Risa Nichols
arc disclosure
I received an advanced copy of this book to give my honest review. Everything in this review is written in my own words for no other compensation than the e-copy of this book. For more information on my review policy, click here.
intro
This was my first read by Kelly Andrew. I have to admit, the cover immediately drew me in, and then I read the blurb and knew I had to read it. Fantasy? Check. Creepy aesthetic? Check. Friends-to-enemies-to-lovers vibes? Check, check, check!
So, did this book live up to the hype I built up in my head?
thoughts
This book was [mostly] a pleasant surprise. It was wonderfully written with some lovely prose that I greatly enjoyed reading. I love fantasy and paranormal, so the premise of this story was right up my alley.
I’m not really sure what my final thoughts are on this book. I enjoyed it, but it had a few issues. For one, just like some other reviewers have said, I felt like it was too long for the amount of story that was included. I also wish the past and present timelines were a little more clear, because jumping between the two was incredibly confusing.
Peter’s story line was super intriguing, but I wish it’d been more fleshed out. The only answers we got for sure were that he was an immortal and it was because of a deal his dad made. And he was somehow from among the stars, but we have no context of his homeland nor do we understand why his dad made this deal in the first place other than they were starving. But why were they starving? What happened to this “home among the stars?” I think this may be alluding to a super loose inspiration from Peter Pan, but I wish we had a little more answers and some more details so we could understand the motivation better.
bullet points
- the monsters in this book were genuinely creepy and a couple times what I was reading gave me a chill I wasn’t expecting!
- Peter was a walking red flag and I loved it.
- since I didn’t read the first book Kelly wrote, I had no prior attachments to or expectations for Wyatt’s friends and the way they were introduced to this book was kind of jarring. They were just all of the sudden there. Maybe if I’d read the other book, it wouldn’t have felt so out of the blue, I’m not sure.
- this has no merit to the story whatsoever, but this is absolutely one of my favorite covers ever. It’s gorgeous!
final thoughts
Overall, I enjoyed this book as a whole, but I’ve gotta admit…the ending almost ruined it for me. Oftentimes the ending will either make or break a book, and this one kind of broke the book in my opinion. This will not be a re-read. Honestly, if I’d known how the book was going to end, I probably wouldn’t have ever picked it up to begin with. If you have book ending anxiety, I have a spoiler tag below that you can click on. Otherwise, that’s all I’m going to say about it. (I took the spoilers out of this review. If you want to read them, feel free to visit my blog)
The first half of this book was absolutely worth the read and I don’t regret it. The angst, the first love, the will-they/won’t-they, the sort of love-to-hate-back-to-love emotions, the creepy atmosphere, the crazy powers…all of that was great and based on that, I would have thought this book was going to become one of my favorite reads of the year.
Unfortunately…
I keep going between 3 stars or a little higher…because if I were basing my rating purely on the ending, I would’ve given it a 1. This is the kind of ending I hate and avoid like the plague. However, in the end I decided to rate this book as 3 stars, maybe even 3.5, because I did think it was beautifully written, the story as a whole was great, and I hope the author continues to write many more books in the future.
And as always, if this book sounds appealing to you, please do not hesitate to pick it up and read it for yourself. This is simply my own authentic opinion 🙂
Thank you, NetGalley and Kelly Andrew for the e-ARC of this book!
final rating
3/5
Read my original review here: Alated Bibliophile's review of Your Blood, My Bones