Reviews - The Book of Azrael

7.15k reviews for:

The Book of Azrael

Amber V. Nicole

4.07 AVERAGE

readingbymariam's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging emotional funny inspiring 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: Yes

What a lovely book. You know this book fell into my ready slump but is ultimately the book that brought me out of it. I loved the lead character thought her voice is unique but not cringe and had a lovely modern blend that felt so easy to read. Liam. Can we take a beat for Liam. What a man. The communication in this book is inspiring. Love all the characters can’t wait to feel more found family vibes in the other hopefully !!

tex99dog's review against another edition

5.0

Don't think I could love it anymore than I do.

hunnykurls's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging tense slow-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

Although this took me a bit to get into, I ended up really enjoying reading about Dianna and Liam. Dianna, a ‘monster’ created yo be a weapon turns on her creator in order to continue protecting her younger sister. She forms a partnership with Liam, a demigod who is dealing with his own past demons. The story pulled me in almost halfway through and I got invested in seeing Dianna’s humanity come through. Even though she was forced to do terrible things, she kept her heart without excusing her actions. She knew what she was and what she did, it was nice to see Liam wrap his head around what he knew about her species and who Dianna actually was. I also loved the back and forth with the two of them, they went from hating each other to having a friendship without it being instant. We got to see them actually work to build that trust.

sambo13's review against another edition

4.5

Wow! What a cliffy!
I loved Dianna. What a queen! I could take or leave Liam TBH.
I love the world building and the creatures and all the realms.
There was a lull for me in the middle 50% or so where I felt the story slowed quite a bit and I found the character development a bit jerky. Overall there were A LOT of really cool things about this book!

shaunaviolet's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous dark 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

elisa_arw's review against another edition

4.25

dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

bibi_reads_writes's review against another edition

4.0

You already consume my every waking thought. Must you consume my dreams as well?

I have to admit I was slightly disappointed. Perhaps my expectations were too high? I will continue the series and see how things go.

❤️ Interesting worldbuilding and lore
❤️ TRUE enemies to lovers
❤️ Cliffhanger ending
❤️ Trauma and mental health rep
❌ Annoying FMC
❌ Choppy writing
❌ Too long (dragging, repetitions, and useless descriptions)

Trigger warnings: lots of violence, blood and gore, death and grief, murder, torture, war, injury detail, emotional and physical abuse, toxic relationship, PTSD, fire and fire injury, kidnapping and confinement, sexual assault, etc.

Plot:
To save her dying sister, Dianna gave up her own life. Now an immortal and lethal creature of the night, she must follow her master Kaden’s every order, losing the last shreds of her humanity with each kill. When a member of a powerful celestial order dies and she is believed to be the murderer, the god-king Samkiel comes back after years of hiding. But while they are sworn enemies, Dianna and Samkiel have a common goal: to save the world by finding the mysterious book of Azrael before Kaden.

Okaaaaay, the worldbuilding in this book was honestly epic. There were many different worlds and places and characters and types of creatures, but it never felt “too much” or confusing, and there were no tedious info dumps. The book started very plot-driven, but then the romance took over and it started dragging before picking up again. The plot was riveting, and I didn’t expect some of the plot twists. And while I expected the book to end the way it did, I still thought the big finale was well done, and it made me want to keep on reading.

However, there were things that didn’t make sense to me, starting with how Dianna and Samkiel fell for every. single. trap. possible. Aren’t they supposed to be superpowered, ancient beings? And since they can smell fear and arousal (among other things), how could they never tell when their enemies were close by?

Characters:
I thought Dianna was quite the brat. Meanwhile, Samkiel was a real cinnamon roll. I loved how he was superpowered and strong, but also vulnerable. I also absolutely loved most of the secondary characters, good guys and villains alike.

I enjoyed the enemies-to-lovers romance (“mortal enemies with benefits” lololol) and how Dianna and Samkiel helped each other heal, but I have to admit I expected more spice. (That was one slooooooooooow burn.)

Writing:
I don’t think the writing was bad, but I wasn’t impressed either. Some parts were great, while others were choppy and filled with anacolutha and zeugma. (More thorough editing could have fixed most of these.) I also felt like there was too much banter, too many snarky comments, too many clothing descriptions, too many repetitions (e.g., characters described the same way over and over, repeatedly “telling” emotions instead of “showing” them). Remove all that and the book could have been a good 100 pages shorter…

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