**Welcome to Weekly Reads! Each Monday I’ll share reviews for my most recent reads. For more reviews, please visit my page, The Reads: From A to Z.**

Last week was incredibly busy – though I’ve been there for a year as a temp, my first week as a full time employee was one of my busiest yet! I’ll be getting several new tasks to add to my already full plate, but the more the better, I’m ready for the challenge! Hopefully, with time, my schedule will even out and I’ll have more energy to blog in the evenings. For everyone who has stuck around in my down-time, thank you! I promise I’ll be back full force soon!

Side note, I’ve been juggling several longer reads for a week now, and then even MORE holds popped up, one of them being A Court of Mist and Fury….so what else was I to do? How can you have ACOMAF in your possession and NOT read it immediately!? You can’t! But now it’s read, and the year long wait for the next installment begins.

Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Hopping city to city one cinnamon roll at time, Hannah Martin is living the life many only dream of, but at twenty nine, wihout a steady job and recovering from a messy relationship with a married man, she’ll pack her bags and move back to Los Angelos. There, she reconnects with old friends and an old flame after a wild night out at the bars. Should she leave early with her friend and current couch lessor? Or should she risk it all and leave with her ex, the one that got away all those years ago? Well, lucky for her, she won’t have to choose as fate has other ideas – leading two separate lives in two separate realities, Hannah will find just what she’s looking for, and who.

“I know there may be universes out there where I made different choices and they led me somewhere else, led me to someone else. And my heart breaks for every single version of me that didn’t end up with you.”

“You can only forgive yourself for the mistakes you made in the past once you know you’ll never make them again.”

There are, and always be, those moments we’ll question the rest of our lives – pivotal moments where everything we knew changed, moments you can look back on and say “there! that was it!”. Whether good or bad, these moments shape our lives forever. I love the idea of another world where perhaps my choices were different – maybe I didn’t major in geology, maybe I never moved to Texas, maybe I went to a completely different college. All those what ifs and what could have beens… we all have them, and for Hannah, they shape two different and yet, similar lives. But alternate realities aside, Hannah’s journey is relatable on so many levels. She’s hopping job to job, homeless, and stuck between the choice of two men. She’s at the precipice of making incredible life choices that could change the course of her life forever – so, what do you choose? How do you choose it? Reid has an amazing way of keeping the tone level headed no matter the turmoil strummed up by Hannah’s choices, giving us helpful hints page after page. Maybe in Another Life had thinking of all my choices over the years, but by the end of Hannah’s journey, I was reminded of all of the great things that have happened to me because of the choices I made – for everyone who feels stuck or at those first steps in life, this is the novel for you.

Rating: 4 Stars      GoodReads      Amazon

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

Following A Court of Thorns and Roses, the story continues as Feyre returns to the Spring Court with Tamlin. Though they survived the trials from under the mountain, the effects are still apparent – night terrors, visions, constant reminders of the pain and torture. Tamlin does what he can for Feyre, but constantly away defending the territory, she is often left alone and confined to the grounds for her safety, giving her plenty of time to plan the upcoming wedding ceremony and enjoy every splendor the court has to offer. But just as her happy ending is coming to a close, the High Lord of the Night Court, Rhysand, appears make good on their bargain. During her weeks at the Night Court, she’ll find the answers she seeks and questions she never imagined she’d have to ask herself, or even the man she loves. With a new threat looming, Feyre will need to summon great strength to overcome her weakened soul to save the faerie realm once again, discovering new powers and forging new bonds, she’ll discover unlikely allies and shocking enemies along the way.

“He thinks he’ll be remembered as the villain in the story. But I forgot to tell him that the villain is usually the person who locks up the maiden and throws away the key. He was the one who let me out.”

“No one was my master— but I might be master of everything, if I wished. If I dared.”

If the summary above is a little scanty, it’s because how can you really summarize this novel without giving away the whole story!? Each chapter is a new cliff hanger, a new twist in the plot, and I can’t imagine spoiling this story for anyone – twofold, I’m glad I didn’t read any summaries, myself! If you read my review on ACOTAR last week, you noticed while I was intrigued by Rhysand, and generally liked his character, I was pretty hung up on the whole bargain thing, and completely missed where Maas was taking the story. This definitely didn’t ruin anything for me, actually it kept me on my toes the whole way through! I love the direction she went with Feyre’s relationships in the sequel – as a character, she is sooo much more appealing in this book, and much more developed in terms of a back story with the emotional pulp you need to reinforce it.

 Beware: Spoilers Ahead!!

First, the elephant in the room: Tamlin. They’ve both undergone dramatic changes since their time under the mountain, but that’s no excuse for his controlling and neglectful behavior – sure, he has his own demons to face, and probably wants to protect her from them, but why avoid her? Why never discuss the issues – doesn’t he see she’s wasting away to NOTHING! I would have thought now, with the curse broken, he’d be more open with Feyre, wanting to share his world with her unimpeded, especially now that she’s High Fae. So imagine my surprise to find her confined to the castle grounds – wear pretty dresses, plan your wedding, I’ll see you for five minutes later and we can have sex, ok, bye… Nope, that doesn’t work – it never works. Poor, poor, clueless Tamlin, he let the curse get the better of him.

Rating: 5 Stars     GoodReads      Amazon

What have you been reading lately? Have you finished ACOMAF!?

**This post contains affiliate links. All reviews are of my own opinion. Thank you for supporting my love of reading!**