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izzyreads13's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
Wren, our female main character is the typical heart driven protagonist and for a good chunk of the book, that’s all it is. We read about her impulsive choices and how they affect her and eventually when she meets the male love interest, who is supposed to be her enemy she talks down on him all the time. Which of course, would be understandable given the circumstances but the way it plays out is icky to me. There’s multiply points where the mmc, Hal, tries to prove himself or get her to understand that he’s not this big machine gun she believes him to be but she throws careless insults at him all the time to the point where I don’t even know how he ends up falling for her. Their love story was meh at best and even though they did share a bit of cute scenes within the last maybe 50 pages of the book I still didn’t find myself in love with their love story. I also had a hard time warming up to wren despite her “character development” mostly because it feels as though every other character in the book makes it a point to give her some heartfelt apology but she never apologizes as sincerely as they did to her and it just threw me off as she definitely had some “sorrys” to give out.
Overall if anything, I would much prefer a book about Una who is Wrens first love and friend in the book as I found her character more intriguing and complex in comparison.
Additionally the book was very predictable, I was never shocked or taken aback by anything that happened, I could’ve literally guessed how this book was gonna end but finished it to know if I was gonna be right and I don’t like the idea of DNFing books but I very well could’ve gone without reading it and wouldn’t have felt like I missed out on something. It took me over a month to finish reading this book when it takes me about 3-4 days to read other books of similar lengths and it just wasn’t intriguing at all. I had to push myself to finish it on multiple occasions and ended up skimming majority of the book at the last 100 pages.
This book also read like a teens book instead of the YA book it was marketed as to me, i feel like this would’ve been more enjoyable for a 13-14 year old who’s maybe trying to get into reading if we avoid the 2 instances where the book has those in intimate “fade to black” moments. Overall, it wasn’t my kind of book. The romance was hard to fall in love with, the main character didn’t connect with me at all and the answer to the mystery was clear from the very beginning.
Overall if you do decide to read this book I wish you the best and hope you have a great time doing so, it just wasn’t for me, however to some extent the side characters were worth the read as I previously mentioned I did fall for Una and Hal, just not wren. Happy reading!
Moderate: Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Alcohol, and Death of parent
callistag1's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: War, Murder, Violence, Medical content, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Xenophobia, Emotional abuse, Death, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Torture and Gaslighting
thelittlestmermaid's review against another edition
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Violence, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Medical content, War, and Murder
Moderate: Sexual content and Toxic friendship
praaliine's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, and Blood
Moderate: Torture, Grief, Death, Kidnapping, and Murder
edamamebean's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Gore, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Terminal illness, and Medical content
Moderate: Violence, War, and Xenophobia
Minor: Death of parent
naomi_k's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Murder, Medical trauma, Gore, Toxic friendship, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, and Blood
Moderate: Gaslighting, Gun violence, Religious bigotry, War, and Body horror
Minor: Kidnapping and Sexual content
mimmixoxo's review against another edition
4.25
Graphic: Confinement, Body horror, War, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Death, Violence, Murder, Blood, and Medical content
Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, Grief, and Drug use
Minor: Kidnapping, Mental illness, Stalking, Torture, Toxic friendship, Cursing, Deportation, Gore, Xenophobia, Emotional abuse, and Gun violence
hannahs_library__'s review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, Violence, and Blood
Moderate: Torture, Injury/Injury detail, and War
booksthatburn's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
When she arrives, the lord is eccentric and the patient she was summoned to save is Hal, a war criminal and former child soldier. He's an assassin who can kill with his magic gaze, and the lord seems to have no idea, demanding that Wren do all she can for his "servant". Gradually, it becomes clear that Hal's illness is more complicated (as are her growing feelings for him), and Wren will have to choose between turning him in and stopping the war.
I saw a review which characterized Wren's dilemma as a choice between supporting a current war criminal or a former war criminal. That is definitely literally a choice that gets made at several points in the text, and somewhat dampened some of my enjoyment of the story. However, I did appreciate it as a narrative about two people who didn’t have much choice about whether to join their respective nations' militaries, but now are trying to find other paths for themselves and stop those who want a war to continue. When the options are to root for the character who was a child soldier but now is trying to stop the violence, or to support the character actively kidnapping and torturing people for his own personal and political gains... that's not nearly as tricky of a problem for me as this other reviewer found it.
One of my favorite worldbuilding details is the way that the small cluster of three countries (two of which are shown) have very different levels of technology, largely driven by whether or not their citizens have access to magic. Next is the way that this feels like a Beauty and the Beast retelling. It's probably not meant to be one, however, so many of the larger story beats fit neatly into the mold of that narrative, that, at the very least, someone who loves Beauty and the Beast (depending on the reasons) would likely be very interested in this book. It has a snow-covered castle lorded over by a strange man with strict rules about where the heroine may or may not go, an arbitrary timeline to solve a strange problem, a ball, and lots of wound care. The cadence of the plot follows that other one in some interesting ways, but getting into those details would be too many spoilers.
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Blood, Violence, Gore, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Death
Moderate: War, Alcohol, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Kidnapping, Emotional abuse, Confinement, and Terminal illness
Minor: Child abuse, Excrement, Vomit, Torture, and Child death
theonlybaillie's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: War, Death, Emotional abuse, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Grief, Physical abuse, Torture, Body horror, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, and Blood
Minor: Abandonment, Death of parent, Sexual content, and Toxic friendship