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A review by brookeadell
Aurora's Angel by Emily Noon
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Exceptional!! Loved this!! A debut novel????
The world building is incredible and vivid but not overdone, Noon sprinkles it in as you go so you’re not slogging through chapters of world building.
It is a friends to lovers slow burn (I guess you could say enemies to lovers in the sense of “our people are enemies” but I never felt animosity between Evie and Aurora and they aren’t ones to follow the status quo). The book moves at a pretty slow pace, Noon gives a lot of time for dialogue in each scene, which really built out the characters and their dynamics.
A lot of queer fantasy books write their dominant characters as very possessive and controlling, Noon managed to very eloquently write a dominant and possessive character, but without the toxic pieces. She writes characters that care about consent and respect boundaries in a way that doesn’t feel inauthentic.
The spice was so well written and I was surprised by how explicit Noon was able to make the scenes without using super vulgar language.
The only downside is the grammar, if you’re a stickler for it, you’ll struggle. It needed 100 more commas and page breaks often went forgotten when changing scenes, I would start reading the next paragraph and think “oh okay, moving on.” That being said, Noon did such an excellent job with this debut novel, I fell in love with these characters and the grammar didn’t seem worth knocking a star off.
Overall, highly recommend.
The world building is incredible and vivid but not overdone, Noon sprinkles it in as you go so you’re not slogging through chapters of world building.
It is a friends to lovers slow burn (I guess you could say enemies to lovers in the sense of “our people are enemies” but I never felt animosity between Evie and Aurora and they aren’t ones to follow the status quo). The book moves at a pretty slow pace, Noon gives a lot of time for dialogue in each scene, which really built out the characters and their dynamics.
A lot of queer fantasy books write their dominant characters as very possessive and controlling, Noon managed to very eloquently write a dominant and possessive character, but without the toxic pieces. She writes characters that care about consent and respect boundaries in a way that doesn’t feel inauthentic.
The spice was so well written and I was surprised by how explicit Noon was able to make the scenes without using super vulgar language.
The only downside is the grammar, if you’re a stickler for it, you’ll struggle. It needed 100 more commas and page breaks often went forgotten when changing scenes, I would start reading the next paragraph and think “oh okay, moving on.” That being said, Noon did such an excellent job with this debut novel, I fell in love with these characters and the grammar didn’t seem worth knocking a star off.
Overall, highly recommend.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual harassment, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Abandonment
Minor: Rape