Reviews with content warning for Sexism - What Lies Behind the Veil

Someone said this book is what you would get if you told an AI to write a fantasy romance, and that’s about all I can say. It’s certainly not very good, the dialogue is cringey and unnatural and there’s zero character development. There just… no depth. But I didn’t HATE it. And now I have to read the sequel *sigh*

Content Warnings

emmacartlidge's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.75

Content Warnings

sophia555's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous slow-paced

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

1.5

Gross, abuse in Estrella's childhood is repeated by Caelum, who gives nonce vibes, calling her "little one", feeding her, treating her like a child. He pushes her boundaries, consent is shakey and not able be be withdrawn.
Her fierce independence and hate of life being controlled by men all disappears when she becomes involved with him.
Plot was slow and the reveal was obvious.
This book made me very angry but I will be reading the second.
Do not recommend.

Content Warnings

alexis_k0's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark fast-paced

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

3.5

Content Warnings

redsrecs's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark 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? Yes

2.75

This story was a tough one. It was fast paced with major happenings every few chapters, but with seemingly no development in terms of the plot or the characters.

There were some hints dropped along the way that had me making predictions for where the book might be going but overall I found the relationship between the main characters toxic and too fast paced, I felt like there was no plot until the last 10% of the book, there were random info dumps but with not enough information added on throughout the book which left me confused in terms of the world building. If it wasn't for the map in the beginning of the book I wouldn't even know where they were going or what the landscape was like.

The pace of the book was a bit contradictory, it seems as if days pass with very succinct days being described, but then the FMC's inner monologue would suddenly talk about weeks and I would have no idea where the extra time came from. This also made me feel more confused in terms of their relationship which seemed to get very co-dependent very quickly.

The only plus from this book is that the spice wasn't too bad, the first two spicy scenes were fun to read and gave some depth to the relationship that was lacking before. The rest of the spicy scenes were a bit dark and maybe a bit disturbing, but if you're kinky, you might just enjoy them.

I still have many unanswered questions and I'm hoping they'll be answered in book 2.

Thank you to Jonathan Ball Publishers for gifting me a review copy of this book.

Content Warnings

frecca95's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious 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? No

2.5

I read this trying to fill the void after finishing ACOTAR and another few in the same vein, however I struggled to finish. The plot itself was fine and followed a typical fated mates pattern, however I found the MMC abhorrent. I couldn't enjoy any of the spice or romance as I found his behaviour and communication so arrogant.

Content Warnings

c45p1n's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

k i’m making a list

this book is literaly acotar’s doppelgänger (derogatory) (in regards to the characters)
very predictable
ends on a cliff hanger (is part of a trilogy)
tropes: fae & faeries, fated mates/soulmates, gods, betrayal, one bed trope (sorta? more of a cling-to-each-other-for-body-heat type of one bed), death is a trope., magic, strangers to lovers, (idk how to describe it but) surviving together, i hate everyone but you (male mc), grumpy x grumpier, again (bc there is so much) character death, um yeah. can’t think of anything else, OH “who did this to you” trope ON BOTH SIDES, yeah that’s abt it
OH: it felt like a video game in the sense that you had to complete a goal and talk to someone and then just be in stasis for the rest of the story, like just the middle 150 pages were nothingness but the FMC & MMC flirting and traveling with nothing actually happening in that chuck of time.
same with the beginning sorta. it was just 1) the veil shattered, 2) XXX & FMC ran away, 3) 50 pages later they meet the MMC, 4) battle against the enemies, 5) the middle where literally nothing plot-heavy happens til chapter 28
pretty smutty tbh, not amount-wise but kink-wise
i’m honestly kinda stumped on what to rate this but i think i’m gonna split it up then find the average and do it from there but you can just use these rates for generality
plot: 4/10; characters: 7.5/10; smut: 7/10; monologue: 5/10, dialogue: 7/10; world-building: 8/10; fae history explanation: 8/10 (there was a glossary), character likeability: 8/10
using my 200 dollar calculator, the mean is ≈ 7 so that’s like a 3.25 in my mind
Spoiler
literally everyone died except the main character and love interest💀
idk why but kinda reminded me of the hunger games
read TWs before reading the book fs !!!!!!

Content Warnings

luliposatieris's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

it’s a good book; it has a goodish plot but it focuses more on the romance aspect of the story rather than the “fantasy” one. The smut is immaculate, best i’ve ever read.

Spoiler

Caelum isn’t a strong main male character, his only personality and sole purpose is Estrella. He is obsessed with her even to a point where it’s concerning. At first i liked it but when every word that would come out of his mouth was overprotective/extreme jealousy, it annoyed me. PLUS Estrella didn’t even defend herself at times, she thought nothing of it.

The world building is good, it represents the purity culture really well and it shows exactly how poorly women were treated and how the men had all the power. I also liked that Estrella wasn’t brainwashed to think like that. She hd her own opinions and beliefs, even if it didn’t show when Caelum was around.

Spoiler

i saw the “plot twist” coming from KILOMETERS away, it was totally predictable. that annoyed me.

Content Warnings

More...