Emoji Review by Rebecca Dixon
I finished reading the fifth book of the Zodiac Academy series, ‘Cursed Fates,’ by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti and whereas with the previous book I needed an emergency heart 💔 transplant… STAT❗️! … THIS BOOK 😩😩😩…. mannnnnnn…. forget the transplant! I need a crash 💥 📉 cart people!!! It was soooooo BRUTAL 😭 (but ok still AMAZING 🤩😆)… that I actually had to take 24 hrs to simmer 🥴 down before I wrote this review! If you have read it, you’ll know what I mean! There are no major spoilers below FYI!
OK. So I have to address one thing first! When you get this book… your basically getting a BOGO deal 😆 ! This book is SUPER long 📏 and is LOADED with alllll kinds of stuff 😍😘🥰😜🤩😎😏🤓😇🤗! I actually made a bulleted list as I was reading and I seriously couldn’t believe 😲 when I finished the book HOW MUCH happened!!! Tons of character development! TONS 🐘 . The multiple POVs are going STRONG 💪🏻 in this book. We learn SO much about so MANY characters! And the humor 🙌🏻! So many really GREAT 👍🏻 , FUNNY 😆 scenes! Most people talk about this book for the ending (and don’t you worry, I’ll get to that and somehow not spoil it at the same time 😆.) But there are actually some really GREAT 👍🏻 , SATISFYING 😍 scenes in this book (I should know, I have a bulleted list 😂!) If you thought A.S.S. was funny 😆, WAIT until you read about a new club that is formed 🤣🤣🤣! Or how about a certain lilac reveal that was a long time in the making, but just made your heart so happy 😄 and full 💖💖💖! Or an Orb scene where a certain faeroid induced lady gets what’s coming to her 👊🏻 ! Or how about a scene that is ALL about NOTHING. Sooooooo gooooood 🙌🏻!!!
There’s also some GREAT steam 🔥 in this book!! If you were daydreaming 😶🌫️ about a certain possibility (think a certain brand of red wine 🍷 as a clue 🔎,) you may be completely stroked (err, I mean STOKED 😜😆) to find out dreams ✨ may just be reality 🙌🏻! And there are some super tender 💜 and YESSSSS 👏🏻 moments where the ending of Book 4 isn’t quite so bad anymore! Like now that I’ve read about morning jogs 🏃🏻♀️ , coffee ☕️ , and chocolate 🍫 … I’m almost happy about choices made in Book 4!!! There’s some courting going on that is super sweet and if things had turned out the way WE ALL WANTED THEM TO in Book 4 (cough cough looking 👀 at you Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti 😆!,) we wouldn’t have these SUPER LOVEABLE 🥰 moments in Book 5! But perhaps the BEST moment in this book was when certain characters were honest… FINALLY… and admitted to the possibility of FOREVER 💜💜💜. Considering their track record, this was a pretty monumental moment!! 🥳🥳🥳
So there were some really, REALLY great scenes in this book! Lots of awesome stuff to enjoy 👏🏻! But what’s that saying… do you want the good news first or the bad 🤭?! Welp! I made the executive decision to give you the good stuff first to soften the blow of the COMPLETE AGONY 😩 of this book! And I’d LOVE to tell you it’s JUST ONE of our girls 👸 that has a pretty BRUTAL 😩 turn of events happen to her! But I’d be fibbing 😬 to you if I did! Ok WAIT ✋🏻, sometimes denial is the best defense, so let’s just pretend and deny-away, shall we 😂? I actually posted my preference for Book 5’s ending (as just a silly 🤪 funny and well, as a way to SURVIVE 💪🏻 the HEARTACHE 💔!) But mannnnnnn, it’s ROUGH 🤦🏻♀️. Our poor characters sure do get a beating 👊🏻! But you know what I always say about a bully romance??? When done WELL…. the bullying may be BRUTAL 😭… but when the tables turn, IT IS SO WORTH IT!!!! And that’s how I feel about this book! Is it brutal? YES 👍🏻 . Is it fair? NO 👎🏻. Is it agony? YES 👍🏻. Do you want to punch 🤜🏻 some bad 👿 guys in the face and hope they fall in a manhole? YES 👍🏻 YES 👍🏻 YES 👍🏻 😂. But just as it’s heartbreaking 💔 , it’s also HOPEFUL 😇. The final chapter is PERFECT. Where there is darkness, there is light 💜. And to see certain characters… FINALLY… get the big picture TOGETHER… it’s just feels like it was written in the stars ✨.
So another big SHOUT OUT to Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti for another great book! And with that, I’ll end with a super fitting quote by Theodore Roosevelt and say to these two authors who have now become a part of my all time favs … “BULLY FOR YOU!”
