25% DNF. Too many cliché tropes and too little time to care about them. I only picked this book up because I have owned it for years and never read it. 🤦🏻‍♀️ Now I'm just sad that I own it.

I’m going to just come right out and be a complete fangirl – this book has one of the sexiest (yet not graphic) scenes EVER written for YA (or…for any genre, for that matter). Fiery Sage and soldier Ash have some serious leap-off-the-page blazing chemistry (which is often attempted in books, and rarely achieved). Author Beaty is able to pull this off, I think, because these characters are so well-drawn and their dialogue is filled with crackling tension (fans of Pride & Prejudice will LOVE this

✅ Characters✅ Plot ✅ Plot-twists✅ World-building✅ Action and spying✅ Romance✅ Fakeout Makeout tropeWow! Definitely worth it, this book deserves to be known. 4.5 stars I'd rather make a mistake than yield my destiny to someone else. Sage is a strong-willed and independent girl who was raised by her father until he died when she was 12 years old. She is now 17 years old, and she has been living with her uncle and aunt until she became the matchmaker apprentice at 16 years old. I like t...

The Traitor's Kiss was easily one of my most anticipated releases of 2017. Pitched as Jane Austen with an espionage twist, this book delivers just that and more. Fans of Jane Austen and "The Kiss of Deception" by Mary E. Pearson will likely enjoy this book too! I'd like to start by addressing the fact that this book's early stages of branding were rocky... Comparing this book to Mulan in a pitch is a bold statement to make. Especially when this book is decidedly very different from Mulan. I see

I enjoyed this book more the second time around because I was able to anticipate and appreciate the major plot twist. However, my thoughts and rating remain the same.My written interview with the author can be found here.The phrasing annoyed Sage. As long as she was pretty and in a good mood, her husband would love her? People needed love most when they weren't at their best.You might be wondering why in the world did I give this book 4 stars. After all, many people have given it 1 star because

Omg I'm so happy this is a series! And no there wasn't a cliffhanger I just need more of this world! I am in love with Sage, Alex, Ash, and all the amazing characters! I normally don't love fantasies that don't have magic but I loved this! The world building was amazing and like I said the characters were fantastic! Book 2 now please!!!

I really found the characters in this book so amusing. This is an adorable book that has a good amount of adventure and romance. It was actually humorous to read because so many of the characters are lying and deceiving yet the basically quickly give themselves away or admit to their deceit. Until one big unrevealing in which you will be like whoa! It was a fun read and I am excited to continue this series.

Buddy read with My Awesome Rant BuddyI couldn't write a coherent review on this considering I have spaced out on this more than I can count. The writing is good and the story could be better but the pacing is TERRIBLE.352 pages and Erin Beaty makes it feels like 1000 pages so good job on her part.The world building is not good at all. I have many questions like What does the Concordium does? Why is it absolutely important for girls to be matchmake? And why does the dowry from the girls go to Duk...

NOTE: THIS IS NOT A MULAN RETELLING. I REPEAT, NOT A MULAN RETELLING. Besides, China wasn't the ONLY time and place they did matchmaking, so yeah. but still worth the read. and one last thing: this was TRULY worth staying up past 3am and finishing it along with the audiobook on overdrive and agh! I WANT MORE! and now I have a book hangover.... but on the bright side... 3 books finished in less than a week of each other!! shock!! ONTO THE REVIEW:oh my heart! so this wasn't like AMAZING or OH MY

So before I review a book, I read some reviews of the people that I follow to see the points that people have on the book and see where my views are in comparison. With that being said, apparently there is a lot of hate for this book because it is anti-feminism and encourages girls to hate on girls? That’s absolutely silly. It’s like people are looking for reasons to hate a book these days. You are correct in saying that some of the girls Sage (our heroine) was trying to match (she’s an apprenti...

Was the “plot twist” supposed to be surprising??The Traitor's Kiss had such a cool premise! I really liked the idea of our heroine, Sage, assisting the matchmaker by posing as a fake option for suitors to give them a false choice and ultimately get them to choose the woman the matchmaker had decided. I thought this sounded so cool and was excited to see women utilizing what powers they had in this fictional, chauvinistic society to create power. However, this is not at all what happened. I don't...

The Traitor's Kiss was overall extremely disappointing and discouraging. My journey from learning of this book to finishing it has been a tumultuous one, but one that nevertheless left me wishing I hadn't wasted time in it from the first place. This book was first brought to my attention in being a Mulan retelling, which made me extremely excited. Mulan is one of my favorite Disney princesses - or, er, generals - and also celebrates my own culture. Although it uses minor elements in terms of plo...

Oh. So apparently this "Mulan retelling" is actually about white people? okay--------- an update from four months laterIgnoring the whitewashing, it should also be noted that this book has been accused of using the dark skinned aggressor trope. since this review has somehow gotten popular - it's worth noting that villain-coding for black characters is a long-standing trope built off racism.hey guys, newsflash: if you harass a reviewer, her one-sentence ten-likes prereview will get popular and th...

I am very much surprised (in a good way) how this book turned out for me- So there’s a few things we need to understand right from the start- This is a book on espionage and spying and politics - And I know it got a lot of flak for having problem*tic themes but tbh, in my professional opinion, I didn’t find anything inherently problem*tic…so there won’t be much discussion on that in this review- What this book DID have was lots of strange but enjoyable things- Let’s start with the writing- The w...

Originally posted in my blog! Gah. I was over the moon after receiving an arc because I have heard such phenomenal reviews of this book. All 5 stars on Goodreads and a lot of big bloggers I look up to raved about it, so I thought it must be amazing! Oh boy was I in for a surprise. I honestly don’t even know where to begin. The first half of the book dragged on for waaaaay too long in my opinion and pulled a Kiss of Deception move that made me have to reread some chapters to understand what was h...

This book was surprisingly really enjoyable! Also, this isn’t a Mulan retelling?? I don’t know why it’s labeled as that and that’s what the whole controversy was surrounding this book (white washed mulan). My only problem was the way dark skinned people were described. It was extremely... unnecessary. Full review to come. I loved Sage’s character, the political schemes and the romance. I enjoyed it all so much and I cannot wait to read book 2. —————I’ve heard from many reviewers that the only pr...

i didn't have a review before but i did have a one line, err, reaction? i suppose to the book, that i have deleted. i've also gotten rid of my star rating.this update, however, is because of something new that opened up my eyes to the book. i'm disappointed in myself for not having picked it up while reading and i'm so, so sorry for that. i hadn't realised the author had use the dark-skinned aggressor trope and i know that it's extremely harmful to many readers, and again, i want to apologise fo...

This was really not good.

New best series. Forget the Mortal Instruments and Twilight. This book is seriously sexy and badass.

The Traitor's Kiss has a captivating story line, a fearless main character and enough action to keep you reading until the AM.Yes, I know this book is getting a ton of backlash from many reviewers for offending POC (more about this later in my review). While I don't support this at all, taking colour out of the story, this book was actually really good. The main character is very relatable, and she's the type of independent and tough character that I absolutely love, the romance is ship-worthy a...