My rating: 1 of 5 stars This doesn’t even qualify as trash. It’s the smelly trash juice at the bottom of a dumpster. I promise I do not pass out single-star ratings lightly. Even if I dislike something, I try to be conscientious of the fact that authors pour pieces of themselves into their writing. I am also an advocate of brain-off fluff. Sometimes life is hard, and we all need mindless entertainment to cope. However, I draw the line when a book doesn’t even pretend to have a story or somewhat believable characters. I expect even the silliest romance novels to make me root for something or someone, but Icebreaker didn’t do that. It wasn’t just a brain-off book; it consumed negative brain cells, and I feel stupider after reading it. I didn’t even know PWOP existed outside of fanfiction and online spaces. I thought you at least had to have the semblance of a plot to receive a publishing deal, but apparently not. I feel like an old man yelling at a cloud because I’m genuinely worried ...

My rating: 3 of 5 stars This series is my version of trash reality TV. Look, I’m beyond invested at this point, but UUUUGH... 😩 My problem with these books is that the good things (the overall premise, the characters, the romance) are way too thin a veneer to cover up all the bad (crude writing, juvenile dialogue, insane pacing, and nonsensical logistics). It’s such a great concept with a depressingly poor execution. My feelings keep getting more complicated with each installment, and this has become a love-hate relationship for me. Consider everything below the spoiler tag as an attempt to sort out my convoluted thoughts regarding all three currently published books rather than a dedicated review of Onyx Storm . Inexplicable logistics continues to be my biggest beef with the Empyrean series. I know some readers can look past practical matters when it comes to fantasy and romance, but I hyperfixate and get taken out of a story when things don’t make sense or follow priorly est...

My rating: 2 of 5 stars The Extremely Obvious Dangers of Unrestricted Social Media written without subtlety by Captain Obvious himself! Proud recipient of the Worst Protagonist of the 2010s! Strong contender for the Wort Protagonist of All Time! I remember hating this the first time I read it. But I couldn’t recall the plot details and decided to give it another shot before throwing my physical copy into the sell-or-give-away pile. Sure enough—still hate it. Other reviews have pointed out this book is derivative and brings nothing new to the dystopian genre, but that is not where I take issue. I enjoy repetition and am fine with predictability, so I don’t fault The Circle for its lack of originality. No, what makes this book unforgivable to me is its condescending, preachy tone and abominable protagonist . I find it repugnant and unconscionable when a male author—especially one whose books usually center on male characters—writes a female lead like Mae Holland. I think The Circle...

My rating: 2 of 5 stars Reese Witherspoon (According to the Cover of This Book): “Prepare to be scared... really scared!” Me: “Seriously, Reese? This is how low your bar for ‘scary’ is? Are you also terrified of fluffy bunnies?” This was my second time reading. I took it with me on a bachelorette trip (felt appropriate) and decided to give it one more go before throwing my copy onto the “to sell” pile. It’s just as dumb as I remember it being the first time. I’ve never had much of a penchant for mysteries/thrillers because I don’t care whether or not books surprise me. I used to primarily consume books by reading the front, the back, and then the middle. I enjoy spoilers and knowing what will happen, so I don’t require mind-boggling twists and gotchas when reading. I mainly look for enjoyable—or at least believable—worlds, plots, and characters. In a Dark, Dark Wood is entertaining enough to make reading the whole book worth it, but everything else is ridiculous. The characters are ...

My rating: 2 of 5 stars This entire book felt like mindless drivel, and I do not throw around that accusation lightly. I unashamedly enjoy a lot of frivolous nonsense. But even the most outlandish, melodramatic, eye-roll-inducing bodice rippers have more eventful plots than this boring, redundant rubbish. Hoover wrote in a note at the end that she never intended to make a sequel to It Ends with Us . It Starts with Us was ultimately written as a gift to her fans, and it shows. It reads like a subpar fanfiction of its predecessor rather than a standalone, story-driven, published novel. I think you would have to be obsessed with the first book and its characters to power through the mind-numbing inanity of a paragraph like this: “I can barely work social media, much less keep up with slang. I swear, I’m the most out-of-touch millennial I know. It’s as if I skipped right over Gen X and into Boomer territory. I’m a Boomer millennial. A boolennnial . Hell, my mother is a Boomer...

My rating: 2 of 5 stars I did not like this. Thankfully, it is a mercifully short novella, but I disliked it so much that it took me forever and a day to finish. The one pro was the Japanese folklore (always guaranteed to please Certified Weeb Trash like myself). Everything else was lousy. Nothing but Blackened Teeth is filled with purple prose—more interested in showing off the author’s extensive vocabulary than telling a decent story (the first and last paragraphs of this review say it best). Worse yet, all the characters are detestable. They’re supposedly friends despite seemingly loathing each other and expressing nothing but outward contempt. In my opinion, readers receive no plausible explanation for why these people would choose to spend time together. It seemed like they were only there to see who could best play the role of human garbage. I was unable to spare an ounce of sympathy for a single one of them, including the annoyingly judgmental narrator. In all fairness, I be...

My rating: 2 of 5 stars It’s not often that I feel inclined to write legitimate reviews on [Goodreads]—I usually content myself with ratings. However, I have to vent my thoughts about this for cathartic reasons. What follows is arguably just a petulant rant. You have been warned. I delayed reading Cursed Child for years because I saw enough about it online to know I would not like it. Alas, the obsessive completionist in me finally took the plunge, and the self-fulfilling prophecy was realized. Let me begin by admitting that I am extremely biased. I am part of the generation that grew up with Harry Potter , and I am one of those Millennials whom the Zoomers meme about building a whole personality around the HP series. I’m not saying I’m proud of it, but that’s how it was. I remember sitting in a kindergarten classroom in the late 90s and being positively enthralled as my teacher read aloud from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone . I incessantly harassed my parents to get...

My rating: 1 of 5 stars Bias confession: I bought this and read it on my own time out of bitterness for my department not being included in the glorified book club (i.e., “leadership team”) who read it at work. It’s decently written, but it has all the predictable, eye-roll-inducing elements of most management fads . It uses a bunch of catchy buzzwords to rephrase the same tautology of almost every other business management book in existence . It has all the out-of-touch ideas and grandiose promises that most management consultants have spouted since the beginning of modern business history. It uses pretty little phrases such as “free up the futures” to describe the process of firing employees. Meanwhile, I could easily apply uglier wording to the same topics (e.g., “destabilize the futures”). There are two pages worth of “EOS Worldwide Trademarked Terms” in the back of the book, which consists of such groundbreaking word combinations as “Focus” and “Day.” In other news, I hope ...