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3.91 AVERAGE
3.91 AVERAGE
I will definitely be coming back to finish this, I just got lazy since it's been so long
Inizio saga molto bello e accattivante. Il worldbuilding e il sistema magico mi hanno affascinata e incuriosita molto. In ogni personaggio principale ho trovato pregi e difetti. OFELIA INVECE È SEMPLICEMENTE FANTASTICA IN TUTTO! All’inizio avrei detto che è una cucciola da proteggere, ma ora posso dire che sa difendersi da sola, e ha una forza d’animo invidiabile.
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
🌶 Spice Level 0/5
Almost 5 stars, but something was missing. Maybe it needed a bit more romance?
The book is amazing! It felt like I saw that world with my own eyes. I never once wanted to put it down. I’ll definitely continue the series.
Everything feels so real, so deep. This society is full of awful people, and you have to stay on guard all the time. It’s both scary and intriguing!
I really liked Ophelia. She’s smart and brave. Thorn, though, is still hard to read. Sure, he wants to survive and has his reasons, and you can tell he’s under a lot of stress. You just want to give him some peace. I hope his character gets more development in the next book.
I get why Ophelia doesn’t trust him. It’s unpleasant to find out he was hiding something after she started to rely on him. But I think her distrust is too intense. It’s more about feeling hurt than anything else. If she had known from the start, when they barely knew each other, she probably wouldn’t have even been surprised.
And right now, out of everyone, he’s the one who can and wants to protect her the most. She shouldn’t stay on bad terms with him, though it’s fair for her to show she’s upset he kept secrets.
It’s clear he likes her. He caught feelings for her unexpectedly.
I’m glad she turned him down. Otherwise, the romance would’ve felt too rushed. I much prefer when the guy falls first.
I just wish they had more scenes together. When the hint dropped that he liked her, I was so surprised. It came out of nowhere, and it wasn’t clear when or why he started feeling that way.
I was really hesitant to start this book. I even avoided it a bit, worried it would be cozy fantasy, which I don’t like. But it surprised me in a good way! I was interested from start to finish. Usually, I don’t like books with a lot of magic, but here it was used in a way that kept me hooked.
Almost 5 stars, but something was missing. Maybe it needed a bit more romance?
The book is amazing! It felt like I saw that world with my own eyes. I never once wanted to put it down. I’ll definitely continue the series.
Everything feels so real, so deep. This society is full of awful people, and you have to stay on guard all the time. It’s both scary and intriguing!
I really liked Ophelia. She’s smart and brave. Thorn, though, is still hard to read. Sure, he wants to survive and has his reasons, and you can tell he’s under a lot of stress. You just want to give him some peace. I hope his character gets more development in the next book.
And right now, out of everyone, he’s the one who can and wants to protect her the most. She shouldn’t stay on bad terms with him, though it’s fair for her to show she’s upset he kept secrets.
It’s clear he likes her. He caught feelings for her unexpectedly.
I’m glad she turned him down. Otherwise, the romance would’ve felt too rushed. I much prefer when the guy falls first.
I just wish they had more scenes together. When the hint dropped that he liked her, I was so surprised. It came out of nowhere, and it wasn’t clear when or why he started feeling that way.
I was really hesitant to start this book. I even avoided it a bit, worried it would be cozy fantasy, which I don’t like. But it surprised me in a good way! I was interested from start to finish. Usually, I don’t like books with a lot of magic, but here it was used in a way that kept me hooked.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Grande NO! Fidanzati dell'Inverno è appena stato portato in Italia e da quando è uscito in libreria se ne parla in continuazione. Tutti sembravano adorarlo ed ho provato a leggerlo anche io. Lasciatemi dire che è stata una delusione enorme.
I personaggi non mi sono piaciuti per niente, la protagonista è carina all'inizio ma è davvero troppo imbranata e rincoglionita. Io posso capire voler rappresentare una ragazza comune un po' impacciata, ma qui sfioriamo davvero la labirintite. Il resto dei personaggi è come se non esistesse per me. Piatti e anonimi come la suola delle mie scarpe.
Pecca enorme è il ritmo del romanzo che per me lentissimo, per 200 pagine non succede assolutamente nulla! E' stato un parto terminarlo. Ammetto di aver fatto skimming potente.
La storia non è niente di speciale, domani l'ho già dimenticata. Nemmeno lo stile di scrittura è riuscito a farmi sognare. L'unica cosa interessante è stato il "potere" della protagonista che legge il passato degli oggetti e passa attraverso gli specchi, però chiaramente non viene sfruttato.
In sostanza non mi è piaciuto praticamente nulla. Orripilante davvero.
Delusione, non ho altro da aggiungere.
I personaggi non mi sono piaciuti per niente, la protagonista è carina all'inizio ma è davvero troppo imbranata e rincoglionita. Io posso capire voler rappresentare una ragazza comune un po' impacciata, ma qui sfioriamo davvero la labirintite. Il resto dei personaggi è come se non esistesse per me. Piatti e anonimi come la suola delle mie scarpe.
Pecca enorme è il ritmo del romanzo che per me lentissimo, per 200 pagine non succede assolutamente nulla! E' stato un parto terminarlo. Ammetto di aver fatto skimming potente.
La storia non è niente di speciale, domani l'ho già dimenticata. Nemmeno lo stile di scrittura è riuscito a farmi sognare. L'unica cosa interessante è stato il "potere" della protagonista che legge il passato degli oggetti e passa attraverso gli specchi, però chiaramente non viene sfruttato.
In sostanza non mi è piaciuto praticamente nulla. Orripilante davvero.
Delusione, non ho altro da aggiungere.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
fast-paced
lighthearted
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I rarely review books. This one was such an abominable experience to read that I feel the need to warn others drawn in by a cosy 3.9 stars. The world presented by Winter Promises is an enticing Gormenghast-lite vision of decaying, insular structures disconnected from a broader world. The cast are the kind of myopic decadents that populate many a novel that I have had fun reading. The protagonist, Ophelie, is a nervous maladroit similar to many protagonists of works that I have enjoyed. Instead, this book was a drag from start to finish. The absurd happenings are played for drama rather than black humour and the protagonist lacks agency, leading to nearly six hundred pages of waiting for the other shoe to drop. It doesn't.
2 stars given only because the cover art is enjoyable and some of the concepts might have been fun if they had been showcased in a better novel. Some people I know have liked it because the repetitive tropes it employs are their kind of thing; this, I can understand, like enjoying action movies or bodice rippers. This book is a bodice ripper by any other name. Don't go in expecting a competent novel.
2 stars given only because the cover art is enjoyable and some of the concepts might have been fun if they had been showcased in a better novel. Some people I know have liked it because the repetitive tropes it employs are their kind of thing; this, I can understand, like enjoying action movies or bodice rippers. This book is a bodice ripper by any other name. Don't go in expecting a competent novel.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexism
Minor: Sexual harassment
First up: every woman depicted in this book is either hysterical, outright stupid, or both. The character who drives much of the plot has her evil deeds excused as being a woman driven mad by baby-fever. This might be excusable as a gothic trope, but let's look elsewhere: Archibald is allowed to have the virtue of honesty as well as the sin of luxury, but his Archibald's sisters are all varying shades of coquettish without a single plot-relevant act to their name. Roseline's pivotal act is being cursed. Pistache is depicted as an air-head, and Ophelie's only independent act in the book (going to the party via the mirror) ends with a man rescuing her, telling her to shut up and stay put, then being proven right by the narrative. Ophelie's big choice at the end is between two men: Archibald and Thorn. Ophelie's brother and great-uncle are individual, sympathetic characters while her mother and sisters are unnamed nuisances. Gaelle, Grandmother, and Hildegarde are the female characters in this thing who do not act the part of a sexist stereotype. Except: Gaelle has a kiss forced on her, Grandmother is a scheming evil stepmother type character, and Hildegarde has very little presence in the story. It's better than some works I've read, but it was immensely frustrating that Ophelie took on no agency in the novel and that none of her actions impacted the plot in any way. The only point where she sets out to accomplish a task and accomplishes it (saving Roseline) is revealed to be part of a male character's master plan. Berenilde's scheming is revealed to be just her acting on Thorn's orders, because a woman has never had an original idea in her life. I spent the entirety of this novel waiting for Ophelie to get to do anything at all. I'm still waiting.
The book is not a tightly-plotted thriller; the novel aims to communicate an aesthetic, a concept, an image rather than a story. It succeeds in that and fails to do much more. Ophelie is in danger of her life for much of the book and fails to use either her historical knowledge, her mirror-visiting, or her Reading to try and navigate the situation except by accident. She doesn't find out about the Book thing through ingenuity or stealth, she stumbles into it. Most of the situations she falls into, she's helped out of by Deux ex Machina (Gaelle, Thorn, or Hildegarde take action on her behalf).
This would be better if we had another character to follow with some agency, or if Ophelie had any trait to cling on to. She's not assertive, though the narrative insists to us that she is; she's not clever, she doesn't figure out any plot except for Grandmother's assassination attempt; she's not competent, and she's not charismatic. To further the Gormenghast comparisons, Titus Groan isn't anything to write home about. He's a nothing protagonist. However, we constantly cut to Steerpike's social climbing to give us, the reader, something in the narrative with stakes. Ophelie's plotline teaches the reader that nothing she can do will impact her circumstances by having her mirror expedition fail; rather, we must only wait and see who saves her which time. The saviour characters who DO have agency are mysterious; we know little of them and see less. Another point of comparison might be BANANA FISH. Eiji has little agency and is a boring, boring narrator of a character, but it has a wide cast of supporting protagonists like Ash and Sing who take charge of the narrative and provide an entertaining spectacle.
Another, more minor pet peeve: the threat hanging over the entire novel is that the Pole is a misogynist society and that Ophelie will have no power in her relationship with Thorn. She's been signed up for a lifetime of marital rape. The book is quite frank about Archibald's sexual menace, but never once does Ophelie address to herself the possibility that Thorn will assault her. It seems a weird omission considering how explicit this book is about her vulnerability. It's an important scene in the novel where Thorn tells her that he doesn't care about them having kids, only the implication--that he doesn't mean to sleep with Ophelie--is glossed over. Archibald is suspicious for wanting to sleep with women but Thorn......Thorn isn't a threat because he's the Designated Love Interest ? ? ? You can argue that she's not admitting it to herself, but it's not a strong argument. The author has chosen to spell it out for one of these guys but not the other.