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r1vana's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Demons were not the creatures to be feared the most.
Humans were.pg.435
I enjoyed this book, the beginning started off strong. It was really interesting. But then it got dragged a little. And since it’s a trilogy, I feel like it’s just gonna be longer.
We get to see a female lead that is strong but makes irrational actions due to her anger, stress, grief, et cetera. Sometimes, it is understandable but I wished she would think. Which makes her a very complex character.
Her story is pretty much like ‘Anastasia’. Being framed of murdering her father, she ran away due to her blood affinities. And being framed for it. I mean her name is Anastacya…From my PoV, Ana was a morally grey character that from a very young age, has been pushed away from her father, from her people due to her powers. Only her older brother was by her side and when she was framed for her father’s death, the only thing she could do is run away and one day come back to get the throne back:
“Perhaps monsters never meant to hurt others, either. Perhaps monsters didn't even know they were monsters.” Pg.25
Then there is Ramson. I wasn’t really into his character. He was flirting out of nowhere. I wished there were more pov of his because I lot of them where part of his past(childhood, trauma; bullying, abuse…). He wanted to betray her but in the next, he seems protective of her…: Something about him changed when he was with Ana. The darkness, the scheming, the cold calculation in him faded, repealing faint traces of what he'd once been. A boy in love with the ocean.
A boy who'd wanted to sail the seas forever, with the sun warming his back and the waves lapping at his hands. He’d forgotten about this boy, one who'd had big dreams and foolish hopes and had been good.
The boy who'd become the smallest sliver of hope. But what good was goodness itself, when the world was ruled by the cruel? Pg.215
He never expected to care for Ana who was once a pawn to him: “He'd known for some time now, felt the irrepressible tug on his chest toward her. With each smile, each frown, each word, she'd drawn him in, slowly, irrevocably. And that slow, smoldering flame had roared to life beneath a winter sky of snow, glowing brighter than anything else in his life. She was the bearing to his compass, the dawn that his ship had been chasing for so long over an empty horizon.
My heart is my compass. Pg.360.
“Life isn't going to be all happiness and wonder. We have to take what we are given, and fight like hell to make it better.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, Death of parent, and Child death
Moderate: Trafficking
Minor: Drug use
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