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saramassoudi's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This may be one of my favorite books. I got lost in it and the outside world went away for a bit. Though I originally thought the enemies to lovers trope, love triangle, and the underdog rising up idea has been used time and again in fantasy books (thinking of ACOTAR and Hunger Games especially), Rebecca Yarros makes so many twists and turns with this story I was on the edge of my seat pretty much the whole time. She’s really good at world building and her writing style is so descriptive and effective - she’s one of those authors that is able to just articulate certain feelings or situations that are so relatable but you can never quite describe. This is my first Yarros book but now I’m wanting to read all of her work - she’s up there with my favorite authors now.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and War
Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Body horror, Blood, Vomit, Death of parent, and Abandonment
maria_ary's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- 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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Sexual content, Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Cursing, Blood, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and War
Minor: Drug use
cryssie13's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, and Murder
jujumoon09's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Grief, and War
Moderate: Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, and Toxic friendship
kristapeters's review against another edition
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Sexual content, and Murder
mart1nap's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
3,75 Pretty good, the fantasy world with the dragons, powers and all that stuff as amazing. I less enjoyed the romance part because it was open doored and a little too obsesed on Xaden some chapters but on general it was a really goos read. For me worth the hype. If you want a cloeds door read like I did, I advice to skip chapter 30 and half of chapter 32
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Cursing, Death, Violence, and Blood
johannaplatt's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
- 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
Okay okay, I know this is classed as romantasy which is not normally my bag, but dammit I am a sucker for a magic school, especially when bonding to dragons is involved. I thought the author did a good job with writing the main characters and building the tension between them even when we know how it's going to end up eyebrows eyebrows . There were twists and reveals that I was genuinely not expecting and the plot felt pretty solid. Yes, there were spicy scenes but not overwhelmingly so that I felt it detracted from the main plot, though I felt the main male character could have been a *touch* less horny especially when Violet has just woken up from what is essentially a week long coma . All in all I raced through this book and immediately got a copy of the next. A fun read for those who like magic, dragons, and war college.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Sexual content, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and War
Minor: Drug use
anastasio's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
So as much as this book is hyped I don’t think it was worth it I like the plot the spicey scenes feel like a horny teenager just learned what sex was about idk it feel really cheesey. The main character has HEDS like the author which I love I’m also disabled but she doesn’t grammatically know how to describe dislocations and subluxations which ick me a bit. It took me all my strength not to DNF this book but I’m pushing through it because the plot starts to get good and I need to know what happens.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Violence, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Cursing
shayna_hadassah's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- 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
This was a fun book! I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it is definitely brain candy.
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,with the only acknowledgement being a recital of a roll call of everyone who died and then nothing else, but she also rarely mentioned those who had died when they were gone. Don't tell me it sits wrong with her, show me that she is continually affected. Or show me that she is uncomfortable with her own ability to dismiss all of this.
I felt the writing was repetitive, which I thought went along with the problem of telling vs showing."I used his previous words against him" was a phrase that I remember coming up at least three times in some way. Please just trust that I was there when it was said the first time and I understand that we're repeating ourselves. Please just show me how the characters react. We were also told ad nauseum that Violet is one of the smartest people in the story. I felt that there were reasonable limits on this, but I also felt that there were times that she should have been able to use her smarts to get out of a scrape and didn't. She knew a lot of information, but at times she felt more knowledgeable than quick thinking. Those are both smart! But I feel like they were used interchangeably rather than treated as distinct.
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and War
Minor: Drug use and Alcohol
feralpixie831's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
- 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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Torture, Violence, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, and War