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van829_86's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I love all things having to do with witches and magical beings so I was absolutely excited to give this book a try. This book lived up to all expectations having read it in two days or mostly nights. I do not recommend reading this late because you will definitely get sucked in and may find yourself losing sleep over having to find out what happens next.
We start out meeting Arabella the seventh daughter of a seventh witch who has seemed to do nothing except embarrassing her extremely gifted witching bloodline. Called a brown bud for lack of revealing any magical talent or affinity whatsoever it seems the heard prophecy may not be about Arabella at all. This all changes when for the first time Arabella is around working machinery and she sees the glow which is the tell tale sign of magical ability. As she now must prove to her family what she can do with her technomancy power and now her future seems more uncertain than before. Will the council acknowledge this new magical power or will it result in Arabella’s death if she cannot manifest other normal abilities?
This book is a force to be reckoned with and unfortunately my good nights sleep was the loser. From the world Ms. Sonnier builds to the characters she describes and their interactions are phenomenal. This is an amazing book written by an amazing author and I for one can not wait to read the second book in this series!
jameseckman's review
3.0
A decent steampunk magic mashup flawed by some very dysfunctional ruling families (too much like reality!) and characters that are either very good or bad. Its a decent first novel, I'm cutting a bit of slack here, and while it doesn't end in a cliffhanger, there's obviously room for sequels.
craftybynamite's review
2.0
2.5 stars. It felt like there was a lot of potential with this but it wasn't executed well. The characters including Arabella didn't feel complex enough and I wanted the world to be developed more. I think part of that mainly comes down to the fact that whilst this is set towards the beginning of the early stages of the industrial revolution, the characters felt very much tropey in an an almost comedic way.
It also felt like the gravity of different plot points wasn't fully developed both by the characters and the author. There was so much potential for the emotional abuse that Arabella touches on at the beginning of the story and which underlies most of the interactions she has with her mother and the majority of her sisters but it felt underdeveloped at best.
That said, while they won't be at the top of my tbr, I shall look forward to the rest of the series.
It also felt like the gravity of different plot points wasn't fully developed both by the characters and the author. There was so much potential for the emotional abuse that Arabella touches on at the beginning of the story and which underlies most of the interactions she has with her mother and the majority of her sisters but it felt underdeveloped at best.
That said, while they won't be at the top of my tbr, I shall look forward to the rest of the series.
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