Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - The Savage and the Swan

Overall I really enjoyed this!! I wasn’t sure about this in the beginning but ended up really liking it. A lot of the beginning fluctuates wildly between too much world building and not enough. It’s not hard to get the gist of things though so I just rolled with it. I highlighted quite a few adorable quotes and “guy falls first” is ALWAYS a win. Though I did think it was quite odd to start alternating POVs almost 30% off the way in.

I’m assuming the author did this to keep Dade’s identity hidden but given the premise of the book it was pretty obvious “fang” wasn’t just a foot soldier. Depriving the reader of Dade’s point of view in the beginning just made all their meet-ups at the tree feel odd. I kept thinking “why is he coming back here and training her? There’s no reason for him to care or help her and there’s definitely no reason for him to come back after that one chance meeting”. Even if there was just a few short chapters from him focusing on his confusion surrounding his connection to Opal it would have made those early chapters make more sense. I also found it odd that the true story of the death of Dade’s parents was told in a flashback chapter, sandwiched in the middle of other things going on, as opposed to Dade telling Opal himself. Because of this Opal never hears the story word for word anywhere on page. She’s aware that they were murdered and her people haven’t been truthful about their part in it, but only we the reader get the full story while she the character can, theoretically, only speculate about the truth. It wasn’t necessarily a bad choice because you can suspend disbelief and assume that Opal learned the story at some point but still…just….weird. It felt like a way to get through a lot of exposition really fast without having to worry about addressing what Opal’s feelings/response would be if Dade told her himself. And of course the one line in the whole book that was so ridiculous that I laughed out loud was Opal’s “you’re huge” when Dade pins her to the ground in the cavern. Like who’s going to comment on the dick size of a man who is your sworn enemy…while sparring??? Girl…get your priorities in order

Content Warnings

kat1105's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Content Warnings

peeshy's review against another edition

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adventurous funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Content Warnings

sarah_fodots's review

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medium-paced

Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

I went into this book really wanting to like it, however, I almost DNF'ed it several times, not for dark themes or challenging ideas but simply because it wasn't very good. None of the story threads are really fleshed out in a satisfying way and the book suffers from underdeveloped side characters and antagonists. I finished this book in a day simply to be done with it and move on.

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