Flash book reviews because I am super behind

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge (May 10)
Til We Have Faces meets Pandora's Box meets Howl's Moving Castle meets Rose Daughter. I LOVED THIS WOW. 4/5

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton (May 31-June 6)
Thrift store purchase because it had a pretty cover. Gothic novel told through flashbacks, journal entries, letters, etc. set in WWII and present day (1990s). Well-written, atmospheric mystery. Initially sucked me in but in the end I sort of hated it due to the difficult, controlling, messed up family situation and unnecessary deaths. No one in this book gets to have nice things. 3.9/5

Dracula by Bram Stoker (mid June)
I read this for the fantasy & science fiction class I enrolled in from Coursera. I know it's a classic, and upon reading it I can see why, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It's surprisingly religious and Mina is pretty awesome, despite how Perfect Victorian Woman she is. 4/5

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson (June 17)
I've been following Noelle Stevenson on Tumblr for years now. This was originally a webcomic, and I had read all but the last chapter or so since I got busy with school and work. It's a sort of steampunk (not Victorian or much steam, just knights who fight with mechanical lances and mad scientists researching magic) graphic novel about a "villain" and his mysterious sidekick trying to overthrow an oppressive government. This was wonderful and I enjoyed it. The feels. 4/5

Here There Be Unicorns by Jane Yolen (June)
This was such a favorite of mine growing up. I used to read it from our public library all the time. I had some credit in my Amazon account so I bought this. It's such a weird experience rereading a book you loved as a child and haven't read since then. It's always much shorter and less impactful, less substantial, in a way. You're a different person who has learned and grown a lot since then so it doesn't affect you like it used to. Still, I have a lot of love for this book. I was kind of amazed that  I loved it that much as a kid, since the stories/poems are pretty advanced and open-ended/vague rather than having happy, tidy endings, and I was a lot less used to sad, philosophical stories back than than I am now. 4/5

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (late June)
I guess I see why this is a classic, as this is the first science fiction novel (written by a teenage girl, so take that, sexist nerd bros who think SF is only for guys), but I kind of hated this. Victor is an idiot, tons of unnecessary deaths, and no one is allowed to have nice things. Just misery. Also, I downloaded a random free ebook from the Nook store because I was feeling too lazy to connect my Nook ereader to my laptop in order to download the version supplied by the instructor of my SF/F class and it had the worst formatting I'd ever seen. Whole paragraphs, pages, were jumbles of letters with symbols. Terrible. 3.5/5