Scan barcode
rasbneon's review against another edition
- 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
3.5
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting
meghan1111's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Child death, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Slavery, and Torture
mel_littleclarinet'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? Yes
3.75
Half of the book was really repetitive, nothing actually happened and then, it all went so quickly and now I'm confused with the ending.
I really love the romance between Poppy and Hawke. It just didn't feel rushed like in other books, especially after
The side characters - god they are amazing.
Many new characters are introduced in this book, and I especially love Kieran now. The banter between them all and new friendships developing was really great.
The plot itself didn't really move forward that much at first, in the second half, it started to pace up a bit and I'm really glad it did, because I had already started to wonder, if it was worth it to continue.
Now at the end of the book, I'm left on a major cliffhanger and I'm already so excited for the next book.. which I luckily already have laying right next to me :)
In conclusion, it's a really good book, but some parts of it was just too slow-moving for me. I'm glad I didn't put it aside, and I hope the next one will now continue a bit quicker.
Graphic: Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Murder
Moderate: Gaslighting and War
Minor: Confinement, War, and Injury/Injury detail
abicaro17'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? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
mistress_of_fire'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? It's complicated
4.75
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail
iggylizard's review against another edition
Graphic: Body shaming, Rape, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Violence, Murder, and Gaslighting
midnacine's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Genocide, Torture, Medical content, Kidnapping, Fire/Fire injury, and War
Minor: Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and Alcohol
kellicat94's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Animal death, Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Cannibalism, Pregnancy, and Abandonment
joshuacaps's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.25
Let me get some of the gripes out of the way, since I've already started there.
In terms of plot, basically nothing happened.
-Poppy and Dark Prince Perfect are traveling across the country. A small handful of times, there are fights/they are attacked. Dark Prince Perfect is immortal, though, so there is no danger to him. He has dimples, and amber eyes. Did I mention amber eyes? This book is hundreds of pages of Poppy having an internal monologue, mostly focused on Dark Prince Perfect and attempting to rationalize him and what he is doing (making sexual passes and advances, mostly, but whatever) or attempting to convince herself she isn't in love with him until at some point admitting that she is. Stockholm syndrome, really, because she is a prisoner of his for a lot of the book.
That brings me to my next issue: repetition. This book is going to be way too long, AND insult the reader by just repeating itself over and over to fill too many pages?
-
-Dark Prince Perfect looked at her with those amber jewels. He curled his lip up, revealing one of his dimples. Repeat. Repeat.
-Poppy has a *random* question, Dark Prince Perfect says something about being *intrigued*, Dark Prince Perfect blatantly hits on Poppy, Poppy threatens violence, Prince tells her he is turned on, she says something must be wrong with him, he says she likes it. Repeat. Repeat.
-Poppy threatens to stab someone, or someone insinuates that she will. Repeat. Repeat.
Most of the elements of this book can be found in other young adult fiction as well. There are vampires (oh boy, can't wait to get to that), there are wolves, there is magic. The magic isn't well developed, and in fact neither is the world-building. There are a lot of things in the world-building that don't stand up to scrutiny (
Let's talk vampires. There are vampires (atlantians), vampires (ascended), and vampires (craven). The first vampires are the good vampires. They don't feast on other creatures, they only drink their own kind's blood and require it and only it to survive. Again, that's nonsense, but it was done to
Pretty convoluted, but okay.
You'd think that would be interesting to read about. It isn't. The craven only show up once in this book, so there's a brief fight. We run into the Ascended two, maybe three times tops. The rest is just Dark Prince Perfect traveling with his entourage of wolves, keeping Poppy hostage, and repeatedly making sexual advances on her
Let's talk about Dark Prince Perfect. He spends all his time using his amber eyes on her, and showing dimples, and hitting on Poppy or directly putting hands or other parts on her.
He tells her next to nothing about himself until late in the book, meanwhile expecting her to trust him. Honestly, he just withholds as much information about himself as possible until confronted and forced to admit something that we had to learn about from another character. Kieran, to be specific. Kieran basically exists just to give us long explanations of the Prince's background, to present his humanity, and to justify his behavior. Oh, and the threesome that's probably coming in book three, but I think that's a latent consequence. His real purpose is to give us the Prince's softer side because the Prince doesn't tell Poppy anything.
And he gets REAL MAD when she doesn't trust him. Like, when she
Let's talk about Poppy. Given her background as the Maiden and what she learns about the Ascended, there is great potential for character work here. Missed opportunity. Her whole purpose in this book is to be seduced by Dark Prince Perfect, and her entire personality in this book has become *random* questions and *being quite violent*. I wish I could say more, but there really isn't much to it. She asks a ton of *random* questions, usually unrelated to anything that is happening (hence the *random*), just to justify info dumping about the world. She is a device for the reader to get a lecture on what they need to know about the world, and also as a means for the reader to pretend hot sex with the Prince.
Okay, so I wasn't impressed with this book in a lot of ways. Let me tell you what I did like a lot about this book: This book isn't afraid of sex.
I read a ton of novels, most of which are not in the category of romance, and in the overwhelming majority of those novels, the characters must all be asexual. Some books will tastefully lead up to sex and fade to black. But most books don't include sexuality at all, beyond maybe a surface level comment here or there. I understand this omission of sex is related to publishing and book categorization and all that. I know that if I read romance novels, I will find sex. I'm not criticizing that. I'm criticizing the absence of sex or even sexuality in books that aren't "romance".
I don't think books get worse because of a lack of sexuality (not even sex, just sexuality), but I think books and especially characters have a lot of potential to get better by embracing sexuality. Not all characters need to have sex, because not all people in real life do, but at least SOME of them should have at least an aspect of sexuality to them. On that count, I found it refreshing to see that prevalent in this book. Regardless of my qualms with the way the relationship of Poppy and the Prince develops in this book, I do applaud that the author leaned into sexuality.
That doesn't justify the Prince's sole behavioral motivation being sex, because there ought to be a balance, especially for a guy who is allegedly hundreds of years old. But that goes back to my initial issues with the plot and world-building. Things in this book that should have been three-dimensional are often two-dimensional, and it felt like it.
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Death
Minor: Gaslighting
alleya's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Finally, the plot -- which is almost nothing. The attraction of a good fantasy series is to immerse in a world and explore it. But we spent large portions of the book just a couple locations. There was also way too much exposition through dialogue. Every time Poppy has "questions" I know that the author is about to do another info dump on us, and it happened way too often. My eyes glazed over after a while. I spent the entire book waiting to get to Atlantia and see what it's like, and it was incredibly disappointing. This felt like a connector book, and I really hope that these problems will all be left behind in this book because it's only my enjoyment from the first book that's going to be enough to get me to try book 3.
Graphic: Confinement and Kidnapping
Moderate: Violence and Gaslighting
Minor: Death of parent