Reading with teafortiffany

Skip to Review

Hello friends!!!

Saturday post means Saturday post vibes! And what does that mean? I have no idea, but we are all about to find out!

Anyways, I plan on doing a small reading challenge for myself this month. I want to try to read every single day, even if it’s only just a page. I might choose to reward myself with a book-shopping spree, where I can buy as many books as I’ve completed in August. My birthday is next month also, so it could coincide with my birthday gift to me of ALL THE BOOKS! I haven’t decided yet, but we’ll see.

Anyways, let’s get into the review!!

---

“The first time Rhys McGowan attempted magic, he was fifteen years old.”

S.T. Gibson, Ascension, First Line

---

This book is the second book about the trio of David, Rhys, and Moira, with the focus being on Rhys for this particular journey. Like the previous book, we still get the P.O.V. of each of our lovely main characters. As always, I love the writing of S.T. Gibson. Her vision of this supernatural Boston with all manner of magical people is one that I would love to be a part of, even with all the bad parts that inevitably find their way into the book.

With David’s story, I couldn’t stand him from almost the very beginning. With Rhys, we already have some indication of the type of person he is, but let me tell you, he becomes insufferable in this book. But I like that. It feels as if the flaws of our focus character are what we need to see and understand. The plot doesn’t move without these flaws. This is a very character-driven novel. We need to see Rhys at his worst, just like we did with David. We need to see how terrible he can be to really appreciate how wonderful the relationship between the three of them truly is. I’m genuinely excited to see how the next story unfolds (which is Moira’s story).

Some of my favorite parts of this novel are just seeing how the different characters grow. I always find myself with a soft smile as I’m reading. I also love seeing how David has been growing since the first book. There is a very large and foreboding, I’ll say “thing”, that still hangs above them all. We have had no movement on that during this particular novel, and I’m not sure if it necessarily needs to be addressed. I’m a bit unsure on that front. 

I loved this book. I went from reading maybe 20-30 pages a night here and there to finishing the second half of the book in one sitting. I was just enraptured by what was going on, and though I kept telling myself that I could stop, it never seemed like there was a good place to do so. I had to carry on.

I feel like this is one of those reviews where I’m not going to be able to properly articulate exactly why I love this book as much as I do. To be honest, it might just be a vibes thing. For me, the vibes with this book were really good. Good enough at least for a 4.5/5. I couldn’t bring myself to give it a full 5-stars because I’m still not quite sure if I want to slap that stamp on there, but I don’t want to undermine how much I genuinely enjoyed reading this.

4.5 ★

---

I’m currently caught up on this series! There are only 2 out and 2 more planned. If I remember correctly, the third one is going to primarily be from Moira’s POV, which I am incredibly excited for. She has been one of my favorite characters so far. I also have another S.T. Gibson book on my shelf waiting to be read, so I think I’ll get to that one soon as well.

See you all next week!

Bye friends!!!