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A review by emilyrainsford
The North Wind by Alexandria Warwick
3.5
Given I've DNF'd two popular and anticipated new releases recently, I did not have high expectations for this one. I think that worked in its favour tbh. I ended up enjoying it more than I expected to, which doesn't necessarily mean it's "good", but it's definitely readable, and better than "bad".
Feyre- I mean Wren opens the book hunting to support her vapid and too-pure-for-this-world-but-also-quietly-kind-of-a-bitch sister Elain- ah, I mean Elora. Then the big bad North Wind god-dude comes to take precious Elora away and Katniss-Feyre-Wren sneakily volunteers as tribute.
Now I know that them being twins facilitates the swap situation, but it makes no sense that they're the same age. Why does Wren act like Elora is a baby when they're literally twins? At one point she even described disguising a spicy book on the bookshelf so that Elora doesn't pick it up - girl, what, she's literally the same age as you?? There is a feeble attempt to explain it away as "our parents created these roles for us as protector and protected" but it's hard to buy that because again, they're twins and that makes no sense. I think Elora should have been a younger sister and they just bore a strong family resemblance and the whole thing would have been less weird.
Most of the book takes place in the Darklands where the North Wind lives and definitely is a meshing of Beauty and the Beast and the Hades and Persephone myth. It was honestly pretty engaging. I think the world had huge potential.
Unfortunately the world building did not stand up to much scrutiny. I would have loved it to have been more carefully fleshed out. There are a lot of points where you're left with questions, or where things make don't really make sense, or are contradictory. Once again I'm left asking myself whether trad pubs make use of editors, like, at all??
One example is the nearby town of spectres who are apparently sentenced to servitude as a kind of pergatory. The North Wind literally says that most children are sent to The Good Place. So why, when Wren was in the town, were there families with children?? Can the spectres in pergatory procreate? Tell me how that makes any fucking sense??
Not to mention at the end where the need to judge the dead seems to be completely forgotten about, even though it seemed like a fairly major plot point. Who is judging the dead now??
Solid worldbuilding seems to have been forgone to focus on the romance aspect, but honestly I found the romance the most *meh* aspect of the book. Tell me why there's an entire scene where she mostly just dry humps his leg?? Is this a thing? Am I doing sex wrong??
It kind of felt like the whole story just petered out. The resolution just felt like the author was like - okay, I'm kind of over this story now, let's wrap it up. Once again, plot resolution was sped through to get to the romance - but the romance was not the part of this book that held the most interest and potential.
Call me crazy but I also thought the North Wind was a bit autism-coded (specific emphasis put on him not liking his food to touch on his plate, repeated mention of him not being good at social interactions, coming across cold despite actually being empathetic) and I just found this an odd choice.
Oh I should also mention, the main character is extremely unlikeable. And don't give me that "maybe you're just a misogynist and expect female characters to act a certain way" BS. No, I just thought she was a dick on a human level.
Overall this honestly had a lot of issues, but it was somehow also just pretty easy and enjoyable to read, so it's a 3.5/5 for me.
Feyre- I mean Wren opens the book hunting to support her vapid and too-pure-for-this-world-but-also-quietly-kind-of-a-bitch sister Elain- ah, I mean Elora. Then the big bad North Wind god-dude comes to take precious Elora away and Katniss-Feyre-Wren sneakily volunteers as tribute.
Now I know that them being twins facilitates the swap situation, but it makes no sense that they're the same age. Why does Wren act like Elora is a baby when they're literally twins? At one point she even described disguising a spicy book on the bookshelf so that Elora doesn't pick it up - girl, what, she's literally the same age as you?? There is a feeble attempt to explain it away as "our parents created these roles for us as protector and protected" but it's hard to buy that because again, they're twins and that makes no sense. I think Elora should have been a younger sister and they just bore a strong family resemblance and the whole thing would have been less weird.
Most of the book takes place in the Darklands where the North Wind lives and definitely is a meshing of Beauty and the Beast and the Hades and Persephone myth. It was honestly pretty engaging. I think the world had huge potential.
Unfortunately the world building did not stand up to much scrutiny. I would have loved it to have been more carefully fleshed out. There are a lot of points where you're left with questions, or where things make don't really make sense, or are contradictory. Once again I'm left asking myself whether trad pubs make use of editors, like, at all??
One example is the nearby town of spectres who are apparently sentenced to servitude as a kind of pergatory. The North Wind literally says that most children are sent to The Good Place. So why, when Wren was in the town, were there families with children?? Can the spectres in pergatory procreate? Tell me how that makes any fucking sense??
Not to mention at the end where the need to judge the dead seems to be completely forgotten about, even though it seemed like a fairly major plot point. Who is judging the dead now??
Solid worldbuilding seems to have been forgone to focus on the romance aspect, but honestly I found the romance the most *meh* aspect of the book. Tell me why there's an entire scene where she mostly just dry humps his leg?? Is this a thing? Am I doing sex wrong??
It kind of felt like the whole story just petered out. The resolution just felt like the author was like - okay, I'm kind of over this story now, let's wrap it up. Once again, plot resolution was sped through to get to the romance - but the romance was not the part of this book that held the most interest and potential.
Call me crazy but I also thought the North Wind was a bit autism-coded (specific emphasis put on him not liking his food to touch on his plate, repeated mention of him not being good at social interactions, coming across cold despite actually being empathetic) and I just found this an odd choice.
Oh I should also mention, the main character is extremely unlikeable. And don't give me that "maybe you're just a misogynist and expect female characters to act a certain way" BS. No, I just thought she was a dick on a human level.
Overall this honestly had a lot of issues, but it was somehow also just pretty easy and enjoyable to read, so it's a 3.5/5 for me.