Horse Talk Reviews

The Witch and the Vampire by Francesca Flores My rating: 2 of 5 stars DNF @ 53% 2 stars I really wanted to like this one because of the cover and the description which is why I read as much as I did but it was a huge letdown. I stopped caring at about the 15% mark, to be honest. None of it made any sense and it was going nowhere by the time I stopped. Like, this is about a witch and a vampire but the witch is way too angry and vengeful and the vampire is way too sheltered and naive and it was just boring to read. I kept the extra star because of the cover, mostly. I received an ARC copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own. View all my reviews

Never Ever Getting Back Together by Sophie Gonzales My rating: 5 of 5 stars I really enjoyed this one! Such great humor, I loved Skye and Maya, and the cast of secondary characters (minus Jordy) were fantastic. All the girls were distinct and played off each other so well. Isaac I enjoyed a lot too. The humor was on point - the kind that’s worked in to conversations and the internal monologue of characters, rather than feeling tacked on and try hard. I especially loved all of the Maya thoughts early on. Honestly, even Jordy was a good character. He was balanced to being fun to hate, without dragging the story down with extreme toxicity. The conversations between him and the girls were hysterical, especially the hot tub one with Maya. Absolutely comical. I liked the personal growth arc for the MCs a lot - both of them really grew as people, in a believable way for their age. A lot of focus on finding themselves, evaluating priorities, and deciding wha...

A Coup of Tea by Casey Blair My rating: 4 of 5 stars Horse rating: 🐴 of five horses ARC difficulty: walking bridge Expected publication: August 2nd 2022 This is a lovely little YA story of a princess finding her own way and building a found family in the process. It is reminiscent of Tamora Pierce for me, very nostalgic since I grew up on those kinds of fantasy stories. As other reviewers have noted, this is a very earnest story, and I think it works well for its genre. It has some very nice rep without being an information pamphlet or feeling performative. I think it has good messages, even as it is delivered a little blatantly. “Not all witches are women,” I say automatically. Our current understanding is that all witches are born with female reproductive organs, but that isn’t the same.   Plotwise, it has a fun adventure/fantasy plot with the requisite mean villain who is a little two dimensional. It has very nice descriptions, maybe a little heavy on them a...