TBR & Tangents by Rachel

With this being right up my ally in terms of tropes and vibes, I was super excited to read it. Unfortunately, the entire story just felt off to me. And not in a way that made me think “oh this is being done for the plot”. No, this was simply a case of both the writing and characters falling flat and being unable to live up to the supposed plot
I truly don’t know if page length would have made a difference, or if the story was just too far gone in general. The pacing did feel way off; like everything was being viewed from outside a traveling train. There were glimpses of good writing; some of the imagery and descriptions had me hopeful. But ultimately everything else wrong with this novella overshadowed the positives.
It’s to be expected that you’re going to feel like you’re reading Carmilla; except upside down in this case. Which surprised me and if done better I think I would have really enjoyed this take instead. Mostly I just rolled my eyes at how Juliette remained bland and clueless the entire time, and how none of the characters seemed to have a lick of originality put into them.