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A review by koistyfishy
Air Awakens by Elise Kova
adventurous
dark
tense
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
3.0
This book is like eating a cold slice of pizza at 3 AM after a hard night of drinking. So satisfying in the moment but in the end, you are still waking up from a wicked hangover. Also if SOMEONE could please explain what a gummy throat feels like, I would greatly appreciate it 💕
I have never seen a book squander SO MUCH potential until now! It's all there! It basically oozes off the page begging, pleading, and screaming at the sky to be used - but it's flatly ignored to give us boring inconsistent one-dimensional characters, teenage angst, and unnecessary drama llama all wrapped up in mediocre writing.
This book follows Vhalla, a shy boring nobody commoner who works in a library as an apprentice. One day, low and behold, after saving the broody and mysterious crown prince's life with magic, our boring chosen one is thrust into the world of magic she has been taught to fear.
I had a few problems with this book, so let me try work through them as best I can...
1. The book has a premise that instantly hooks you in and I wanted to love it as it fell into my niche of fantasy romance perfectly but I went in apprehensive based on the vastly juxtaposing reviews out there ranging from 2 - 5 Stars, all from people and friends who's reviews I NORMALLY trust as gospel! As said I absolutely LOVE fantasy romance; however, those that think this is a "Fantasy Romance" are deluded as this is actually a "Romance Fantasy". Let me explain... "Fantasy Romance" is a book where the fantasy is the main plot and the romance is the subplot. These are set in fantastical, magical worlds with an overarching FANTASY plot. This book, romance is the main plot with a slight sprinkling of fantasy. It is almost like the fantasy elements are just used to put our main characters into situations that would cause drama and angst for the ROMANCE. So if you do not like your fantasy books filled with MOSTLY romance, this is not for you.
2. I appreciate a good book just like fine dining and a good bottle of wine, they have class and an air of sophistication. This book is NOT that! This is basically trash TV on the CW or Netflix. The type of show you'll binge-watch for an entire weekend until your brain turns to mush and your eyeballs are rectangles; but still, you can't turn away from the screen because of the teenage angst and drama. It's not only that the book feels like a TV show, but the writing style mirrors this. Its inconsistent plot feels like jump cuts and scene changes. There are a lot of scenes that happen with no clear transision of how the character got there. It's just meant to be accepted that this happened. A LOT of the dialog is quite far-fetched and seems unnatural as it's very witty, quips, and often feels like it skips natural progression in a conversation.
3. Vhalla as a character is shit! She is difficult to describe because I've just read a whole book about her and I STILL DON'T KNOW WHO THE FUCK SHE IS... One second she is innocent as a rose and timid, and shy and scared of you "the prince" and things beyond her ken... (if you got the reference to this I LOVE YOU). She spends almost the whole book feeling sorry for herself, sulking, soapy, crying, and starving herself whilst living the most boring life on the planet...THEN the NEXT second she changes her mind 16 times a minute over the whole "should she/shouldn't she" become a sorcerer. It's frankly EXHAUSTING!!!
4. The writing in general gave me a headache. It was so choppy. It would be 5-word sentences. Every one of them just stops. It was so unnatural. There were pauses when we didn't need them. Breaks that could have been avoided. It was like Elise Kova was so badly scarred from being reprimanded for run-on sentences and comma splicing that she completely avoided making sentences longer than 2 lines and so made it very difficult to get into the writing itself.
An example of this: “You are fine. See how quickly you are healing now? You will be better than fine soon. I will even teach you myself.” He outright smiled, as though he was bestowing some great honor upon her. But Vhalla did not smile. She took another step away and swayed as the world was suddenly unstable. She had been on her feet for too long. Prince Aldrik was there in a moment, his hands on her upper arms for support. “Stop this foolishness,” he said, his deep voice gentle. “You know you should not be standing. Let me help you back to bed.” His sudden kindness made her want to scream.
I have never seen a book squander SO MUCH potential until now! It's all there! It basically oozes off the page begging, pleading, and screaming at the sky to be used - but it's flatly ignored to give us boring inconsistent one-dimensional characters, teenage angst, and unnecessary drama llama all wrapped up in mediocre writing.
This book follows Vhalla, a shy boring nobody commoner who works in a library as an apprentice. One day, low and behold, after saving the broody and mysterious crown prince's life with magic, our boring chosen one is thrust into the world of magic she has been taught to fear.
I had a few problems with this book, so let me try work through them as best I can...
1. The book has a premise that instantly hooks you in and I wanted to love it as it fell into my niche of fantasy romance perfectly but I went in apprehensive based on the vastly juxtaposing reviews out there ranging from 2 - 5 Stars, all from people and friends who's reviews I NORMALLY trust as gospel! As said I absolutely LOVE fantasy romance; however, those that think this is a "Fantasy Romance" are deluded as this is actually a "Romance Fantasy". Let me explain... "Fantasy Romance" is a book where the fantasy is the main plot and the romance is the subplot. These are set in fantastical, magical worlds with an overarching FANTASY plot. This book, romance is the main plot with a slight sprinkling of fantasy. It is almost like the fantasy elements are just used to put our main characters into situations that would cause drama and angst for the ROMANCE. So if you do not like your fantasy books filled with MOSTLY romance, this is not for you.
2. I appreciate a good book just like fine dining and a good bottle of wine, they have class and an air of sophistication. This book is NOT that! This is basically trash TV on the CW or Netflix. The type of show you'll binge-watch for an entire weekend until your brain turns to mush and your eyeballs are rectangles; but still, you can't turn away from the screen because of the teenage angst and drama. It's not only that the book feels like a TV show, but the writing style mirrors this. Its inconsistent plot feels like jump cuts and scene changes. There are a lot of scenes that happen with no clear transision of how the character got there. It's just meant to be accepted that this happened. A LOT of the dialog is quite far-fetched and seems unnatural as it's very witty, quips, and often feels like it skips natural progression in a conversation.
3. Vhalla as a character is shit! She is difficult to describe because I've just read a whole book about her and I STILL DON'T KNOW WHO THE FUCK SHE IS... One second she is innocent as a rose and timid, and shy and scared of you "the prince" and things beyond her ken... (if you got the reference to this I LOVE YOU). She spends almost the whole book feeling sorry for herself, sulking, soapy, crying, and starving herself whilst living the most boring life on the planet...THEN the NEXT second she changes her mind 16 times a minute over the whole "should she/shouldn't she" become a sorcerer. It's frankly EXHAUSTING!!!
4. The writing in general gave me a headache. It was so choppy. It would be 5-word sentences. Every one of them just stops. It was so unnatural. There were pauses when we didn't need them. Breaks that could have been avoided. It was like Elise Kova was so badly scarred from being reprimanded for run-on sentences and comma splicing that she completely avoided making sentences longer than 2 lines and so made it very difficult to get into the writing itself.
An example of this: “You are fine. See how quickly you are healing now? You will be better than fine soon. I will even teach you myself.” He outright smiled, as though he was bestowing some great honor upon her. But Vhalla did not smile. She took another step away and swayed as the world was suddenly unstable. She had been on her feet for too long. Prince Aldrik was there in a moment, his hands on her upper arms for support. “Stop this foolishness,” he said, his deep voice gentle. “You know you should not be standing. Let me help you back to bed.” His sudden kindness made her want to scream.
I did like the cocky bastard prince, even if he pushed her off a building. He has smirks for days, gushed sex appeal, and created a whole lot of sexual tension you could cut with a knife.
Overall if you take this book too seriously, you are going to have a bad time. It's trashy, over-the-top, extravagant, cheesy and extremely unrealistic. But I had an OK time reading it because it got reactions out of me... Some might have been eye rolls and huffs of anger, but I did appreciate the drama. If you like teenage drama and shows like Reign, Riverdale, and Charmed appeal to you, you might actually like this!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Death of parent