Reviews with content warning for Blood - A Winter's Promise

This book was everything I asked for, I didn’t quite understand what I was asking for, but I ended up really enjoying this read! The world building is mind bending and takes a lot of focus to sort out all the pieces. Of the three main locations in this book, each are VASTLY different. I loved the test of memory and comprehension this book gave me, and it builds suspense between characters beautifully. It took me 200pgs to really get into it, but I’m excited to read the next in the trilogy!

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torturedreadersdept's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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lawbooks600's review against another edition

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adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Representation: N/A?
Score: Seven points out of ten.

Well, first, what's wrong with BookTok? I briefly saw this novel on the BookTok shelf at one of the two libraries I go to but I put it off for a while until I finally picked it up and read it. When I finished it, I felt nothing but dissatisfaction as the story looked so promising, unique and original but when I read it, it was too tedious. It starts with a prologue explaining how the world was nothing out of the ordinary until 'The Rupture,' splitting the world into numerous floating islands called 'Arks.' Then it cuts to the main character Ophelia (whose last name I forgot) living on an ark called Anima but here's the catch: she can travel through mirrors (unfortunately I didn't see much of that, shame.) Here is where the flaws surface, well for a supposedly civilised society it's backward since one of the characters forced Ophelia to marry a predetermined partner (Come on. Really? She should have a choice. But she doesn't. Why?) Did I also mention that I wasn't a fan of how the author wrote the female characters to make them look bad? It sounds discriminatory. The issues don't end there, since the plot is slow (normally that wouldn't be a problem since that would let me explore the characters more, but since the author didn't write them well, it didn't help.) I had to push myself to finish the book, otherwise I would've given it a DNF, but it fizzled out anyway, and I won't finish the series. Shame.

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issed's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

A reread- I need this injected into my veins

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jenny_librarian's review against another edition

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adventurous dark informative mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Je ne sais pas trop quoi penser de ce livre. Le côté politique est intéressant, mais comme absolument aucun personnage n’est attachant, ça m’a empêché de ressentir quelque empathie que ce soit pour eux.

J’ai l’impression qu’Ophélie est demi-romantique, et Thorn présente plusieurs traits autiste. Est-ce voulu? Je n’en sais rien, mais c’est ce qui m’a semblé le plus captivant dans ma lecture.
Malheureusement, tous les personnages sont froids et la plupart sont dénués de caractérisation outre des défauts très superficiels qui deviennent leur entière personnalité.

Je ne sais pas non plus si le sous-entendu est intentionnel, mais les “provinciaux” semblent avoir un accent québécois et ça me rend mal à l’aise. Tout comme les références à la religion animiste, qui est fondamentalement liés à l’histoire coloniale et aux peuples africains et autochtones — pour la plupart décimés par les colonies françaises… M’enfin, c’est peut-être seulement mon interprétation de la chose.

Je ne sais pas encore si je vais lire la suite. Ce sont de gros livres avec peu d’action qui demandent beaucoup de travail cérébral pour peu de résultats.

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zimmerlemon's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced

3.75

I LOVED this at the beginning. The premise is sooo cool, the setting of Anima and Ophelia’s “reading” and the museum, the concept of the arks….so scrumptious. I was down with Thorn, I love a prickly love interest. It didn’t so much lose me in the middle as just go a direction I wasn’t expecting, but if you like court intrigue, you’ll be fine! The relationship between Thorn and Ophelia

didn’t develop in the way I expected, and the jump to where she thinks he’s in love with her kinda caught me off guard. They hadn’t been together in months, what did he have to fall in love with?? But I like the stage we’ve set now for a bit of enemies to lovers type of vibe.

Like a sci-fi pride and prejudice/bridgerton moment. I’m hoping the next books are good bc the end of this one roped me back in!!

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itsreirei's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I am soooo conflicted. I cannot in good conscience give this book a better rating...I REALLY wanted to like it but uhh...my brain was melting while reading it.

This is an extremely slow start to the series, lots of information yet there's somehow even more things left unsaid and unclear. The characters are all two-faced and full of secrets, refuse to communicate - which wouldn't necessarily be a problem but it was just a lot, since it's not what I expected at all.

This is a very heavy book to read (tbh, could've been a good 100+ pages shorter), NOT a fun ride, one has to put time and brain power into consuming it.

I'll have to wait with continuing the sequels but also I am admittedly very intrigued to know what the fuck is happening because BOY was there a lot in here...

PS.: I ain't joking with the CWs, I might even have left out some, bruh

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lokes's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.25

This was… well, is was something.
The worldbuilding was a bit sloppy, but interesting, but plot and characters? Icky. Like, really bad.

Not only did it have tropes such as forced marriage and hints of pedophilia (as soon as the guy was always called a “man with his big hands; like a father; etc” and the woman described as “girl with small hands; being generally very young and clueless and in need of constant help”) I had a bad feeling and boy wasn’t I wrong.

I don’t know why so many people like a book which is filled with sexism, weird stereotypes, classism, racism and basically everything you don’t want to read about when it is normalized (or rather being glorified, because you just couldn’t catch a break when reading. It just kept coming)

I do feel like I need to apologize to the person I am now that I read this book because it wasn’t pleasant and I feel like I need to unlearn all of the very harmful stuff I just read about.

The writing style’s not bad though, I could have liked it without the weird content.

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