I read a lot of books in 2024 and I’ll be honest, I enjoyed the majority of them. I only DNF’d one and that was Skeleton King by Charity B. (I was fine with the shocking plot until the part where the guy kills the girl mid orgasm and proceeds to cook and feed her to his family…that was just too much for me 🤢)
So aside from that one, I found myself mostly on the side of I enjoyed that despite the mixed reviews for the books I read. HOWEVER, there were a couple of standouts on the side of I did not enjoy that. You can come for me all you want on my opinions of these books, but I stand by how I feel about what I read. If you enjoyed them, I’m happy for you! 😉
Spoilers do exist beyond this point…
The first one that I just did not jive with–Quicksilver by Callie Hart. I don’t think I read the same book as everyone else… 🤔
Kingfisher was just not interesting to me. I have to say, the name doesn’t bother me because I happen to really enjoy watching the kingfisher birds in my neighborhood fly around and snag fish…call me an old lady, IDC 🔭. I didn’t understand the “enemies to lovers” trope in this book either. They weren’t actually enemies and I felt like Saeris was just mean to him for no good reason. The guy was TERRIBLE at communication (wasn’t just him, she was too), but even without his POV, it was obvious he was just trying to keep her alive.
The only interesting thing Saeris wound up doing was forging that weapon–which, it took her way too long to figure out that all she had to do was fucking TALK to the quicksilver. Again, the communication in this book was AWFUL and drove me insane (kind of like Feyre under the mountain trying to solve Amarantha’s riddle…)
I also had a hard time trying to figure out the actual magic system and creature ecosystem (not sure if that’s the correct term, but that’s what I’m using). There were people who can talk to metal, weird fox creatures, whatever Kingfisher is–fae?–vampires…a strange group of all-powerful oldies who were also trying to kill each other? The smut was eh – like 1 on the 🌶 scale for me. Very vanilla and at times, oddly placed in my not so humble opinion.
To sum up my thoughts on Quicksilver – Kingfisher will not be going on my book boyfriend list, Saeris was pretty annoying for most of the book, and I didn’t understand the world or magic system. If the reading gods give me the strength 🤞, I’ll try to re-read it before the next book comes out because, as much as I didn’t enjoy this one, you better believe that since I finished it, I’m going to give the next book a try.
The second book that I did not enjoy at all was That Sik Luv by Jescie Hall. Here’s the deal. I grew up in a very religious household and I spent many, many, many years fully immersed in the church. Beliefs were ingrained into me from birth, and the older I got the more I pushed back. Fortunately, the last church I was a part of helped me to find my own way through religion and ultimately out of it (though, I’m not an atheist). Also, to my parents’ credit, despite their strong beliefs, they always encouraged me to ask questions and decide for myself what I believe. At the end of the day, I still definitely harbor some weird feelings about it all and I am always on the search for a good book featuring religious trauma.
That being said. What was the religion in this book? It felt like a mix between Catholicism, Presbyterian, Baptist, and a secret society. Like did the author just gather all the cliché church/religion and dark romance tropes and put them into this book? I was confused 😵. The story’s dark romance elements (stalking, that scene in the confessional–hated that–kidnapping, virginity…the list goes on) just felt overdone to me. As if it was trying to diss religion, but the diss missed its mark and fell flat for me. And what was that ending? Are they just off eliminating missionaries from the planet? I will totally read a book for the vibe, but this plot totally threw my vibe way off.
Crave by Tracy Wolff had such potential and then it lost me at the end. A school in remote Alaska with students and faculty obviously hiding something from the human. An FMC who lost her parents in a freak accident and now her life is being uprooted. Her inner monologue struggling with her grief and newfound aloneness was actually pretty good. I enjoyed that. An MMC who is so obviously a vampire and the weird tension between him and the FMC. The other guy who is crushing on her and poses a threat to the MMC. All elements for a good story. Unfortunately, it started becoming a struggle for me to read. The constant back and forth of I like you, but I can’t be with you and the how can I be so attracted to this person that if I’m not with them I’ll die inner monologue really started getting annoying, especially when neither one would act upon their feelings. And then there was that plot twist at the end that sent me off to I’m not finishing this series: she’s a fucking gargoyle. Um, what? Her attraction to the gargoyles on top of the castle was mentioned like one time, never brought up again, gargoyles are never mentioned again, and then BAM! She’s a gargoyle. It was too silly for me, I did not vibe with the gargoyle plot twist.
The Reading Spoonbill 
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