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A review by alisonheide
Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli
3.0
This is not a book I would typically pick up, but it was a buddy read with a friend.
EDIT: HOW THE HELL DID I FORGET TO MENTION THE MENSTRUAL BLOOD IN THE FIRST ITERATION. THATS JUST FUCKING WEIRD. I am however grateful we were not subjected to a weird diatribe about how feminine energy is special and that’s why only those biologically female can cast. I hope that doesn’t come in subsequent books cause that gets weird and very gender essentialist very fast .
It was by no means the worst book I’ve read this year and had a concept I could get behind, but the execution was lacking. The pacing was its greatest sin. Nothing happened for 75% of this book and the end came almost out of no where. It was like I was perpetually waiting for the introduction to be over, and by the time it was, it was the climax of the book in the last 50 pages. I don’t think the dual POV helped with this as we almost had to see every shared scene twice.
The book also HEAVILY relied on telling instead of showing. Other than the set-up we were given no scenes of the crimson moth rescuing someone or being perused by Gideon. This made the “enemies to lovers” fall extremely flat to me because where were the enemies? It was also hard to believe that Rune was this badass vigilante when we saw her do no evil fighting. This lack of character development not only stunted Rune and Gideon separately but as a couple.
Gideon was in my opinion one of the better developed characters off the back of his brother Alex. I love a good complicated sibling dynamic and they were able to deliver some of that. There was not a lot of time for processing of Alex’s death at the end but I would love to see a large grief/anger deep dive in the second book contrasting Gideons love for his now dead brother but also his betrayal. I’m not sure of that is too much to ask for but the balance of sibling love and loyalty with morality is one of the better explored themes in the book.
Alex was also enjoyable for the same reasons as Gideon. Gideons motivations were a little bit better catalogued in the book. I really wanted to hear more about Alex’s view of the witch regime and then subsequent subjugation outside of “oh I’m in love with Rune.” There is another interesting moral/ethical conversation there which I feel could have been explored more.
Like I alluded to above the romance fell flat to me and I am really not a two brother love triangle person. Especially when both are trying to self sacrifice for the other. I am truely more interested in seeing Gideon and Rune work out their trauma as friends teaching each other lessons from their experiences then the romance. But alas I was given a romance book to read.
And well I called from the beginning that both regimes were evil. I believe the overall conclusion from the series will be oh it’s not the magic that makes people evil but the power and wealth. As they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely. You can definetly see the set up with this with the discussions of how there are still a good bit of impoverished people in the city.
I probably will not continue this series when the next book comes out.
EDIT: HOW THE HELL DID I FORGET TO MENTION THE MENSTRUAL BLOOD IN THE FIRST ITERATION. THATS JUST FUCKING WEIRD. I am however grateful we were not subjected to a weird diatribe about how feminine energy is special and that’s why only those biologically female can cast. I hope that doesn’t come in subsequent books cause that gets weird and very gender essentialist very fast .
It was by no means the worst book I’ve read this year and had a concept I could get behind, but the execution was lacking. The pacing was its greatest sin. Nothing happened for 75% of this book and the end came almost out of no where. It was like I was perpetually waiting for the introduction to be over, and by the time it was, it was the climax of the book in the last 50 pages. I don’t think the dual POV helped with this as we almost had to see every shared scene twice.
The book also HEAVILY relied on telling instead of showing. Other than the set-up we were given no scenes of the crimson moth rescuing someone or being perused by Gideon. This made the “enemies to lovers” fall extremely flat to me because where were the enemies? It was also hard to believe that Rune was this badass vigilante when we saw her do no evil fighting. This lack of character development not only stunted Rune and Gideon separately but as a couple.
Gideon was in my opinion one of the better developed characters off the back of his brother Alex. I love a good complicated sibling dynamic and they were able to deliver some of that. There was not a lot of time for processing of Alex’s death at the end but I would love to see a large grief/anger deep dive in the second book contrasting Gideons love for his now dead brother but also his betrayal. I’m not sure of that is too much to ask for but the balance of sibling love and loyalty with morality is one of the better explored themes in the book.
Alex was also enjoyable for the same reasons as Gideon. Gideons motivations were a little bit better catalogued in the book. I really wanted to hear more about Alex’s view of the witch regime and then subsequent subjugation outside of “oh I’m in love with Rune.” There is another interesting moral/ethical conversation there which I feel could have been explored more.
Like I alluded to above the romance fell flat to me and I am really not a two brother love triangle person. Especially when both are trying to self sacrifice for the other. I am truely more interested in seeing Gideon and Rune work out their trauma as friends teaching each other lessons from their experiences then the romance. But alas I was given a romance book to read.
And well I called from the beginning that both regimes were evil. I believe the overall conclusion from the series will be oh it’s not the magic that makes people evil but the power and wealth. As they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely. You can definetly see the set up with this with the discussions of how there are still a good bit of impoverished people in the city.
I probably will not continue this series when the next book comes out.