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maeverose's review
First off, an explanation: I’m logging this as a dnf because I skipped through most of this and only have a vague idea of how everything plays out plot-wise (I probably only actually read about 30% of it), and I don’t feel right rating it anyway being as it’s not the type of thing I would’ve ever liked to begin with. I stupidly bought a ‘blind date with a book’ (that was categorized as sci-fi/fantasy, not romance. Yes this is fantasy but I feel a bit cheated by that seller), and only decided to try and read it because I spent money on it. This genre has never been my thing, and if I had found this in a store and read the synopsis I never would’ve picked up this book. I’m gonna have to find a way to repurpose it as stationary or something to get my money’s worth I guess. This book is who it’s for, and I am absolutely not who it’s for. Therefore if this is a genre you typically read, my review will probably be irrelevant to you. I’m sure you’d like it more than me.
The writing and dialogue is so cringy. It’s not trying to be serious, but the characters talk in a very irritating way, especially their inner thoughts. The author does this thing where when they react to something it will just say a bunch of words in italics, like this: Truth? Mine! Hatred! Evil! It makes the characters sound so dumb. Also, I know this is a thing™️ in monster/paranormal romance, but it rarely, if ever says ‘men’ or ‘women’ and instead says ‘males’ and ‘females’ which I personally cannot stand. It just sounds so degrading to me, in a very unsexy way. All I can think of is misogynistic men referring to women as ‘females’ in a demeaning and dehumanizing way. Whether it’s directed at women or men, it’s so gross to me.
From what I did manage to read of the actual romance, the main couple didn’t feel like they were in love at all. Their attraction to each other was only lust. Also, a pet peeve of mine: They had sex multiple times before they ‘had sex’, because they only considered penetration to be sex. Here’s a quote from the book that really bothered me: “I never understood…why males waged wars…for their females…but this…you… I understand now.” You wanna take a guess what’s happening in that scene? He’s getting a blowjob…. He doesn’t get why a man would fight for his lover… until he gets a blowjob. Then he gets it. They’re fighting for their wives because they had their blowjob givers taken away :( so sad for them.
Like, are we supposed to find that romantic???
The worldbuilding was weird and done in a very info dumpy and awkward way. Like, I get the romance is the main thing people are here for, but it’s not like the magic system and species characteristics are lazy or neglected, it’s overly complicated.
The setting of the story is very unclear. For the most part it feels like a high fantasy setting. I don’t think locations are really described hardly at all, unless I happened to skip over all of those parts. It’s just the unnecessarily in-depth, convoluted magic system/species explanations that make it feel high fantasy. But then besides their ‘warrior’ garb, the clothes the characters wear are just t-shirts and jeans.. and all the food mentioned is very typical american junk food or fruit. It’s very weird. It’s reminiscent of urban fantasy but I based on what I know of urban fantasy I don’t think this quite fits under that category. I could be wrong.
The writing and dialogue is so cringy. It’s not trying to be serious, but the characters talk in a very irritating way, especially their inner thoughts. The author does this thing where when they react to something it will just say a bunch of words in italics, like this: Truth? Mine! Hatred! Evil! It makes the characters sound so dumb. Also, I know this is a thing™️ in monster/paranormal romance, but it rarely, if ever says ‘men’ or ‘women’ and instead says ‘males’ and ‘females’ which I personally cannot stand. It just sounds so degrading to me, in a very unsexy way. All I can think of is misogynistic men referring to women as ‘females’ in a demeaning and dehumanizing way. Whether it’s directed at women or men, it’s so gross to me.
From what I did manage to read of the actual romance, the main couple didn’t feel like they were in love at all. Their attraction to each other was only lust. Also, a pet peeve of mine: They had sex multiple times before they ‘had sex’, because they only considered penetration to be sex. Here’s a quote from the book that really bothered me: “I never understood…why males waged wars…for their females…but this…you… I understand now.” You wanna take a guess what’s happening in that scene? He’s getting a blowjob…. He doesn’t get why a man would fight for his lover… until he gets a blowjob. Then he gets it. They’re fighting for their wives because they had their blowjob givers taken away :( so sad for them.
Like, are we supposed to find that romantic???
The worldbuilding was weird and done in a very info dumpy and awkward way. Like, I get the romance is the main thing people are here for, but it’s not like the magic system and species characteristics are lazy or neglected, it’s overly complicated.
The setting of the story is very unclear. For the most part it feels like a high fantasy setting. I don’t think locations are really described hardly at all, unless I happened to skip over all of those parts. It’s just the unnecessarily in-depth, convoluted magic system/species explanations that make it feel high fantasy. But then besides their ‘warrior’ garb, the clothes the characters wear are just t-shirts and jeans.. and all the food mentioned is very typical american junk food or fruit. It’s very weird. It’s reminiscent of urban fantasy but I based on what I know of urban fantasy I don’t think this quite fits under that category. I could be wrong.
Again, this book was never for me to begin with, so hopefully this review was at least entertaining to read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Death, Gore, Body horror, Sexual content, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Sexism and Misogyny
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