thepageladies's review against another edition
4.0
This was a great read for me! The world building is unique and the characters are all well developed! I really enjoyed the main character Luvenia! She is likeable and strong! The relationships between the characters are absolutely wonderful and heartwarming! The writing is vivid, giving the reader a great picture! I had a lot of fun reading this one! I can't wait to be able to read more about everyone!
louturnspages's review against another edition
4.0
“Oh darling, . . . Every person is wooed by both darkness and light. It is that which they choose to fall in love with that matters. Not one of us is inherently good. We must choose, every single day, to follow the beckoning of the light and to leave behind the moments we courted the dark.”
✨Y’all, this book. I have been looking forward to it for a while, and I cannot even tell you how much I loved it. One part Alice in Wonderland, one part fantasy quest, one part dark queen/mysterious alchemy/created monsters, and some slow burn romance on the side? This book honestly had all of my favorite things, and the story is fantastic. Vampa portrays all of the magic and the mystery and the excitement of an epic fantasy adventure, but she handles her characters with so much honesty and grace. They persevere, but their reactions, their pain, their internal struggles are so deeply relatable.
✨What I loved:
—Found family. I’m just going to say that this gets me every. single. time.
—The portrayal of pain/trauma and its mental/emotional consequences—particularly the reality that the journey to healing is not just a straight path forward. It was beautiful and such a rare thing to find done well.
—The characters. I just loved every single one of them.
—The magical world and system. They’re beautiful, detailed, and I want to visit Aureland.
—Multiple POV (I will say, this isn’t usually labeled, but I always found the switches to be incredibly organic and easy to follow).
—The story. I really, really just loved this one, y’all.
✨Thanks so much to @rrbooktours, @wickedvampa, and @phantomhousepress for the chance to be a part of this book tour! Check out The Queen’s Keeper for sure, and keep an eye out, Vampa has another series starting soon!
✨Y’all, this book. I have been looking forward to it for a while, and I cannot even tell you how much I loved it. One part Alice in Wonderland, one part fantasy quest, one part dark queen/mysterious alchemy/created monsters, and some slow burn romance on the side? This book honestly had all of my favorite things, and the story is fantastic. Vampa portrays all of the magic and the mystery and the excitement of an epic fantasy adventure, but she handles her characters with so much honesty and grace. They persevere, but their reactions, their pain, their internal struggles are so deeply relatable.
✨What I loved:
—Found family. I’m just going to say that this gets me every. single. time.
—The portrayal of pain/trauma and its mental/emotional consequences—particularly the reality that the journey to healing is not just a straight path forward. It was beautiful and such a rare thing to find done well.
—The characters. I just loved every single one of them.
—The magical world and system. They’re beautiful, detailed, and I want to visit Aureland.
—Multiple POV (I will say, this isn’t usually labeled, but I always found the switches to be incredibly organic and easy to follow).
—The story. I really, really just loved this one, y’all.
✨Thanks so much to @rrbooktours, @wickedvampa, and @phantomhousepress for the chance to be a part of this book tour! Check out The Queen’s Keeper for sure, and keep an eye out, Vampa has another series starting soon!
spookshow's review against another edition
3.0
You can find this review and all of my others over at www.readbookrepeat.wordpress.com
I received a copy of this book from the publisher, V Productions, and the author via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
Actual rating of 3.5
Luvenia Rousseau lives life terrified. She is terrified that any day now, the tyrant Queen that rules her war-torn land, will demand her collectors come, come for Luvenia, for her sister Ester, and her mother and brother. Every day she wakes up wondering, is today the day? She already lost her father, she can't afford to lose anyone else. So when her brother comes home after being away for months, they think that things will be okay for a little while, but it is not so. When Luvenia's family is torn apart, she thinks her life is over, close to death and ready to give up, she is given a second chance at life by a dear friend she didn't even realise existed. Luvenia finds herself spirited away to a magical place called Aureland. There she meets a powerful and kind Queen who is battling against the very enemy that threatens Luvenia's existence. Together they will train and work towards a brighter future. Together, they can conquer anything, can't they?
I was really interested to read this book as it's premise sounded incredibly interesting. And honestly it was. We meet Luvenia and her family as they struggle to get through life day by day, living on the most basic of foods, wearing clothing that at times can barely keep them warm, and smuggling strawberries for sale out of their prohibited strawberry patch. Life isn't great, but they're living, so that's the main thing for them. Until Luvenia is forced to face the truth about herself, and her family as the evil Queen Pietro tears her family apart.
Luvenia, in the beginning, was an incredibly strong character, she worked hard for her family and herself, and she made sure that she took care of them. After the attack from Pietro and her collectors, Luvenia is transported to a world that she didn't even know existed. This world is the polar opposite of her homeland, Orford. Aureland is magical in all sense of the word, so I was really interested in seeing how Vampa was going to meld the two together into a coherent story. And for the most part, I feel like it was done incredibly well. I still don't entirely understand the whole world set up, but I'm pretty sure I've got the gist of it. Aureland is only accessible through certain portals, so I see it as almost a parallel universe of sorts. I still don't understand how certain people knew of the world though I believe it has something to do with the whole Keeper thing. Keepers are people with magical abilities, and when parent's know that their child has these abilities, they can send them to Queen Nuria in Aureland in order to be trained in the way of the Keepers, at least, I think that's how it works...
So I guess you could say that at times it almost felt like there was a lot of info dumping because the world is incredibly complex, I just don't think enough time was given on the mechanics of the world for me to be able to truly gauge how it works. As said above, for the most part, I get the gist, but there's still a little more to explore here, and I'm kind of hoping that it is done so in future instalments.
Once Luvenia makes it Aureland, her character changes completely. Which, in a way, I can understand, she went through an incredibly traumatic event and had a lot of deep seating issues from before this to deal with as well. So, your girl isn't going to be totally well adjusted after just going through a tragedy. I enjoyed the way her character was so established in the beginning, broken down completely, then rebuilt into who I believe she was really meant to be. Her friends, Darius, Thera and Khyan are all interesting characters, though I feel like they weren't really given the time they deserved. I know about them, and I have an okay feel for who they were intended to be, they still felt a little flat and almost walled off for me. I just don't think I really got to experience them in their full intended light. Some emotional things happen, and while I was like "Aww, that's a bit sad" I wasn't really moved as emotionally as I feel I should have been. A little more time spent and depth given to the characters could really make this story shine how it deserves to.
The narration was okay, though I did notice at times there were single words that were written in the wrong tense. This story is written in third person past continuous (I think, I could be totally wrong here), though at times there would be one word thrown in a sentence in present tense. I also feel that third person may not have worked so great for this story as it felt like we were kept at arms length. I'm thinking first person really would have put us in the action and into Luvenia, allowing us to feel a full spectrum of emotion. I also found the narrative to be more telling than showing for the most part, which made me feel like I was simply reading a story, not experiencing it as I would have liked. There were a few lines used in the narrative that gave it a more flighty, cheesy kind of feel, but that could be the author's intention as well.
All in all, this was a fairly enjoyable read. It kept me coming back for more, and for the most part, I was invested in the story, it's characters and where the plot was heading. I'm looking forward to continuing the story as it ends on quite the cliff hanger, even though I had a feeling this would happen, I didn't see it being THIS way. And that is all I'm going to say on the matter. You'll have to read it to find out what I'm talking about :)
I received a copy of this book from the publisher, V Productions, and the author via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
Actual rating of 3.5
Luvenia Rousseau lives life terrified. She is terrified that any day now, the tyrant Queen that rules her war-torn land, will demand her collectors come, come for Luvenia, for her sister Ester, and her mother and brother. Every day she wakes up wondering, is today the day? She already lost her father, she can't afford to lose anyone else. So when her brother comes home after being away for months, they think that things will be okay for a little while, but it is not so. When Luvenia's family is torn apart, she thinks her life is over, close to death and ready to give up, she is given a second chance at life by a dear friend she didn't even realise existed. Luvenia finds herself spirited away to a magical place called Aureland. There she meets a powerful and kind Queen who is battling against the very enemy that threatens Luvenia's existence. Together they will train and work towards a brighter future. Together, they can conquer anything, can't they?
I was really interested to read this book as it's premise sounded incredibly interesting. And honestly it was. We meet Luvenia and her family as they struggle to get through life day by day, living on the most basic of foods, wearing clothing that at times can barely keep them warm, and smuggling strawberries for sale out of their prohibited strawberry patch. Life isn't great, but they're living, so that's the main thing for them. Until Luvenia is forced to face the truth about herself, and her family as the evil Queen Pietro tears her family apart.
Luvenia, in the beginning, was an incredibly strong character, she worked hard for her family and herself, and she made sure that she took care of them. After the attack from Pietro and her collectors, Luvenia is transported to a world that she didn't even know existed. This world is the polar opposite of her homeland, Orford. Aureland is magical in all sense of the word, so I was really interested in seeing how Vampa was going to meld the two together into a coherent story. And for the most part, I feel like it was done incredibly well. I still don't entirely understand the whole world set up, but I'm pretty sure I've got the gist of it. Aureland is only accessible through certain portals, so I see it as almost a parallel universe of sorts. I still don't understand how certain people knew of the world though I believe it has something to do with the whole Keeper thing. Keepers are people with magical abilities, and when parent's know that their child has these abilities, they can send them to Queen Nuria in Aureland in order to be trained in the way of the Keepers, at least, I think that's how it works...
So I guess you could say that at times it almost felt like there was a lot of info dumping because the world is incredibly complex, I just don't think enough time was given on the mechanics of the world for me to be able to truly gauge how it works. As said above, for the most part, I get the gist, but there's still a little more to explore here, and I'm kind of hoping that it is done so in future instalments.
Once Luvenia makes it Aureland, her character changes completely. Which, in a way, I can understand, she went through an incredibly traumatic event and had a lot of deep seating issues from before this to deal with as well. So, your girl isn't going to be totally well adjusted after just going through a tragedy. I enjoyed the way her character was so established in the beginning, broken down completely, then rebuilt into who I believe she was really meant to be. Her friends, Darius, Thera and Khyan are all interesting characters, though I feel like they weren't really given the time they deserved. I know about them, and I have an okay feel for who they were intended to be, they still felt a little flat and almost walled off for me. I just don't think I really got to experience them in their full intended light. Some emotional things happen, and while I was like "Aww, that's a bit sad" I wasn't really moved as emotionally as I feel I should have been. A little more time spent and depth given to the characters could really make this story shine how it deserves to.
The narration was okay, though I did notice at times there were single words that were written in the wrong tense. This story is written in third person past continuous (I think, I could be totally wrong here), though at times there would be one word thrown in a sentence in present tense. I also feel that third person may not have worked so great for this story as it felt like we were kept at arms length. I'm thinking first person really would have put us in the action and into Luvenia, allowing us to feel a full spectrum of emotion. I also found the narrative to be more telling than showing for the most part, which made me feel like I was simply reading a story, not experiencing it as I would have liked. There were a few lines used in the narrative that gave it a more flighty, cheesy kind of feel, but that could be the author's intention as well.
All in all, this was a fairly enjoyable read. It kept me coming back for more, and for the most part, I was invested in the story, it's characters and where the plot was heading. I'm looking forward to continuing the story as it ends on quite the cliff hanger, even though I had a feeling this would happen, I didn't see it being THIS way. And that is all I'm going to say on the matter. You'll have to read it to find out what I'm talking about :)
bookwormbunny's review
4.0
The Queen’s Keeper is J.L. Vampa’s debut novel. This twisted dark fairytale tales the story of a young girl, Luvenia, living under the tyranny of a dark queen. This queen, Lillith, is intent on bringing the world under her heel and rule, but there is resistance brewing. Luvenia has no idea that who she really is is shrouded in secrets and mysteries, but when tragedy strikes it puts her on the path to discovering more.
I love a good dark fantasy novel, and while this book does have some dark elements and moments, it’s not enough. The blurb for this book sounded so promising, but when it came to delivering it falls flat for me. When I started reading this book, it was so good! I was page-turning up until the “Alice in Wonderland” moment of her falling down a mysterious hole into another world.
I feel that this book focuses too much on the brighter side of things. There are moments in the book where the author gives readers dark moments with the queen, but I wanted more. The story is a bit too focused on Luvenia and her new friends, and building the romance angle there. I also couldn’t help being disappointed in Luvenia as a character. She’s almost 18 years old, but too often she devolves to the level of a 10-11-year-old child with her constant tantrums and disrespect towards the Queen (a friendlier queen). I feel that the characters coddle her too much because of what she’s been through. Then there are moments where things go just too convenient for her. Her adapting so quickly in the hand-to-hand combat even for fiction is too unbelievable.
This book had a lot of potential but just doesn’t reach it fully in my opinion. If the author had given me chapters with Queen Lillith, and more darkness – scenes with other characters suffering at the hands of the Queen this book would have been great. But as it is, it’s imbalanced to put it succinctly. Let a book live up to the “dark” elements. If you’re looking for a book with a HEA then this book is a good choice to check out. I’m rating this book 4 out of 5 stars. I look forward to what this author writes next.
I love a good dark fantasy novel, and while this book does have some dark elements and moments, it’s not enough. The blurb for this book sounded so promising, but when it came to delivering it falls flat for me. When I started reading this book, it was so good! I was page-turning up until the “Alice in Wonderland” moment of her falling down a mysterious hole into another world.
I feel that this book focuses too much on the brighter side of things. There are moments in the book where the author gives readers dark moments with the queen, but I wanted more. The story is a bit too focused on Luvenia and her new friends, and building the romance angle there. I also couldn’t help being disappointed in Luvenia as a character. She’s almost 18 years old, but too often she devolves to the level of a 10-11-year-old child with her constant tantrums and disrespect towards the Queen (a friendlier queen). I feel that the characters coddle her too much because of what she’s been through. Then there are moments where things go just too convenient for her. Her adapting so quickly in the hand-to-hand combat even for fiction is too unbelievable.
This book had a lot of potential but just doesn’t reach it fully in my opinion. If the author had given me chapters with Queen Lillith, and more darkness – scenes with other characters suffering at the hands of the Queen this book would have been great. But as it is, it’s imbalanced to put it succinctly. Let a book live up to the “dark” elements. If you’re looking for a book with a HEA then this book is a good choice to check out. I’m rating this book 4 out of 5 stars. I look forward to what this author writes next.
msbookworld's review
4.0
Things I Enjoyed: This is a delicious dark fantasy/fairytale. J.L. is a master of atmosphere seamlessly melding the story from fairytale to horror story.
The plot is full of twists and turns that will keep you wanting to read until the very last page so that you can find out how the story ends.
The main character, Luvenia, reminds me a bit of Ciri and Renfri from the Witcher series. She finds her life turned upside down by an attack on her family and stumbles on a magical world. Throughout the story she transforms from naive girl into a warrior princess. And romance with Darius, who is a constant source of support for her, is a great soruce of light in what is often a dark story. And of course, I couldn’t help but love Luvenia’s moments with Nuria, who can be such a mother hen, but doesn’t hesitate to dole out the touch love when necessary.
Things I Didn’t Enjoy: Honestly, the only thing I would change for the sake of pacing would be to divide this into two books Due to the amount of characters and events the story at times felt a bit rushed.
Overall Thoughts: This was a 4 out of 5 stars for me. If you enjoy dark fantasy this is definitely a book worth picking up.
The plot is full of twists and turns that will keep you wanting to read until the very last page so that you can find out how the story ends.
The main character, Luvenia, reminds me a bit of Ciri and Renfri from the Witcher series. She finds her life turned upside down by an attack on her family and stumbles on a magical world. Throughout the story she transforms from naive girl into a warrior princess. And romance with Darius, who is a constant source of support for her, is a great soruce of light in what is often a dark story. And of course, I couldn’t help but love Luvenia’s moments with Nuria, who can be such a mother hen, but doesn’t hesitate to dole out the touch love when necessary.
Things I Didn’t Enjoy: Honestly, the only thing I would change for the sake of pacing would be to divide this into two books Due to the amount of characters and events the story at times felt a bit rushed.
Overall Thoughts: This was a 4 out of 5 stars for me. If you enjoy dark fantasy this is definitely a book worth picking up.
rebeccarooo's review
5.0
I'm not sure what I was expecting from this book, it grabbed my attention on Netgalley a mere few days ago and I'm rating it as 5 stars because it definitely exceeded my expectations. I didn't want to put it down. I didn't guess ANY of the twists and I think I actually gasped out loud at one point! Its SO good.
When reading this book, you'll easily fall in love with the characters and you'll be transported to a magical realm that is described so perfectly that you'll feel like you're right there too but what I liked the most is the underlaying message of positivity, of being yourself, of accepting help when you need it and most importantly, of learning to see the good inside you. In my head, it's a sort of mash up of Alice's Wonderland, a hunger games arena, the woods where Maleficent lives, with maybe a sprinkle of the Maze Runner too; if any of those things sound like something you'd like then I'd urge you to give it a go!
I know that the author is currently writing the next book in the series and I CANNOT WAIT. Please don't make us wait too long! ❤❤
When reading this book, you'll easily fall in love with the characters and you'll be transported to a magical realm that is described so perfectly that you'll feel like you're right there too but what I liked the most is the underlaying message of positivity, of being yourself, of accepting help when you need it and most importantly, of learning to see the good inside you. In my head, it's a sort of mash up of Alice's Wonderland, a hunger games arena, the woods where Maleficent lives, with maybe a sprinkle of the Maze Runner too; if any of those things sound like something you'd like then I'd urge you to give it a go!
I know that the author is currently writing the next book in the series and I CANNOT WAIT. Please don't make us wait too long! ❤❤
sleepydoe's review
3.0
ARC provided by author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All the following opinions are my own.
Rating- somewhere in between a 2 and a 3
The Queen’s Keeper by J L Vampa is a high fantasy novel primarily featuring a cast of young adult/new adult protagonists. The story revolves around the main lead Luvenia, who is your average poor peasant girl living in a small village in a kingdom under a tyrannous rule. But, of course she’s not average because this is exactly the kind of situation that makes you a hero, almost exactly like when you’re japanese and you’re born with pink hair and are a cartoon, you just know you’re an anime hero/villain. Anyway, this girl is just living her life and trying to get by in a world wrought by famine and tyranny when her brother decides to go ahead and betray their family’s hatred of the queen and join the armed forces. He joins the special section of the army called the “Collectors” to be exact, and I honestly am not 100% sure what these special soldiers do yet but okay. The mom dies, the father’s been dead for a while, the sister gets taken away and Luvenia is rescued from her pursuers by magical beings who transport her to a magical land and begin to help her train herself and heal herself before she can go looking for her sister. She falls in love in middle, because of course she does. And there’s an attempt at a love triangle also, because of course there is. The book ends with a battle scene and an expository moment that reveals a secret that I predicted 50 pages into the book, and it’s like, some kind of big plot twist and stuff.
Oh, and there’s a bunch of politics stuff going on like forging alliances and internal revolution and all that jazz. And it’s definitely made out to be like it’s something important but it really doesn’t feel like it? I don’t want to go into explicit detail because I don’t want to spoil the book, but I’ll get into my entire problem with the politics and stuff in just a second.
The first issue I had with this book was that it felt very rough and unedited. It had these really, potentially likeable characters, but it didn’t do anything with them. The pacing was really off and not consistent at all, and there were these moments where you could totally get into the book but then it would be broken by one wrongly used word or sentence and it just threw me off as a reader. I almost DNF’d this book a bunch of times while reading it, but I just kept going because I still felt like it had a lot of potential and that it would get better. (spoiler alert: it didn’t. Not really). I just feel like this story had a lot of atmosphere and some really good plot points and characters to work with, and it could have been an amazing read if only it went through the editing process a couple of times.
Coming to the plot things I was talking about, it felt like the book tried to focus too much time on building the setting and the atmosphere - I still wouldn’t call it world building because there wasn’t that level of intricacy in there- rather than the action of the book. Now, I can see how this would be a good thing considering there are going to be more books coming out, but you kind of have to gauge what you’re giving up in exchange for atmosphere here. The most interesting part of this book was the politics, but because it was not given enough time on page, it seemed very rushed and became really confusing (or I’m just, like, really slow and stupid but either way xD). A lot of the time I had to understand who was who and what was what in these “action” scenes from context and my previous knowledge of the story. As I said earlier, even the military system in Orford is not clearly explained. I don’t know what makes “Collectors” so special. I don’t know why they’re not just called her army or her soldiers. I guess I do know that collectors take people from their homes but, like, armies do that, too! Especially in a world where kings are a thing, you know?
Coming to the characters, like I said before, I really felt like they had immense potential. I even came to like/be fond of a few but not in the I’ll-remember-you kind of way but in the you-don’t-suck kind of way. They were kind of well-developed, but they were not well-developed enough, and I felt like that totally affected their dynamics. The friendships and the romantic relationship in this book feel a little forced. There’s no actual chemistry between the characters and it definitely made it seem super awkward when the characters interacted with each other. I was particularly not fond of the romantic pairing in the novel. It made me cringe the two times they kissed because it felt so unnatural and abrupt. Ugh. And that forced love triangle that wasn’t quite a love triangle! WHOOP! TOO MUCH!
Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not that these dynamics were impossible between characters, it’s just that they were all lacking that chemistry that makes these dynamics work and that’s all I have to say about it.
Overall, I didn’t hate the book or anything. It was an okay-read and I can see why some people seem to really enjoy it, but it just didn’t cut it for me. There were a few elements in the story that I enjoyed when thought of disjointed bits of imagination floating about, but other than that this story was pretty unmemorable and unimpactful for me. I’m sure if this weren’t an ARC, I probably would not have read it completely and that makes me just a little disappointed.
Rating- somewhere in between a 2 and a 3
The Queen’s Keeper by J L Vampa is a high fantasy novel primarily featuring a cast of young adult/new adult protagonists. The story revolves around the main lead Luvenia, who is your average poor peasant girl living in a small village in a kingdom under a tyrannous rule. But, of course she’s not average because this is exactly the kind of situation that makes you a hero, almost exactly like when you’re japanese and you’re born with pink hair and are a cartoon, you just know you’re an anime hero/villain. Anyway, this girl is just living her life and trying to get by in a world wrought by famine and tyranny when her brother decides to go ahead and betray their family’s hatred of the queen and join the armed forces. He joins the special section of the army called the “Collectors” to be exact, and I honestly am not 100% sure what these special soldiers do yet but okay. The mom dies, the father’s been dead for a while, the sister gets taken away and Luvenia is rescued from her pursuers by magical beings who transport her to a magical land and begin to help her train herself and heal herself before she can go looking for her sister. She falls in love in middle, because of course she does. And there’s an attempt at a love triangle also, because of course there is. The book ends with a battle scene and an expository moment that reveals a secret that I predicted 50 pages into the book, and it’s like, some kind of big plot twist and stuff.
Oh, and there’s a bunch of politics stuff going on like forging alliances and internal revolution and all that jazz. And it’s definitely made out to be like it’s something important but it really doesn’t feel like it? I don’t want to go into explicit detail because I don’t want to spoil the book, but I’ll get into my entire problem with the politics and stuff in just a second.
The first issue I had with this book was that it felt very rough and unedited. It had these really, potentially likeable characters, but it didn’t do anything with them. The pacing was really off and not consistent at all, and there were these moments where you could totally get into the book but then it would be broken by one wrongly used word or sentence and it just threw me off as a reader. I almost DNF’d this book a bunch of times while reading it, but I just kept going because I still felt like it had a lot of potential and that it would get better. (spoiler alert: it didn’t. Not really). I just feel like this story had a lot of atmosphere and some really good plot points and characters to work with, and it could have been an amazing read if only it went through the editing process a couple of times.
Coming to the plot things I was talking about, it felt like the book tried to focus too much time on building the setting and the atmosphere - I still wouldn’t call it world building because there wasn’t that level of intricacy in there- rather than the action of the book. Now, I can see how this would be a good thing considering there are going to be more books coming out, but you kind of have to gauge what you’re giving up in exchange for atmosphere here. The most interesting part of this book was the politics, but because it was not given enough time on page, it seemed very rushed and became really confusing (or I’m just, like, really slow and stupid but either way xD). A lot of the time I had to understand who was who and what was what in these “action” scenes from context and my previous knowledge of the story. As I said earlier, even the military system in Orford is not clearly explained. I don’t know what makes “Collectors” so special. I don’t know why they’re not just called her army or her soldiers. I guess I do know that collectors take people from their homes but, like, armies do that, too! Especially in a world where kings are a thing, you know?
Coming to the characters, like I said before, I really felt like they had immense potential. I even came to like/be fond of a few but not in the I’ll-remember-you kind of way but in the you-don’t-suck kind of way. They were kind of well-developed, but they were not well-developed enough, and I felt like that totally affected their dynamics. The friendships and the romantic relationship in this book feel a little forced. There’s no actual chemistry between the characters and it definitely made it seem super awkward when the characters interacted with each other. I was particularly not fond of the romantic pairing in the novel. It made me cringe the two times they kissed because it felt so unnatural and abrupt. Ugh. And that forced love triangle that wasn’t quite a love triangle! WHOOP! TOO MUCH!
Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not that these dynamics were impossible between characters, it’s just that they were all lacking that chemistry that makes these dynamics work and that’s all I have to say about it.
Overall, I didn’t hate the book or anything. It was an okay-read and I can see why some people seem to really enjoy it, but it just didn’t cut it for me. There were a few elements in the story that I enjoyed when thought of disjointed bits of imagination floating about, but other than that this story was pretty unmemorable and unimpactful for me. I’m sure if this weren’t an ARC, I probably would not have read it completely and that makes me just a little disappointed.
jlb_x's review
4.0
As a reader, I was fully immersed in this story from the start because of how interesting the characters were and how much I wanted to see what happened as they journeyed through their wildly wonderful world.
Throughout the novel, the primary character not only tells the story from her perspective, but the other characters also get a chance to speak from their viewpoint. This writing style, alongside the plot, is arguably my favourite part of the novel. It made me realise that people often see you far differently than how you see yourself. Such a good piece of advice to include within the story itself.
All of the characters were wonderfully written and they all have very individual/strong characteristics, which made them even more real as the story progressed. Be they good or evil, their depiction always feels spot on.
Throughout the novel, the primary character not only tells the story from her perspective, but the other characters also get a chance to speak from their viewpoint. This writing style, alongside the plot, is arguably my favourite part of the novel. It made me realise that people often see you far differently than how you see yourself. Such a good piece of advice to include within the story itself.
All of the characters were wonderfully written and they all have very individual/strong characteristics, which made them even more real as the story progressed. Be they good or evil, their depiction always feels spot on.