books_over_everything's review
4.0
Initial Thoughts
I loved A Golden Fury by Samantha Cohoe and basically begged Wednesday Books for an ARC of Samantha's next book.
Some Things I Liked
Great Gatsby vibes. I loved the 1920s glamour and the nods to France. The setting was so opulent and mysterious and I loved every second of it.
The Tempest. I've literally been saying forever that I wish someone would write a YA retelling of The Tempest and BOOM, Samantha Cohoe for the win. Loved it.
Morally grey characters. Everybody, and I mean everybody, was morally grey in some way and I lived for it.
One Thing I Wasn't Crazy About
The romance. I wish the romance was tied up a little more. I really wasn't into Milo as a love interest and I loved Ivo and wanted so much more of him.
Series Value
I'd definitely love to read more about this world and these characters. However, I think that the mystery would be a ruined a bit by sequels. The story ends on a perfectly mysterious note and another installment would demolish that ambiguity.
Final Thoughts
This was the retelling of The Tempest that I always wanted. I am definitely going to keep reading Samantha Cohoe's books.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I loved A Golden Fury by Samantha Cohoe and basically begged Wednesday Books for an ARC of Samantha's next book.
Some Things I Liked
Great Gatsby vibes. I loved the 1920s glamour and the nods to France. The setting was so opulent and mysterious and I loved every second of it.
The Tempest. I've literally been saying forever that I wish someone would write a YA retelling of The Tempest and BOOM, Samantha Cohoe for the win. Loved it.
Morally grey characters. Everybody, and I mean everybody, was morally grey in some way and I lived for it.
One Thing I Wasn't Crazy About
The romance. I wish the romance was tied up a little more. I really wasn't into Milo as a love interest and I loved Ivo and wanted so much more of him.
Series Value
I'd definitely love to read more about this world and these characters. However, I think that the mystery would be a ruined a bit by sequels. The story ends on a perfectly mysterious note and another installment would demolish that ambiguity.
Final Thoughts
This was the retelling of The Tempest that I always wanted. I am definitely going to keep reading Samantha Cohoe's books.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
caylieratzlaff's review
3.0
Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC of this novel. 3/5 stars.
I wanted to like this a lot, but I really just....felt meh about it. Honestly, it probably is 3/5 instead of 2/5 just because of the gilded age vibes...everything else was just...meh. The premise seemed really cool, and I'll admit that I've never read the Tempest...but I don't know what the point of half of the plot was?
Mae was the most indecisive, helpless protagonist. It was very much "oh no, pity me, no one likes me, let me change my mind and my intentions 600000 times." She could never be in the wrong!! Coco and Miles were also equally obnoxious.
Every time the plot had narrowed down from all of the branches it was going on, it exploded into more branches. It's like...the plot was as indecisive as Mae was. Also, the ending? Was abrupt? And didn't really resolve anything?
Oh, and yeah, there's 'magic' with the spirits. and an ounce of colonialism and classism. oh, and since it's the gilded age...we get some good patriarchal crap about women.
I wanted to like this a lot, but I really just....felt meh about it. Honestly, it probably is 3/5 instead of 2/5 just because of the gilded age vibes...everything else was just...meh. The premise seemed really cool, and I'll admit that I've never read the Tempest...but I don't know what the point of half of the plot was?
Mae was the most indecisive, helpless protagonist. It was very much "oh no, pity me, no one likes me, let me change my mind and my intentions 600000 times." She could never be in the wrong!! Coco and Miles were also equally obnoxious.
Every time the plot had narrowed down from all of the branches it was going on, it exploded into more branches. It's like...the plot was as indecisive as Mae was. Also, the ending? Was abrupt? And didn't really resolve anything?
Oh, and yeah, there's 'magic' with the spirits. and an ounce of colonialism and classism. oh, and since it's the gilded age...we get some good patriarchal crap about women.
bheadley's review
4.0
Interesting world of magicians, wealth, spirits and aether. Where does the magic come from? This entitled family and their steward’s daughter. Took a star away for the ending… just finish the story!
vickimarie2002's review
4.0
I've seen that this book was a retelling or based on The Tempest by Shakespeare. I've never read The Tempest so I have no basis on which to compare it to. I did mostly enjoy Bright Ruined Things but I really felt like everyone was really wishy washy. Every page was someone hating someone they just adored on the previous page. I loved the setting of a mysterious, magic island and the wealthy, magical Prosper family. I love books about magic so I really enjoyed all of that part. Mae is very naïve and sheltered. I felt for her. I thought maybe I like some of the Prosper Family, but a lot of them are absolutely terrible! Overall, it was a good story and I think it would be good if it turned into a movie or a series. Then you could expand on it a bit and see the amazing imagery.
pixie_hallows's review
4.0
Hmm. I think it’s a stretch to say this is a retelling of the Tempest. I do think there are elements inspired by the Tempest (very few), so if you go into it excited about the Tempest aspect, you may be disappointed. On its own, however, this is a decent story with some complexity in trying to figure out the “real” sides of people.
openmypages's review
3.0
{3.5 stars}
I feel like I walked into the middle of a story with this one. Mae is an orphan living on an island in the orbit of the wealthy Prosper family. A family that controls all of the magic, magic others want... including Mae. As the First Night celebration approaches, Mae finds an opportunity to gain a foothold within the family. But she also begins to discover just what is fueling the magic everyone is so desperate for. She is faced with some tough choices as the truth is revealed.
The story is based on the classic The Tempest and a lot of the themes around family, magic and revenge are core to this story. The main characters are in their teens and it certainly has the intense emotions you'd expect from characters of that age. Everyone has feelings about everyone and they are the good, bad and the ugly. Mae is a bit naive but she is not the only one in the dark about what's really going on and it was fun to unravel the mystery and just who to trust along with her.
I felt like the magic could have been a little more fleshed out but other than that the story had pretty good world building. It does start off a little slow as we get to know all of the key players but the last quarter is non-stop action. I also really enjoyed the ending.
Thanks to Netgalley for access to an advanced copy of this novel. All opinions above are my own.
I feel like I walked into the middle of a story with this one. Mae is an orphan living on an island in the orbit of the wealthy Prosper family. A family that controls all of the magic, magic others want... including Mae. As the First Night celebration approaches, Mae finds an opportunity to gain a foothold within the family. But she also begins to discover just what is fueling the magic everyone is so desperate for. She is faced with some tough choices as the truth is revealed.
The story is based on the classic The Tempest and a lot of the themes around family, magic and revenge are core to this story. The main characters are in their teens and it certainly has the intense emotions you'd expect from characters of that age. Everyone has feelings about everyone and they are the good, bad and the ugly. Mae is a bit naive but she is not the only one in the dark about what's really going on and it was fun to unravel the mystery and just who to trust along with her.
I felt like the magic could have been a little more fleshed out but other than that the story had pretty good world building. It does start off a little slow as we get to know all of the key players but the last quarter is non-stop action. I also really enjoyed the ending.
Thanks to Netgalley for access to an advanced copy of this novel. All opinions above are my own.
ksmithcpa's review
3.0
Show me a cover reminiscent of The Great Gatsby and make it a retelling of a Shakespeare play and I’m all in. Unfortunately, Bright Ruined Things didn’t live up to the great potential it had going for it. I thought the book started out strong and I was interested to see what would happen with each of the characters, but by the middle, I really didn’t care much about them so I just pressed on to finish the book to see if my views on them would change. Sadly, they did not. There was nothing inherently wrong, it was just a fairly forgettable story.
lioness20's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
energyrae's review
4.0
Last year I read A Golden Fury and forgot to make notes while reading it because the storyline sucked me in. So when I saw Cohoe had a new book releasing, I raced to request an ARC. Yet again, Cohoe has sucked me in with a storyline so engaging that I made very few notes. So I’m just going to wing this review as best as I’m able. I will say that I haven’t read The Tempest, as this is a parallel. Out of the wide variety of books I read, Shakespeare doesn’t do it for me. So I’m glad I have nothing to compare this story to.
The characters are fairly shallow. They’re not too in-depth, but it helps to draw you into this incredibly dramatic storyline where you’re unsure what exactly is going on, but you’re compelled to keep reading. When I got about 3/4s of the way in, I felt I was reading a soap opera in real-time. There was so much drama, so many delicious secrets coming to light, that I looked at the clock, realized it was 5 hours past bedtime, shrugged, and kept on reading.
This story is so very addicting. You’re unsure who to cheer for outside of Ivo, but you keep reading because you don’t need to cheer for anyone. You just want everyone to spill the tea. I’ve read a few reviews where people were unhappy with the ending. I feel the same way. We went through such a dramatic story, where things worked out as they were meant, until they didn’t. So what was it all for? Sometimes a book needs an ambiguous ending, but this was not the book for it. So it was a bit of a letdown in that area. Overall though, this is such a fun read. Thank you, St. Martin’s/Wednesday Books, for sending this along!
The characters are fairly shallow. They’re not too in-depth, but it helps to draw you into this incredibly dramatic storyline where you’re unsure what exactly is going on, but you’re compelled to keep reading. When I got about 3/4s of the way in, I felt I was reading a soap opera in real-time. There was so much drama, so many delicious secrets coming to light, that I looked at the clock, realized it was 5 hours past bedtime, shrugged, and kept on reading.
This story is so very addicting. You’re unsure who to cheer for outside of Ivo, but you keep reading because you don’t need to cheer for anyone. You just want everyone to spill the tea. I’ve read a few reviews where people were unhappy with the ending. I feel the same way. We went through such a dramatic story, where things worked out as they were meant, until they didn’t. So what was it all for? Sometimes a book needs an ambiguous ending, but this was not the book for it. So it was a bit of a letdown in that area. Overall though, this is such a fun read. Thank you, St. Martin’s/Wednesday Books, for sending this along!