A review by rinku
These Twisted Bonds by Lexi Ryan

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

1.0

We only have January and with These Twisted Bonds, I already have my first one star read. This book is just terrible: The writing is so bad, there’s barely any plot, and the men just make me uncomfortable. I don’t want to be mean, but it’s so obvious that the author only has written romance/erotica before. 

Brie has turned into a faerie and is still caught in a love triangle – that is basically everything that happened, besides fighting some random Mustache-twirling villains. It was quite hard to follow because the events from the first book are barely mentioned, and there are not many explanations what’s happening. If I’m honest, this novel is really not a fantasy novel. The fantasy elements are hardly there, and the ones that are make no sense at all or are just not creative. I always hate it when we have random serums in fantasy stories that can just stop the magic. The setting also doesn’t feel authentic. It’s supposed to be your classical medieval inspired fantasy medieval setting, but have coffee, showers, needles, and words like “badass” are used. 

 For 300 pages, they just talk, and nothing else happens. Brie is in general such a passive character. There’s one moment where she eavesdrops on some conversation but doesn’t react to anything for two pages, so we just get the dialogue. We then maybe have 150 pages of plot total but there’s not deeper story that is told but just some stereotypical and predictable fantasy plot points. It’s just so uncreative how Brie, of course, gets randomly kidnapped, how she’s
of course the true queen, how there’s a new special kind of bond, and that her sister gets kidnapped again. Brie then kills Arya just like this
. In the end, the status quo doesn’t change at all which was just frustrating. 

For These Hollow Vows, I read the German translation but this time, I read the original Englisch version, and it’s just so bad. There’s so much “hard swallowing” and “head crocking”; Brie literally swallows hard on every page, and even two times on one page. Brie mentions additionally a lot that no one will manipulate her again for like hundred times. I was also barely able to imagine anything because we have a lot of instances of the white room syndrome. I find this whole male and female stuff also so cringy, and I don’t even know what “a lesser male” is supposed to be. 

Brie is still an annoying character who’s not like other girls. I also hate how the plot assigns her random abilities when the plot needs her to have them, like her suddenly being a really good lip reader. While her sister was her biggest motivation in the first book, she just doesn’t care for her in this novel. What she does care for are the men that are all unlikable characters as well. We get a third prince with Misha which is even more annoying. It’s so uncomfortable how he flirts with Brie by objectifying. Bash is still the Tamlin while Finn treats her also like an object he can own – even though he’s supposed to be the right guy, the good old “holding guys doing the same thing to different standards because one of them is the love interest”. Finn and Brie are just cringe, and their relationship is cliché, like they have to pretend to be a couple and have only one bed. 

Talking about relationships: We of course need a random female rival that sits on peoples’ lap without a reason? Who would do that in real life lmao. It wasn’t a surprise that
she’s a traitor in the end
. The rest of the cast is barely worked out; we just don’t know anything about them. I still don’t get the family tree as well, it’s so confusing. The characters show as well that Ryan has a very basic understanding of good and evil. Good people like Brie save children while the bad people send children into the mines, the most cliché evil thing. 

All in all, I wouldn’t recommend the These Hollow Vows< series. The first book was okay, but the second one was just so bad. Plot points are repeated and uncreative, the writing is bad, and the relationships are cringe. 

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