This turned out to be way different than expected. I couldn't get into the book as much as I would have liked to.
This resulted in me DNF'ing this book unfortunately. Therefore I can not give a proper review.

I had some difficulty getting into the story, as I felt that the first chapter kind of dumped me in the middle with no buildup or explanation. I think this would have benefited from a short prequel or introduction into the world, as I had no idea what was going on, or what any of the words or descriptions for the people in this novel meant. I think with this book veering into magical territory, with inhuman creatures that each have a definition for how they look, something to help the reader understand what exactly is going on would be beneficial. As it is, I kept forgetting what each character looked like or what these new words meant, as I was reading.

I eventually had to DNF it at 26% in, when I realized that I wasn’t really following the story or understanding everything that was going on. I felt some of the dialogue and internal monologue sections to be overly worldly but difficult to parse what, exactly, was going on. Nothing felt like it had any strong impact or emotions tied to it, so even reading the section with the murder fell flat to me.

For instance, sometimes things would be said or described that I thought meant one thing, but in fact meant the exact opposite.

After Veaer witnesses the girl she’s obsessed with murder another student, this is the ending of that chapter.

”Then she stopped, dropped the knife, and got on her knees.”
And Veaer joined her in prayer.”

And until the continuation of the story about 2 chapters from this point, I thought that meant that Veaer literally joined her, and that they would be hiding the murder together. The fact that the next chapter suddenly has a POV change without telling you, about cleaning up after and hiding the body, did not help this interpretation.

I also had difficulty understanding the characters and their relationships. We have a bunch of people named at us with very little distinction or understanding, and there were multiple times I thought a character was dating someone who was their BROTHER or that a character had a relationship with someone who I THOUGHT was their brother. Neither of these were actually true, but you can understand my confusion when there are two sets of siblings in this story, and a flat narrative voice that makes it difficult to understand who is who.

On top of this, much of the language is extremely flowery with little substance, which made it hard to follow along with what was going on. The relationship between the main character and the girl she’s obsessed with seemed to flip flop, and their meetings with one another made no sense.

(The book literally starts with her breaking into her room, waiting for her there, and then when the other character finds her - she barely reacts. And then, our MC tackles her to the bed in a way that seems sexually aggressive, but then she steals her necklace and then leaves? And then practically nothing happens after this - no development, no explanation, nothing. Extremely confusing to read). Not to mention the long and drawn out descriptions of the other girl, and her apparent art obsession with butterflies, and their discussion about how “deep” and “complex” this is - all the while talking to the character that just literally broke into her room.

I think this could be a good book to read to someone who enjoys extremely flowery language in their stories, but for me I could not get into it. The writing felt like a barrier to me accessing the story or the characters, and I had to stop when I realized I was both skimming the words and filling in the blanks of what I (thought) was going on as I read.

Thank you to the author, NetGalley, and ARC provided by Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I think this one fell short for me. I had a hard time keeping up with the POVs timelines. The world building was not very well developed and explained.

The writing style, for me, was not particularly easy to keep up.

I think the idea and the story have so much potential and it truly got me invested at first but I was having difficulty keeping track of the story as it went back and forth. The use of riddles is also a cool concept but for me as a reader I’d like to not have to guess time and time again.

I’m a huge fan of dark academia, and since it’s by a queer author of color, I genuinely thought I would love this, but I can’t get into it. I must DNF at 15%.

The first chapter started off with lots of info dumping, which was making the story drag. And from there it just got incredibly confusing. I had no idea what was going on. I couldn’t even picture what was happening in the scenes. I set it down because of how confusing it was, but I wanted to try to give it another chance eventually. But it has been several months and I haven’t been tempted to pick it back up, so I’m calling it. If I ever decide to try again, I’ll update my review!

Thank you to the author and NetGalley for his ARC. All opinions are my own.

I, like others, wanted to like this book. However, I was unable to get into it. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t be moved to pick it up. /:

All the ideas were so promising but the execution was so poorly done! The world building wasn't explored enough for my taste and the ideas were simply surface level, never having a large impact on the overall story. The characters were so dislikable but not in an antihero way, in a poorly written way. Very disappointed.

I received this book for free for an honest review from netgalley. Thank you for the opportunity

Not my normal read but I did enjoy it. The setting was unforgettable.

This had great ingredients, from a underground cult to obsessive love, but it wasn't cooked well. So it didn't really ate—apologies for whatever I just did here. Basically, the characters were the best part with the morally grey personalities and it had strong elements like a sapphic angst and dark academia vibes. But since it tried to do to much, the final story fell flat.

Haunting and high stakes I would NOT want to attend this academy. Such an intensity of characters and world for a relatively short story. This is me supporting women’s wrongs.

This book has a great premise for a queer, gothic and dark academia book that we can love and binge. This felt flat for me, it was kind of dry and I didn’t enjoy it a lot because at times it was confusing and didn’t make a lot of sense how this was crafted. I recommend you read it for yourself to get the idea on your own because I believe you have to make your own opinions but, it was hard to keep going. I DNF it very early on but, I am so grateful for the approval.

2.5 stars

I’m really disappointed I didn’t like this! I had such high hopes (especially because of the queer and autistic rep), but this just wasn’t for me. I found it difficult to follow - I was very lost for the first half of the book. The second half was slightly better, but not by much. It took me a while to understand the relationships between the characters, and the characters themselves (and the gaslighting) frustrated me constantly. But despite all that, I didn't want to stop reading it (I really wanted to know how the story ended haha).

Content warnings (taken from the author’s website): alcohol/drug use, blood, confrontation to abuser, death, emotional abuse, escalating violence, gaslighting/manipulation, gore, lifechanging injury, murder, corpses, nightmares/visions about traumatic events, panic attacks, paranormal/occult content, PTSD, self-harm, sexual content, suicide ideation, trauma

Thank you to Netgalley for the e-arc!

"Eventually, memories become something of a layered beast. One’s memory was only the last time they remembered an instance."

Thanks to Victory Editing, NetGalley and the author for this eARC in exchange for an honest review. ❤️

bolleras tóxicas y un poquito furras en un internado mágico con una secta. 10/10 no notes (bueno, sí, alguna).

Cuando leí Seis de cuervos sin haber leído la trilogía Grisha me encantó que el mundo ya estuviese establecido y Leigh Bardugo no diera explicaciones de nada que no fuese imprescindible, confiando en la inteligencia de sus lectores. Quinton Li hace exactamente lo mismo. La trama no se aleja mucho de un Dark Academia fantástico, pero el worldbuilding es lo que le da el toque. Es un mundo nuevo, con sus mitos propios, sus personajes históricos propios, su sistema de magia propio, sus razas furras propias… y muy pocas de esas cosas son relevantes para la trama, pero le dan mucha profundidad al mundo.

Me han encantado las protagonistas, Veaer como ladrona artista (y simp), Elise como princesa creepy obsesionada con las mariposas. Y me ha gustado aún más la relación entre ellas, enfermiza, obsesiva y llena de secretos. Veaer obsesionada con Elise, Elise obsesionada con ser querida y las dos todo el rato preguntándose si la otra sabe que la una sabe.

"She had always admired Elise’s passion for knowledge, demonstrated in every assignment she submitted, and every time they did have to present their findings to the class. Insatiable curiosity was a feeling she could understand."

Sí que he echado en falta algo más de la trama de misterio. Si lo que más os interesa es el suspense, este no es vuestro libro. Me habría gustado que se hubiera resuelto todo utilizando todas las pistas que va recopilando Veaer, pero al final da la sensación de que quedan como sin usar y las explicaciones se quedan un poco cortas. Además, hacia el final el libro flojea un poco para mi gusto. Hay varios capítulos en los que la prota tiene alucinaciones y se me hicieron un poco pesados, aunque están maravillosamente escritos.

Quinton Li escribe increíble. No solo tiene barras a lo largo de la novela, sino que emplea las imágenes con mucho ingenio. La simbología de las mariposas me ha tenido tirándome de los pelos medio libro como friki del tarot que soy. La muerte, el amor, la transformación… me vuelvo loca.
Aunque no me pilló en mi mejor momento y me costó terminarlo más de lo que debería, me lo pasé muy bien leyendo este libro y no me lo quito de la cabeza. Ahora mismo lo único que quiero es dedicarme a leer el tarot y a ser mística y misteriosa mientras un montón de mariposas se me posan en el pelo.

"The numbness that came after crying was a reminder of her mistakes."

I want to thank Netgalley and the author Quinton Li for the ark. I will be giving my honest review.

The world is described slowly and we see ourselves in a school environment a dark academia aesthetics. With queer autosm representation and person of color representation, the description of the world and the characters was my absolute favourite, and we find a hierarchy spread out bye the floor your sleeping In the higher the better, the most important.
We have conflicts, murder and thriller.

A promising premise, fresh ideas and intriguing visions linger in Chrysalis and Requiem. The author has a talent for expressing diverse voices and readers are treated with a cast of sapphic, genderqueer and disabled characters. This is a rare gift and I'm glad that Li uses it in her storytelling. Similarly, there is an undeniable charm or aesthetic to incorporating tarot themes in a queer fantasy thriller and I delighted in seeing references to this. That said, as much as I would've liked to give Chrysalis and Requiem a higher review, the story bogs itself down with grammatical and structural errors. I look forward to reading more from Quinton Li after these technical hiccups are ironed out.

DNF at around 55%

I really tried to push through but I found myself skimming more and more so I finally just gave up. The whole thing just rang rather hollow to me.

The characters felt bland and very one-note. The relationships were super confusing because I have no idea why they exist the way they do. Why is Vaear obsessed with Elise? I have not a clue. The writing felt more aesthetic than comprehensive. Many pretty words but not a lot is said. It felt a bit like someone patchworked a novel out of "deep" Pinterest quotes. Writing just for the sake of writing never really appealed to me. The plot would've actually been interesting were it not dampened by the aforementioned factors.

So, that is why I can only give it a rounded up 1.75 stars.

an amazing book filled with stunning storytelling and unforgettable, unhinged characters! brilliant and with lots of LGBTQ representation

DNF at 10%

I am so thankful to the author and to NetGalley for gifting me an eARC of this book! I was super excited to pick it up, both because of the autism and sapphic rep, and because the blurb sounded right up my alley!

Unfortunately, the execution made it impossible for me to enjoy this novel. While the concept is brilliant, the poor grammar and clunky sentence structure just doesn’t work.

I loved the themes and characters in this book, although it was a bit confusing and a little hard to follow at times.
Still, it was a wonderful read and I adore the art especially! 💗

A YA sapphic fantasy academia of a twisted mystery.

The is a wild complex story of crazy characters. I enjoyed the aesthetics and magic but every once in a while I felt a bit lost and a little confused but nothing that took me out of the story. The plot was well done, and the characters are fine but what stole my attention was the themes and magical elements. It's unique with a queer romance that's dealing with murder, angels, ghosts, and more. The writing is ok, but there is some religious imagery, I feel the author knows their world and characters.

If you like weird, confusing, queer romance, and magic then you may have fun when reading this.

⭐⭐⭐✨3.5/5

This book was a wild and bizarre ride! And it is probably not going to be what you expect it to be going in. It is filled with all kinds of morally gray (at best) characters, murder & mayhem, secret underground occult dealings, paranormal mischief, complicated (and often obsessive, codependent, and manipulative) relationships, dark academia and the underpinnings of elitism, teen angst and drama! It is utter chaos at times and exactly as the author has stated, “reads like a fever dream.”

The story is told from Veaer’s point of view, and while she might not be an unreliable narrator, the inner workings of her mind will take you to some interesting places and sometimes it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s not. Elise…well she’s a bit of a loose cannon too, but she is also cunning and manipulative. And let’s just say…there was not a single point in the story where I actually trusted her. Tychon is a ghost for most of the story and he’s probably my favorite - a trans tarot reader studying religion and mythology. He remains somewhat a mystery through the book, being dead and all, but he was a fascinating character and I loved watching his paranormal interactions. Haiwrin seemed to be the most level headed of all of them. And while I really liked Adair…I still have some mixed feelings on that one. Harq intrigued me and I both liked and didn’t like him. Izot I mostly didn’t like, but he may have slightly redeemed himself. He’s still an entitled rich boy though. Long story short - there were no characters that I absolutely LOVED and none that I fully trusted either.

I liked the way that Li shifted between the past and present, filling in pieces of the backstory that led to the sheer madness that the story begins with. I also loved the religious (and maybe somewhat antireligious) themes in the book - angels, idol worship, rebirth, transformation and ascension.

Whatever you expect this book to be…throw it out! There were times I was utterly confused while reading and, not gonna lie, did feel like I was in some kind of fever dream. At the end of the book I was still trying to untangle the complicated web of relationships and figure out exactly what went down and who did what and why. There were so many twists and turns and secrets revealed that it was hard to keep track of it all!

Was this book everything I hoped it would be? Not quite. The writing style was not my favorite and was confusing at times. It’s hard to tell, though, whether the writing itself wasn’t great or if the writing was intentional to give it that “fever dream” quality. I think those vibes could have been achieved other ways, but we were inside Veaer’s mind… All that being said, bizarre and tangled and chaotic as this story was, I did still enjoy reading it.

🏳️‍🌈Rep: Lesbian MC & LI; Gay, Bi/Pan, Trans & Nonbinary SCs; Cane User (SC)

📝Genre/Tropes/Themes: New Adult, Dark Academia, Fantasy, Thriller, Purple Gothic Prose, Morally Gray Characters, Trans Angels, Murder Lesbians, Occult and Rituals, Idol Worship, Paranormal, Secret Societies, Tragedy, Obsessive Relationships

⚠️TW/CW (from the author): alcohol/drug use, blood, confrontation to abuse, death, emotional abuse, escalating violence, gaslighting/manipulation, gore, life changing injury, corpses, visions about traumatic events, panic attacks, paranormal/occult content, self-harm, sexual references, suicide ideation, and trauma