Reviews - The North Wind | The StoryGraph

1.87k reviews for:

The North Wind

Alexandria Warwick

3.58 AVERAGE

bine2701's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

from_ashes's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional funny sad tense fast-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

akbrownie's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

volsairine's review

4.0

medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Listen, I wanted this to be a 5 star read for me SO badly. I am so sad that it didn't happen. I overlooked quite a bit of messiness all the way up until the very end, but now that it's done, it's just hard to justify a good rating just because I liked the romance. So, for me, the romance here is a 5 and the plot is a 3. So I averaged it at 4.

The romance parts were great, imo. I really loved Boreas. As another commenter mentioned, he definitely comes off as a character who could be on the spectrum, and I loved that. He's definitely not your typical morally grey asshole character, which I appreciated. Additionally, I loved that Wren was not your typical "incompetent heroine" that is often common in romantasy. It is definitely enemies to lovers and it is definitely slow burn, which I heavily enjoyed. I'm a huge enemies-to-lovers girlie so I was twirling my hair and kicking my feet. I also really loved the Greek Mythology aspects and the Beauty and the Beast aspects.

However... the general plot outside of the romance and the enemies-to-lovers parts? I genuinely had no idea what was going on a lot of the time. It really seemed like there were many parts of the book where the author intended to tie things in with something else, and then never followed up with it. For instance, [MEGA SPOILERS]

why were the darkwalkers never explained? Why were they there? What was causing the schism to falter? Because originally I thought it was the fact that the wives weren't having their blood sacrificed but then it made it seem like the schism was faltering because of Boreas? Why were the spectres turning into darkwalkers? Why was Boreas turning into a darkwalker?

.

There are also some parts of the plot that felt a little low stakes. Like, for example, it is revealed that the

spectres cannot die

. So like, why is there

an army and why is it a big deal if they can't die?

But then it's later revealed that they

CAN in fact die but its not THAT big of a deal because they just will have their souls judged again?

. But it's also written in a way where the reader is supposed to feel sad if that happens but I found myself just being confused. I think that it would have been more higher stakes if

the spectres were lost to eternity if they died again, or if they lost their memories.

Literally anything!!!

The ending was incredibly rushed, which was frustrating. Quite honestly, I couldn't fully enjoy the sentimental moments between them at the end because I was too confused as to what had just happened. I just kept flipping back and forth between pages, trying to figure out what was going on. The scene where

she takes the spear made me think that she was going to be the one who was immortal?

which also confused me because it seemed like the author was breadcrumbing something like

Boreas stealing Zephyrus's bow in order to also be immortal.

. Are they

still going to be living in the deadlands

? What happens

to the Grey

? The fact that I'm even this confused about how the book ended should just say a lot.

I think the author has a lot of great ideas but it just felt so rushed at the end. I wish that we had some more time to enjoy them as a couple. Ugh. As an autistic girlie, I really, really, really, really loved Boreas so I wish that I could give this 5 stars, but the plot had major issues that were simply too distracting to overlook and left me so confused that it took away from the romance.

I truly believe that this author will go places in the future. I really feel that she's got it in her, she just needs a bit more time to flesh things out and find her voice as an author.

Content Warnings

raeganbillinger's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

li_nalu's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous dark funny slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

alatkin1's review

3.25

adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

camillepearl23's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark hopeful medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

ella_jorg333's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Not something I particularly liked, and though I did like beauty and the beast retelling bits, I didn't really like the romance. I did like how the protagonist, Wren was a bit messy (in a good way)

cgrant1's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A lot of this book reminds me of beauty and the beast, or ACOTAR. But I did enjoy it in the end. Was a bit darker than other romantasy books in some ways. VERY slow burn. Ultimate payoff worth it though.

Content Warnings

More...