Reviews

The FMC is literally the only character I could not connect with. Gladly would have left her at the beginning of the book, rotting in the seaside town and just hung out with Sorasa and Sigil.

3.5

to say i was really excited for this book is an understatement. i had such high hopes, but i felt so let down.

reading other people’s reviews prior to picking realm breaker up, i saw many different views on it. i had hopes that i wouldn’t be in the group that didn’t like it, yet here we are. and because i didn’t like it doesn’t mean it’s bad. i can see how realm breaker is a wonderful novel for others.

firstly, the things i did like.

i really enjoyed the friendship between the three main characters: dom, sorasa, and corayne. i felt like they got along well. they made the reading experience better. their characters separately were somewhat boring and flat. but i enjoyed them together with their banter.

i’d love to read a whole book about dom’s backstory. i mean, who wouldn’t? immortal being, interesting world. i’m sure his backstory would be more interesting than the actual novel.

i really enjoyed reading erida’s chapters. she’s so interesting and complex. we need more morally grey characters!!! (insert more exclamation points!!) they’re realistic, and they’re fun to read about. if i read the sequel, it’s 100% because of her. i really like how she started out all innocent and such, but ended up being the most interesting character.

i felt taristan fell flat in his duty as villain. he was just like every other villain. which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but he didn’t bring anything new to the table. there was so much potential.

after all that, that’s not even all the characters. for me personally, there’s too many POVs. if the characters were more interesting, this would be fine. but they weren’t. almost all chapters felt like a drag. (except erida, she’s precious).

i liked the lack of romance. i’ve seen many negative reviews point out that the lack of romance was a deal breaker with them. for me it wasn’t. i loved that it wasn’t centered around romance. which i assume would be between the really old man and the underage teenager if it was.

the first thing i noticed when i picked up this book is the writing style. it’s the main reason i didn’t like this book. it felt like it was written for an adult audience. if this book was marketed as such, it would’ve hit the mark for a perfect fantasy book. but it’s not what i was looking for. i like how YA is written. i like that it’s fun to read. YA is fun, it’s easy to read. personally, i find adult fantasy books to have slower pacing, just like realm breaker. it’s hard to get into a book that takes forever to get to the point.

that being said, i can see how a lot of people do enjoy this book. and i wish i was one of them. i really enjoyed victoria aveyard’s red queen series, but realm breaker is nothing like it.

despite not liking this book as much as i’d hoped, i do recommend everyone pick it up and give it a try. it’s definitely a well written book with many strong points.

thanks to hachette for providing me with a review copy of realm breaker.

jolietjane's review

Go to review page

I didn’t finish this but weirdly I have a lot to say. So realm breaker is more wheel of time than it is the red queen. If you pick this up wanting anything close to a YA or even a modern fantasy, you will be disappointed. Somehow VA has made a hard and weirdly unique turn into 90s style epic fantasy- and her writing has basting improved. This is a extremely messy label- this is not a YA book in the least. This is an adult fantasy with some young characters.

That all said- only one of these characters really did it for me and I struggled to care about them. I think the authors massive growth is amazing, but you have to sit through a lot of forgettable characters to get to the morally grey characters and that’s not what in about right now.

I do want to acknowledge what a radical step this is from the red queen and I would bet money on a ton of folks really hating this book- and also a ton more who would have loved it ignoring it because of the YA Label.