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A review by exeidur
The Confectioner's Guild by Claire Luana
3.0
This was a nice read overall, though some stuff around the halfway point almost made me give up in frustration. That said, it finished quite strong. Would recommend you give this a try!
Plot
The plot is structured like a mystery/whodunnit, with the tension being in the fact that the main character's life is at stake if she doesn't solve it quickly. I think it was structured well for the most part, though as a reader, you won't be able to feel "smart" and figure out who did it almost until the reveal. That's because vital information is only given when it becomes relevant/when the main character discovers it. I don't know, maybe some readers were able to figure this out, but I felt there weren't enough hints about what was going on. So I really felt like a little kid being walked through a problem, pretty much held by the hand. A good thing for "lazy" readers, but a bit disappointing to me.
There are a few subplots, mostly romance. That's fine with me, though I wasn't invested in any romance whatsoever. There seemed to be an apprentice plot going, but that was pretty much abandoned after two lessons. Everything seems to be set up wel for the sequel, though, so I'm sure that plot should be pretty solid as well.
Characters
Main character, Wren, is likeable enough. She seems quite plausible as a person, though the reader is spoon-fed her past as well. The same information or similar information if given multiple times, which takes the punch out of her backstory. She didn't actively annoy me, so she'll do.
Side characters: eh. There's one guy who, to me, just reads like "this is Severus Snape only we're not calling him that". His name is Callidus and he's sombre, imposing, wears all black, and is a bit of an arse.
Apart from this dude, there aren't too many characters and they're all defined enough for me to remember them, which is good. There's a generic friend (Olivia), a mean-girl enemy (Marina? Marinara? Something like that), and a few hot dude love interests (Hale and Lucas), who didn't really do it for me. Though they weren't flat characters, I just would never choose either of them. There are more characters, which I'm not all listing, but I liked most of them. Especially Pike, he seemed cool. Didn't really need his whole life story randomly, but he seemed cool nonetheless.
World building/setting
All right, I guess. No clear world building elements to set a specific time, I felt. Somewhere before the invention of computers/televisions, but after ice cream stores & coffee shops became a thing for the regular public. I liked food being a big focal point, though.
Magic System
Not explained overly well, but I like the idea. Basically: pour your all into making your food and, if you're Gifted, it'll be imbued with magic. The type of magic is different for different people, no explanation yet why, and it only works for specific types of food (no reason given/discovered why), so there are guilds with the different kinds of gifted people spread amongst them.
Seems like you could do a lot with this, but the biggest amount of time was spent on the murder mystery & romance subplot, leaving little room to really delve into the magic. Could be a good system if developed further.
Writing style
It's a bit more telling than showing than I'd like, but it passes most of the time. You can read through this quickly and not stumble upon too many things you may find annoying, at least that's how it was for me. Not much to say on this: not stellar, but not bad either.
(Almost) deal-breaker (s)
A few moments, mostly around the halfway point, really annoyed me and seemed like lazy writing. They made me want to stop reading, and really pulled me out of the story.The main one I remember is that Wren visits Lucas and they, at some point, start making out in his home. Almost randomly, they knock into a piece of evidence Lucas just had laying around his apartment, destroying it. Like, how even. That's so incredibly stupid, and it was just put in there to create fake tension. They didn't even need it in the end, but it was still so incredibly stupid. Just very implausible. <\spoiler> Other examples are the random Pike backstory, Wren's past being told like 5 times (just have 1 reveal, 2 at maximum. If there are more, don't write it all out again), and the obvious
Plot
The plot is structured like a mystery/whodunnit, with the tension being in the fact that the main character's life is at stake if she doesn't solve it quickly. I think it was structured well for the most part, though as a reader, you won't be able to feel "smart" and figure out who did it almost until the reveal. That's because vital information is only given when it becomes relevant/when the main character discovers it. I don't know, maybe some readers were able to figure this out, but I felt there weren't enough hints about what was going on. So I really felt like a little kid being walked through a problem, pretty much held by the hand. A good thing for "lazy" readers, but a bit disappointing to me.
There are a few subplots, mostly romance. That's fine with me, though I wasn't invested in any romance whatsoever. There seemed to be an apprentice plot going, but that was pretty much abandoned after two lessons. Everything seems to be set up wel for the sequel, though, so I'm sure that plot should be pretty solid as well.
Characters
Main character, Wren, is likeable enough. She seems quite plausible as a person, though the reader is spoon-fed her past as well. The same information or similar information if given multiple times, which takes the punch out of her backstory. She didn't actively annoy me, so she'll do.
Side characters: eh. There's one guy who, to me, just reads like "this is Severus Snape only we're not calling him that". His name is Callidus and he's sombre, imposing, wears all black, and is
Spoiler
presumed to be the bad guy only he isn't, kind of like in Sorcerer's Stone. Plus, he'sApart from this dude, there aren't too many characters and they're all defined enough for me to remember them, which is good. There's a generic friend (Olivia), a mean-girl enemy (Marina? Marinara? Something like that), and a few hot dude love interests (Hale and Lucas), who didn't really do it for me. Though they weren't flat characters, I just would never choose either of them. There are more characters, which I'm not all listing, but I liked most of them. Especially Pike, he seemed cool. Didn't really need his whole life story randomly, but he seemed cool nonetheless.
World building/setting
All right, I guess. No clear world building elements to set a specific time, I felt. Somewhere before the invention of computers/televisions, but after ice cream stores & coffee shops became a thing for the regular public. I liked food being a big focal point, though.
Magic System
Not explained overly well, but I like the idea. Basically: pour your all into making your food and, if you're Gifted, it'll be imbued with magic. The type of magic is different for different people, no explanation yet why, and it only works for specific types of food (no reason given/discovered why), so there are guilds with the different kinds of gifted people spread amongst them.
Seems like you could do a lot with this, but the biggest amount of time was spent on the murder mystery & romance subplot, leaving little room to really delve into the magic. Could be a good system if developed further.
Writing style
It's a bit more telling than showing than I'd like, but it passes most of the time. You can read through this quickly and not stumble upon too many things you may find annoying, at least that's how it was for me. Not much to say on this: not stellar, but not bad either.
(Almost) deal-breaker (s)
A few moments, mostly around the halfway point, really annoyed me and seemed like lazy writing. They made me want to stop reading, and really pulled me out of the story.