One Of The Funniest Books I’ve Read | The Husky And His White Cat Shizun (volume one) by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou

Cruel tyrant Taxian-jun killed his way to the throne and now reigns as the first ever emperor of the mortal realm. Yet somehow, he is unsatisfied. Left cold and bereft, abandoned by all he held dear, he takes his own life… only to be reborn anew.

Awakening in the body of his younger self–Mo Ran, a disciple of the cultivation sect Sisheng Peak–he discovers the chance to relive his life. This time, he vows to attain the gratification that once eluded him: all who defied him will fall, and never again will they treat him like a dog. His greatest fury is reserved for Chu Wanning, the coldly beautiful and aloofly catlike cultivation teacher who betrayed and thwarted Mo Ran time and again in their last life.

Yet as Mo Ran shamelessly pursues his own goals in this life he thought lost, he begins to wonder if there might be more to his teacher–and his own feelings–than he ever realized.

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Back in high school (a whole ten years ago!! I’m old.), a friend and classmate introduced me to xianxia novels. I read her first recommendation–translated into English by fans online and eventually published officially as Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation–and immediately fell in love with the genre, eventually branching out into other stories by similar authors.

All this is to say that The Husky And His White Cat Shizun has been on my list of novels I’ve wanted to read for a while, and I was excited to finally get into it.

Like most other xianxia novels I’ve read, The Husky And His White Cat Shizun has a very funny writing style and interesting main characters that really drew me into wanting to learn more about this world. We follow Mo Ran, who once was emperor of the entire world, as he suddenly finds himself in his teenage body, starting his life over again. While he knows generally what is going on and decides to use this advantage to make his life better than it once was, he is soon surprised to find that everything is not as it seems and even the smallest changes can have a big impact on his own story.

While I enjoyed this author’s writing style and getting to know the characters themselves, I also felt like this first volume didn’t have too much going on plot-wise. I found myself a bit bored by reading this, and it took me a lot longer than I thought it would to get through this story!

Still, I know that novels such as this tend to have slower openings, as we have to cram a lot of information into the beginning in order to set up the story, and I am interested in seeing where The Husky And His White Cat Shizun goes. Hopefully, I have a lot more fun in volume two than I did in volume one!

My Favorite Quotes From The Husky And His White Cat Shizun

A lot of the xianxia novels I’ve read in the past have some wild quotes, and I expected The Husky And His White Cat Shizun to have more of the same! Here’s a collection of some of my favorite lines!

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The first year was called Ji Ba Yuan Nian, the First Year of Cease Battle–but why did it have to sound like the Year of Cock and Balls?

There was no one else in the room. Thus, after much consideration, the once cruel ruler of the cultivation world, the Despot of Sichuan, Emperor of the Mortal Realm, and Lord of Sisheng Peak, Taxian-jun, Mo Ran himself, expressed his honest thoughts: “Fuck…”

At this, the sleeping Rong Jiu was “fuck”-ed awake.

Fuck all eighteen generations of your ancestors!

Chu Wanning was unaware that his beast of a disciple was going to fuck all eighteen generations of his ancestors.

The more out-of-the way areas had particularly forthright names like This is a Mountain, This is Water, and This is a Hole, as well as the famed Aaaaah and Waaaah Cliffs.

Do you not have eyes?

When he took another look at the ghost attendant’s blank face, he restrained himself. It did not, in fact, have any fucking eyes.

The Yuheng Elder was indeed boss as fuck.

“Shizun, don’t be mad anymore.”

“Which of your eyeballs saw me being mad?” Chu Wanning shot back angrily.

“Aiya, the little gongzi sure is bold. Truly young and courageous, to dare grope even the Yuheng Elder’s ass.”

“Could you please not say it so nauseatingly?” the Qisha Elder said with disdain.

The Lucun Elder gracefully rolled his eyes, humming. “Hm, I’ll say it in a more refined manner, then: truly young and courageous, to dare grope even the Yuheng Elder’s derrière.”

“Get the hell out,” said Chu Wanning.

Mo Ran got the hell in.

And so, on the first day of the Yuheng Elder’s period of confinement, all three of his disciples got the runs from food poisoning.

Neither of them brought up that night. But sometimes, when their eyes met, Mo Ran’s gaze seemed to linger on Chu Wanning a bit longer before they habitually chased after Shi Mei.

And what of Chu Wanning? As soon as his gaze met Mo Ran’s, he would immediately turn coldly away. But when he thought Mo Ran wasn’t looking, he would, as if entirely by accident, steal a second glance.

How deep must an obsession run, for another person to be enmeshed so inextricably in one’s own soul?

That awe-inspiring primal god was actually hundreds of cows?

Am I allowed to say “motherfucker”?

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Have you been enjoying these quotes and want more of this chaotic book? Check out The Husky And His White Cat Shizun by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou!

Cruel tyrant Taxian-jun killed his way to the throne and now reigns as the first ever emperor of the mortal realm. Yet somehow, he is unsatisfied. Left cold and bereft, abandoned by all he held dear, he takes his own life…only to be reborn anew.

Awakening in the body of his younger self–Mo Ran, a disciple of the cultivation sect Sisheng Peak–he discovers the chance to relive his life. This time, he vows to attain the gratification that once eluded him: all who defied him will fall, and never again will they treat him like a dog. His greatest fury is reserved for Chu Wanning, the coldly beautiful and aloofly catlike cultivation teacher who betrayed and thwarted Mo Ran time and again in their last life.

Yet as Mo Ran shamelessly pursues his own goals in this life he thought lost, he begins to wonder if there might be more to his teacher–and his own feelings–than he ever realized.

Otherworldly by F.T. Lukens review

Seventeen-year-old Ellery is a non-believer in a region where people swear the supernatural is real. Sure, they’ve been stuck in a five-year winter, but there’s got to be a scientific explanation. If goddesses were real, they wouldn’t abandon their charges like this, leaving farmers like Ellery’s family to scrape by.

Knox is a familiar from the Other World, a magical assistant sent to help humans who have made crossroads bargains. But it’s been years since he heard from his queen, and Knox is getting nervous about what he might find once he returns home. When the crossroads demons come to collect Knox, he panics and runs. A chance encounter down an alley finds Ellery coming to Knox’s rescue, successfully fending off his would-be abductors.

Ellery can’t quite believe what they’ve seen. And they definitely don’t believe the nonsense this unnervingly attractive guy spews about his paranormal origins. But Knox needs to make a deal with a human who can tether him to this realm, and Ellery needs to figure out how to stop this winter to help their family. Once their bargain is struck, there’s no backing out, and the growing connection between the two might just change everything.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

With this being my fourth F.T. Lukens book, its not a surprise to say that I enjoyed Otherworldly. But I was actually really surprised, upon the introduction of Knox–one of our main characters–with how much I immediately liked this book!

Otherworldly opens with Arabelle, a woman who wants to be immortal, leaving an offering at a crossroads for a goddess. When the goddess’ shades–minions, basically–comes to listen to her bargain, they gift her Knox, a magic familiar who can help her learn the secret to living forever.

With neither of our main characters being named Arabelle, I was actually a bit confused by this opening. I was expecting to read a story about Knox and Ellery, so who was this Arabelle? Why was she important to the plot?

Turns out, her story is the perfect place to start Knox and Ellery’s own adventure.

Immediately after this opening, I was left with a mystery that needed to be solved. As his goddess’ creation, Knox had access to his goddess through letters during his stay with Arabelle. But his goddess hadn’t responded to his letters in a while, and he became increasingly worried something was wrong.

So, in the first chance he got, he ran.

He soon runs into–literally–Ellery, our other main character. Ellery is the child of farmers, but a five year long winter has left their farm struggling. In order to help try and save the farm, Ellery moves to the city to get a job, but wishes they could figure out a way to stop winter for good.

Thus, a bargain: Knox will help Ellery stop the winter if Ellery helps Knox experience humanity.

I was really wowed by the setup for Otherworldly and how involved it was. It was obvious that there was a lot of thought put into this world and how the conflict would go, even from the beginning pages of this book, and I was excited to absolutely love this story!

Unfortunately, it did have its downsides.

I found this book to be a bit immature, and I wanted to get into the characters’ heads a bit more as they discussed the plot and how to survive the conflict. Maybe its part of growing up, but YA just hasn’t been hitting the way it should for me recently. While I’ve been loving the idea of YA books, I ultimately keep finding the characters a bit hard to relate to and their thought processes childish. For example, Ellery’s crush on Knox throughout this book felt very school-age and self-conscious, with jealousy and questions of “does he like me???” that had me rolling my eyes at times.

Inversely, while I could understand the reason why these characters took some of the actions they did, I felt as though there could have been more description into their thoughts than this book actually had. There was a bit of reading between the lines to follow their thought processes, while I would have preferred everything to be laid out within the pages of the book, even if it would end up veering into being over-explained instead.

While I still love F.T. Lukens’ writing and the worlds they create throughout these stories, it was obvious as I read Otherworldly that this was not going to be the five star book I had hoped it would be. I really loved the idea of the characters and this world, but the writing style (and possibly age rating, though that’s more my fault than the book’s fault) had me wishing this book was bigger than it was.

Midnight Mayhem (Clover Pack #3) by Savannah Lee review

Friends. Family. Mate.

After living most of my life on the run, I’ve finally found a place I belong. A place to call home, with a mate bond I never expected to have. I’d love nothing more than to enjoy it.

But Queen Tantaii won’t rest until she gets what she wants, the ancient ring that will give her the power to destroy the mortal realm, and everyone in it.

And I have it.

I know she’s lurking, biding her time in the shadows for the perfect moment to strike. She’s the mother from hell, and she knows exactly where to strike to hurt me the most.

But her plan won’t work.

I’m done running. I’m done hiding.

I’ll take the fight to her, and end this. Once and for all.

Midnight Mayhem gets released May 1st, 2024!

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

One of the first notes I wrote down while reading this book is “if RowanXCallan has 100 fans, I’m one of them. If RowanXCallan has no fans, I’m dead”, and I feel like that’s a pretty good description of my feelings for this series in general.

I really enjoyed the characters in this series and watching them grow throughout! This author does a really good job at making you care for these characters, whether that’s because she’s about to rip your heart out by killing someone you love _{^{(*glares at Savannah Lee. She knows what she’s done.*)}} or because she’s somehow convinced you to have mixed feelings for someone you thought you hated ^(???).

I also really loved how the relationship between Rowan and Callan has developed throughout the books, surprising absolutely no one. This is not a constructive point to bring up in a book review (just me yelling into the void), but there’s a scene very early on in this book where Rowan’s packing a suitcase and Callan’s quietly staring at her ass that has me screaming every time I think of it. Just thinking of how far they’ve come since the first book, when they were attracted to each other but couldn’t do anything because they weren’t mates……………………….

^*yelling*

I also loved how this book called back to previous books in the series, which really helped show just how far these characters have come! Seeing the allies they’ve made along the way continuing to help, even when readers least expect them to show up? Showing how something seemingly small can amount to so much more??? 👌👌👌

That being said, I do think this book could have benefited from better pacing and a bit more length in general. With so much action going on, there’s no time for readers to take a breath and just enjoy seeing the characters in a way I wish we had gotten. We’re jumping from one major conflict to the next without any time between them, and that felt very overwhelming to read.

With as much as I loved the first two books in this series, I was quite disappointed to find that I felt more neutral about this final book’s plot. While I love the characters and world building Savannah Lee has done in this series, I needed a little more fluff and buildup to this grand final battle before I could absolutely adore this book.

Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli review

On the night Rune’s life changed forever, blood ran in the streets. Now, in the aftermath of a devastating revolution, witches have been diminished from powerful rulers to outcasts ruthlessly hunted due to their waning magic, and Rune must hide what she is.

Spending her days pretending to be nothing more than a vapid young socialite, Rune spends her nights as the Crimson Moth, a witch vigilante who rescues her kind from being purged. When a rescue goes wrong, she decides to throw the witch hunters off her scent and gain the intel she desperately needs by courting the handsome Gideon Sharpe – a notorious and unforgiving witch hunter loyal to the revolution – who she can’t help but find herself falling for.

Gideon loathes the decadence and superficiality Rune represents, but when he learns the Crimson Moth has been using Rune’s merchant ships to smuggle renegade witches out of the republic, he inserts himself into her social circles by pretending to court her right back. He soon realizes that beneath her beauty and shallow façade, is someone fiercely intelligent and tender who feels like his perfect match. Except, what if she’s the very villain he’s been hunting?

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I’m sad now.

I’ve been really loving every witch x witch hunter book I’ve picked up recently, so when I saw Heartless Hunter coming out, I knew I needed to grab a copy! I was positive I was going to really enjoy this book, though I am a bit sad to find that I didn’t 100% love it.

Heartless Hunter is the story of Rune, a socialite who spends her nights as the infamous Crimson Moth, a witch helping other witches escape their hunters. In order to gain access to more information about the witch hunters’ plans, she begins flirting with Gideon, a high ranking witch hunter and her best friend’s older brother.

And he, surprisingly, begins flirting back.

I really liked the relationship between Gideon and Rune, despite how “fake” the two promised themselves it was. As characters, these two were really interesting to read about, and I really loved the opposites attract relationship here. A witch and a witch hunter. A rich socialite and a poor seamster. I loved seeing the way these two differed, yet still seemed like a perfect match for the other!

I will say, however, that some of the choices in this book and decisions Rune made throughout seemed a little too convenient for the story. She seemed a lot smarter and genre-savvy than she should have been for the information she had, and there were a few moments than can only be explained by deus ex machina.

That being said, I was very pleasantly surprised by the twist ending of this book! While I could tell certain aspects of the story were going in this direction, there was a large detail I hadn’t considered that brought this entire book together, and I applaud this author for surprising me in that sort of way. I’m very interested in seeing what happens in the sequel, though I do hope the next book is a little bit nicer to Rune and Gideon.

Not Your Crush’s Cauldron (Supernatural Singles #3) by April Asher review

Olive Maxwell much prefers teaching about the supernatural world to taking part in it and leaves the magical shenanigans to her two sisters―the Prima-Apparent and Bounty Hunter-In-Training. But after assigning her college students a project designed to nudge them outside their comfort zones, Olive realizes that she’s never once stepped a toe over her own…and it’s about time that changed. Her first trip into the unknown? Moving in with her long-time crush―and friend…tattooed, motorcycle-riding, and pleasantly pierced, Baxter Donovan.

Bax Donovan, Guardian Angel not-so-extraordinaire, has acquired so many black marks on his record it looked like a scantron sheet. He’s given one last chance to keep his Guardian wings intact, a high-profile Assignment he knows all too well. Olive is usually as low-risk as it got. Hell, she wrote the safety manual. But something landed her on the Guardian Affairs radar and his guess was it had something to do with the heart-pounding stunts she’s determined to check off her Dare I Docket list.

Keeping Olive out of trouble is about to be his toughest assignment yet, and not because he’s forced to shake the dust off his feathers and embrace his inner aerialist. He’s at real risk of shattering the only Guardian Angel Code of Conduct Rule he’s yet to Don’t fall in love with your Assignment. And he isn’t so sure that’s a bad thing.

If love didn’t play by the rules, why should they?

Not Your Crush’s Cauldron gets published February 13th, 2024!

DID NOT FINISH at page 75 (20%)

Is it me? Am I the problem?

Having read the first two books in the Supernatural Singles series, I was sure Not Your Crush’s Cauldron was going to be an easily enjoyed book. Returning to this world was sure to be fun, and I had already expressed my interest in reading Olive’s story!

Unfortunately, I started having problems with this book from the very first page.

Maybe I’ve changed. Maybe my tastes have shifted within the last few years and I just no longer enjoy these types of books. Because Not Your Crush’s Cauldron immediately opened up to the same “hilarious”, horny writing I was kind of expecting from this series… and I wasn’t here for it.

There’s something about friends to lovers that just makes me think that immediately being attracted to each other and so obviously wanting to have sex with the other person doesn’t fit the vibes of the story we’re trying to tell here. Despite the fact that Olive and Bax have been background characters in the first two books and we therefore vaguely know what to expect from them, the book immediately opening with Olive receiving a dildo from her sister and Bax needing to leave the room before she notices that he has a boner was not making me want to continue reading.

I was also confused by the humor in this book. Maybe I’m forgetting the writing style of the first two books, but the writing in this book carried that cringy, “boomer”-esque humor that felt like it would fit in better in a Facebook photo post with a Minion in the background. At one point, Olive reveals to her friends(/family) that she’s anxious about an important presentation coming up, to which everyone decides the best remedy is to crank up the music (in the middle of a bar) and dance to Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off.

We might as well slap a medication’s name over this scene and list possible side effects, because it felt exactly like one of those commercials.

The last thing that bothered me in this book was the setup to the plot/Olive’s personal conflict. Olive works as a teacher in a magical college, where she’s getting bullied by her fellow teachers for being boring and never stepping out of her comfort zone. While this is the push she needs to begin experimenting and finding new joy in her life, I’m also questioning everyone’s maturity and age in this book. We’re college-level teachers, and yet we’re still forming cliques and bullying our peers? Just a few chapters ago, we were describing a dildo in the shape of a tentacle, and now we’re falling back on overused teenage plots our characters should be past by this point in their lives?

I tried to stay with this book until the conflict was fully introduced and the beginning was past us, but at 75 pages in, I got to the beginning of a new chapter and realized I could not sit through another word of this book.

The Serpent & The Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent review

Human or vampire, the rules of survival are the same: never trust, never yield, and always – always – guard your heart.

The adopted human daughter of the Nightborn vampire king, Oraya carved her place in a world designed to kill her. Her only chance to become something more than prey is entering the Kejari: a legendary tournament held by the goddess of death herself.

But winning won’t be easy amongst the most vicious warriors from all three vampire houses. To survive, Oraya is forced to make an alliance with a mysterious rival.

Everything about Raihn is dangerous. He is a ruthless vampire, an efficient killer, an enemy to her father’s crown… and her greatest competition. Yet, what terrifies Oraya most of all is that she finds herself oddly drawn to him.

But there’s no room for compassion in the Kejari. War for the House of Night brews, shattering everything that Oraya thought she knew about her home. And Raihn may understand her more than anyone – but their blossoming attraction could be her downfall, in a kingdom where nothing is more deadly than love.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

I was very surprised by how much I adored this book.

The Serpent & The Wings of Night sucked me in immediately and never let me go. This book is over 500 pages, and at no point could I allow myself to put it down for even a second!

One of the very first things I enjoyed about The Serpent & The Wings of Night was the worldbuilding. In this world, there are three “houses” of vampires, all with unique magic types and physical features. While some vampires may have feathered wings, others may have membranous wings (neither of which are typical for vampires in other media, so you know this book is gonna have some unique lore).

I also really loved the plot of this book! Our main character, Oraya, needs to compete in a tournament called the Kejari in order to ask the goddess to bind her father’s powers to her so she can become strong enough to travel outside of her home. In order to survive this deadly tournament, she needs to work together with her father’s enemy, but that soon has Oraya questioning everything she knows about the world she thought she understood.

If I could rate books higher than 5 stars, this would be a 10 star book! I was immediately obsessed with The Serpent & The Wings of Night, and I cannot wait to get my hands on the sequel to continue on with this series!

This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone review

In the ashes of a dying world, Red finds a letter marked “Burn before reading.”

So begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents in a war that stretches through the vast reaches of time and space.

Red belongs to the Agency, a post-singularity technotopia. Blue belongs to Garden, a single vast consciousness embedded in all organic matter. Their pasts are bloody and their futures mutually exclusive. They have nothing in common—save that they’re the best, and they’re alone.

Now what began as a battlefield boast grows into a dangerous game, one both Red and Blue are determined to win. Because winning’s that you do in war. Isn’t it?

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

It’s difficult to explain why I loved This Is How You Lose The Time War as much as I did.

This is mostly because This Is How You Lose The Time War is a difficult book to explain. In the beginning, readers will be confused by what is going on. Someone on a battlefield finds a letter? They burn it, then move on?

But the further you get into This Is How You Lose The Time War, the easier it is to understand what is going on. The story evolves as you read, and by the time you get to the final pages of the book, you’ll have a completely different viewpoint of the first few pages.

One of my favorite things about This Is How You Lose The Time War is the romanticism of each letter. Our two main characters, Red and Blue, have been on opposite sides of a war. They’ve seen each other in passing, but neither really knows about each other until the day Blue writes Red a letter stating her interest. From here, we get to see their story play out and learn just how involved in each others’ lives Red and Blue have been without them knowing.

Like I said, it’s difficult to put into words my love for this book, solely because I know too much now. But I’d recommend that anyone who hasn’t read this book yet to pick it up!

A Fragile Enchantment by Allison Saft review

Niamh Ó Conchobhair has never let herself long for more. The magic in her blood that lets her stitch emotions and memories into fabric is the same magic that will eventually kill her. Determined to spend the little time she has left guaranteeing a better life for her family, Niamh jumps at the chance to design the wardrobe for a royal wedding in the neighboring kingdom of Avaland.

But Avaland is far from the fairytale that she imagined. While young nobles attend candlelit balls and elegant garden parties, unrest brews amid the working class. The groom himself, Kit Carmine, is prickly, abrasive, and begrudgingly being dragged to the altar as a political pawn. But when Niamh and Kit grow closer, an unlikely friendship blossoms into something more—until an anonymous columnist starts buzzing about their chemistry, promising to leave them alone only if Niamh helps to uncover the royal family’s secrets. The rot at the heart of Avaland runs deep, but exposing it could risk a future she never let herself dream of, and a love she never thought possible.

A Fragile Enchantment gets published January 2nd, 2024!

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

This is one of those books where the description just promised more than the book actually gave.

A Fragile Enchantment, at it’s core, isn’t a bad book. I enjoyed reading the story of Niamh, a Machlish seamstress tasked with creating the outfits for the Avlish prince’s wedding, only to fall in love with him in the process. I enjoyed seeing the conflict between the Machlish and the Avlish, and how everything was a bit more difficult than it originally seemed. And I enjoyed seeing an inside look into the lives of these characters and their drama.

However, the description of this book talks about an anonymous columnist who finds out about Niamh and Kit’s attraction to each other and promises to leave them alone only if Niamh helps them uncover the family’s secrets, and I think that’s where this book goes wrong. Because while yes, that is included in this book, that conflict takes up maybe 1% of the content of this book (and the columnist, to be completely honest, never really threatens Niamh and Kit).

I picked up this book interested in seeing a secret, scandalous relationship get threatened by this columnist. And while I did enjoy these characters and seeing their secrets, this book ultimately isn’t what it says it is.

Midnight Magic (Clover Pack #2) by Savannah Lee review

I probably shouldn’t have followed the strange Fae man through the mysterious portal.
Scratch that. I definitely shouldn’t have, but when the choice was to either get my friends killed or jump…
I jumped.
Now I’m stuck in the faerie lands, where enemies lurk around every corner, waiting to strike. The Fae Queen will rest at nothing until she gets her hands on me. I have something she wants, something she needs.
Something I stole from her.
The catch? I can’t remember where I put it. I can’t remember anything from my former life, having erased my memories to hide from my past in the human realm.
Now I’m on a mission to recover what I’ve lost, arm myself with the knowledge of what I’ve hidden, and save my friends – including the hunky panther shifter I can’t seem to get out of my head.
If I don’t die trying first.

Midnight Magic gets published December 15th, 2023!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

I’ve been dying to read Midnight Magic ever since finishing Midnight Mated earlier this year, so you can understand how excited I was to jump into this book as soon as I received a copy!

One thing I was immediately amazed by in this book was the worldbuilding this author introduces. Because of the events at the very end of the first book, it’s obvious to readers that we will enter Midnight Magic with an introduction to the land of the fae, but I was immediately struck by how masterfully this author took this concept and made it their own while also sticking to some of the same elements we’ve come to expect in a book about the fae.

I also really enjoyed the characters in this story and seeing them band together against a common goal. Seeing these characters determined to stay by each others’ sides, even when things get weird, was the perfect continuation of the found family trope I loved to see in the first book!

However, I will say that there were a few aspects of this book I wish had been done better.

For one, the fight scenes were a bit difficult to stay focused in. Because the fight scenes are longer and more important in this book, I felt like I should have been paying more attention to them, but it was hard to keep my focus on what was happening. Perhaps this is more of a personal problem, as I often find my attention straying away from fight scenes in any media, but I wish I could have been able to stay in that moment instead of glossing over the scenes.

I also felt like this book could have been a little longer in order to make space for more emotional significance. In the latter half of the book, readers enter a scene where a side character dies and, due to the rules of this universe, we have to slowly watch their mate die as well. While the characters were upset during this time, it was hard as a reader to also be sad for these deaths, as we were introduced to these characters within this very scene.

Still, I absolutely adored Midnight Magic and this entire series so far! Seeing Midnight Magic end just like I was hoping it would was an amazing experience, and I can’t wait to get my hands on the third book in this series to read more about these characters and their world!

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Want to see more of my thoughts on this book? I recorded a reading vlog for both Midnight Mated and Midnight Magic that you can watch now!