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maria_ary'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
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
- 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
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
- 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
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.
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
- 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: 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
- 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
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
- 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
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
kdailyreads's review against another edition
- 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? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Bullying, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Sexism, Sexual content, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Drug use
grayscale08'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
4.5
Graphic: Bullying, Death, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body shaming, Chronic illness, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, Xenophobia, Grief, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Classism
Minor: Ableism, Animal death, Child death, Drug use, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Vomit, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol
mons278'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
Die Charaktere sind einfach so vielschichtig und gut geschrieben und die Kommunikation auch in herausfordernden Situationen war bewundernswert! Violet ist deutlich reifer als die Main Charaktere in den meisten YA-Romanen, was ich als ungemein angenehm empfand.
Das World-building und die Plottwists waren genial und überraschend aber dennoch gut vorbereitet!
Graphic: Death, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Gore
Minor: Bullying, Drug use, Death of parent, and Classism
garbage_mcsmutly'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? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Medical content, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Animal cruelty, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Vomit, and Stalking