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celeste329's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Decent concepts, but the execution was rather poor.
This book started off pretty interesting, one could say standard regency style. Iron-hearted step-mother who ruled after the king died and did so with fear. She is determined to keep Sophie away from the throne and that is due to a mix of things:she hated the previous king's guts - probably ideas too - dislikes that the princess is just like him, and dislikes the fact that she has to resort to a lot of shady stuff to rule because she's a woman, also is slightly (a lot) manipulated by the Main Baddie - Fear personified, under the guide of the Crow King . As things go on, there is a bigger conspiracy at play with the Crow Siblings - with the Crow King manipulating the Queen and his sibling just kind of...vibing, I guess?
Some fun magic shenanigans are being introduced, though in not a very "standard magic system" way, but more similar to how old fairy tales use magic, I would say. Sophie also get a ||heart made of clocks and her soul being used as a fragment to keep it together.|| This literally becomes a journey for Sophie to ||find her heart but not her actual physical one that the Crow King stole, but the one that was inside her all along.|| The plot felt kind of obvious to me after the first 20 chapters.
The pacing felt a bit weird due to the chapters being of varied length (and many, this book has 94 chapters - some of them just one-pagers @_@). A lot of the lore and action felt like they were compressed at times and did not really make for an enjoyable experience. The prose, although simple, was not done any favours by the chapter structures and reading it started to slowly feel like an uphill struggle as things went on - to me at least. I would say the plot itself isn't bad - quite predictable but not bad, with things feeling about a 60% telling - 40% showing.
Sophie (the MC), however, is not a character I liked. It made sense to me that she was kind and wanted to help andthat things were harder to contain because of her clockwork heart that did not regulate her emotions. But her development felt like one stagnant line for 90% of the book. She gets dragged and battered for most of the book and she only seems to have her big eureka moment right at the end. Her other two revelation were love related (that is she realised one of her love interests was a prick and she actually legitimately loved the other), but the book did not make them feel like...she grew as a person. She just understood a bit what love should be.
This book started off pretty interesting, one could say standard regency style. Iron-hearted step-mother who ruled after the king died and did so with fear. She is determined to keep Sophie away from the throne and that is due to a mix of things:
Some fun magic shenanigans are being introduced, though in not a very "standard magic system" way, but more similar to how old fairy tales use magic, I would say. Sophie also get a ||heart made of clocks and her soul being used as a fragment to keep it together.|| This literally becomes a journey for Sophie to ||find her heart but not her actual physical one that the Crow King stole, but the one that was inside her all along.|| The plot felt kind of obvious to me after the first 20 chapters.
The pacing felt a bit weird due to the chapters being of varied length (and many, this book has 94 chapters - some of them just one-pagers @_@). A lot of the lore and action felt like they were compressed at times and did not really make for an enjoyable experience. The prose, although simple, was not done any favours by the chapter structures and reading it started to slowly feel like an uphill struggle as things went on - to me at least. I would say the plot itself isn't bad - quite predictable but not bad, with things feeling about a 60% telling - 40% showing.
Sophie (the MC), however, is not a character I liked. It made sense to me that she was kind and wanted to help and
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Animal cruelty
Moderate: Death
Minor: Suicide
devanjoy's review
adventurous
dark
hopeful
relaxing
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
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide
chrysanthi_kiku's review
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
medium-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
2.0
Predictable, naïve, begging to be a movie. Superficial character evolution and action.
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, and Suicide
novelnerd_11's review
adventurous
hopeful
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
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Blood, and Suicide
Moderate: Murder
Minor: Death of parent, Violence, War, and Pregnancy
bookonium's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
hopeful
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Content Warnings
Minor: Suicide and Child death
edensbookshelf's review
adventurous
hopeful
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
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexism
charlottebreads's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
4.0
CW/TW: Death, violence, murder, suicide
Age Rating: 13+
- This book is a little intense, so be careful
- I thought Sophie was a great main character
- There was loads of character development
- Will was a little dull, but he was okay
- The Queen was really interesting. It was interesting to see how she became the way she was.
Age Rating: 13+
- This book is a little intense, so be careful
- I thought Sophie was a great main character
- There was loads of character development
- Will was a little dull, but he was okay
- The Queen was really interesting. It was interesting to see how she became the way she was.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Violence
Moderate: Murder and Suicide
teaofleaves's review against another edition
adventurous
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
1.0
The plot is underwhelming. Highly predictable. Boring. Very cliché in its message. Contains severely short chapters that I don't think work well for this book. I've read a book where this has worked well for it. The foreshadowing that led to something that would happen later in the plot was predictable. Instead of building tension and suspense, it was straight to the point with certain things that should have had it, which makes it just as underwhelming as the plot itself. I honestly considered DNFing the book. However, I'm normally not one for doing so as I think one can learn so much from a book that they don't like, and that one should challenge themselves as to why they aren't enjoying it. Thus, they become a better literary critic that way, in a sense. And honestly, it's not worth reading...it's just so underwhelming, predictable and boring that I wouldn't pick it up again personally. The only positive thing I can say is that I finished it, somehow. The writing was mediocre due to the plot and how, as a retelling of the Brothers Grimm's Snow White, it was written. If the author was trying to put some sort of feminist twist on this retelling, it was highly minimal as it was only seen predominantly in the beginning, and, even then, it wasn't enough to say that's actually the case.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Blood, Death, Suicide, and Murder
Minor: Death of parent, Gore, Animal cruelty, and War
lilacsophie's review against another edition
dark
inspiring
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Suicide, Toxic relationship, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Death of parent, War, Vomit, and Animal cruelty
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