Reviews - Bound to the Battle God

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Not a fan of reading about cultures that are misogynistic but unfortunately finished the book and am curious about the spidae and their lore and anchor. Frustrating. Probably going to read the entire series. Really just gotta know what happens next despite the irritation over the frequency and interpretation of the term 'tart'

read_game_stitch's review

5.0

adventurous emotional funny medium-paced

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

I realised that this audiobook was leaving the Audible Plus free catalogue on 01/07/25 so this morning I decided to start listening to it. With it being just over 21 hours long, I did expect to dip in and out of this gradually, but it sucked me in and I listened to it all in one day! Obviously that wouldn't be possible without being able to listen all day and listening to it on a higher speed, but once I started, I just couldn't stop.

It was better than Bound To The Shadow Prince that I listened to recently because there was way more plot to this one and the pace was much better. The MMC is an Aspect of a god, 1/4 of the God of war and storms, who was split into four separate Aspects representing four different flaws. Each God's Aspects have to kill the others until only one Aspect is left. I did think that there would have been more cases of the FMC and MMC meeting other Gods or Godesses' Aspects, and that maybe there'd be some alliances and even betrayals between them, but the story didn't stray into that side of things. We saw one Aspect from another Goddess very early on, which mainly showed the impact that the Aspects have on those around them, and we saw another Aspect (or three) later on but they're not players in the game like the others are, so it was maybe a missed opportunity for even more intricacy and intrigue. Seeing some alliances between Aspects Hunger Games-style would have been great, but I guess then it would have been an even longer book!!

Overall, it was really original, funny and romantic. Ruby's spice is always en pointe so that probably goes without saying. And ingesting a 21 hour audiobook within one day (a working one at that) just shows how much it sucked me into it!

raguel's review against another edition

4.0

I really enjoyed this! Faith was resilient and resourceful, and she didn't put up with Aron's nonsense. Aron showed real character growth from his arrogance and cluelessness at the start to his strategizing and tenderness towards Faith by the end. I also like that this was a much slower burn than other Ruby Dixon books I've read. Despite the immediate god-anchor connection, Faith and Aron go through a lot of shit, figurative and literal, before they have a mutual respect for one another.

I think the lore of the world is unique and fun, and I'm curious to see how

Spoiler

Aron's deal with the All-Father (one permanent human anchor for each god)

will impact future books in the series!

midniteillusion's review against another edition

4.0

Unfortunately this book didn’t do it for me. I had to take a break in the middle of reading it because it was annoying me too much. This series started out strong but has been going down hill. I think Jessica Gadziala’s writing and story telling has been suffering the past three or so years as well which doesn’t bode well for the reading of future books. I miss the strong well flushed out characters and exciting stories of her earlier works.
With the changes to her writing and story telling I’m not seeing improvements in editing or continuity so I’m not sure where this change is coming from. Though if I had to guess it would be a quantity over quantity issue. She seems to push them out faster and faster.

I really didn’t care for Seeley, it’s hard to not like the character the book is names after, I didn’t feel like he grew as a character, he had the same voice all of her recent heroes have, boring and passive. He didn’t want to work and grow and change as a person but expected Ama to, which is so out of left field compared to how Gadziala use to write her strong heroines.
The epilogue was bland and boring, no excitement or emotions.

At this point I’m not sure I will continue this series.

teich's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 51%

FMC is in life or death situations being perverted and horny like girl this is not the time!! I love the concept of this book but Faith gets so distracted it’s annoying.