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jesswithbooks

getting lost in a fictional haunted house at this very moment ✨

169 points

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Level 2
My Taste
The Secret History
Sunburn
Night's Edge (Night's Edge, #1)
Wild and Wrangled (Rebel Blue Ranch, #4)
Book Lovers
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Bat Eater

jesswithbooks finished reading and left a rating...

2w
  • The Latinist
    jesswithbooks
    Oct 08, 2025
    3.0
    Enjoyment: 2.5Quality: 2.5Characters: 2.5Plot: 2.0

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  • jesswithbooks finished reading and wrote a review...

    2w
  • Alchemised
    jesswithbooks
    Oct 07, 2025
    5.0
    Enjoyment: 5.0Quality: 5.0Characters: 5.0Plot: 5.0
    💔

    “Everyone who wins says they were good, but they’re the ones who tell the story. They get to choose how we’ll remember it. What if it’s never that simple?” ✨ The story of Helena Marino, a healer for the Eternal Flame resistance movement, is a war story. And like every other war story ever told, there are no happy endings.

    As someone who is vehemently not a fantasy reader, I devoured this book. It was intense, heartbreaking, and somehow even better than SenLinYu’s original work “Manacled.” The inclusion of necromancy added additional layers to the story that made Helena’s narrative even harder to read (in a good way). We watch as her relationship with Kaine Ferron (our morally grey love interest) develops while her friendships with the most people she has grown up with deteriorate…all as she tries to win an increasingly un-winnable war.

    This is without a doubt a 5 star book. Even having known what the ending would look like, it still was heart-wrenching to read. And the final sentence of the entire book? Devastating. ✨ “You’re like a rose in a graveyard,” he said, and his lips twisted into a bitter smile. “I wonder what you could have turned into without the war.”

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  • jesswithbooks wants to read...

    3w
    The World Cannot Give

    The World Cannot Give

    Tara Isabella Burton

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    Post from the Alchemised forum

    3w
  • Alchemised
    Thoughts from 34%

    As a non-fantasy reader, sometimes the amount of world-building and information about the vivimancers/necromancers/animancers is a bit hard to follow. Trying my best to keep up with the story as I did love “Manacled”!

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  • jesswithbooks earned a badge

    3w
    Level 2

    Level 2

    100 points

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    jesswithbooks completed their yearly reading goal of 100 books!

    3w

    jesswithbooks's 2025 Reading Challenge

    109 of 100 read
    Sunburn
    Night's Edge (Night's Edge, #1)
    Wild and Wrangled (Rebel Blue Ranch, #4)
    Soul Searching: Sweetwater Peak, Book 1
    Seascraper
    The Killer Question
    The Bombshell
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    jesswithbooks set their yearly reading goal to 100

    3w

    jesswithbooks's 2025 Reading Challenge

    109 of 100 read
    Sunburn
    Night's Edge (Night's Edge, #1)
    Wild and Wrangled (Rebel Blue Ranch, #4)
    Soul Searching: Sweetwater Peak, Book 1
    Seascraper
    The Killer Question
    The Bombshell
    0
    0
    Reply