Reviews - Magia explosiva | The StoryGraph

2.49k reviews for:

Magia explosiva

Ilona Andrews

4.19 AVERAGE

alona_reads's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

nodressrehearsals's review against another edition

2.75

The first two chapters of this book (the preface & the prologue) would normally have been enough for me to DNF this book.

Let's talk about the preface. It's a short historical summary of how the world got to where it is in this book. It's the laziest writing device of them all. We should be given this information organically throughout the story as we need it & the truth is, we didn't NEED any of this information for the story. So this book started with several boring, unnecessary pages.

And then there's the prologue. A prologue is meant to be riveting, to hook you into wanting to read the story. Perhaps this did interest and hook some people, but for me, this was a dull introduction to a mystery - more about some random woman than the actual plot or characters. Sigh.
I would've DNF'd this book at this point, except it was recommended by a friend who has decent taste in books so I figured I'd give it another chapter or two (especially since the preface & prologue were not what the story was presented as in the blurb).

Once I got a couple of chapters in, I started to enjoy the story. The obsessive man (Mad Rogan) isn't my fave trope, but it was done okay.

I might have rated this 3+ stars, but then the end came...

Of course, her kiss would break him out of destruction mode. Seriously, can we never give strong women actual strength instead of having them be a man's caretaker???
Rogan's POV chapter threw me because it had the exact same tone as the rest of the book and so I didn't immediately realize it was his perspective (also he was referred to as Connor (?? maybe ??), a name he'd only been referred to as once before in the entire book).
I'm glad the random woman from the first chapter made an appearance, but seriously? This is the best plot we can come up with? How boring.

I could not finish this review without screaming my anger that

EVERYONE EXCEPT NEVADA SEEMS TO KNOW SHE'S A PRIME.

It's so obvious, and what frustrates me even more is that it's not revealed in the book. This is going to be some big "anti-family" reveal in a future book and (if I read those books) I'm going to be pissed because so far her family doesn't seem like fucking morons but that reveal will certainly be moronic. End rant.

I don't know if I'll continue the series...

eximo's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous tense fast-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

lyndalynx's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional funny informative lighthearted tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

swalter's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

spinstah's review against another edition

2.0

This was gifted to me in a book swap, and I tried not to let the cover art sway my opinion. I don’t think it did, this just isn’t that good. Some distracting inconsistencies in the dialog, at least one continuity error, and the male lead is a sociopath who we’re clearly supposed to see as a good guy. No thanks. The story was pretty gripping but a major plot point at the end (

her kiss brings him back from the brink of destruction!

) made me want to throw the book across the room. I only got through this because it was fast and the female lead (and her family) is pretty awesome, though I think she’d be more believable if she was 5-10 years older.