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shelbyslifer's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Blood, Death, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, and Gaslighting
micaelacccc's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Gaslighting, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Violence, Child abuse, Physical abuse, and Blood
Moderate: Death, Animal death, Death of parent, Torture, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Murder
vixenreader's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Blood, Body horror, Gaslighting, Forced institutionalization, Child abuse, Confinement, Violence, Grief, Abandonment, Death of parent, Death, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Animal death, Medical trauma, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, Medical content, Sexism, Fire/Fire injury, Bullying, Cannibalism, Gore, and Kidnapping
Minor: Slavery, Ableism, and War
There is also destruction of nature, people being chained and imprisoned, and abusive mother-daughter dynamics.taelights's review
The writing is bad and repetitive. The world building is bad and hard to understand. Plus both main characters are both so annoying to me.
Also like i don't have issues with witches and/or vampires in general becaus I think there are respectful ways to write those types of creatures. But then there are ways to write those creatures that play into antisemitism. Personally I thought this book kind of protrayed vampires, and in a way witches, with antisemitic / blood libel themes which I personally foubd uncomfortable and yucky.
Graphic: Blood, Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Death, Emotional abuse, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Physical abuse, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Antisemitism
diannasbooks's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.75
I was very excited to receive this book. Sapphic? Yes please! Rapunzel retelling! Yes! Witches, and vampires? It all sounded amazing. However this read as an upper middle grade rather than a YA for me. Which there isn’t anything wrong with that. I read it fairly fast. I really like the world that Francesca created. The romance was adorable, and I loved the world building as well. Overall it’s a quick and easy fantasy read!
Moderate: Physical abuse, Confinement, Child abuse, Violence, War, Death of parent, Death, Torture, Gaslighting, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Vomit
ezwolf's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
The most interesting character through the whole book is one of the side characters who has maybe ten lines. I disliked both Ava and Kaye and they were written with almost no differing personalities (at one point I read half a chapter from Kaye’s POV thinking it was Ava’s) and I was over half way through the book and their characters should have been well established.
The whole book was all telling, not showing, us anything and so many things were repeated and drilled in I almost feel like the author thought people would lack the ability to have long term memory or good reading comprehension. This was most problematic when it came to character relationships. I am still not convinced that Ava and Kaye like each other in any way and Tristan was just like a weird addition to try and give them friends and some kind of backstory? Nothing any of them did made me inclined to think they had ever been friends.
The way things were named was also so uncreative, ie witches who could manipulate fire are Flame witches and the ones who could use water are Storm witches, a literal wall of bones was the Bone Wall, a tree connected to the heart of a vampire is the Heart Tree.
Overall, the plot had a lot of great potential but suffered greatly from how it was written.
Thank you to NetGalley for making this available in exchange for an honest review!
EDIT: Oh, I cannot believe I forgot this part, but including crosses burning vampires seemed like a bizarre choice? By placing this story in a fantasy world you can do whatever you want with vampire lore (these vampires don’t burn in the sun so clearly we’re not adhering to original vampire characteristics), but added the cross, to me, implies that Jesus existed in this world and they adhere to some kind of religion but that’s never discussed.
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Blood, Death, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Physical abuse, Gaslighting, Confinement, Murder, Torture, and Racism
Minor: Animal death, Vomit, Death of parent, and Child death