Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - These Hollow Vows

Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

These Hollow Vows by Lexi Ryan

9 reviews

zia_c's review against another edition

fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

Watered down version of ACOTAR.

2 male fae characters. 1 secretly magical human FMC. 550 years of age gap. Love-Lust triangle. Fmc mission lost 99% of the story cuz she's a horny little shit. Ends up in her being magical.

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katiepreads's review

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3.75

Pretty good book! I will be reading the 2nd. But I wished there was TW about a few things that seem to be missing from the usual warnings or tropes that people share. But I don't see it discussed in many book reviews at all, so I will include it. Slight spoiler below for TW
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This book is based on many lies and betrayals. Including events that fall along the lines of infidelity or perceived infidelity. The 'other woman' tropes absolutely gut me. I have panic attacks. I try to avoid books where characters walk in on their lovers with another woman. This book includes a similar type scene at about 3/4 of the way in.

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rinku's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I’m not trying to be mean, but These Hollow Vows is your classical YA/NA fantasy written by an author who normally just writes romance. The world and magic system are not thought through enough, and the biggest focus of the story is the romance.

After Brie’s sister gets taken into the faerie world, she decides to smuggle herself into a competition to marry Prince Ronan and hopes to solve the mystery around the place her sister is and her two love interest which are coincidentally both princes from opposing kingdoms. Yeah, sorry for the bad summary but there’s not much else going on in this story. I wasn’t the biggest fan around the whole marriage competition that isn’t mentioned in the German synopsis – if it was, I probably wouldn’t have read the book because I don’t like this trope. Here, we never even see the other contestants which was so silly. Even more silly was Brie’s behaviour when she learned that

Sebastian was Prince Ronan. I didn’t really understand why it’s now a problem for Brie that she loves him. Her behaviour towards him just didn’t make sense

Other plot points were really predictable, like

Ronan having a relationship(?) already with someone else, Brie being the true queen, or Brie turning into an Unseelie in the end. I also really hate the concept of bonds because I don’t like this deterministic idea that people are “fated” to love each other, and the idea is often quite heteronormative

. Furthermore, conflicts could’ve been resolved way more easily if the characters decided to talk to each other for once. It also isn’t explained why, towards the end,

Brie doesn’t just ask Bakken to bring her to her sister

. At least the finale is nicely dramatic.

Probably the worst moment though was when Brie gets really drunk – and of course then also horny – in like the middle of the novel. This whole section just made uncomfortable and was so cringe, just like Finn’s reaction. We also have Kane who says that he would’ve taken advantage of the situation, yikes. The sex scenes were kidna cringe as well, especially how Brie asks if it’s a bad thing that she’s a virgin, I thought we were done with this stuff.

Looking at the magic system, there are some interesting ideas introduced but not really developed. The star worms and what they were called at the beginning seemed interesting, but they’re not mentioned anywhere later. Most of the magical things have some loopholes that the author didn’t think about, and for a fantasy book, there was not really a lot of magic generally.

The characters of the stories are so cliché as well. Brie is a quite unremarkable character, and I don’t know what to think about her. She annoyed me with her “not like other girls” stuff, like don’t liking dresses. Of course, she also lives with her mean aunt and mean female cousins. Like I’ve mentioned, the story lays a big focus on the romance. We have two love interests, both are of course tall and muscular, centuries-old, and both of course fall in love with our main character – and I liked neither of them. It’s so obvious that she will end up with Finn. I haven’t read ACOTAR and don’t plan to do so, but even I know that Bash will be the Tamlin of the series.

My review reads quite negative, but I still gave These Hollow Vows three stars. I had fun with it, even though not everything made sense or was developed in satisfying way.

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smuttymcbookface's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

There's so much to unpack in this!

First of all, I the fantasy and plot are easy to understand and get into, though I found some information was a little too glossed over or given at convenient times.

The characters were interesting, and flawed, but a little one-dimensional. Sometimes I wondered why the FMC was allowed to get away with things, and why everyone was willing to uproot their principles for her.

However, it was easy to read, and the plot kept me enthralled.

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cady_sass's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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

4.0

Okay hear me out: I know, objectively, this is not very good. The writing is very lackluster and repetitive and the book as a whole lacked editing. BUT if you have a fairy world fantasy itch that can’t seem to get scratched, this will do it. I really enjoyed this, despite the predicability and eye-roll worthy protagonist. It’s fun! So sue me. You get exactly what you expect, in my humble opinion.
Side note: there are a lot ( a LOT ) of reviews calling this an ACOTAR rip off and, while there are some minor similarities, I don’t feel that way at all. Sorry not sorry.

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clairew97's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense 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

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haley49's review

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This was the kind of book with all the twists and turns I wanted with enough setup to guess twists but still find them believable and satisfying. The romance(s) were well-done in that I went back and forth on who I was rooting for. The unreliable/fish out of water narrator helped build tension and suspense. Only real complaint was that some of the characters could have felt more 3-dimensional; there were some moments where some characters felt more like empty tropes without their own flair. Otherwise, an amazing, unputdownable read

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louisa_pennyfeather2021's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Moral of the story, it's spelled "Man"ipulation for a reason. Brie deserves an Anti-hero arc. I support women's rights, but more importantly I support women's wrongs.

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politewriter's review

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

World building and immersion are amazingly well done. There’s lots of factions, characters, and lands. But despite this, I never felt confused or overloaded with information. But the Female Lead is so irritating. She’s not only naive, but denser than lead. She never asks the right questions, so much so that any foreshadowing becomes blatant and frustrating. It’s one thing to have an author guide the readers to future plot twists, and another to spoon feed them it with their nose pinched shut. I hope the supporting characters are treated better in the next book, and that the FL wises up.

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