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apersonfromflorida's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
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
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Sexual content, and Blood
Moderate: Child death, Death of parent, and Murder
Minor: Vomit and Alcohol
20sidedbi's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, and Abandonment
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, and Alcohol
lady_moon's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Rep: gay MC, achillean love interest
Ugh 😬😬
So, let's start with the actual constructive criticism. Some things in this book just didn't make sense. In the very first two paragraphs in this book Arlo is smiling as he kills a vampire. But a few pages laters he feels guilty about killing this same vampire because it's a young one?? Also, Faenir would basically jump away from the servants at his mansion from fear he would touch them accidentally. Yet, earlier in the book he mercly kills Tom's whole family. And for what? To test three whole times if the whole city is immune to his power? To catch Arlo's attention? What?
And the pace was... odd. I can't wrap my finger around it but there was something that was bugging me.
Now, just me being nasty and pointing stuff I hated:
Arlo was unnecessary angsty. Like, I get that he's dying and this would fuck up with anyone. For the most part it was understandable. But after losing the vampire blood he was just "I'm so tragic, I just have to suffer". It was all thinking about death and how "my lies are eating me inside''. THEN STOP LYING YOU STUPID FUCK!! Tell your man about it!!! Geeze, he was insufferable! He was denying the comfort and even the possible solution to the problem for some dumbass reasons (especially considering he DID told another person)
When I reached 60% I started to debate what rate I should give this book. Because I realized I actually haven't enjoyed myself that much. What I have had read was not necessarily bad but it was just. Meh. It was a meh kind of okay, if this make sense. It didn't live up to my expectations. Like, god, I was so freaking excited about this book. One for the author, two for the cool idea, three for being same-gender Hades and Persephone retelling and four for this amazing, beautiful, AWESOME cover.
Some time towards the end things started to get pretty interesting. I started to lean towards 4 starts instead of 3. There were some plot twists that made me gasp for real. And it kept being interesting for 85-94% of the book, a little less maybe. Because of course, freaking of course, Arlo (view spoiler). OF COURSE.
I wasn't surprised by that ending. Not really. I had hopes it would turn out differently somehow but it was a theory from the very beginning, considering he literally had been drinking vampire blood for years. I still didn't like it.
And let's come clean - the writing just... wasn't it. The book was trying so desperately to make me care for them and their pain and their drama. I just didn't. I shed a few tears for the little girl May but that's it. But I just didn't give a shit about Arlo's "death is hovering over me" crisis. I didn't care when Faerin embraced his dark side and was like (view spoiler). Like. No one, NO ONE, is more disappointed about my indifference towards this particular thing than me. I usually adore this concept. I eat it up. But here it was just... flat. It was badly written. It felt underdeveloped.
All this trying to do proper world building while every emotional climax being underwhelming, doesn't work well.
To be honest, I think this is a level below Lord of Eternal Night. I believe I would have enjoyed King more if I hadn't read Lord because I would have been a little more surprised. There's WAY too many similarities in both, in a bad, repetitive way. And the MCs of both books have annoyingly similar voices. Similar to the point I dare say Arlo and Jak are the same character but in different settings. Which just led me to thinking, do they end up the same way? (Spoiler: yes, yes, they do. )
You know what? Actually every book by this author I have read has basically the same MC but in a different setting. And I have read, like, three and dnf-ed one. Which is not looking good.
I admit, I hate the ending of Lord. It was the reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 at the time (at least this is what my review says). The ending of King wasn't that bad but only because I already knew what would happen (well, not the last chapter 35 obviously). But I already have seen the pattern and couldn't help but notice it in King too.
Like, when I read the very last sentence of King and completely finished the book, I did brust out laughing. Because,*what* did I just read?? Like, I'm sorry but. I just couldn't lmao. There was nothing funny about it, it was just my brain's way of comprehending what I happened. I was very disturbed by how they decided to "solve" the problem with the vampires drinking blood... This was fucked up and twisted in a way it shouldn't have been and left me disgusted with the characters.
Just, everything involving too much fantasy plot was bad in this book. It should have been a little less pointless descriptions and trying too hard to be a legit fantasy and more of improving the building of the emotional climaxes and the quality of the sex scenes (I'm usually not looking into that much but since I'm at it, why not mention this too).
I would give this cover one million and five stars if I could, but since I'm rating a book and not its cover, I'm giving it 3 stars, as the real one is a half less.
*sigh* And when I think this was one of my most anticipated releases of the year... I was so excited, damn it
If the third book that will be a Red hood reimagining ALSO have its MC turn into a vampire i'm fucking ditching this series
Ugh 😬😬
So, let's start with the actual constructive criticism. Some things in this book just didn't make sense. In the very first two paragraphs in this book Arlo is smiling as he kills a vampire. But a few pages laters he feels guilty about killing this same vampire because it's a young one?? Also, Faenir would basically jump away from the servants at his mansion from fear he would touch them accidentally. Yet, earlier in the book he mercly kills Tom's whole family. And for what? To test three whole times if the whole city is immune to his power? To catch Arlo's attention? What?
And the pace was... odd. I can't wrap my finger around it but there was something that was bugging me.
Now, just me being nasty and pointing stuff I hated:
Arlo was unnecessary angsty. Like, I get that he's dying and this would fuck up with anyone. For the most part it was understandable. But after losing the vampire blood he was just "I'm so tragic, I just have to suffer". It was all thinking about death and how "my lies are eating me inside''. THEN STOP LYING YOU STUPID FUCK!! Tell your man about it!!! Geeze, he was insufferable! He was denying the comfort and even the possible solution to the problem for some dumbass reasons (especially considering he DID told another person)
When I reached 60% I started to debate what rate I should give this book. Because I realized I actually haven't enjoyed myself that much. What I have had read was not necessarily bad but it was just. Meh. It was a meh kind of okay, if this make sense. It didn't live up to my expectations. Like, god, I was so freaking excited about this book. One for the author, two for the cool idea, three for being same-gender Hades and Persephone retelling and four for this amazing, beautiful, AWESOME cover.
Some time towards the end things started to get pretty interesting. I started to lean towards 4 starts instead of 3. There were some plot twists that made me gasp for real. And it kept being interesting for 85-94% of the book, a little less maybe. Because of course, freaking of course, Arlo (view spoiler). OF COURSE.
I wasn't surprised by that ending. Not really. I had hopes it would turn out differently somehow but it was a theory from the very beginning, considering he literally had been drinking vampire blood for years. I still didn't like it.
And let's come clean - the writing just... wasn't it. The book was trying so desperately to make me care for them and their pain and their drama. I just didn't. I shed a few tears for the little girl May but that's it. But I just didn't give a shit about Arlo's "death is hovering over me" crisis. I didn't care when Faerin embraced his dark side and was like (view spoiler). Like. No one, NO ONE, is more disappointed about my indifference towards this particular thing than me. I usually adore this concept. I eat it up. But here it was just... flat. It was badly written. It felt underdeveloped.
All this trying to do proper world building while every emotional climax being underwhelming, doesn't work well.
To be honest, I think this is a level below Lord of Eternal Night. I believe I would have enjoyed King more if I hadn't read Lord because I would have been a little more surprised. There's WAY too many similarities in both, in a bad, repetitive way. And the MCs of both books have annoyingly similar voices. Similar to the point I dare say Arlo and Jak are the same character but in different settings. Which just led me to thinking, do they end up the same way? (Spoiler: yes, yes, they do. )
You know what? Actually every book by this author I have read has basically the same MC but in a different setting. And I have read, like, three and dnf-ed one. Which is not looking good.
I admit, I hate the ending of Lord. It was the reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 at the time (at least this is what my review says). The ending of King wasn't that bad but only because I already knew what would happen (well, not the last chapter 35 obviously). But I already have seen the pattern and couldn't help but notice it in King too.
Like, when I read the very last sentence of King and completely finished the book, I did brust out laughing. Because,*what* did I just read?? Like, I'm sorry but. I just couldn't lmao. There was nothing funny about it, it was just my brain's way of comprehending what I happened. I was very disturbed by how they decided to "solve" the problem with the vampires drinking blood... This was fucked up and twisted in a way it shouldn't have been and left me disgusted with the characters.
Just, everything involving too much fantasy plot was bad in this book. It should have been a little less pointless descriptions and trying too hard to be a legit fantasy and more of improving the building of the emotional climaxes and the quality of the sex scenes (I'm usually not looking into that much but since I'm at it, why not mention this too).
I would give this cover one million and five stars if I could, but since I'm rating a book and not its cover, I'm giving it 3 stars, as the real one is a half less.
*sigh* And when I think this was one of my most anticipated releases of the year... I was so excited, damn it
If the third book that will be a Red hood reimagining ALSO have its MC turn into a vampire i'm fucking ditching this series
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Blood, Kidnapping, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Cursing, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, and Murder
Minor: Slavery, Toxic relationship, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and War