morriganlefaye's review
- 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
3.75
It's a bit rough around the edges and it took me a few chapters to really get sucked into the story, but in the end, I couldn't put the book down anymore.
Graphic: Grief, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Blood, and Confinement
spellboundreader's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Violence, Blood, Body horror, Classism, and Confinement
aseel_reads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Moderate: Death, Excrement, Death of parent, Violence, War, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Blood, Physical abuse, and Torture
donatio's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
I read the German translation and I'm still not quite sure if the translation was shitty or the English original or just both.
I couldn't bond with the prota, Vhalla, because... I don't know, she wouldn't be someone I wanted to be friends with and seemed very indecisive and unaware of her surroundings,
Spoiler
self-centered as she called AldrikSpoiler
There were literally three men telling her she was beautiful???! (not counting Fitz) I don't understand how she could blame her indecisiveness on the fact that it was never the right moment.I feel like many aspects that would have given the book depth were cast aside or placed in scenes where they didn't belong. I would have liked to see more of Vhalla's relationship with her friends and would have liked to learn more about the magic and see what it can do.
The plot wasn't always predictable but had a lot of smaller inconsistencies which added up. One moment he's angry and then he's not?
But I believe a better choice of words could have compensated at least some of these things. What did Stephen King say? The road to hell is paved with adverbs? There has never been a book in which I felt this more. I cringed really hard at some points in the book.
Spoiler
Also, Craig and Daniel? Were there no other names to name to guards?Graphic: Blood, Cultural appropriation, Body shaming, Colonisation, Kidnapping, Medical content, Physical abuse, Body horror, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Medical trauma, and Violence
koistyfishy's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I have never seen a book squander SO MUCH potential until now! It's all there! It basically oozes off the page begging, pleading, and screaming at the sky to be used - but it's flatly ignored to give us boring inconsistent one-dimensional characters, teenage angst, and unnecessary drama llama all wrapped up in mediocre writing.
This book follows Vhalla, a shy boring nobody commoner who works in a library as an apprentice. One day, low and behold, after saving the broody and mysterious crown prince's life with magic, our boring chosen one is thrust into the world of magic she has been taught to fear.
I had a few problems with this book, so let me try work through them as best I can...
1. The book has a premise that instantly hooks you in and I wanted to love it as it fell into my niche of fantasy romance perfectly but I went in apprehensive based on the vastly juxtaposing reviews out there ranging from 2 - 5 Stars, all from people and friends who's reviews I NORMALLY trust as gospel! As said I absolutely LOVE fantasy romance; however, those that think this is a "Fantasy Romance" are deluded as this is actually a "Romance Fantasy". Let me explain... "Fantasy Romance" is a book where the fantasy is the main plot and the romance is the subplot. These are set in fantastical, magical worlds with an overarching FANTASY plot. This book, romance is the main plot with a slight sprinkling of fantasy. It is almost like the fantasy elements are just used to put our main characters into situations that would cause drama and angst for the ROMANCE. So if you do not like your fantasy books filled with MOSTLY romance, this is not for you.
2. I appreciate a good book just like fine dining and a good bottle of wine, they have class and an air of sophistication. This book is NOT that! This is basically trash TV on the CW or Netflix. The type of show you'll binge-watch for an entire weekend until your brain turns to mush and your eyeballs are rectangles; but still, you can't turn away from the screen because of the teenage angst and drama. It's not only that the book feels like a TV show, but the writing style mirrors this. Its inconsistent plot feels like jump cuts and scene changes. There are a lot of scenes that happen with no clear transision of how the character got there. It's just meant to be accepted that this happened. A LOT of the dialog is quite far-fetched and seems unnatural as it's very witty, quips, and often feels like it skips natural progression in a conversation.
3. Vhalla as a character is shit! She is difficult to describe because I've just read a whole book about her and I STILL DON'T KNOW WHO THE FUCK SHE IS... One second she is innocent as a rose and timid, and shy and scared of you "the prince" and things beyond her ken... (if you got the reference to this I LOVE YOU). She spends almost the whole book feeling sorry for herself, sulking, soapy, crying, and starving herself whilst living the most boring life on the planet...THEN the NEXT second she changes her mind 16 times a minute over the whole "should she/shouldn't she" become a sorcerer. It's frankly EXHAUSTING!!!
4. The writing in general gave me a headache. It was so choppy. It would be 5-word sentences. Every one of them just stops. It was so unnatural. There were pauses when we didn't need them. Breaks that could have been avoided. It was like Elise Kova was so badly scarred from being reprimanded for run-on sentences and comma splicing that she completely avoided making sentences longer than 2 lines and so made it very difficult to get into the writing itself.
An example of this:
Spoiler
I did like the cocky bastard prince, even if he pushed her off a building. He has smirks for days, gushed sex appeal, and created a whole lot of sexual tension you could cut with a knife.
Overall if you take this book too seriously, you are going to have a bad time. It's trashy, over-the-top, extravagant, cheesy and extremely unrealistic. But I had an OK time reading it because it got reactions out of me... Some might have been eye rolls and huffs of anger, but I did appreciate the drama. If you like teenage drama and shows like Reign, Riverdale, and Charmed appeal to you, you might actually like this!
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Death, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Torture, Violence, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Death of parent
georgiaisreading's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Blood, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Death of parent and Kidnapping
Minor: War
booksoflore's review
- 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
3.5
Graphic: Blood, Gore, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Confinement
Moderate: Kidnapping
Minor: Death of parent
sarahsbookss's review
- 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
Graphic: Blood, Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, and Death
samanthajones's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Graphic: Violence, Death, War, Gore, Fire/Fire injury, and Blood
tieflingreads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
3.5
The story is very typical "Girl doesn't know she has magic, ends up accidentally using it and a magic-user discovers it, takes her away from her old life in order to train her, etc". One thing I did like; in the Tower of Sorcerers (I might be recalling the name wrong, anyways this is the place where Vhalla is taken to learn how to use her magic), all the different types of magic users get their own differentiating uniforms based on what element they control, similar to Shadow & Bone with the Grisha and their keftas. I just think it adds a small fun detail!
A lot of the characters felt pretty under-developed, other than the main character Vhalla, her love interest, and like one other person who I'm pretty sure is going to be an antagonist of some sort later on.
Spoiler
One of Vhalla's childhood friends dies, and since his only personality trait is "childhood friend" the author didn't really expand on why Vhalla is so sad about losing him or why we should be sad too.Another thing I disliked was that the love interest is described as being "no more than 10 years older" than the MC. Vhalla is 17, turns 18 on page. So "no more than 10 years older" could mean that the love interest is 26, flirting with a minor. I know this is a fantasy book and in ye olde times people married minors all the time but it still makes me uncomfortable.
Graphic: Blood, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, and Death
Moderate: War and Adult/minor relationship