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angorarabbit's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The tale of The Woodcutter and His Cat (34% of the way in) describes the murder of an animal and can be skipped. Female leaders and same sex relationships are normal and healthy.
Context: This was the fourth out of five books I wanted to read on the Kindle Series Pioneer achievement and one of two that I may continue the series with. I was quite concerned when the first character introduced was Shadow, checking the StoryGraph content warnings and Does the Dog Die give me the reassurance I needed to carry on.
The book is mainly the journal of the main character Emily with occasional tales and a few entries by Wendell. Emily is for the most part an engaging writer and keeps the story at a decent if not blazing pace. Emily herself is charming and Wendell is enchanting, it will be interesting to see how the two get on once they are back on home ground.
I read a few reviews commenting on how Wendell purposefully laughs at an autistic coded Emily that I would like to talk about. While Emily does see herself as socially inept, I’m not sure that counts as autistic or if she is just an introverted academic. In any case, I saw Wendell as not laughing at Emily but being remarkably understanding of her. If anything one could argue Emily is the cruel one, considering Wendell’s background.
I was afraid that this was going to be a enemies to friends romance, but instead it was a heartwarming story of people helping each other through some tough times. I also appreciated how the lead male character asked for help from mainly women and people whom, considering his background, may have seemed to him to be not worth asking.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, and Violence
Moderate: Confinement, Blood, Kidnapping, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Alcohol
No dogs are hurt, see the review for other animal injuries. No sexual content, but relationships are discussed. Violence similar to Lord of the Rings except shorter and fewer, may be too much for younger readers.tashtasher's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol
steph_weigle's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Confinement, Death, Mental illness, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Animal death, Child death, Grief, and Murder
torturedreadersdept's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Mental illness, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Vomit, and Alcohol
starlit_pathways's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Kidnapping
Moderate: Ableism
Minor: Alcohol
unluckycat13's review against another edition
This book sucks. This is a romance novel masquerading as a general fantasy story, but containing basically every negative romance trope. Main character fails to do something and needs the man to rescue her? Consistently. One wonders how she even survived in the world before he got there. There are worse issues in the book though.
It's also unclear how such an amazing person, who's so powerful, the most knowledgeable about fae in the world, the most competent, the most talented, able to do so much on a shoestring budget and often mostly alone, is so widely disrespected and unknown. I applaud an author who makes being a woman or LGBT not subject to discrimination and prejudice, but the author surely must understand those are the reasons why a character in this situation would normally be disrespected and have their work ignored. Even the authors this book is in homage to faced this situation, and it is why their books are like that both in how they're written and the general reception.
What we have here is the most talented and amazing woman to ever live, who is more impressive than many of the impossible folk tales she collects, who is smarter, harder working, more talented than seemingly any of her peers, with singular insight lacking by everyone else in the world-- And no one knows or cares who she is. Not the fairies, not her colleagues, all cause she's not very sociable? Come on.
To add to that, the earth shattering nature of her adventures and finding in this book (which surely continue into the future books, but seemingly mostly didn't happen in any previous book) paint a picture of her life as just starting with this book. It breaks the illusion that she's a character with an entire life prior.
One of the larger disappointments in this book for me, aside from the romance, is the fairies. Poe is honestly quite the interesting creature... Who ultimately is just a human being who looks weird. As you get to the courtly fae, they indeed are also just dudes. Even the things it describes in them such as their moody natures where their emotions flip on a dime is something probably anyone could observe in other human beings. Sure we can't create ice swords from tears (oh wait, we can do that too), but they're just attractive people. It's baffling.
Ultimately this book is only fulfilling if you're reading it for the romance where Emily comes to realize how awesome and actually flawless her male companion is (for even his flaws are really just also awesome and endearing), and love him. Any other aspect of this book will be a let down as it increasingly goes in the direction that you can read in just about any het-romance book.
Shout out to the moment where the main character mentions that Irish folk lore seems to have been "christianized" at some point but she doesn't know why, how, or by who. Is that supposed to be a character flaw on her end or is the author making a joke?
I also feel compelled to add there is a scene where they torture a child which did not sit right with me. The child is not evil, the child is literally abandoned by his parents and hated by his foster parents. He's probably one of the more innocent people in this book and is looked down on with more disdain than the courtly fae who are hollowing people out for fun. When you add to this that changelings were kind of historically just an excuse to torture autistic or otherwise disabled children, the distressing aspects of the scene are renewed. It pushes Emily over an event horizon of not just being a little immoral or maybe having her own sense of justice, she's quite explicitly a little bit evil although the book would not present her as such. This book in general seems to have very little empathy towards children. I realize not having much empathy is a trait Emily has at the start which she slowly learns to get over as she becomes more suitably womanly for her male love interest, but I think this book is particularly weird about children.
It's actually unclear in general what causes Emily to grow a heart here when she seemingly never had one before except that it makes her more feminine to contrast against her suitor.
It's also unclear how such an amazing person, who's so powerful, the most knowledgeable about fae in the world, the most competent, the most talented, able to do so much on a shoestring budget and often mostly alone, is so widely disrespected and unknown. I applaud an author who makes being a woman or LGBT not subject to discrimination and prejudice, but the author surely must understand those are the reasons why a character in this situation would normally be disrespected and have their work ignored. Even the authors this book is in homage to faced this situation, and it is why their books are like that both in how they're written and the general reception.
What we have here is the most talented and amazing woman to ever live, who is more impressive than many of the impossible folk tales she collects, who is smarter, harder working, more talented than seemingly any of her peers, with singular insight lacking by everyone else in the world-- And no one knows or cares who she is. Not the fairies, not her colleagues, all cause she's not very sociable? Come on.
To add to that, the earth shattering nature of her adventures and finding in this book (which surely continue into the future books, but seemingly mostly didn't happen in any previous book) paint a picture of her life as just starting with this book. It breaks the illusion that she's a character with an entire life prior.
One of the larger disappointments in this book for me, aside from the romance, is the fairies. Poe is honestly quite the interesting creature... Who ultimately is just a human being who looks weird. As you get to the courtly fae, they indeed are also just dudes. Even the things it describes in them such as their moody natures where their emotions flip on a dime is something probably anyone could observe in other human beings. Sure we can't create ice swords from tears (oh wait, we can do that too), but they're just attractive people. It's baffling.
Ultimately this book is only fulfilling if you're reading it for the romance where Emily comes to realize how awesome and actually flawless her male companion is (for even his flaws are really just also awesome and endearing), and love him. Any other aspect of this book will be a let down as it increasingly goes in the direction that you can read in just about any het-romance book.
Shout out to the moment where the main character mentions that Irish folk lore seems to have been "christianized" at some point but she doesn't know why, how, or by who. Is that supposed to be a character flaw on her end or is the author making a joke?
I also feel compelled to add there is a scene where they torture a child which did not sit right with me. The child is not evil, the child is literally abandoned by his parents and hated by his foster parents. He's probably one of the more innocent people in this book and is looked down on with more disdain than the courtly fae who are hollowing people out for fun. When you add to this that changelings were kind of historically just an excuse to torture autistic or otherwise disabled children, the distressing aspects of the scene are renewed. It pushes Emily over an event horizon of not just being a little immoral or maybe having her own sense of justice, she's quite explicitly a little bit evil although the book would not present her as such. This book in general seems to have very little empathy towards children. I realize not having much empathy is a trait Emily has at the start which she slowly learns to get over as she becomes more suitably womanly for her male love interest, but I think this book is particularly weird about children.
It's actually unclear in general what causes Emily to grow a heart here when she seemingly never had one before except that it makes her more feminine to contrast against her suitor.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse
Minor: Child death and Alcohol
Romancetrollmila's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Ultimately really liked it and will be picking up the sequel on payday!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death and Alcohol
Minor: Child abuse, Confinement, Abandonment, and Alcohol
risten's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Torture, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Violence, Kidnapping, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and Alcohol
pandemonicbaby's review against another edition
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Never underestimate the power of an autistic bitch with a special interest in faeries
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Confinement, Death, Gore, Kidnapping, Grief, and Murder
Minor: Animal death, Child death, Cursing, and Alcohol
theintrovertsbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Self harm, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Animal death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Torture, and Murder