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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
adventurous
funny
hopeful
tense
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
(A SPOILER FREE REVIEW)
Representation: Queer characters.
Triples: Forbidden Romance
Trigger warning: The intense longing of two individuals destined to be apart.
And the suspense continues. I am not a series girlie, I will never be a series girlie. In fact my interest in a book PLUMMETS the moment two characters are together.
But this duology has been perfection start to finish. In fact I wish more people spoke about this duology because it deserves the hype so here I am HYPING it up like two girls applying makeup in a bar bathroom.
Read it please, I beg of you.
4/5 stars, I loved seeing their relationship grow in the second book.
This book was gifted to me by @jonathanballpublishers for an honest review.
Representation: Queer characters.
Triples: Forbidden Romance
Trigger warning: The intense longing of two individuals destined to be apart.
And the suspense continues. I am not a series girlie, I will never be a series girlie. In fact my interest in a book PLUMMETS the moment two characters are together.
But this duology has been perfection start to finish. In fact I wish more people spoke about this duology because it deserves the hype so here I am HYPING it up like two girls applying makeup in a bar bathroom.
Read it please, I beg of you.
4/5 stars, I loved seeing their relationship grow in the second book.
This book was gifted to me by @jonathanballpublishers for an honest review.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
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
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
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:
No
adventurous
emotional
funny
tense
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
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This was a total miss for me. I'm so disappointed because I had such high hopes after really enjoying the first one. I don't even know where to begin...
The only things I enjoyed were some of the sweet moments between Alessa and Dante. They were my favorite part of the first book so it makes sense that they are the highlight here. Their yearning for one another is cute.
However... they are so insufferable here! They lie and hide crucial things from one another. They both fuck up constantly, by accident or on purpose. It just made me think they would break up instantly if they were in the real world. There's a moment a character confronts Alyssa about her attraction to Dante and it being circumstantial, and vapid. I found myself agreeing with her. A lot of lust and not enough communication for it to feel like true love.
They weren't the only terrible characters. Basically everyone was getting on my nerves every page. Kaleb and Addrick were so uninteresting, everyone knew where it was going and I just wanted them to shut upppp. Talia was annoying because of her character trope (rude, direct, prejudiced). And... Kamara just spouting quirky nonsense that was supposed to come across as flirty/funny but it was so tone-deaf. Not a single likeable character in sight.
So, the actual plot is based on a final bet between the two gods of this universe. No idea why the question "Would you let your significant other die to save the world?" would be such a relevant dilemma for two immortal gods. The story doesn't know how to navigate that situation anyway and nothing matters in the end. The ghiotte don't matter, the side-characters don't matter, the war is useless and please go back in time and stop me from reading this book.
This probably is an okay book, but coming off from the high that was reading the first one, it is just a complete disappointment and waste of potential.
The only things I enjoyed were some of the sweet moments between Alessa and Dante. They were my favorite part of the first book so it makes sense that they are the highlight here. Their yearning for one another is cute.
However... they are so insufferable here! They lie and hide crucial things from one another. They both fuck up constantly, by accident or on purpose. It just made me think they would break up instantly if they were in the real world. There's a moment a character confronts Alyssa about her attraction to Dante and it being circumstantial, and vapid. I found myself agreeing with her. A lot of lust and not enough communication for it to feel like true love.
They weren't the only terrible characters. Basically everyone was getting on my nerves every page. Kaleb and Addrick were so uninteresting, everyone knew where it was going and I just wanted them to shut upppp. Talia was annoying because of her character trope (rude, direct, prejudiced). And... Kamara just spouting quirky nonsense that was supposed to come across as flirty/funny but it was so tone-deaf. Not a single likeable character in sight.
So, the actual plot is based on a final bet between the two gods of this universe. No idea why the question "Would you let your significant other die to save the world?" would be such a relevant dilemma for two immortal gods. The story doesn't know how to navigate that situation anyway and nothing matters in the end. The ghiotte don't matter, the side-characters don't matter, the war is useless and please go back in time and stop me from reading this book.
This probably is an okay book, but coming off from the high that was reading the first one, it is just a complete disappointment and waste of potential.
medium-paced
Yeah this definitely didn’t live up to how amazing the first book was, but I still liked it. The plot just wasn’t my favorite and Alessa and Dante’s relationship got a little dramatic in an annoying way at times. It’s also definitely upper YA, as this one was more sexual than the first one even though it didn’t technically have more sex scenes. And, like, killing Dante and bringing him back to life in book one was heart wrenching and amazing—but turning around and using the exact same plot device on Alessa in this book? Felt pretty gimmicky to me.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content
Not even nearly as good as [b:This Vicious Grace|58957873|This Vicious Grace (The Last Finestra, #1)|Emily Thiede|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1631205106l/58957873._SY75_.jpg|80646933] and things were looking so bleak that I almost wanted to not finish this because the plot was meandering; the characters were way flatter than the first book; and the lore was not as complex as This Vicious Grace. I'm not quite sure what happened here with Emily Thiede because the first book showed that she was capable of complex world-building, twists on how the Finestra's powers could work and intense chemistry between the two leads. However, this book just fell flat.
Despite the events in grand battle, Dante has been resurrected, losing his ghiotte powers and returning with an eerie vision.
Meanwhile, Alessa believes that the battles are finished since she has defeated the demon horde along with her Fontes. All Alessa wants is peace and time with her loved ones:
Unfortunately, Alessa's not going to get what she wants because it turns out that Dante's visions are true. They have to find the lost ghiotte to prepare for the challenge that the gods are sending to them. And it turns out that Alessa is hiding a serious consequence from their last battle - a darkness that's lurking in the back of her mind, one that she fears she may lose her own sanity to.
On paper, This Cursed Light ought to worked because there's more challenges that our two leads have to face - including how Dante's lost powers means that he's physically unable to touch Alessa without risking pain. Not to mention, they're gearing up for another battle. However, in reality the book was pretty boring. Aside from Dante and Alessa, there were very few side characters that I'd cared about (maybe just Kaleb and Adrick) but Thiede has included far too many of them, like the entire crew of Fontes that'd worked together with Alessa. Additionally, the book lacks urgency. Despite the countdown clock, the danger that the ghiottes are to face is not clear. Unlike the horde of demons that we know Alessa will have to face from the first book, the lack of a clear target means that we don't know what they're training to fight against and their training scenes consequently come across as lackluster because we don't even know how what they're training for will materialise.
The romance also couldn't quite rescue this book. The tension between Alessa and Dante was mostly because of miscommunication between the two of them, because they're both hiding things from each other.
Despite the events in grand battle, Dante has been resurrected, losing his ghiotte powers and returning with an eerie vision.
Even as his physical injuries had healed, he'd grown more brooding, obsessed with finding the other ghiotte to prepare for battle with a mysterious threat he insisted the gods were sending, until his fears had begun to feel just as real to her.
Meanwhile, Alessa believes that the battles are finished since she has defeated the demon horde along with her Fontes. All Alessa wants is peace and time with her loved ones:
For so long she'd felt like a failure, but she'd saved Saverio, made friends, reconciled with her family, and fallen in love. Tonight was her reward, and she would revel in every perfect moment.
Unfortunately, Alessa's not going to get what she wants because it turns out that Dante's visions are true. They have to find the lost ghiotte to prepare for the challenge that the gods are sending to them. And it turns out that Alessa is hiding a serious consequence from their last battle - a darkness that's lurking in the back of her mind, one that she fears she may lose her own sanity to.
On paper, This Cursed Light ought to worked because there's more challenges that our two leads have to face - including how Dante's lost powers means that he's physically unable to touch Alessa without risking pain. Not to mention, they're gearing up for another battle. However, in reality the book was pretty boring. Aside from Dante and Alessa, there were very few side characters that I'd cared about (maybe just Kaleb and Adrick) but Thiede has included far too many of them, like the entire crew of Fontes that'd worked together with Alessa.
Spoiler
As well as other ghiottes not just from Dante's past but also new ones that he'd to work with.The romance also couldn't quite rescue this book. The tension between Alessa and Dante was mostly because of miscommunication between the two of them, because they're both hiding things from each other.
Spoiler
Dante is hiding how the ghiotte's waters haven't healed him fully while Alessa is hiding how she's slowly losing her mind. Not to mention, I found it rather despicable that she was fine with her brother's exile when he took the fall for her destruction of the healing foundation. That seemed pretty callous of her.
A satisfying conclusion to this duology, it was just too FAST. Especially the ending - everything wrapped up in about 40 pages! Still, I love how good Thiede is at subverting tropes - I almost DNF'd this book when I thought she was setting up an unnecessary love triangle, but Thiede even turned that on its head. I love Dante, Alessa, and their entire weird found-and-blood family.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I'm sad it's over. I will revisit these and keep an eye out for anything else Emily Thiede writes.