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And yet, the new characters now feel like old friends. I adore Mor, Cassian, Azriel, and Amren. I could go on and on and on about them for days. I need them to forever exist and be family and friends. I need them to love and grow and be pure and unrefined in all their glory.

Oh, and the King of Hybern can fall off a cliff and take Tamlin with him. Screw you both. And if Lucien doesn't start shaping up, I'm sending him with them.

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It was like I had been looking through a window that had been dirty for so long that I didn't realize there was something better on the other side, and when it was finally clear, there was no way to ignore the beauty outside. Those previously beloved characters became hideous and unrecognizable as their faults and own selfish wants became apparent.

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The way both of them [Feyre and Rhys] changed and grew separately and together felt natural and honest, not contrived and forced. I lived for those moments between them.

I grew to hate characters that I adored from the first book, and that is powerful and important. It takes a lot for me to change my mind about a character once I've built a connection there and damn did this book get to me.

(Part 1) I cannot even begin to explain how much I love this book, but I'll try. And this is going to take a while so bear with me.

I am so unbelievably impressed with the author's portrayal of Feyre and Rhysand's PTSD and depression. It was real. I truly felt their struggles and believed in the pain and anger and hurt and frustrations and guilt they both went through. I felt it ease as they both slowly learned to let go of what was haunting them

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He has a court and a land and a group of people to provide for, and he is willing to do the unbearable for them. What he does may be cruel and mean, but I have to hope there is a greater purpose, and it is not just for his own selfish will. I'm looking forward to the second book for sure.

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I have always said that if a book makes me feel some emotion that strongly, then it's a good book for that reason alone.

Other thoughts: Lucien stayed snarky throughout, and I adore him for never wavering and holding true to his oaths even when it meant his life was on the line. I admire him for remaining true to his self and for being honest. And. As much as I still hate Rhysand, I cannot entirely blame him for his actions.

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And then things started to change. Feyre started to change and grow as a character, and I could tell that a real relationship was forming between Tamlin and Feyre. I could feel her hatred slowly melting away, and his true nature started to show. And when my heart shattered halfway through this book, I knew I was hooked. I was in. I raged over this book, I cried, and I laughed.

This review will be a few posts, cause I have a lot to say and won't condense it. So Part 1:

I will openly admit that when I started this book, it was very hard for me to get interested in and to stay focused on reading. I couldn't relate to Feyre (still not pleased with whoever's bright idea it was to name her that), I found Tamlin too bland, Alis too cold, and I only liked Lucien.

The story line is great, the characters are lovable, and the humor is so well done. This series is also family friendly and appropriate for all ages. This is definitely a series that I can see myself sharing with my son when he's a little older. I remember reading this as a younger teen and loving it. As a young adult, I still love it, and some of this humor made more sense now.

Kendra developed so naturally, slowly allowing herself to trust those around her and let them in and to show her true emotions. The Duke was a perfect balance of eccentricity and authority. The badassery of Lady Rebecca cannot be compared. I only really struggled with Alec's development because I felt that he switched a little too quickly in the last portion of the book in regards to his attitude and feelings toward Kendra.

I loved Fiona and the eccentricity of Captain Widdershins. I loved the twists and the betrayals and the reveal at the end. There is always a theme of loyalty to family and morality vs corruption, but the two intertwined in this book in such a poignant way. What lines are you willing to cross for family? When does someone become corrupt? And over and over again, the distinction that we are not corrupt OR moral, but a combination of the two.

This book pulled at my heart strings until they were so tight that I thought one more page would break them with the weight of a single word. The characters and emotions were so raw it made me cringe when they faced their trials. The realism mixed with the magic of Fabiola's Vodou made the characters dynamic and alive. I highly recommend this book, especially in audiobook form. The narrator is amazing, and it really brings the story to life.

This novel introduced the Baudelaire children to new characters who shape their lives, their decisions, and their moral values. Each child is presented at an important point a choice that could determine not only how they will face the obstacle, but also the kind of lives they want to live. Will they be corrupt? Will they remain innocent? They come into many morally gray areas and I feel that it's something that needs to be addressed in ya novels.

The children decide to take on Count Olaf by using his own tricks against him. They wear ridiculous disguises and come up with preposterous background stories and hide right under his nose for the majority of the novel. They hide and lie and scheme. They reach out, they encourage, and for the first time, they feel real hope for their future, even when it looks like everything and everyone is against them.

I fell in love the characters. They felt real and raw and I can easily see this story happening in any town. I loved having a book filled with black characters and hardly any white ones. It definitely opened my eyes to the struggles of black girls and teen pregnancy in a way I'd never thought about before. The characters stick with you and make you feel things on a deeper level and those are my favorite kinds of books.

This is the first real time the children are forced to do something that isn't quite right. They lie, they disguise themselves, they decieve. We watch them struggle with these moral dilemmas as they unfold. They ask themselves if it's justifiable to do something wrong if it will save their lives, or are they becomihg something corrupt, and this is just the beginning. The mold of the storylines is changing, and I'm enjoying the new twists.

This is my second least favorite book. Mainly because I have so many questions and am annoyed by the complete lack of progress made in the story arc in this book. How does Olaf find them so quickly? Where is he getting his information from? Who is keeping him informed? Why does no one listen to the children when they tell them who Olaf really is?! What are the Baudelaire parents' names??

For me, this book felt like filler. It's a transistion between the orphans just trying to get away from Olaf arc and the introduction into the search for the Quagmire triplets and the answers they hold. It felt really slow at points and at times it was easy to tune out and barely follow along. As for the guardians, Esmé irks me and Jerome disappoints me. I don't even understand how they are a couple.

He talked about his childhood, his younger days starting his business, and the good he tried to do for the young country, not the war or his experiments with electricity. He didn't write about anything that would be considered boastful. Yes, there's a part of me that is disappointed that he didn't discuss those things, but I'm also pleased with what he did share and feel like I have a better insight into his character.

This book in particular gave me a love-hate relationship with Aunt Josephine. I loved her for trying to outsmart Olaf and for her coded message in plain sight, but I hated her for her cowardice and lack of conviction for what is right. I regret her demise, but I also don't at the same time.

So far, this book is my last favorite of the series. Count Olaf barely appears in this book, and I think that was the point. It forces the reader to focus more on the situation the children are in and to realize that not all guardians make suitable parents or want to take care of children or even know how. I hated their guardian in this book more than Olaf.

If we laid all our lives toes to heel, we were born before the Depression, the Civil War, even America itself. In all that living, we have known men. Oh girl, we have known littlebit love. That littlebit of honey left in an empty jar that traps the sweetness in your mouth long enough to mask your hunger. We have run tongues over teeth to savor that last littlebit as long as we could, and in all our living, nothing has starved us more.

Personally I think the second book is better than the first. We get introduced more to Count Olaf's depravity and the extreme depths he'll go to to get his hands on the fortune. Plus, when I first read this book when I was younger, Uncle Monty was my favorite of all the children's relatives.

"Being called peculiar ... is the least of my worries."

"I'm afraid I have some very bad news for you children." I've started this book as my letter B for #litsyatoz and it's also my choice for the @bookriot #readharderchallenge for task 9: read a book you've read before. I also just love the artwork Brett Helquist created for this entire series.

We have an English proverb that says, "He that would thrive, must ask his wife." (Smart man old Benjamin)

81 pages in, and Kendra has just landed herself back in time. The description of her passing through time was very interesting. We always imagine that it would be smooth, quick, and ultimately painless, but this paints quite the different picture.... Also, I'm suspicious of Alec. But is because I really am or because the author wants me to be? #sideread

I'm starting my #litsyatoz with this book. Reading nonfiction is definitely not my thing, and I hardly ever pick up autobiographies. But I have a great app called Serial Reader that sends bite-sized, easily digestible bits of older works every day to your phone or tablet, and I just can't pass up such an easy and managable way to read classics and lesser known works from the past. Check out the app, and start this book. It's actually awesome!

"Normal was something she‘d never had, never been. Didn‘t know how to be. And because she didn‘t know how to be normal, she chose to be good—very, very good."

So, I started reading this last summer as part of a library book club program, but life and a rambunctious 4 year old distracted me. My online loan timed out, and it was so popular I couldn't get my hands on it again. I'm finally picking it back up, and I'm ready to dive back in. I forgot how enticing that prologue is.

I've paused reading this book because I'm almost at the end, but I don't want to finish it yet because I love it so much. This book has made me laugh, cry, gasp, reflect, and feel such raw emotion that I haven't felt with a book in quite a while. This book is my new go-to suggestion.

Whilst I understand that this is a classic novel, I couldn't help but be bored with it. It's just that nothing really exciting happened. Sure there were one or two events that I perked up at, but for being shipwrecked on an island it just seemed waaaaaay too easy for them to survive and prosper. It was to hard to suspend disbelief for the entirety of the novel when nothing that bad happened to any of the main characters. And then it just ends.