Reviews with content warning for Child death - Bound to the Shadow Prince

Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Bound to the Shadow Prince by Ruby Dixon

6 reviews

marie_thereadingotter's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I received this book from NetGalley for review

I went into this book with zero exceptions, I’ve heard of Ruby Dixion before. But I didn’t think to look up who that was before requesting this book. Ice Planet Barbarians, so this book is technically part of the omega-verse. Would’ve liked to know that before hand.

That being said, this book was fine. I did skim over the copious amount of smut scenes, since this type of “intimate” scene isn’t my cup of tea. But I liked the banter between the characters before they started having sex. It was amusing and realistic. But the sex scenes, as the book neared the end, often happened at such odd times in my opinion (Shortly after the FMC was almost SA’d for example). It just felt out of place.

The world-building was pretty weak at times. The magic was very glossed over, to the point where I’d prefer zero explanation over the flimsy descriptions that were given. The dynamic of being locked in a tower for years, didn’t make sense to me. They were given more supplies, during that time, but other than that, there are no windows and the door is bricked shut… It’s not very clear why exactly they had to be locked in complete darkness either. My suspension of disbelief was broken even more by the fact that they would’ve run out of air, even with the slight breeze under the door. It just didn’t make sense to me. Why couldn’t they have one of those windows that you can’t even stick your arm through. Or why they couldn’t have lights. I also didn’t understand why the country the FMC was from wasn’t a Matriarchal society, especially if the women born from their bloodline are supposed to be important. It was just another trope this book had that I’m tired of seeing. Sexism for the sake of sexism.

The characters were, meh. I didn’t care for any of them. There was an attempt to make them multi-dimensional, but it just came across as them being inconsistent. I also saw the twist to Candra’s “cursed blood” a mile away. Something else that bothered me throughout the book is the over use of the swear “dragon shite” It was the only swear used… and it got old fast.

Ultimately, the two main problems with this book are 1) it is way too long, and 2) there’s too many twists. The final 10% was just bonkers, where another 10+ twists happen in a very short span. The conclusion also came abruptly compared to the rest of the book, where things moved so fast they felt glossed over.

This book was both gratuitous in sex and violence, and also very silly.

Content Warnings

booksybitch's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

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bsquiggle's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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hgriz511's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.5

This book was fun. I do feel like it dragged a bit longer than necessary. This book was over 500 pages and probably could have been edited down 100 pages or so. However, I liked the main relationship in this and the twist at the end was good. It was a bit predictable at times but in a way that made me want to get to the end to have all my questions answered. I was curious about a new Ruby Dixon book after Ice Planet Barbarians. This was certainly different but I’m glad I got my hands on it. She really is one of the spice queens. And it was my first Knotted Romance and I can’t say I’m mad about it lol.

Content Warnings

courtneytaddonio's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Thank you, NetGalley, for an eARC to review.

I am a huge fan of Ruby Dixon. Her IPB series, despite the repetitiveness, kept me hooked all the way to her current Clone series. While I’ve always felt her Aspect and Anchor books were a bit harder to get through, I still enjoyed reading them.

This book suffered and therefore so did I. It NEEDS to be edited. If half of the book was cut, it would definitely be a stronger story. We spend a lot of time with Candra being miserable for the first half of the book that isn’t entirely necessary. The entire

road trip

aspect of the book could be cut and the story wouldn’t suffer for it. Dare I say it, though I’ve never had this issue with past Ruby novels, the sex in the second half felt like it was a distraction from the plot, adding nothing and not even being particularly interesting.

What worked well? It’s rare that you find a character you dislike but still root for, but I found that in Candra. For the first half of the book, I wanted her to grow up and grow she did. It was really interesting the way Ruby crafted the blood curse and Candra was instantly recognizable to me as an insulin dependent diabetic. I felt this aspect of the novel was definitely handled with care. Ruby crafted a masterpiece of foreshadowing -

I kept waiting for the betrayal and all of the false starts really had me on edge.

My last gripe: Ruby discusses in the Author’s Note that she was inspired by the story of Troy for much of the war in the book. This is evident in the slavery aspect towards the end of the novel — especially in the story of Erynne’s baby boy being tossed from the city walls, making her our obvious Andromache. These parallels felt so ham-fisted in this story. As soon as Erynne begins explaining what happened to the women after the kingdom was conquered, anyone with familiarity with Troy would clock the parallels immediately. This didn’t work for ME. Others may read this as a poignant homage to those stories but I felt it was a cheap addition.

Content Warnings

brennaa's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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