Why do all fantasy books sound like Mad Libs titles these days? https://emmareadstoomuch.substack.com...You might be thinking, "Okay, Emma, we get it, you're always right" [I literally can't imagine a scenario where I'm wrong] "but that's hardly a glowing endorsement. So why did you even bother reading it?"Excellent question, imaginary commenter!I thought it'd be a laugh to read every Goodreads Choice Award winner.Spoiler: It wasn't.That decision set off a chain reaction that led me to picking u...

A long journey, but totally worth it!!!!Okay, so it's a story about messed-up lesbian vampires, but honestly, it's so much more than that! It's a slow burn, like reeeeally slow, but by the end, you realize every character's perspective and backstory is crucial to the bigger picture. (It gave me major vibes of *The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue* – the way we jump through time periods and the pacing felt similar.)I was hooked from the first few chapters, diving into each character's viewpoint. The...

All vibes and a very slim plot. Which I'm usually okay with, but in this case, I was begging for something to keep me going.Now don't get me wrong, it's not bad. It's actually great, and the writing is just so mesmerizing. However, I just didn't care? Like, I don't care about any of these characters. I was waiting for an overarching plot to connect at the end (not a plot twist) and was left feeling "eh?"The atmosphere is eerie and complex, however, a bit too slow for me. Which again, I wouldn't ...

\n “Where Rot and Roses Coexist —A Girl, A Ghost, A Vampire’s Kiss”🥀\nThere are books that bruise. Books that don’t love you back, but haunt you anyway. Midnight Soil is one of them. This book was beautiful in premise, bleeding with potential, drowning in shadowy metaphors and blood-soaked longing… but in execution, it teetered between gothic brilliance and indulgent decay. They promised me roses and rot, and I did get both — just not quite in the bloody bouquet I wanted. Looking for your next...

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. SchwabA stunning aesthetic drenched in emptinessI am so f*cking disappointed.This was my first V.E. Schwab book and I truly wanted to love it—like, I was READY to have my soul ripped out, to be haunted, to feel something. But instead? I got 18 hours of vibes and repetition.🕸️ Queer Romance (F/F)🥀 Vampire Mythos🕸️ Multiple Timelines🥀 Female Rage & Revenge🕸️ Gothic Atmosphere🥀 Interwoven NarrativesThe premise? So cool.Toxic lesbian vampires? Di...

Midnight Soil feels like V.E. Schwab opened a vein and wrote with whatever came pouring out. Blood, memory, desire, rage, and regret, maybe? But this book goes way beyond just vampires. Schwab writes about women who aren't just full of fangs; they’re full of want, fury, contradictions, and a yearning for freedom, selfhood, safety, rage, and sometimes revenge. And the freedom to love who they love.She writes about women who’ve been consumed their entire lives by patriarchy, by silence, by roles t...

DNF – around 25%I just couldn't get into *Midnight Soil*. I can’t say if it gets better later on, but the 150 pages I read were incredibly slow. There were also three different perspectives and multiple timelines right off the bat, which didn't help when the pace was already dragging. It gave me less time to become invested in any one of the stories.Also – and I really wonder if this is just my preferences changing, rather than a shift in V.E. Schwab's style – this book felt very juvenile. It re...

After *The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue*, I swore I’d never put so much of my actual self into a book again, and then I went and did exactly that with *Midnight Soil*. I stripped myself down to my heart and bones and built a novel out of it – everything I loved, everything I wanted, and everything I feared. V.E. Schwab fans are going to find a whole new layer here.It’s hard to process that one day some of you will read it too.I’d normally never give my own work stars, but given what it took to ...

Rereading for a proper review and annotation…🧘‍♀️Welp, slid from a 5-star to a 3-star... full review coming up shortly. Damn, this book felt like a brick...⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ \"𝓑𝓾𝓻𝔂 𝓶𝔂 𝓫𝓸𝓷𝓮𝓼 𝓲𝓷 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓶𝓲𝓭𝓷𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽 𝓼𝓸𝓲𝓵, 𝓹𝓵𝓪𝓷𝓽 𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓶 𝓼𝓱𝓪𝓵𝓵𝓸𝔀 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝔀𝓪𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓶 𝓭𝓮𝓮𝓹, 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓲𝓷 𝓶𝔂 𝓹𝓵𝓪𝓬𝓮 𝔀𝓲𝓵𝓵 𝓰𝓻𝓸𝔀 𝓪 𝓯𝓮𝓻𝓪𝓵 𝓻𝓸𝓼𝓮, 𝓼𝓸𝓯𝓽 𝓻𝓮𝓭 𝓹𝓮𝓽𝓪𝓵𝓼 𝓱𝓲𝓭𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓼𝓱𝓪𝓻𝓹 𝔀𝓱𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓽𝓮𝓮𝓽𝓱.\" ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･🥀🍷⚰️🦇🧛🏻‍♀️I'm guessing Macmillan knows...

I’ve always had a deep love for vampire books and, though things like Twilight can be incredibly fun, my real love for vampires stems not from the monsters themselves, but from the societal implications of how they are born. V.E. Schwab NAILS this aspect in *Midnight Soil*. Schwab does not shy away from the symbolic love of vampires, with each of the three women we follow having one very distinct “problem”: they *want* too much for the world. They burn and they want. Queerness is at the heart of...