Reviews

The Tethered Mage by Melissa Caruso

shams_'s review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective tense 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

3.5

There’s a lot of build-up until I’d say it starts getting good, but when it does it really does! I wish we got more of Zaira and I really didn’t care too much for Marcello and his relationship with Amalia, but it wasn’t too bad either really, just kinda meh. Looooved Amalia and her mom, they’re both such cool characters and Amalia was a wonderful main character!! The political intrigue was a lot of fun and the plot twists were good too. The world-building did feel pretty narrow, but I liked the moral quandries it brought up with the mages. Unpopular opinion probably, but I thought Ruven was such a cool character and I really enjoyed all the scenes with him

rilesx0's review against another edition

adventurous challenging mysterious fast-paced

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

4.75

I really loved this book. I loved how brilliant the MC is and the fact that's the MC is strong but not in the traditional FMC sense like quickly learning and somehow mastering swords; but through intrigue and a battle of wits. And that the mom and the MC might have a lightly strained relationship but they don't hate each other and very much understand the complexities of the reality they live in. I very much enjoyed this book.

mimi_joe_lit's review against another edition

4.0

Ma note :

ate_reads's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

Wished the author spent more time building the relationship/trust between the Amalia and Zairi instead of focusing on Amalia's crush on Marcello. Marcello was dull. Zaira felt like an afterthought most of the time and Amalia didn't seem to care much about her except when it was convenient.

writings_of_a_reader's review against another edition

2.0

Unfortunately this is going to be a DNF. I'm about 40% in and gosh, it's so boring. I liked the idea behind the story, but nothing has happened. There's a lot of talk, political machinations - or talk of it - and I just don't care about any of the characters. Thanks to NetGalley for sending me a copy of this to review.

Review also posted at Writings of a Reader

wengrz's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.25

bellaw1223's review against another edition

4.0

It started off slow but it had a pretty good turn out. Imagine a very tame Jude Duart

rainsynch's review against another edition

3.0

First things first: the worldbuilding here was fascinating and I love the concept overall. The plot was decent enough even if every twist could be spotted coming a mile away. I did for a time consider the main character was mage marked and taking a potion to conceal it, but the reason was not that.

There are several LGBT characters, but not too much focus is given to their sexualities. It's mentioned, basically; there is a married gay couple and Zaira is bisexual, but these are not facts that take up more than a few sentences here and there, tops. The main character is heterosexual and there's a romance subplot for her that sort of takes away from the worldbuilding/other relationships.

The bad: the book doesn't focus on Zaira and Amalia's relationship enough, in my opinion. The mage who is tethered does not receive much focus in this book, and I feel that putting more time into developing their relationship and the mage herself would have served the story much better than focusing on a sort of lackluster romance subplot with Marcello. I also found most of the secondary characters mention to maybe have been better choices for main characters. Amalia was at her best with the characters she got the least time with, and the secondary characters had more interesting stories and motivations we didn't get to hear enough of.

I feel that it would have been a much better story if the author had slowburned the romance even further and instead focused on establishing her characters and their motivations and how they interacted with one another. It seems a disservice to the characters and the readers to make Zaira almost a non-entity sometimes. She's occasionally on screen but can feel remarkably secondary and occasionally even tertiary to the plot, for all that she is integral to the start of the story.

While I intend to read the second book, I get the feeling this is one of those series that will have glimmers of having had the potential for being great but which fell short and focused far too much on the tired starcrossed lovers trope with honestly a sort of boring take on the dynamic rather than focusing on the other relationships that came off as far more fascinating and real.

subwayscenne's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

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

3.5

shnash's review against another edition

adventurous challenging funny 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

4.75