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elendilkitten's review
adventurous
dark
funny
medium-paced
4.0
A wonderful read, dark magic, lots of queer characters, and a brilliant villain
lena_jk's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
fast-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
4.25
sp00kytail's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
laurenslovelylittlelife's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
jolie_melusine's review
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
- 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
4.25
zina10's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
theduchess93's review
2.0
Thanks to NetGalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review!
This is an extremely hard book to review because it was objectively bad but so damn readable that I really enjoyed it in spite of itself. The "ace" representation was laughable at best and insulting at worst -- hey authors, please stop making all of your ace characters extremely flirty and sexual just to make them more "relatable" to non-ace folks. The magic system made no sense and the descriptions of people's clothing and appearance (which made up roughly 30% of the book) were 2000's fanfic levels of insipid. The romances came out of nowhere and seemed to be based on nothing more than the protagonist's constant thirstiness.
I'll give the author this though -- the protagonist was as insufferable and absent of thought as I was at 19. And the few instances of actual gore/horror were surprisingly well done.
This is an extremely hard book to review because it was objectively bad but so damn readable that I really enjoyed it in spite of itself. The "ace" representation was laughable at best and insulting at worst -- hey authors, please stop making all of your ace characters extremely flirty and sexual just to make them more "relatable" to non-ace folks. The magic system made no sense and the descriptions of people's clothing and appearance (which made up roughly 30% of the book) were 2000's fanfic levels of insipid. The romances came out of nowhere and seemed to be based on nothing more than the protagonist's constant thirstiness.
I'll give the author this though -- the protagonist was as insufferable and absent of thought as I was at 19. And the few instances of actual gore/horror were surprisingly well done.