Skip to main content

Click "Archive" or "Labels" in the sidebar to browse reviews, or use the search bar to look for a specific title.


Review: Reign

Reign Reign by Chanda Hahn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This review looks really big but it’s mostly small paragraphs and quotes so don’t be scared! LOVEME

It felt weird and exciting to be finally reading a new book in this series. As you (of course) know, I read the first three books in the Unenchanted/Unfortunate Fairy Tale series a few years back, and now I’ve been re-reading the series to finish it up. This fourth book was all new territory.

It started out kindaaaa… Slowww…ish? It was like the last book in that it was basically a contemporary novel with what was going on. Brody’s noggin has been messed with so many times that he’s crazy enough to think he actually likes Mina, and he invites her to a ball. And we all know the thing about balls

Balls were full of fairy tale possibility.


Heheheheh. Nice.

So the beginning of the book is just kinda about that and what ensues. A cool thing was that I actually learned something at this part. I present: Chanda Hahn’s Guild to the Waltz:
“ Right foot forward, to the side, and feet together.” Her partner continued to give her tips. “Now left foot back, move to the side, feet together. Imagine an invisible box and your feet can only move along the outline of this box. Do you see it? Now listen to the orchestra. Do you hear it? Can you feel it?”
I feel like this is some good information to know.

Since Nix and Brody are both on the water polo team they’re buddies, and I liked this dynamic. It made it so whenever Brody was around, Nix was too.

Nix flung his arm out toward the classroom they’d just left and almost clotheslined a poor unsuspecting student.


I love Nix. He’s kind of the opposite of Jared. He’s really nice. SPEAKING OF—

WHERE THE HELL WAS MY JARED!??!?! The reason I stopped reading this series all those years ago was because I didn’t want to read this if there wasn’t going to be any Jared in it. Well, uh, I was right in my assumption. There are definitely mentions of him, but he’s never actually in it. Just… Teague.

It wasn’t fear that caused the single tear to cascade down her cheek, but sadness—at the loss of Jared. Looking into Jared’s face and seeing someone else’s hate-filled gaze was almost her undoing.
I feel you, sister.

Teague was a butt. I mean, he’s always been an asshole, but in this book he goes next level asshole. He was never really that bad in past books, just an inconvenience really. In this book he’s really evil. He actually physically attacks and harms Mina, and for once you really believe him when he threatens her loved ones.

This wasn’t a case of Jekyll and Hyde. This was Hyde on steroids.


But Teague wasn’t the only bad-bitch fairy in town. Nah blood, that title belongs to Ever. I feel like it was kind of irrational how much I hated her my first time through this series. The reasons were because she was mean and because she was a love rival in regards to Jared. I was basically Juvia from Fairy Tail.
description
I love Ever now. She’s usually pretty cool and funny. She’s not even that mean anymore.

Mina looked to Ever, and the girl shrugged her shoulders before answering. “You kinda stink.”


There were a lot of points like this in the book that amused me. I’ve scattered a lot of the quotes that made me chuckle throughout this review. But you know what didn’t make me chuckle?!??! The fact that Mina is actually pretty smart.

It’s kinda weird, you know? Having a heroine that isn’t a complete dumb-ass. It was nice, and Mina would figure things out before I would which usually doesn’t happen. Usually the author fills the book up with a million clues so by the time the character figures it out the reader already knew for half the book. I feel like it kept things moving.

While Mina was busy getting shit done, I was busy making false accusations. There were a couple parts where it felt like Hahn was hinting at something that was going to happen and I was like “OMG NOOOO OMG THIS IS TOTALLY GOING TO HAPPEN I KNOW IT 100%” But then… it didn’t happen. And it was awesome. This is also something that I like a lot about Gravity Falls. The episode starts and you’re like, “Oh, it’s going to be THAT kind of episode…” BUT THEN IT’S NOT AND IT’S AWESOME. I ALREADY SAID THAT BUT IT’S OKAY. WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE. (view spoiler)

Unlike the last book (which only got fantastical towards the end of the book), Reign got busy quick and a lot went down. So much was going down that I actually thought to myself, “Everything’s happening! Nothing’s going to be left for the last book!” We find out a lot of much needed backstory which was awesome, and it wasn’t like just info dumps either. It was really unique with what went down, and heart breaking.

Can’t wait to read the last book, but at the same time I don’t want the story to end. I love these characters and have loved them for a long time.

SPEEEEEEEEEEAKING OF LOOOOOVE.
Here’s this fun thing I found, I’ll play for shits and giggles. My answer is below.

description

Kill: Brody, I don’t even have to contemplate that one. Well, except for the guy in the picture is the actor who played John Smith in the I Am Number Four movie, which did give me slight pause because Four is bae. Well, Nine and Adam are bae, but whatever.
Kiss: Jared. Although I love him, he’s not really for mee. He’s for Mina.
Marry: Nix!! That cutie patootie will be mine forevaarr!

Feel free to comment your answer below if you want! :)

Click these links to go read my other reviews for the Unenchanted Fairytale series!
Book 1: Unenchanted
Book 2: Fairest
Book 3: Fable
Book 4: Reign <--You are here.
Book 1.5: Jared’s Quest
Book 5: Forever

View all my reviews

Comments

Popular Posts

Review: 寄宿学校のジュリエット(3)

寄宿学校のジュリエット(3) by 金田陽介 My rating: 5 of 5 stars Brb, crying. Not actually, though. Like, I didn’t shed any actual tears or even get close to it, it’s just that this series… is so good . The romance between Romeo and Juliet is still weirdly innocent, but the actual story is so engrossing and entertaining. It also seems like almost literally every single character is complex and interesting and multi-layered. (Only the background characters like Maru’s lackeys are undeveloped, but honestly they really don’t need any development anyway.) The relationships between characters keep getting more and more complex, and the situations that the characters have to deal with are also super juicy. This is such an addicting series. My initial problem with Romeo and Juliet’s relationship was that it seemed pretty unhealthy and one-sided to me. Later, I found it very weird how sexually immature they both are, and how un-intimate their relationship is. What is interest...

Review: Lulu Is a Rhinoceros

Lulu Is a Rhinoceros by Jason Flom My rating: 3 of 5 stars The second I saw the cover of this book and read the synopsis I immediately thought that this was going to be a book that uses animals to create an allegory about transsexuality, as another installment in the growing genre of kid’s LGBTQA+ books. The whole "that's what she sees when she looks in the mirror" business felt really on the nose, and I feel like the authors purposefully used this wording in order to generate buzz around this book. In actuality, this felt like any other normal kids book. You have a character who feels misunderstood by their peers, and so they go on a "journey" to find and/or prove themselves and eventually end up finding peace with who they are and/or a group who accepts them. To me, the story was told in a way that presented Lulu like any other silly character in a children's book that had a silly problem stemming from their silly misco...

Review: モブサイコ100 2

モブサイコ100 2 by ONE My rating: 4 of 5 stars [Source] The end of the first volume very briefly introduced the best character Teruki Hanazawa, and the entirety of this second volume is comprised of the conflict that arises between him, Mob, the punks, and the Body Improvement Club. These episodes were super hype in the anime, and it’s just as hype here in its original manga form. ONE is absolutely fantastic at drawing fights and portraying movement to the point where he puts lots of trained and seasoned manga artists to shame. The art is actually really good: The hatching, the backgrounds, the use of perspective, the layout of the panels, the movement, the emotion, the faces, everything is actually SO well done. ONE’s art style just has this shitty kind of sheen that obscures all of that which is what gives the impression that the art isn’t good (when it actually is). The only complaint I have is that it felt like the, ahem, “power struggle” (I’m tryin...