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hayzey's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
tense
fast-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? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Bullying, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Chronic illness, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Mental illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Drug use, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol
kryolitee's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
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
I have no words.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Cursing, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Drug use and Vomit
shinyfox's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
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
3.5
I'm just going to spoiler tag the following because it's questions and musings and I don't want to spoil accidentally...
Why is it that riders are the ones that are considered needing to be culled out? Why is it that they are weak when they are JUST learning how to ride a dragon and they fall to their deaths. Like bro, they've never been on an -actual- dragon before. Why is it that the riders are weak and not the dragons for letting their riders die? The dragons can't protect their riders appropriately and the riders are considered weak while still in the learning stages?
Curious as to how they are going to explain Andarna's change in physicality since humans don't seem to know that feather tails are babies and they think that they are a totally different breed.
Why can't unbonded dragons fight alone or in unbonded riots?
How and when did Violet become the best knife thrower? When did she practice this while training to become a scribe and while she only had 6 months to prep for being a rider?
If marked ones aren't allowed to meet or gather in groups of 3+ how did Xaden manage to get a full squad of marked ones together for War Games?? That alone should have been a tip off/red flag that something was going wrong, that higher ups allowed that.
Plot twists were easy to spot, easy to tell which characters had 'plot armor'. Narrators were fantastic for the audiobook, though I'm confused WHY we needed two of them when the POV switch is literally in the last couple of chapters and doesn't last long...
Curious as to how they are going to explain Andarna's change in physicality since humans don't seem to know that feather tails are babies and they think that they are a totally different breed.
Why can't unbonded dragons fight alone or in unbonded riots?
How and when did Violet become the best knife thrower? When did she practice this while training to become a scribe and while she only had 6 months to prep for being a rider?
If marked ones aren't allowed to meet or gather in groups of 3+ how did Xaden manage to get a full squad of marked ones together for War Games?? That alone should have been a tip off/red flag that something was going wrong, that higher ups allowed that.
Plot twists were easy to spot, easy to tell which characters had 'plot armor'. Narrators were fantastic for the audiobook, though I'm confused WHY we needed two of them when the POV switch is literally in the last couple of chapters and doesn't last long...
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Bullying, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Vomit, and Death of parent
Minor: Drug use
miss_cr's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
fast-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
10000/10 absolutely amazing. I was hooked from the very beginning. So many jaw-droppint moments. HIGHLY recommend listening to the audiobook with the full cast- like a movie but without the picture. Definitely worth the wait!
I'll be buying these books for my personal collection. Just... stunning.
I'll be buying these books for my personal collection. Just... stunning.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Chronic illness, Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Ableism, Death, Violence, Blood, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, and War
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Drug use
maria_ary's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Sexual content, Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Cursing, Blood, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and War
Minor: Drug use
johannaplatt's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Okay okay, I know this is classed as romantasy which is not normally my bag, but dammit I am a sucker for a magic school, especially when bonding to dragons is involved. I thought the author did a good job with writing the main characters and building the tension between them even when we know how it's going to end up eyebrows eyebrows . There were twists and reveals that I was genuinely not expecting and the plot felt pretty solid. Yes, there were spicy scenes but not overwhelmingly so that I felt it detracted from the main plot, though I felt the main male character could have been a *touch* less horny especially when Violet has just woken up from what is essentially a week long coma . All in all I raced through this book and immediately got a copy of the next. A fun read for those who like magic, dragons, and war college.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Sexual content, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and War
Minor: Drug use
shayna_hadassah's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
This was a fun book! I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it is definitely brain candy.
I really enjoyed the intense scenes and how punchy they were - it kept everything moving along and kept the energy up. The fights and aerial battles especially were hard to put down.
The world was super interesting and fun to get into! I wish there had been more interaction with the other quadrants on a personal basis, rather than out of necessity, but I understand from a story perspective why they were limited. The dragon lore and magic system were interesting, if heavily biased towards the dragons. Which - point of the book, obviously, but also a little unfair within the world.
The sources of conflict felt very real. I greatly appreciated that there were no overly complicated conflicts. Very simple - we're going to become a rider even though we don't want to because of a, and we have b as an intrinsic hurdle to overcome, and c is personally holding back my development. Very easy. That leaves much more room to flesh out the conflict, rather than forcing readers to follow something convoluted while also being introduced to a new world and magic system.
The stakes definitely felt higher in this book than in other similar stories because of how often people actually got hurt and the way the narrative both highlighted it and dismissed it. When a character is gone, they're gone. That's it. I think it would have come across stronger if those deaths had lingered in some way though.
Violet's shortcomings were a really strong part of the story, really showing that she had something to overcome and the deck was stacked against her. I kept waiting for the dragon magic to hand-wave it all away, but having that power never gave her a shortcut, which I thought was really admirable.
That being said, there was a lot of telling when there should have been showing. Several times, Violet expressed some kind of discomfort with how deaths were handled,with the only acknowledgement being a recital of a roll call of everyone who died and then nothing else, but she also rarely mentioned those who had died when they were gone. Don't tell me it sits wrong with her, show me that she is continually affected. Or show me that she is uncomfortable with her own ability to dismiss all of this.
I felt the writing was repetitive, which I thought went along with the problem of telling vs showing."I used his previous words against him" was a phrase that I remember coming up at least three times in some way. Please just trust that I was there when it was said the first time and I understand that we're repeating ourselves. Please just show me how the characters react. We were also told ad nauseum that Violet is one of the smartest people in the story. I felt that there were reasonable limits on this, but I also felt that there were times that she should have been able to use her smarts to get out of a scrape and didn't. She knew a lot of information, but at times she felt more knowledgeable than quick thinking. Those are both smart! But I feel like they were used interchangeably rather than treated as distinct.
A pet peeve of mine is constant character description when it isn't necessary, which I understand kind of goes with the territory with romance, but I do believe there are more important things to focus on when certain death is one wrong step away.
The enemies-to-lovers thing felt fumbled, since, in a book with pretty high stakes, the enemies phase involved very little trying to kill each other and a lot of sniping at each other. Also, enemies to lovers are not usually immediately attracted to each other and if they are, I think it's more fun if they take it out on each other, but maybe that's just me. Related, the love triangle could be spotted from a mile away and then didn't present both options as viable options, so that felt flat too. Mostly I was just getting frustrated with Violet on the relationship front.
I appreciated that the characters talked like normal people, i.e., that when they swore, I believed that they would swear. There were a few instances of more modern speech patterns and phrases that absolutely kicked me out of the story. I understand that the beginning of the book had a note that the story had been translated in-universe to "the modern language," but if your setting is vaguely middle ages, please don't make me read phrases like "I'm not attracted to toxic men." It didn't happen often, but there were three or four times that my suspension of disbelief abandoned me.
I did feel that some of the characters sounded too much alike. It could have had something to do with the narrator of the audiobook (whom I think did a pretty good job, considering all the characters she had to deal with), but I had a lot of trouble in certain scenes with being able to tell which character was talking and had to back up the narration to pay closer attention and keep track without dialogue tags to help.
Overall it was fun! I like the twists at the end, even though I think more clues thrown in here and there would have been nice. I like the baby dragon. I like the magic powers. Overall a fun, engaging read.
I really enjoyed the intense scenes and how punchy they were - it kept everything moving along and kept the energy up. The fights and aerial battles especially were hard to put down.
The world was super interesting and fun to get into! I wish there had been more interaction with the other quadrants on a personal basis, rather than out of necessity, but I understand from a story perspective why they were limited. The dragon lore and magic system were interesting, if heavily biased towards the dragons. Which - point of the book, obviously, but also a little unfair within the world.
The sources of conflict felt very real. I greatly appreciated that there were no overly complicated conflicts. Very simple - we're going to become a rider even though we don't want to because of a, and we have b as an intrinsic hurdle to overcome, and c is personally holding back my development. Very easy. That leaves much more room to flesh out the conflict, rather than forcing readers to follow something convoluted while also being introduced to a new world and magic system.
The stakes definitely felt higher in this book than in other similar stories because of how often people actually got hurt and the way the narrative both highlighted it and dismissed it. When a character is gone, they're gone. That's it. I think it would have come across stronger if those deaths had lingered in some way though.
Violet's shortcomings were a really strong part of the story, really showing that she had something to overcome and the deck was stacked against her. I kept waiting for the dragon magic to hand-wave it all away, but having that power never gave her a shortcut, which I thought was really admirable.
That being said, there was a lot of telling when there should have been showing. Several times, Violet expressed some kind of discomfort with how deaths were handled,
I felt the writing was repetitive, which I thought went along with the problem of telling vs showing.
A pet peeve of mine is constant character description when it isn't necessary, which I understand kind of goes with the territory with romance, but I do believe there are more important things to focus on when certain death is one wrong step away.
The enemies-to-lovers thing felt fumbled, since, in a book with pretty high stakes, the enemies phase involved very little trying to kill each other and a lot of sniping at each other. Also, enemies to lovers are not usually immediately attracted to each other and if they are, I think it's more fun if they take it out on each other, but maybe that's just me. Related, the love triangle could be spotted from a mile away and then didn't present both options as viable options, so that felt flat too. Mostly I was just getting frustrated with Violet on the relationship front.
I appreciated that the characters talked like normal people, i.e., that when they swore, I believed that they would swear. There were a few instances of more modern speech patterns and phrases that absolutely kicked me out of the story. I understand that the beginning of the book had a note that the story had been translated in-universe to "the modern language," but if your setting is vaguely middle ages, please don't make me read phrases like "I'm not attracted to toxic men." It didn't happen often, but there were three or four times that my suspension of disbelief abandoned me.
I did feel that some of the characters sounded too much alike. It could have had something to do with the narrator of the audiobook (whom I think did a pretty good job, considering all the characters she had to deal with), but I had a lot of trouble in certain scenes with being able to tell which character was talking and had to back up the narration to pay closer attention and keep track without dialogue tags to help.
Overall it was fun! I like the twists at the end, even though I think more clues thrown in here and there would have been nice. I like the baby dragon. I like the magic powers. Overall a fun, engaging read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and War
Minor: Drug use and Alcohol
twigaonabike's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
sad
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
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Grief, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Drug use
laura_awkward_fox's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Great plot and character development. Too much cursing for me. Spicy love story between main characters
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Sexual content and Classism
Minor: Drug use and Gaslighting
j_emerson18's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
I have a lot of thoughts about this. For me, the only positives I personally have is 1) Liam is the absolute best character, no notes except he didn't deserve that one scene, 2) the dragons talking to one another is everything, 3) Xaden's pov is honestly kinda sweet and made me hate the romance portion a little less . Now what I couldn't stand the most: this is not enemies to lovers in any way. This is 100% a forbidden romance. If you enjoy this book, good for you. Not my cup of tea but I enjoyed it more than ACOTAR. Also to note, I loathe Violet's inner thoughts. Especially in regards to Xaden, she just reminds me of a horny teenage and she really can't respect his boundaries in the beginning/middle of the book which threw me away from supporting them as a couple.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Classism