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refrejarator's review
- 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
Moderate: Racism, War, Bullying, Torture, Confinement, Grief, Emotional abuse, Blood, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Child abuse, Death of parent, Animal death, Death, and Fire/Fire injury
jelkebooks's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
Gods, this book was so incredibly dull, it truly felt like a crime. How does a book with this beautiful of a cover, and this interesting of a premise just have absolutely zero charm? I don't know how the author did it but this book is even more dead than the vampires within it.
I stand by the fact that I do think this series is intresting, it's just that the author does absolutely nothing with it. This book manages to take the absolute most predictable and boring path, every single time. I kept reading hoping at some point this was going to tak me for a loop at some point, but it absolutely didn't. The world building was also incredibly boring. Again, this had such a good concept but the most boring route was just taken throughout it all. What made it worse for the worldbuilding though is that it is so incredibly info-dumped on you constantly there is no way to escape just how lame it is.
The characters are also so incredibly one dimensional and predictable. On top of that we have a romance at the centre of this book for which the author didn't even attempt any kind of developement. It kind of sucks that no developement was done because it was so incredibly neccecary. I mean, it is an enemies to lovers, from opposite worlds that hate each other, kind of romance. I need some kind of developement to make me believe these two all of the sudden are absolutely in love with each other to the point of going against everything they've ever believed. So yeah, this was an incredibly massive dissapointment to me. I still can't fully believe it because this book sounded right up my alley, but it just really wasn't.
Graphic: Domestic abuse and Animal cruelty
Moderate: Grief
Minor: Racism
amandaplease50's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Some slight twists and turns but not overwhelming and so well written. It’s in first person POV and the POV changes every chapter which can honestly be terrible in books but I never felt like I was reading in first person. And the changing of POV really added to the story!
Small romance mostly about the witch and vampire lore which I loved.
Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Violence, Racism, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Sexual harassment
sarrie's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
Graphic: Child abuse, Racism, Racial slurs, Blood, and Murder
hobbithopeful's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Ava and her Mother are both vampires, with Ava being kept locked in the attic for the past two years. Her Mother regularly drains her of her magic in order to maintain her human disguise, and often leaves her to the cruel experiments of her step-father. Ava longs to escape, and often looks out the window searching for her best friend.
Kaye is a Flame witch, and has a single minded goal, wipe out vampires. Vampires killed her Mother, and she will let nothing get in the way for her revenge. She used to be best friends with Ava, but after seeing her in an attic window with blood running down her face knows she must be put down.
When Ava finally escapes the two must work together to get through the forest alive, no matter how much Kaye seems to hate her now. But the forest seems to be dying, and Ava's Mother has plans of her own.
I'll be honest with you dear reader, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. Like I loved it! A lot! I didn't expect all the world building, the lore, the history. There was so much to this world and I was so blown away. I thought I knew what was going to happen in this story but the reveals that kept happening really swept the rug out from under me!
I really loved how the book had such themes as humans as the real monsters, fighting for freedom, and what happens if you hold your loved ones too tightly.
I will say I feel this book is 95% fantasy/angst and 5% sapphic romance but I'm not complaining. So many sapphic books are very light hearted romance, and it was nice to read a book where the focus was on more action and adventure instead.
One last thing I want to say I am so surprised and disappointed by how many reviewers are lowly rating this book because it is "not exactly like the original Rapunzel story." (People please use your critical thinking skills and look up what a retelling is. If it wasn't clear by the fact this is a book about vampires, why would you think this is going to be like the original fairy tale?) I also saw so many bad reviews complaining about the formatting for netgalley arcs, which isn't at all relevant to the actual story.
I highly recommend this book, especially for fans of world building, vampires, and of course fairy tales. I will definitely be reading more from Francesca Flores.
The Cover
Holy cow. Do y'all see this cover! I would like to give a round of applause for the cover artist, Olga Grlic! This is truly a work of art, my goodness. I love how we get so much information from them holding hands.
Ava's nails are blood red, with the ring from her Mother perched on her finger. I like how Kaye is almost seeming to be about to push it off of her. (Some symbolism of Ava breaking away from her Mother perhaps?)
Kaye's nails are gold, like the magic she wields, and her favored Flame witch bracelet is show on her wrist. (You guys do you see how detailed this is!) All around their hands are fireflies, flowers, and forestry. I believe the flowers are the ones that are heavily featured through the book. (I won't spoil for you what they do!)
I love how the title is lower on the page, it just flows so well with the composition. I really feel like the font works to convey the mood perfectly, and it goes with the cover.
Really the only microscopic complaint I would have is I feel the authors name would have been better suited to being white like the title font.
Cover design by Olga Grlic Cover illustration by Colin Verdi
Graphic: Death of parent, Blood, Death, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Murder and Racism
elizajaquays's review
- 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
4.5
Graphic: Child abuse and Physical abuse
Moderate: Xenophobia and Racism
ezwolf's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
The most interesting character through the whole book is one of the side characters who has maybe ten lines. I disliked both Ava and Kaye and they were written with almost no differing personalities (at one point I read half a chapter from Kaye’s POV thinking it was Ava’s) and I was over half way through the book and their characters should have been well established.
The whole book was all telling, not showing, us anything and so many things were repeated and drilled in I almost feel like the author thought people would lack the ability to have long term memory or good reading comprehension. This was most problematic when it came to character relationships. I am still not convinced that Ava and Kaye like each other in any way and Tristan was just like a weird addition to try and give them friends and some kind of backstory? Nothing any of them did made me inclined to think they had ever been friends.
The way things were named was also so uncreative, ie witches who could manipulate fire are Flame witches and the ones who could use water are Storm witches, a literal wall of bones was the Bone Wall, a tree connected to the heart of a vampire is the Heart Tree.
Overall, the plot had a lot of great potential but suffered greatly from how it was written.
Thank you to NetGalley for making this available in exchange for an honest review!
EDIT: Oh, I cannot believe I forgot this part, but including crosses burning vampires seemed like a bizarre choice? By placing this story in a fantasy world you can do whatever you want with vampire lore (these vampires don’t burn in the sun so clearly we’re not adhering to original vampire characteristics), but added the cross, to me, implies that Jesus existed in this world and they adhere to some kind of religion but that’s never discussed.
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Blood, Death, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Physical abuse, Gaslighting, Confinement, Murder, Torture, and Racism
Minor: Animal death, Vomit, Death of parent, and Child death