Reviews and Comments

I am a broken woman.

This is a mad book.

It is not YA. Here is a hardcore trigger warning: War and Torture and gore.
This story, worldbuilding and magic system are way too complex at this point.

It shows how much Shannon has grown as an author.
The portrayal of diversity is spot on. I think Shannon also had to process Brexit in this book. At least i feel the underlying European tones.

I was not okay reading this. I did not expect the book to go that extrem dark (not after book three) yet here we are. I would actually call this grim dark. There is no plot convenience, no hope. it just crushes you. I am not sure how Shannon kept her mental health writing this.

I have a lot of questions now, and there will be again a major waiting time till book 5. But that is fine, because i am broken and I first need to get myself together again.
I also need time to reread the whole series because i think there are hidden easter eggs.

Awesome work!
(also high five for that genderneutral french)

This was so beautiful. I actually do not have the words to explain how beautiful it was. This is accomplished elegance, intelligence and beauty all in one book.

The symbols, the magic, the aesthetic. The deep thought in the set up and the hidden messages between the lines.

It's precious and I will cuddle this book for a very long time, sleep with it, eat with it and read and reread it. AND NEVER LET GO. And every time the world is a shitty place and other books sucks, I will just get this book out and hold on to it.

Did I mention the magic? The magic was the most beautiful magic I have ever read in a book. I want to put it on paper, but I can't because it's too beautiful to catch it on paper and my attempts will pale in comparison to it.

Fucking Prague
Rain
Books
Stars
And so so much more

I have no idea, how people can not like this book. Or be bored by it. It's like the greatest showman mixed with Moulin Rouge plus Magic (I am not sure which magic, because it was so beautiful magic, incomparable magic to be exact, maybe Neil Gaiman magic, but that also does not fit it 100%). You would need to be a very weird person not to like that.

The title gets funnier after you read the book.

I fucking loved this. This book is so meaningful to me. And my heart cheers in agreement. The layers of the story, the artistic worldbuilding and he deepness of the thoughts, and added with the message that goes along with it all? I feel so grateful.

Are there inconsistencies in the story? Yes.
Does it mess up at times? Yes.
Is the Christian undertone weird? Yes.
(Although, I do not find it so bad, because if you look at the characters and how it affects them, it's kind of okay. I think it is an interesting abstract way to reflect on your own religion if you are christian yourself, and if you are not christian, giving you a funny insight. Since it picks up the Christmas theme it makes also sense to have he focus on it.)

It's heavily quotable, something new and interesting and a great book to open discussions with. This is not everyons favourite. It has its crazy flaws, but for what it attempts to do, it does amazing. It has crazy stuff packed inside, with crazy consequences that have not been thought of a lot. And I appreciate to find new ideas and inspiration in it.

This is a 4.5
Fuuuuh, so many people will hate this book. It's definitely not for everyone, but I loved it.
"Loved" it. Let's put that in parenthesis.

This book feels unbelievable real. Same as Sadie, Summers has a way to paint a really brutal story and make it feel like it actually could have happened to someone. That is very scary and it is very overwhelming.
The book is so well researched. The Dialogues are exactly how this goes. My heart was breaking for the MC. Idk, I need bullet points, let me do bullet points to explain why this was amazing:

- Again the focus is on a sister relationship. And it was heartbreaking
- the Dialogues were well researched, the story well build and set up and it's exactly how these things works. It was a carefully crafted mirror to our reality.
- it was tragic, repulsive and yet full of tension and captivating
- It includes a bigger frame and system that readers can think about and take with them to reflect on
- fucking well fleshed out characters, yet it could also be your neighbour next door
- I love that fucking writing and storytelling. Took a little to get into, but then, hahaha ha haaaa
- it's an important topic no one talks or write about. It is often times even way way worse than what Summers describes. Kudos to her bravery to pick these topics up and give peoples suffering a home and attention.

It might be that I will still up this book to 5 stars, but I just got out of it and I am not sure how heavy my few criticism way.

- there are slight ploy discrepancies (that always drives me nuts) and here I could not ignore it, because it was part of the set up. It is "YA" (questionable my friends), so maybe it can be overlooked, however in the beginning there were a few things I expected the MC to realize and question and she flat out ignored it, and it did not really add up. I get that Summers needed to make the story work, but it still irks me
- the whole newspaper set up made me go grrr. Paul made not really sense in the story and the relationship there was icky. I think I get why it was there, but also, eeewww icky.

Do not read this book:
If you do not like tragic stories. Also here is the official trigger warning: abuse and sexual abuse! Also mental health issues are discussed.

This goes very high on my top favourite reads of 2020.

Ever since I discovered the bbc period drama, I planned to read it, knowing, what a precious find this was for a Jane Austen fan, I took a long time until I finally decided to read the book.
It was fantastic.

I love to describe it as 'Pride and Prejudice but with capitalism critic'
North and South was written before Marx came up with his theory of capitalism and Glaskell describes the structures of capitalism that lead to social inequality and lots of very sad broken biographies.
BUT it is discussed without judgement and prejudices, since it happened before Marx. So all you get is the dry consequences.
So you have a first hand witness account, about the industrialization, that describes all underlying triggers of capitalism that lead to social injustice we have still today. You can even find the same repetitive lies spread by neoliberalism in North and South. And they are as much false as they have been 150 years ago.

Not only that, the liberation of Margaret as a female character was everything for my feminist heart. I loved every minute of it. I have seldomly seen such a proud, active and strong female character. Balm for my soul.

The prose was beautiful. The christian philosophy inspirational at times (even though sometimes hard to follow and understand). The characters lovely build.
i was a littel bit disspointed with the abrupt ending, but it was not the point anyway. So who cares.

I took so much comfort from this book. It's going to be on my favourites list.

The good things about this book:

1. It got my friend into reading again.
2. It had a correctly portrayed asexual character
3. The basic idea was quite good.

I have no energy to write down all the things i hated about this book. But here are some bullet points:
- the black and white thinking, i.e. between teenagers against adults
- the complete lack of plot
- the complete lack of sense
- the complete lack of world building and logic
- the complete wrong message at the end of the book
- and the worst, the horrible pretentiousness of every sentence said in this whole book


Also no, my freedom stops when someone else has to restrict their freedom. If the only answer to diverse people living peacefully together is, that each and everyone needs their own world to be happy, then I do not want to have anything to do with that idea of "diversity". My answer to diversity is that everyone, whoever they are, is accepted and will be treasured, the way they are. And there will be conflict and there will be differences, but that means everyone steps back to make more room for everyone else. Working torwards a common goal. Not by preaching, not by force but by consent and understanding and a bond to each other.

Dissapointing.

I got this in the fairyloot for october and I really wanted to love this. It's the most beautiful book fairyloot ever produced.

I ignored everything to give it a chance. I ignored that this was basically a 21st century setting acting like it got something to do with 1880. I ignored that a girl was just running around in a monastery without any issues. That the book basically displayed an italian american restaurant, that fitted much more into New York than it got anything to do with Sicily. I ignored that Catholicism was completely ignored. I tried my hardest not to question and just roll with it.

Even when I figured out, after I started that the book was written by the Jack the Ripper author, which I just DNFed a day before to start this book, I tried to focus on the positive. Aesthetic, witches demons.
Till the 50% mark I even wanted to give it 4 stars, because I saw much improvement compared with the jack the ripper book.

But then, at 50% it fell completely apart.

There is this game, where you get 5 words and you have to build a story with using these 5 words. It doesn't matter if it makes sense, the stories you come up with in this exercise don't have to make sense. It is just used to get some creativity out of you.

This book felt like one such story.

You have this prologue going that raises all these crazy expectations where this will go. And then the story builds up and it introduces all these leads and the magic ideas. And you are like going with it, wanting to figure out what the murders are about and you turn page after page that at some point there might be coherence; that you get this feeling, ahhh now it will all fall into place. But guess what. It won't.

It's all exactly as you thought it would be after the first 20 pages. Lots of plots were completely unnecessary. The whole magic is a mess and follows no logic. Basically nothing follows any logic. It starts even to contradict itself. At points I even completely lost what the intention of the character was. It's all this big sham of nothing.

Also please Maniscalco, please stop writing first person POV. It sucks. Just stop.

And, next time, read Italian authors. Going on Google Maps and looking up a map of Palermo is not research. I mean, there were no descriptions of anything. No art, no culture. The point was to stay as vague as possible to have no issues. But that's not how you write books. People have cultures. Italians are very conservative, patriarchy and catholic. They do NOT let their daughters out at night to do whatever they want. Especially NOT in southern italy. Especially NOT im 1880.
Also, there are two festivals. TWO. Every european city has at least one festival. That doesn't make anything special.

But whatever, it's only "young adult", why would you have the "need" to "research", right.

DNF at 15%
People, you must have all lost it, otherwise I cannot understand what happened here

If I read one more line like "I am not like other girls, but it's totally fine to like feminine dresses" I will vomit over my poor kindle.
Jane Austen would turn in her grave reading this. She would probably take it and rewrite it into a sarcastic comedy.

What character depth are you talking about?
The "I am so fucking smart, I know things much better than anyone else, but fuck up every 5 seconds and my uncle, brother and love interest need to save and tell me off"
The arrogance? The sad basic sob story? What humility are you talking about when she talks down all other girls at every corner. Do you girls talk about your friends that way? Or is it that 21st century girl that was put into a YA historical fiction but could also be in every fucking Netflix TV series. But maybe, it's this badass "feminist" in her, that is okay with being insulted every five minutes by the good looking and sexy love interest. Because that's what girls do, they just fall for guys who disrespect woman in the most sexist and offensives way.

The science? Bullshit. Science is evidence based. There is no evidence for anything here. Apparently the author doesn't know how science works. You have to proof things. You can't just be "oh the murder must try to do organ transplants" and then change 180 degree and go "no, the murder wants revenge on woman, so he is a priest"
Has this book corrupted your ability to logic? These are no logic conclusions. Dear Audrey Rose, meets Thomas and concludes that because he is out at night, he might be the murder himself.

This book is disrespectful to the victims that died 150 years ago, it is disrespectful to british culture and history, it is disrespectful to woman, to medicine and science and it is a shame to Indian culture and heritage and colonialization.

Maybe you liked it, because it's such a great comedy on how a YA Book is written.

I don't get why Blood Heir did get ripped apart by book Twitter because of ONE misunderstood sentence, but this book gets hyped like this.