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theballadofgrace

🇵🇭🇺🇸🍉 Bibliophile 📚 California Dreamin'📍☀️🏖 Just a girl who loves to read yet spends too much time doing anything but IG: @theballadofgrace

1501 points

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Gothic Literature
Dark Academia
Made for the Movies
My Taste
The Once and Future Witches
The Night Circus
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)
Blood Over Bright Haven
Wuthering Heights
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13h
  • How to Break a Girl: Whatever doesn't break you makes you write a novel about it
    theballadofgrace
    May 30, 2026
    DNF
    1.5
    Enjoyment: 1.0Quality: 2.5Characters: 1.5Plot: 2.0
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  • How to Break a Girl: Whatever doesn't break you makes you write a novel about it
    Author in Reader Spaces

    Trying to read the book gave me many reasons to DNF it. The author responding to negative reviews on Goodreads was the final nail in the coffin for me.

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  • theballadofgrace earned a badge

    13h
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    Level 5

    1500 points

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    theballadofgrace made progress on...

    13h
    How to Break a Girl: Whatever doesn't break you makes you write a novel about it

    How to Break a Girl: Whatever doesn't break you makes you write a novel about it

    Amanda Sung

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    theballadofgrace DNF'd a book

    14h
    How to Break a Girl: Whatever doesn't break you makes you write a novel about it

    How to Break a Girl: Whatever doesn't break you makes you write a novel about it

    Amanda Sung

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    theballadofgrace TBR'd a book

    1d
    Empire

    Empire

    Sabaa Tahir

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    theballadofgrace TBR'd a book

    1d
    Fallen City (Fallen City Duology, #1)

    Fallen City (Fallen City Duology, #1)

    Adrienne Young

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    theballadofgrace TBR'd a book

    1d
    This Blade of Ours (This Monster of Mine, #2)

    This Blade of Ours (This Monster of Mine, #2)

    Shalini Abeysekara

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    Post from the Verity Guild forum

    1d
  • Verity Guild
    Thoughts from 25% - Quite the circus
    spoilers

    View spoiler

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  • theballadofgrace made progress on...

    4d
    Verity Guild

    Verity Guild

    Mai Corland

    14%
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    theballadofgrace left a rating...

    4d
  • Daggermouth
    theballadofgrace
    May 26, 2026
    DNF
    2.0
    Enjoyment: 2.5Quality: 2.0Characters: 3.0Plot: 3.5

    I think H.M. Wolfe certainly had a vision when it came to New Found Haven, but she lacked a deeper understanding on how government and sociopolitical landscapes operate, hence the shallowness of the worldbuilding and the illogical reasoning behind the established regulations. The mask law is absolutely convoluted, and it's clear it only exists as a plot device to force the leads into an arranged marriage and put them in a forced proximity situation. The consequences of seeing another elite person's face being only either death or marriage is laughable, and it has no other purpose. This plot device fails to serve the larger engine of government and how it subjugates the city's citizens under the president's regime, and there’s no explanation for the core structures of the overall system that keeps the people under the Serel family regime.

    The attempt at a rebellion also falls flat, with elements feeling borrowed from other existing dystopian stories with nothing new or inspiring done with them. It feels like Wolfe saw those plot points of revolution used in other media, but didn't seem to understand what about them made them effective.

    Overall, a disappointing read. I had to look up the ending, and after understanding the twists, it feels like people are mistaking interesting plot twists for good storytelling.

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  • theballadofgrace paused reading...

    5d
    Society of Lies

    Society of Lies

    Lauren Ling Brown

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    5d
  • Yellowface
    theballadofgrace
    May 25, 2026
    4.5
    Enjoyment: 5.0Quality: 4.5Characters: 4.0Plot: 4.0
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  • theballadofgrace finished a book

    5d
    Yellowface

    Yellowface

    R.F. Kuang

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    theballadofgrace made progress on...

    1w
    Verity Guild

    Verity Guild

    Mai Corland

    7%
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