throne, making it all the more fun for us as readers to watch him completely fall apart over Sara. He was willing to destroy everything and everyone for her and I was ready for it, popcorn in hand. Out of the first two books, Hooked is still my favorite. This one is incredible in a completely different way. It still blows me away that she can write these reimagining tales in a way that not only feels original, but they all feel so incredibly different from each other.  If you’re into dark tales filled with villains and debauchery, I highly recommend this series.

 “If not a friend, why friend shaped?” My bestie chat and I say this all the time to each other about wild animals, and don’t think for one second one of us wouldn’t try to pet a bear if given the opportunity.  I didn’t think it was possible to love Wild Eyes as much as I loved Wild Love, but here we are. I loved everything about this book, but my heart 100% belongs to Emmie and Oliver. They are two of the cutest kids that I think have ever been written. Emmie is such a firecracker, and Oliver has such a sweet soul. I need 74 more books in this series, if only to read more about those two. I loved the chemistry between Skyler and West. I hated what Skyler had to go through to get to West, but I’m glad it wasn’t all just glossed over. We felt her pain as much as she did. The friendships between the characters were also fantastically well done. I loved seeing Rosie and Ford come back and interact with the story. Again, I have no bad things to say about this book other than I’m d...

 Something about this book altered my brain chemistry. It’s that good. I’m not really a big fan of billionaires in books but Ford is the exception to that. He is so grumpy, and I love how Cora and Rosie burst right through that and love him anyway. The banter in this book is top notch. I was cracking up at all of the emails sent back and forth between Ford and Rosie. I also really loved that Elsie Silver didn’t write yet another brother who was mad about his best friend falling for his sister. We love a supportive king.