Scan barcode
zeaaaa_'s review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-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? Yes
4.25
viking_flower_girl's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
alibrareads's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
My stomach dropped when I realized, a third of the way through this book, that I wasn’t actually enjoying it as much as I thought.
My stomach dropped even further when I realized that a third of this book is just the main character Maddie describing how anxious she is, how she will never be able to live up to her uncle as Innkeeper, and indeed being useless pretty much the whole time.
My stomach hit the floor when I realized that the author is linguistically boring and kept using the phrase “my stomach dropped”, and derivatives thereof, over and over again (almost 50 times, according to Kindle search).
My stomach fell through the crust of the earth at how there were multiple little plot holes, and the worldbuilding was lacking, and the characters were flat.
My stomach burst out of the opposite end of the planet and was immolated on the surface of the sun as I was finally freed from this reading experience and filled with relief that this was a library book and I didn’t pay anything for it.
My stomach dropped even further when I realized that a third of this book is just the main character Maddie describing how anxious she is, how she will never be able to live up to her uncle as Innkeeper, and indeed being useless pretty much the whole time.
My stomach hit the floor when I realized that the author is linguistically boring and kept using the phrase “my stomach dropped”, and derivatives thereof, over and over again (almost 50 times, according to Kindle search).
My stomach fell through the crust of the earth at how there were multiple little plot holes, and the worldbuilding was lacking, and the characters were flat.
My stomach burst out of the opposite end of the planet and was immolated on the surface of the sun as I was finally freed from this reading experience and filled with relief that this was a library book and I didn’t pay anything for it.
ameserole's review against another edition
4.0
Ever since I saw this on NetGalley, I was beyond excited to dive into it. Then I got that sweet little email saying I received this ARC. Only.. to be completely disappointed because it was the sampler version. I wasn't expecting that one bit and thought the world was out to get me.
Honestly, I couldn't even tell you how many times I tried to get the actual book of this before it came out. It's probably a sad number and I was a little bit disappointed and let down. Luckily for me, I finally got my hands on the audiobook and I was hoping that Havenfall would be amazing. Mostly because I didn't want my stupid rejections for this ARC to break my excitement.
Not going to lie, this book is beyond beautiful. I absolutely love the cover and I can't wait to get my hands on the actual physical of this! Then there's my love for Maddie. Ever since that damn sampler I've been hooked on her and this entire world. It had endless mysteries and secrets to uncover and I just wanted to know who the bad guy was.
I, of course, had so many suspects and it was really hard to pick one out of the bunch. I also really enjoyed each little twist and turn each chapter gave me. I'm probably way too excited for the next book to come out.. but how could you not with an ending like that? I have questions that need answers to.. so yeah, I need book two stat!
Besides all of that, I enjoyed all the flirting and bantering. Even though I kind of got a little love triangle vibe - I still ended up with a ship out of it. So I'm wondering if the sequel will dive into that, go down a different route, or I don't know - completely forget about the romance forever.
I just need answers about a lot of things.
Honestly, I couldn't even tell you how many times I tried to get the actual book of this before it came out. It's probably a sad number and I was a little bit disappointed and let down. Luckily for me, I finally got my hands on the audiobook and I was hoping that Havenfall would be amazing. Mostly because I didn't want my stupid rejections for this ARC to break my excitement.
Not going to lie, this book is beyond beautiful. I absolutely love the cover and I can't wait to get my hands on the actual physical of this! Then there's my love for Maddie. Ever since that damn sampler I've been hooked on her and this entire world. It had endless mysteries and secrets to uncover and I just wanted to know who the bad guy was.
I, of course, had so many suspects and it was really hard to pick one out of the bunch. I also really enjoyed each little twist and turn each chapter gave me. I'm probably way too excited for the next book to come out.. but how could you not with an ending like that? I have questions that need answers to.. so yeah, I need book two stat!
Besides all of that, I enjoyed all the flirting and bantering. Even though I kind of got a little love triangle vibe - I still ended up with a ship out of it. So I'm wondering if the sequel will dive into that, go down a different route, or I don't know - completely forget about the romance forever.
I just need answers about a lot of things.
el_mackattack's review against another edition
4.0
Overall, I liked this book a lot and I am very interested to see where the second book goes with the plot! Personally, the concept and combination of mystery and real-world-fantasy (this was the way that I kind of thought about the combination of magical other realms and earth) was very interesting and unique!
THINGS I LOVED!
WORLD-BUILDING: I don't feel like I need to talk too much about this because the world-building is really unique, and it is what drew me to the book more than anything else! As I said, I'm not gonna talk about it too much because all you have to do is read the synopsis to know that this isn't your typical fantasy book.
TAYA: I LOVED TAYA! Taya's character and wanting to know what would happen to her, fueled a good portion of my motivation to finish the book. What I liked in particular about Taya was that even though she is kind of described as being a little bit closed off and mysterious in the synopsis I read, SHE ISN'T A JERK BECAUSE OF THAT! Too often have I seen other characters like Taya come off as jerks to the main character (or really just IN GENERAL) when they either "know more than they let on" or "have a dark past" and THANK GOODNESS, TAYA IS LIKEABLE! And to add on to the list of reasons I like Taya, she is LGBTQ, and even though I kind of saw the answer to her true origins coming from a ways away, that didn't really take away from my interest in her as a character.
LGBTQ REPRESENTATION: I'm never going to argue with someone including LGBTQ representation in a book like this because we don't see it often! But I think Sara Holland did an excellent job in particular with how she incorporated it. What I absolutely loved was that no one in the book was DEFINED by their sexual orientation. The author talks about it like it's nothing, and so through Maddie's perspective, the reader can see the emotions and relationships building up between characters without having to constantly be reminded of someone's sexual orientation through specific labels. I found that to be quite refreshing because instead, you're reading about characters who HAPPEN to be LGBTQ, not characters who are DEFINED by being LGBTQ. I also felt A LOT of chemistry between Taya and Maddie, so I'm not so subtly rooting for them to get together... BUT ANYWAYS!
THINGS I WAS NOT SUCH A FAN OF...
MADDIE: It's not that I didn't like her, in fact, I felt like half the time I could relate to her, but something just felt "off". Maddie is the main narrator, (also LGBTQ, which I really liked) but I didn't know exactly how to place her character. This is more just because I felt like she was very repetitious with how often she referenced her past, and I realize this is partly because she is heavily defined by that, but it got to the point where there were some sections where I was like, "Yeah I know this already...can we get back to the other stuff?"
THE DREADED PLOT SLUMPS: This book definitely does suffer a little bit from the "middle-book-syndrome" (I think that's what people call it...) and the plot does slow down for a little bit during a middle section of the book. BUT WHAT I WILL SAY IS THAT I HAVE DEFINITELY SEEN WORSE in terms of "middle-book-syndrome" and it's very easy for me to abandon books whose beginnings really interest me because of a slow middle plot, so all-in-all, the "middle-book-syndrome" wasn't a huge drawback for me.
PLOT TWISTS: They're not exactly as well-hidden as I'd hoped for. In fact, I was able to guess quite a few of these plot twists about half-way into the book. So...yeah they weren't as gut-punchy as I would've liked. However, what I will say is that they weren't executed exactly the way I thought they'd be, and there are some plot twists that I did NOT see coming, so there were still some surprises along the road. So it's not completely predictable, but you can guess some of the stuff that's gonna happen.
All in all, if you're looking for a different spin on fantasy, this is definitely a good book to pick up! I think an overall interest in the world-building and the characters definitely outweighed a lot of my problems with the book and I'm really sad that we don't know much about the sequel at the moment. But I'm really excited to see where the second book goes considering everything we're introduced to in Havenfall and I'm definitely gonna pick up a copy of the sequel as soon as it's released!
THINGS I LOVED!
WORLD-BUILDING: I don't feel like I need to talk too much about this because the world-building is really unique, and it is what drew me to the book more than anything else! As I said, I'm not gonna talk about it too much because all you have to do is read the synopsis to know that this isn't your typical fantasy book.
TAYA: I LOVED TAYA! Taya's character and wanting to know what would happen to her, fueled a good portion of my motivation to finish the book. What I liked in particular about Taya was that even though she is kind of described as being a little bit closed off and mysterious in the synopsis I read, SHE ISN'T A JERK BECAUSE OF THAT! Too often have I seen other characters like Taya come off as jerks to the main character (or really just IN GENERAL) when they either "know more than they let on" or "have a dark past" and THANK GOODNESS, TAYA IS LIKEABLE! And to add on to the list of reasons I like Taya, she is LGBTQ, and even though I kind of saw the answer to her true origins coming from a ways away, that didn't really take away from my interest in her as a character.
LGBTQ REPRESENTATION: I'm never going to argue with someone including LGBTQ representation in a book like this because we don't see it often! But I think Sara Holland did an excellent job in particular with how she incorporated it. What I absolutely loved was that no one in the book was DEFINED by their sexual orientation. The author talks about it like it's nothing, and so through Maddie's perspective, the reader can see the emotions and relationships building up between characters without having to constantly be reminded of someone's sexual orientation through specific labels. I found that to be quite refreshing because instead, you're reading about characters who HAPPEN to be LGBTQ, not characters who are DEFINED by being LGBTQ. I also felt A LOT of chemistry between Taya and Maddie, so I'm not so subtly rooting for them to get together... BUT ANYWAYS!
THINGS I WAS NOT SUCH A FAN OF...
MADDIE: It's not that I didn't like her, in fact, I felt like half the time I could relate to her, but something just felt "off". Maddie is the main narrator, (also LGBTQ, which I really liked) but I didn't know exactly how to place her character. This is more just because I felt like she was very repetitious with how often she referenced her past, and I realize this is partly because she is heavily defined by that, but it got to the point where there were some sections where I was like, "Yeah I know this already...can we get back to the other stuff?"
THE DREADED PLOT SLUMPS: This book definitely does suffer a little bit from the "middle-book-syndrome" (I think that's what people call it...) and the plot does slow down for a little bit during a middle section of the book. BUT WHAT I WILL SAY IS THAT I HAVE DEFINITELY SEEN WORSE in terms of "middle-book-syndrome" and it's very easy for me to abandon books whose beginnings really interest me because of a slow middle plot, so all-in-all, the "middle-book-syndrome" wasn't a huge drawback for me.
PLOT TWISTS: They're not exactly as well-hidden as I'd hoped for. In fact, I was able to guess quite a few of these plot twists about half-way into the book. So...yeah they weren't as gut-punchy as I would've liked. However, what I will say is that they weren't executed exactly the way I thought they'd be, and there are some plot twists that I did NOT see coming, so there were still some surprises along the road. So it's not completely predictable, but you can guess some of the stuff that's gonna happen.
All in all, if you're looking for a different spin on fantasy, this is definitely a good book to pick up! I think an overall interest in the world-building and the characters definitely outweighed a lot of my problems with the book and I'm really sad that we don't know much about the sequel at the moment. But I'm really excited to see where the second book goes considering everything we're introduced to in Havenfall and I'm definitely gonna pick up a copy of the sequel as soon as it's released!
nyxki's review against another edition
2.0
I hate when a plot hinges on the main character being painfully ignorant and oblivious.
feel_o_sofie's review against another edition
4.0
Allereerst werd ik verliefd op de setting van het boek. De eerste keer dat ik Havenfall las was ik op vakantie in de bergen in Zwitserland, en aangezien Havenfall in de bergen van Colorado afspeelt, waande ik me helemaal in de wereld. Ik vind de herberg Omphalos een toffe locatie en het is de perfecte locatie voor een mysterie. Ik zou deze herberg zo graag in het echt willen kunnen bezoeken! Het is niet alleen de setting maar vooral ook de mysterieuze sfeer die Sara Holland neer zet en ik werd daardoor helemaal in het boek gezogen.
Havenfall is een portal fantasy, net zoals bijvoorbeeld Narnia, maar heeft weer net een unieke draai vergeleken met andere verhalen in deze categorie. Zo is er namelijk niet maar één doorgang naar een andere, magische wereld, maar zijn er wel drie! Helaas blijven deze werelden en de wezens die er wonen soms wel iets vaag, omdat het verhaal zich afspeelt in de mensenwereld en de hoofdpersoon nooit in die magische werelden geweest is. Desalniettemin vond ik het heel origineel en een unieke draai aan een bekend concept. Voor mij is een portal fantasy echt de ultieme droom, want wie wilt nou niet stuiten op een mysterieuze doorgang naar een magische wereld? Ik in ieder geval wel!
Het plot in dit eerste deel draait zich vooral om de mysteries waarmee de hoofdpersoon in het begin van het boek gepresenteerd wordt en langzamer beetje leer je als lezer samen met Maddie meer van wat er allemaal speelt. Aan het einde van het boek blijf je wel met wat vragen zitten, maar daardoor is Havenfall een mooi eerste deel van een duologie.
Lees een uitgebreide recensie op mijn website .
Havenfall is een portal fantasy, net zoals bijvoorbeeld Narnia, maar heeft weer net een unieke draai vergeleken met andere verhalen in deze categorie. Zo is er namelijk niet maar één doorgang naar een andere, magische wereld, maar zijn er wel drie! Helaas blijven deze werelden en de wezens die er wonen soms wel iets vaag, omdat het verhaal zich afspeelt in de mensenwereld en de hoofdpersoon nooit in die magische werelden geweest is. Desalniettemin vond ik het heel origineel en een unieke draai aan een bekend concept. Voor mij is een portal fantasy echt de ultieme droom, want wie wilt nou niet stuiten op een mysterieuze doorgang naar een magische wereld? Ik in ieder geval wel!
Het plot in dit eerste deel draait zich vooral om de mysteries waarmee de hoofdpersoon in het begin van het boek gepresenteerd wordt en langzamer beetje leer je als lezer samen met Maddie meer van wat er allemaal speelt. Aan het einde van het boek blijf je wel met wat vragen zitten, maar daardoor is Havenfall een mooi eerste deel van een duologie.
Lees een uitgebreide recensie op mijn website .
feesbooks's review against another edition
I really tried but the writing is excruciating. Really struggling
daisydoesdream's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5