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haloqueen's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
ellyra's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
tense
slow-paced
3.0
This one was a rough one. I nearly gave up on finishing this book at multiple points.
I can tell that it was an excellent Fanfiction, however the transition to an original fantasy story was awkward. Mainly because the author stuck too much to the Star Wars world and to original scenes of her fanfic even when they didn't work in a fantasy world.
I enjoyed the World building inspired by the author philippino's origins, my issue was when this fantasy magic system was used not only to replace the Force (which worked) but also Star Wars futuristic technology (that one telecommunication scene at the beginning was ridiculous and should have been dropped completely).
Then the writing : it was descriptive and lush but it felt too overwritten, like the author was trying too much to have a crafty prose. I checked the first two chapters of the original fanfic and the writing style there was just righly dosed. Too bad it wasn't the case in the book, it felt like a chore to read at some time and took me way too long to finish this book because of it.
The plot : the story unfolds in two parts. The first 150 pages are a war novel with a loooooot of infodump. People that are not used to complex fantasy worldbuilding are probably not going to make it past this first part.
And then the 300 pages left are a political ennemies to lovers romance with fanfictions tropes like "forced proximity".
The romance and characters : Not gonna lie I am not the biggest fan of the two main characters as I am not a big fan of Rey and Kylo Ren to start with. On top of that, I found them immature, especially Talasyn but she's only 19 after all. It does get better as the story progress. I was very irritated with her at the beginning of the book but could sympathize with her by the end.
As for the relationship, it is a real "ennemies to lovers", if the attraction is very fast, the emotional connection is a slow burn. And by the end of book 1, their relationship is very messy and will probably continue to evolve in the following books.
I wasn't very much rooting for the romance in the first half (the insta attraction wasn't for me and I felt the characters too immature) but I ended up completely invested in the relationship by the end of the book.
So the book and the romance do get better in the second half. I did enjoy the general plot and was invested in it since the very beggining which is why I ended up not giving up on this book.
I can tell that it was an excellent Fanfiction, however the transition to an original fantasy story was awkward. Mainly because the author stuck too much to the Star Wars world and to original scenes of her fanfic even when they didn't work in a fantasy world.
I enjoyed the World building inspired by the author philippino's origins, my issue was when this fantasy magic system was used not only to replace the Force (which worked) but also Star Wars futuristic technology (that one telecommunication scene at the beginning was ridiculous and should have been dropped completely).
Then the writing : it was descriptive and lush but it felt too overwritten, like the author was trying too much to have a crafty prose. I checked the first two chapters of the original fanfic and the writing style there was just righly dosed. Too bad it wasn't the case in the book, it felt like a chore to read at some time and took me way too long to finish this book because of it.
The plot : the story unfolds in two parts. The first 150 pages are a war novel with a loooooot of infodump. People that are not used to complex fantasy worldbuilding are probably not going to make it past this first part.
And then the 300 pages left are a political ennemies to lovers romance with fanfictions tropes like "forced proximity".
The romance and characters : Not gonna lie I am not the biggest fan of the two main characters as I am not a big fan of Rey and Kylo Ren to start with. On top of that, I found them immature, especially Talasyn but she's only 19 after all. It does get better as the story progress. I was very irritated with her at the beginning of the book but could sympathize with her by the end.
As for the relationship, it is a real "ennemies to lovers", if the attraction is very fast, the emotional connection is a slow burn. And by the end of book 1, their relationship is very messy and will probably continue to evolve in the following books.
I wasn't very much rooting for the romance in the first half (the insta attraction wasn't for me and I felt the characters too immature) but I ended up completely invested in the relationship by the end of the book.
So the book and the romance do get better in the second half. I did enjoy the general plot and was invested in it since the very beggining which is why I ended up not giving up on this book.
lyakimov's review against another edition
1.0
DNF at 49%.
This book was borderline unreadable, and I tried my hardest to continue but I am not going to torment myself by reading on. The colonizer romance gave me a serious ick, it was very disgusting and made me want to put the book down. The fact that we are supposed to think that Alaric is a redeemable character for conquering every single country on "the Continent" and then going to conquer this land when he simply...doesn't need to?? Even in the book, Talasyn straight up tells him "you don't even have to colonize us, you have basically everything on the continent, you could just turn away and leave us alone" and he's like yeah I could...but I'm not gonna do that (for some reason that I am guessing stems from childhood trauma where his dad said "you have to conquer EVERYTHING!!!") Okay so childhood trauma/bad parenting does not mean that a person who caused mass genocide of the whole continent and is out here conquering land for no reason is a redeemable character. Sorry, I will 100% hate him with all of my heart and soul, the romance disgusts me and he has no redeeming qualities, and it appears in the novel that the author's tone is that he IS redeemable. In my opinion, that's not the case ever. The message of this book: "Even orchestrators of mass genocide and colonization deserve love!" What the hell? Also, the marriage of convenience isn't even cute or anything because it's literally "I am being forced to marry a dictator so that he doesn't start a war, colonize my country, and murder the entire civilization just because he is bored on a Sunday afternoon."
I was definitely not shocked when I found out this was previously a Reylo fanfiction, I had no idea until like 25% in but once I figured it out it was so glaringly obvious and I think because of the way the story is structured, it won't get better and that's one of the main reasons I decided to DNF. The book is written in the way that a fanfic is, where each chapter continues a story but we jump from plot to plot because the author doesn't necessarily have an end goal. The plot changes by chapter, which is extremely common in fanfic but doesn't translate well into a novel because we just hop from random thing to random thing, and when we move on from a plot point, it's never mentioned again, so it's like the entire sub-plot that we read was entirely useless and irrelevant to the overall story. And this happens every single time there is a plot shift! It's not a consistent way to write a story.
Also, I was listening to the audiobook and I could barely tell when there was a portion in Alaric's POV because Talasyn and Alaric's inner voice sounds the exact same. I am not talking about the narrator (who did a great job and had fantastic articulation), I am talking about the way that they think. They seem so similar that their characters just blended together to me.
The cover was cute though!
This book was borderline unreadable, and I tried my hardest to continue but I am not going to torment myself by reading on. The colonizer romance gave me a serious ick, it was very disgusting and made me want to put the book down. The fact that we are supposed to think that Alaric is a redeemable character for conquering every single country on "the Continent" and then going to conquer this land when he simply...doesn't need to?? Even in the book, Talasyn straight up tells him "you don't even have to colonize us, you have basically everything on the continent, you could just turn away and leave us alone" and he's like yeah I could...but I'm not gonna do that (for some reason that I am guessing stems from childhood trauma where his dad said "you have to conquer EVERYTHING!!!") Okay so childhood trauma/bad parenting does not mean that a person who caused mass genocide of the whole continent and is out here conquering land for no reason is a redeemable character. Sorry, I will 100% hate him with all of my heart and soul, the romance disgusts me and he has no redeeming qualities, and it appears in the novel that the author's tone is that he IS redeemable. In my opinion, that's not the case ever. The message of this book: "Even orchestrators of mass genocide and colonization deserve love!" What the hell? Also, the marriage of convenience isn't even cute or anything because it's literally "I am being forced to marry a dictator so that he doesn't start a war, colonize my country, and murder the entire civilization just because he is bored on a Sunday afternoon."
I was definitely not shocked when I found out this was previously a Reylo fanfiction, I had no idea until like 25% in but once I figured it out it was so glaringly obvious and I think because of the way the story is structured, it won't get better and that's one of the main reasons I decided to DNF. The book is written in the way that a fanfic is, where each chapter continues a story but we jump from plot to plot because the author doesn't necessarily have an end goal. The plot changes by chapter, which is extremely common in fanfic but doesn't translate well into a novel because we just hop from random thing to random thing, and when we move on from a plot point, it's never mentioned again, so it's like the entire sub-plot that we read was entirely useless and irrelevant to the overall story. And this happens every single time there is a plot shift! It's not a consistent way to write a story.
Also, I was listening to the audiobook and I could barely tell when there was a portion in Alaric's POV because Talasyn and Alaric's inner voice sounds the exact same. I am not talking about the narrator (who did a great job and had fantastic articulation), I am talking about the way that they think. They seem so similar that their characters just blended together to me.
The cover was cute though!
shelbysfavreads's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
dreea's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- 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
4.0
kindlebabe's review against another edition
4.0
Book : The Hurricane Wars
Author : Thea Guanzon
Pub Date: 03 Oct 2023
Thank you NetGalley, Avon and Harper Voyager & the author for the opportunity to read and review this book.
The things that exited me and I loved so much about this book :
- Enemies to Lovers
- Marriage of convenience
- Magic
-
I loved everything about this book. Although I did not read the original of this book, that didn’t deter me and I didn’t feel at all like I was missing something or didn’t understand any of it. The world building in this book was perfect, the characters felt realistic and relatable and the plot was
Author : Thea Guanzon
Pub Date: 03 Oct 2023
Thank you NetGalley, Avon and Harper Voyager & the author for the opportunity to read and review this book.
The things that exited me and I loved so much about this book :
- Enemies to Lovers
- Marriage of convenience
- Magic
-
I loved everything about this book. Although I did not read the original of this book, that didn’t deter me and I didn’t feel at all like I was missing something or didn’t understand any of it. The world building in this book was perfect, the characters felt realistic and relatable and the plot was
akchoate's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
funny
tense
medium-paced
- 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
3.0