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skylarkblue1

Hi I'm Sky! I'm a queer disabled British reviewer who loves fantasy, horror, mystery and more! I mostly only post reviews & updates on here

3640 points

0% overlap
Spring 2025 Readalong
Sapphic Across Genres
Level 6
My Taste
The Last Murder at the End of the World
Hell Followed With Us
The Sunbearer Trials (The Sunbearer Duology, #1)
Witchlings (Witchlings, #1)
Strangeworlds Travel Agency (Strangeworlds Travel Agency #1)
Reading...
Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay
14%
Wishbound: Nevermoor meets Jacqueline Wilson in this magical adventure story for ages 9+
3%
Mastering Community Management
13%

skylarkblue1 wrote a review...

3h
  • Ace of Spades
    skylarkblue1
    Jun 13, 2026
    2.5
    Enjoyment: 3.5Quality: 3.0Characters: 1.5Plot: 3.0
    ♠️
    🎓
    🏳️‍🌈

    Loved the second half, mostly, but there's a lot of flaws with this book.

    The first half is very slow, and very much reads like some high school drama in which most of the students shouldn't even care about what's going on. The second half certainly picks up a fair amount with conspiracies and a bit more than just a racist person happening. It's a little fantastical - there's no way racists could be this organised and subtle - but it does make for an interesting read. I do however wish we got to see more of the story after the ending, since it doesn't make too much sense tbh with what little we get told there. The story is also pretty predictable? Aces themselves and all of that isn't too predictable, but people's motives generally are. You'll think a few times "this won't be that, that's too obvious!" but it will be.

    While having 2 pretty contrasting PoVs was interesting, Chiamaka's chapters were really bad to read. She's incredibly unlikable, and even at the big end she was looking down at Devon and not even being that helpful. She constantly talked down to people, used her status and class to rule over others and was, in general, an asshole. There's a line from her about how like, if men know what they want they're seen as strong, if women do then they're seen as egoistical. And while yea that is unfortunately true, Chiamaka is also just egotistical and incredibly elitist. Devon though, I really liked! I quite liked his journey, his way of thinking, how much he cared about his family and others. I really wanted to see a bit more of his family dynamic in the end, there were a few questions raised that never actually got answered in the end about his family and relationships.

    At the front of my book was a class timetable for both Devon and Chiamaka, which at first was really cool and I read it carefully before starting. Only to realise by the end that it was completely, entirely, useless 😅 Both of them barely go to classes, and when they do knowing their timetable kinda just doesn't really matter? The start of each chapter has the day, so you don't need it to know that. There's no like secret crossovers in their timetable that you'd only pick up on with knowledge of their timetables.. I'm just very confused on why they were seemingly added in later editions of the book. Usually that kinda thing is done to clear up common misconceptions or issues that were brought up in the first editions. But here, I genuinely don't see a purpose for them. They're neat! But yeah, no purpose.

    I did like how Aces was done. It is most certainly like, out there, and has a decent amount of depth there. I wish we got some more context and history to things though, and how it all works connected together. There was some stuff said at the end about the history which honestly didn't make too much sense/wasn't properly explained but eh. Tbh the most unrealistic part is how incredibly cunning, smart and insanely well co-ordinated the racists are in this. But they also don't seem to care about queers (or disabled people)? They're.. kinda ok with queers I guess? There is homophobia in the book but it doesn't really come across from the conspiracy racists, it's mainly internalised/from family/outside the school.

    I think a lot of this is a debut learning as they go however, since I loved Where Sleeping Girls Lie a lot more. Maybe that book also upped my expectations for this one a bit too much?

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  • skylarkblue1 commented on a post

    20h
  • daisybea
    Edited
    Sapphic book recs with a happy ending?

    I feel like recently all the sapphic books I’ve been reading have ended with either one or both of them dying or being traumatised so much that they don’t get their happily ever after. So I was looking for some suggestions of books that have a sapphic romance where they both are alive at the end of the book and at least somewhat happy. I typically read in the fantasy/ Sci-fi genre but I’m open to anything! I know there is a real problem with the lack of happy sapphics across all media types so I’m looking for books that prove them wrong. Happy pride everyone! EDIT: thank you all for so many recommendations! I'm currently in the process of putting them all onto a list here https://pagebound.co/lists/9ded0eb1-9e3c-4282-af1e-462711bf3c74

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  • skylarkblue1 commented on a post

    20h
  • New to Cozy

    For some reason, when I heard "cozy" I heard "no conflict," even though I think getting over a hurdle is usually an important ingredient in the creation of a book, What would be a better understanding of "Cozy", without big emotions?–by that im picturing no angst, or negativity steeped in pain–or is it a slower pace? or a secret third thing?

    And am I right in my thought of no book going without conflict or is there a read escaping my mind?

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  • skylarkblue1 commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

    22h
  • Weird horror recommendations

    I’ve been in a bit of a slump and wanted to get to some short fun/weird horror again. I’ve been trying to find something similar to “I found puppets living in my apartment walls”, “Horrorstör”, and “Sour Candy”.

    Not necessarily looking for like liminal space or old gods or anything. I tried checking the similar recommendations but nothing was clicking :(

    Thank you in advance!

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  • skylarkblue1 commented on a post

    1d
  • Ace of Spades
    Thoughts from 93%
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  • skylarkblue1 made progress on...

    2d
    Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay

    Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay

    Lex Croucher

    14%
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    2d
  • Ace of Spades
    Thoughts from 32%
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  • skylarkblue1 wrote a review...

    4d
  • The Nudge: A Psychological Thriller
    skylarkblue1
    Jun 09, 2026
    4.0
    Enjoyment: 4.0Quality: 3.5Characters: 4.5Plot: 3.5
    🤫
    🔪
    🏃‍♂️

    Thank you Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

    Representations: https://trello.com/c/DxOnOcXG

    Short and Snappy but a very well constructed dialogue! The entire novella is written as a dialogue, the only words are spoken ones. It managed to stay pretty realistic and flowed surprisingly well. Things did feel slightly off, but that's intentional due to the setting and what's going on.

    There are few characters, the 2 in dialogue are the main character and the owner of the hotel/only employee/bell boy. The rest are through the story told, only 2 others being prominent - The wife, and the neighbour in the motel. Honestly really liked how the characters were written. In such short time you got to know them all quite well. Saying much about any of them will certainly spoil too much however.

    The story was quite interesting, and while it was very slow at first, since it's a novella that didn't last too long. By the time it felt like it was starting to drag it was already like halfway through and started to pick up haha. It does get pretty bleak and tense, and towards the end it does get kinda depressing (content warning spoiler at the bottom, this is a book that needs it), but it handles it pretty alright? I think because it's a novella and because it cannot linger on scenes too long it's mostly alright in what it does near the end. The ending itself though, while it was good it did mostly leave me feeling a bit confused? I'm not entirely sure what the ending was, but that could just be me being dumb. I understand what happened, but not really what happens next if that makes sense, or why things had to go the way they did.

    Minor spoilers but content warnings below:

    Content warning for on-page suicide and animal (pet, essentially) death.
    
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  • skylarkblue1 commented on a post

    4d
  • Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay
    ITS REAL????

    Omg I remember lex floating around this title back when Gwen & Art came out, how did I only just find out about this???? I cannot wait 🤩

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  • Post from the Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay forum

    4d
  • Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay
    ITS REAL????

    Omg I remember lex floating around this title back when Gwen & Art came out, how did I only just find out about this???? I cannot wait 🤩

    3
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  • skylarkblue1 commented on a post

    4d
  • Ace of Spades
    Thoughts from 6% (page 29)
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  • Ace of Spades
    Thoughts from 32%
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  • skylarkblue1 earned a badge

    5d
    Pride 2026

    Pride 2026

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  • Ace of Spades
    Thoughts from 93%
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  • Ace of Spades
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  • skylarkblue1 commented on skylarkblue1's update

    skylarkblue1 paused reading...

    5d
    Dungeon Crawler Carl (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #1)

    Dungeon Crawler Carl (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #1)

    Matt Dinniman

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