Reviews and Comments

I read this for a book club -- we're reading all the Hugo finalists -- and I'm not sure I would have started it otherwise, but I'm glad I did. It was a small, surprisingly sweet story given the slightly horror-tinged nature of its setting and plot, and I really enjoyed it. The slight displacement of the setting -- moving it into the Yucatán peninsula instead of an island -- made for some very plausible stakes.

Ooooohhh.. this one was shiver-worthy

I liked this one a lot; the twist wasn't that surprising, but I appreciated how the narration played into the overall story. It was also fun to see some other stories make their way into the narrative, even if obliquely.

This series was so damn grim; it felt hopeless and doomed, every step of the way. I'm glad I read it though.

This was a surprisingly touching story about escaping the fairy tale ending and really living happily ever after.

I read this novella as part of a book club oriented around reading all the Hugo finalists for 2023. I have mixed thoughts on it; there were definitely some narrative shortcuts the author took, but by and large I enjoyed it.

I don’t think I had been prepared for just how depressing the story would be. It’s remarkably good, but at times it just makes me want to weep.

Decent, and an interesting plot, but a bit too YA-ey for my current mood.

Having read the Kindle sample, this caught my interest enough to start. I'm about 1/5 into it right now and other than some pacing issues -- there's one event so far where it feels entirely underwritten for what happened -- it's got my attention.

By the time I reached the end of this I was invested in the characters but still a bit confused. I liked it but I'm not sure I got out of it what Ada was putting into it.

I enjoyed this one quite a bit more, in part because the unreliable narrator became more obvious. Looking forward to book 4.

Compared to the first book, this one was a lot easier to get into and stick with. I think that by the time I got here, I had a sense of the world, and the characters, a bit better.

The book does suffer, a bit, from a case of the "I've got lots of names for the same person" issue, which always causes friction for me when I'm trying to get into a novel, but by the time I hit book 2 I'd gotten used to most of them.

I'll be honest... this one didn't really work for me. The worldbuilding never quite held together for me, and I never really cared for the characters either. A few months later and I remember basically nothing about it.

I finished it at last, third try, and ... well, I just bought book 2, so clearly it grabbed me. The ending certainly sets up a conspiratorial tint to the second book and I'm looking forward to seeing where that goes.

I've bounced off this book twice now... I'm hoping third time's the charm, because the concept seems excellent.