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kaetheluise_nckl's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
Graphic: Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Child abuse, Death, and Sexual content
Minor: Genocide, Death of parent, and War
humanmessofaperson's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
0.25
All tell, no show.
Constant explanation of what was being implied instead of just letting the reader understand the implications/piece things together themselves. Poor character depth and very rushed connections between characters. A confused pacing with the characters spending most of their time looking for a particular object in far too many different locations: searches that yielded nothing for the plot or character development, only there to add in tired worldbuilding/lore and fill more pages with words.
A complete over use of clichés and tired tropes, and while this could be true of most books, the author doesn't succeed in making them interesting or fun, meerly laughable.
I have never read a book that felt more like it was in its second or third draft. Characters had no depth, the story felt bored of itself, and things were either not explained enough or completely over-explained. (I couldn't tell you want anyone or anyplace looked like apart from vague, broad descriptors.)
Isla was a character that could do no wrong and was oh so special in the most grating of ways. Boring and plain. The same can be said for her love interests - Oro and Grim - who felt more like vague ideas of a character and less like actual people.
As frustrating, sometimes baffleing, and terribly written as this book is there certainly was a glimmer of something that could potentially be good, but considering this book went through multiple edits and this is the final product, I don't think Aster is the one capable of making it work. At least not without a serious marked improvement in her writing skills.
The half star is for the occasional gasp I had towards a plot twist (admittedly often followed by a laugh) and the memes me and my friend got to make because of this book, we had fun.
Graphic: Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Alcohol
Minor: Vomit and Death of parent
ashleyerne's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Confinement, Gore, Physical abuse, Self harm, Violence, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury
kenziewol's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
As far as the popular criticisms I did see them come up & agree with some..
There are a few places where the writing was spotty (a couple descriptions using the word “thingy” & some sentence structures could’ve been better) but that was mostly just in the first couple of chapters and then I didn’t feel like I noticed much.
Overall I felt the writing was easy to understand and was not bad writing by any means and on par with other YA fantasy books. The way people had been talking about the writing, I was expecting waaaay worse.
I do wish the names for the places and people were a little more creative than “Sunlings,” Moonlings,” “Skylings”, etc but that wasn’t a deal breaker for me.
At the end of the day I enjoyed it for what it was and tried to not hold it to what I thought it should be or what I had seen on other reviews. Unfortunately it’s hard to do that completely with all of the discourse about this book, but I felt it was enjoyable and a descent YA fantasy book. If you liked ACOTAR or TOG I think there’s a good chance you would enjoy this.
Graphic: Blood
Moderate: Death, Violence, and Death of parent
p_gonza2's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Minor: Death of parent and Fire/Fire injury
chandlerwood's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, Blood, Cannibalism, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury