783 reviews for:

Behooved

M. Stevenson

3.78 AVERAGE

cait_lauren's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious fast-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: Complicated

melsshelves's review against another edition

2.0

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One of my most anticipated books of the year! 

I really liked the reverse relationship dynamics of having a fighter woman and more bookish man. “Artifacts and indices” is my new favorite saying hah. Plenty of (refreshing) LQBTQ+ rep and chronic illness rep. However, the chronic illness rep was not how I tend to enjoy seeing it. As a chronically ill person myself, I personally prefer diagnosis named so that 1. The empathy for those ailments hits harder in understanding for readers who aren’t familiar and 2. When you find a character going through the same chronic pain, it feels more connected. 

This is also insta love. The whole book takes place over two weeks and half way through that, the two MCs are professing that they can’t live without one another? Noooo no no. NOT for me. I genuinely thought my audio skipped chapters in the book bc it went from 10% interest to 100% out of no where. 

It read extremely YA (maybe even middle grade if the sexual content was removed), even though it is adult, in both prose and themes. So much so that the sex scenes made me cringe, I had to skip them entirely. Very loose world building - this could literally be any kingdom. The plot and mysteries are both incredible juvenile and obvious. Overall, a massive miss for me. 

maddygrace's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

kwolfe's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous funny lighthearted 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

sierrareads103's review against another edition

4.0

funny hopeful lighthearted fast-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

katiemulcahy122's review against another edition

3.25

adventurous lighthearted fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Best way I can think to describe this is like Wooing the Witch Queen by Stephanie Burgis mixed with Thorn by Intisar Khanani by way of The Swan Princess

For the most part, I had a fun time with this, although I did have a moment about two-thirds into it that I just wanted to be done.

Takeaways:

• My main struggle was with the writing because it kept alternating between campy fun and melodrama
• I think this would have worked better as a YA, with Aric and Bianca as like a couple of 18-year-olds being maneuvered around by the adults
• When it comes to narrative perspective, I'm less picky for fantasy, but I generally prefer a dual POV for romances (especially when it's written in first person). So being stuck with just Bianca when the writing style was making her character so inconsistent got a little boring. Alternating POV's would have kept it more interesting, but I think I would have preferred following Aric the whole time anyway
• Not that I wanted to sit through a detailed info dump of magic systems and history, but the worldbuilding was very loose 

sharamarquis's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous emotional funny medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

earleygray's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious relaxing fast-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

justinekorson's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious 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: No

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This story was much better than I thought it was going to be! I think listening to the audiobook also helped though. I enjoyed the characters more than anticipated, especially given how rude Eric seemed at first. Beatrice's interactions with him as a horse were so funny. I was surprised she could hear his thoughts as a horse but since she inadvertently cast a spell, it would make sense that she would hear him. I almost thought they would break the curse with "true loves kiss" but THANKFULLY that wasn't the case. I'm glad that she was able to simply use the crown/her blood to break it. I also loved her older sister Tatiana and all her magical gadgets. It was fun to see what kind of things she imagined. If the author ever mde a sequel, I'd hope it'd be about her and another magical mishap.

via_the_word_witch's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes