Scan barcode
atthelibrarywithmegan's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I received a digital arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I was so excited for this book, and it was unfortunately a let down. It was marketed as a sapphic Rapunzel retelling, and honestly the only Rapunzel aspect was one of the girls having long hair. As several other reviewers have also said, this was much more middle grade writing than young adult writing. It felt more appropriate for maybe 13-15 year olds than 18-25 year olds. The writing is incredibly repetitive and I really had to push through it to finish it. It also feels a bit clumsy as well. I honestly probably would have dnf’d if I hadn’t wanted to write an accurate review.
TW for emotionally abusive/manipulative/negligent mother, physically abusive/negligent stepfather, emotionally abusive/manipulative father, murder, and death of a parent.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Blood, Confinement, Murder, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Physical abuse
diannasbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.75
*Thank you Wednesday books and netgalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review!*
I was very excited to receive this book. Sapphic? Yes please! Rapunzel retelling! Yes! Witches, and vampires? It all sounded amazing. However this read as an upper middle grade rather than a YA for me. Which there isn’t anything wrong with that. I read it fairly fast. I really like the world that Francesca created. The romance was adorable, and I loved the world building as well. Overall it’s a quick and easy fantasy read!
I was very excited to receive this book. Sapphic? Yes please! Rapunzel retelling! Yes! Witches, and vampires? It all sounded amazing. However this read as an upper middle grade rather than a YA for me. Which there isn’t anything wrong with that. I read it fairly fast. I really like the world that Francesca created. The romance was adorable, and I loved the world building as well. Overall it’s a quick and easy fantasy read!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Physical abuse, Confinement, Child abuse, Violence, War, Death of parent, Death, Torture, Gaslighting, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Vomit
ezwolf's review
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- 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
This book has a gorgeous cover and a very intriguing summary, but the book itself was a terrible let down.
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.
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.
Content Warnings
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
bookstarbri's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
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? It's complicated
3.5
Before I get started on this, can I just say this is my favorite cover of the year? Like. Wow.
Anyway, literally from chapter one, I was really into it. There was so much suspense in that first chapter and it just really got me excited to read the rest of this book. And overall, I liked so much about it. One of my favorite things was the vampire and witch lore in this. It was all so well thought out and in depth. Though there was info-dumping, I thought it was really interesting so I didn't mind it! I LOVEEEEE having a vampire story where the vampire isn't all sad about being a vampire all the time. Like that's fine sometimes, but this was a nice change of pace in that regard.I also wasn't expecting Ava to be a witch and a vampire, so that was a really nice touch as well
The characters were cool too, mostly. Ava was amazing, would die for her. She's such a great character through and through and was definitely my favorite of the book. Kaye got on my nerves a lot haha. For the first third of the book, she had me wanting to scream. It made sense at times, but then other times...Anyway, it took me awhile to warm up to her. As far as side characters go, there weren't that many which was interesting. The MCs had a past friend, Tristan. I won't go into too much detail about him, but I will say I was surprised at the direction the author chose for him. I don't think I loved the direction, but it was a surprise, to say the least lol.
There were a lot of antagonists in this book. More antagonists than side characters interestingly enough. That's not a bad thing, but I was surprised at just how many there were and how they all connected. This book had a lot of action and it did a lot of moving around and I appreciated that it was all pretty much very easy to follow. Of course, I read an ARC of this book so I don't know if the finished copy will have a map, but I think it definitely needs one because then it'll be even easier to kind of follow everything, but overall the author did a good job with that especially for how much was going on!
Now for why I didn't give it 5 stars. There were a lot of points in this book (mostly in the first half) where the author is quite repetitive in information we're given. Like at one point, Ava thinks something and then it's reiterated again a few paragraphs later. I'm being lenient on this since it's an ARC, but it occurred a lot. I also felt like one of the antagonists didn't feel as grandiose as she should have? Like she was very much a higher player so to speak than the other antagonists and she just didn't feel like it? She didn't have that weighty presence that I would've liked. Finally, I wish the book would've had more surprising plot twists. There was really only one I didn't see coming. This author writes action well so I think pairing that with some really shocking plot twists would've been fun, but we just didn't get too many of those.
Overall, this was fun! It definitely isn't this huge, sweeping romance so if that's what you're looking for, be prepared for that. However, the romance we do get is sweet enough and it is an enemies-to-lovers trope (I know publishers like throwing around enemies-to-lovers a lot now, but this one is actually good)! If there happens to be a sequel (there's no cliffhanger, but the ending definitely leaves room for a sequel), I would absolutely read it!
Thanks so much to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Anyway, literally from chapter one, I was really into it. There was so much suspense in that first chapter and it just really got me excited to read the rest of this book. And overall, I liked so much about it. One of my favorite things was the vampire and witch lore in this. It was all so well thought out and in depth. Though there was info-dumping, I thought it was really interesting so I didn't mind it! I LOVEEEEE having a vampire story where the vampire isn't all sad about being a vampire all the time. Like that's fine sometimes, but this was a nice change of pace in that regard.
The characters were cool too, mostly. Ava was amazing, would die for her. She's such a great character through and through and was definitely my favorite of the book. Kaye got on my nerves a lot haha. For the first third of the book, she had me wanting to scream. It made sense at times, but then other times...Anyway, it took me awhile to warm up to her. As far as side characters go, there weren't that many which was interesting. The MCs had a past friend, Tristan. I won't go into too much detail about him, but I will say I was surprised at the direction the author chose for him. I don't think I loved the direction, but it was a surprise, to say the least lol.
There were a lot of antagonists in this book. More antagonists than side characters interestingly enough. That's not a bad thing, but I was surprised at just how many there were and how they all connected. This book had a lot of action and it did a lot of moving around and I appreciated that it was all pretty much very easy to follow. Of course, I read an ARC of this book so I don't know if the finished copy will have a map, but I think it definitely needs one because then it'll be even easier to kind of follow everything, but overall the author did a good job with that especially for how much was going on!
Now for why I didn't give it 5 stars. There were a lot of points in this book (mostly in the first half) where the author is quite repetitive in information we're given. Like at one point, Ava thinks something and then it's reiterated again a few paragraphs later. I'm being lenient on this since it's an ARC, but it occurred a lot. I also felt like one of the antagonists didn't feel as grandiose as she should have? Like she was very much a higher player so to speak than the other antagonists and she just didn't feel like it? She didn't have that weighty presence that I would've liked. Finally, I wish the book would've had more surprising plot twists. There was really only one I didn't see coming. This author writes action well so I think pairing that with some really shocking plot twists would've been fun, but we just didn't get too many of those.
Overall, this was fun! It definitely isn't this huge, sweeping romance so if that's what you're looking for, be prepared for that. However, the romance we do get is sweet enough and it is an enemies-to-lovers trope (I know publishers like throwing around enemies-to-lovers a lot now, but this one is actually good)! If there happens to be a sequel (there's no cliffhanger, but the ending definitely leaves room for a sequel), I would absolutely read it!
Thanks so much to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Death, and Violence
Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse
Minor: Vomit
More...