Non-ARC Mini-Reviews

When We Collided by Emery Lord

The first thing I’ll say is that Lord did a great job writing from Vivi’s point of view. I don’t know enough about Bipolar Disorder to say whether or not Vivi was at all manic in the beginning of the book, but the writing felt to me like an out-of-control train (if that makes sense). There was just no stopping Vivi, she was a force to be reckoned with and that was really skillfully illustrated on the page. That being said, I could not handle Vivi as a character and I don’t particularly know what Jonah saw in her. They just didn’t ever really make sense to me as a couple and I had this overwhelming feeling the whole time that Jonah was too good for her. So that was kind of my only issue with it–I didn’t like the romance. If they had just been friends, I think that would have been a completely different story and I would have liked it a lot more. I thought this book was a great depiction of what it must be to live with and around Bipolar Disorder, but I didn’t like the romance and I didn’t like that the adults were so peripheral. 3/5

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The Crown by Kiera Cass

It had been a while since I’d read The Heir and I had a very hard time remembering anything that had happened in the first book. I barely remembered any of the characters. I honestly didn’t even remember that Eadlyn had a twin (which is kind of a big deal). This made it really hard for me to connect with any of the characters. Eadlyn would reference an event or a person from the previous book and I was just completely lost. It made it so that this story basically had no context. I also didn’t feel like the writing was very smooth, so that was also distracting. The romance was also a little forced, but maybe that was just because I couldn’t remember any of the development from the first book? In the end, I feel like The Crown and The Heir should have just been one book. Omit a couple of unnecessary things from both books and voila, there you have it, one book. 3/5