Hey fam! So, since I totally haven’t been able to keep up with my reviews while I was sick, and honestly it’s been too long for me to really write a full length review for all of these books, I’m going to just do some mini reviews for these latest books that I read. At least I’ll be able to share with you some of my thoughts on them! If you would like to hear a full review on them, let me know and maybe I’ll do a video review instead. It will give me a chance to rest my wrists and all that.
So this one was a reread for me actually, and I never actually wrote down my thoughts the first time I read it, but it’s okay. I pretty much felt similar thoughts to my first read, which works out in my favor because I wasn’t rereading it like “oh wow I feel stupid” or anything like that. I will say that I totally forgot about how sassy and blunt America is to Prince Maxon and I couldn’t help but crack up every single time she would say something to him and he’s like “oh damn, okay.”
I also noticed that I never had a rating before, but I think I’d like to comfortably be in the middle. It wasn’t like super amazing, but honestly I don’t knock down books for not being AMAZING or whatever that means. I liked the storyline, I liked the characters for the most part, and I think that even when I was reading it the first time, I was very intrigued to see if somehow America would end up feeling a certain type of way for Maxon. I loved their friendship, and that Maxon didn’t hold over his position over her like “If you don’t tell me good things, I’m going to kick you out of The Selection” or some bullcrap like that, you know how it is.
And I totally get being in something just for the food. If your family is freaking starving and you can have the chance to give them money so they don’t have to worry about it for a little bit, heck yeah I would join the Selection. Hopefully I could last long enough in it though, honestly. Knowing my mouth, hopefully I could have the same arrangement as America so I can just be myself, not worry about competing with any of the other girls, and enjoy the palace food.
This series is still super confusing for me, but it’s still very interesting. I think this one was better than the first one, but I’m still sad about the characters that I don’t get to see from the first one. It’s kind of sad when characters that you like end up dying super early *ahem I’m looking at you NED STARK*
But anyway, that freaking cliff hanger of an ending really freaked me out, and man I’m worried about what’s going to happen. It’s so freaking interesting though, and I personally like the artwork. Other than that, I still need to read more of it to fully understand what’s going on, but I guess that’s okay. It’s not taking away from my enjoyment of the series though, so that works!
Okay I can see why Henning wanted to make a sequel for this book, but it ended so perfectly for me that I wouldn’t have even minded if it was a standalone. Evie was my favorite character, and just wow. I had a lot of feelings about this one because of how prejudice people can be. Like, really? Even to a little girl whose mother died when she was younger? Thinking she’s trying to climb the social hierarchy because she just so happens to be friends with the Crown Prince? People, man.
I personally didn’t really like the back and forth with the narration. It felt like it made more sense to tell the story from Evie’s present point of view, but I understood why the author needed to kind of weave in those other parts. I liked being able to see a little bit into the past, although I would have loved to read more about the mermaids while they were under the sea, you know? But I guess that could be a totally different book. This wasn’t a bad “retelling” of the sea witch’s origin story, and while I definitely wouldn’t consider Evie to be anything like Ursula except for her physical appearance – with the octopus body I mean – I think this origin story was an enjoyable one.
Ahh… this little book.
No, it wasn’t little but man did it take me a while to get into it. Nothing wrong with the plot at all. In fact, I was very impressed with how Turton was able to make me feel like I was living the same day over and over with Aiden. Personally, I still don’t know who Aiden really is, and I don’t think he does either. If that even is his real name? Maybe he should have just been a mystery to all of us, because the way that the personalities of his hosts would basically take over his own made it like he really didn’t have a good grasp of what was really him or not. It was very interesting to see, and I personally liked that twist to the story. Rather than living the same day over and over as one person, Aiden was able to live the same day, but as different people throughout Blackheath. I think that’s what made me like it, even though a lot of the hosts were jerks. That’s beside the point anyway.
I feel like I sat on this review too long though, so I don’t really feel any sort of way towards Evelyn, and while I thought it was admirable for Aiden to want to try to save Evelyn from being murdered each time, to me I felt like he was wasting his time trying to save her. She didn’t seem like someone worth saving, if that made sense. But then I guess that could be the logical side of me that saw how Evelyn treated everyone but Aiden’s first host (I forget his name right now), and maybe Evelyn had an ulterior motive for being nice to that one. Not like she knew that he was the same person in different bodies or anything, but still.
It was still a very interesting book, and I’m so curious to know what ended up happening after the end. Books that make me think about that long after I’ve closed it for the last time are ones that I like to talk about every once in a while.
And there we have it! Thanks so much for joining me, friends! I can’t wait to see what you think about these books, and my mini-reviews. Were they even really mini? I think so~
Sometimes Leelynn Reads 