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geckobookcooks's review against another edition
3.0
An interesting premise, although the pace of the book drags in the beginning and then suddenly rockets forward.
kcc810's review
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.75
naialana's review
I found it tedious and I don't want my reading to feel like work.
hdewolf's review
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
greenrosepdtl's review
challenging
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.25
I only forced my way through this book because I’m reviewing it for a website. The writing was awful and the plot was odd and didn’t make sense or have an ending.
gvegavega's review against another edition
1.0
There are a lot of things this book did decently. But there are more things that were not a hit with me. The characters were extremely one-dimensional.
The best part of the whole work was the storytelling. There was great use of seemingly well researched terms for the late medieval age of King Arthur, but it was bordering on overuse of the proper nouns that had little to no explanation until someone asks a question with stilted dialogue or it’s explained in one sentence.
It was less a story about a girl coming of age(?) and more just the author talking rituals and magic that were brought up once and then never again. Author uses a series of sentences to explain events that shouldn’t be explained so quickly and then over explains events that don’t matter or were never brought up again. One example that stuck out to me were Ganiade and her bottles. She gives Nina not one but two bottles of special magic fairy liquid and the next chapter completely jumps to the next day. This was supposed to be some groundbreaking event where Nina starts to realize who she was in her past live(s), but all we got was one chapter where she’s sort of interrogated, and another chapter where Nina visits, cries when she’s told who or what she is, then gets magic bottles and soup, and leaves. It felt like fluff and the significance of it was lost because right after she just wakes up the next day!
The dialogue was weird and stilted. If someone read these aloud, it wouldn’t sound anything like a natural conversation. My biggest pet peeve was Nina calling her mom “Mother” instead of mom. It was hard to be drawn in when the first chapter specifically says it takes place in the twenty first century and we got Nina trying really hard to be a manic pixie dream girl and a girl who “summers” in the Hamptons at the same time. Dialogue was also abrupt a lot of of the time - the piss poor lore dumping in the beginning with Ganiade and then with Morgen was rough to sit through. And because it seemed there was difficulty writing dialogue between people who’ve known each other since one of them was born, the author usually thought it best to just skip dialogue altogether. Instances were “mother” was too upset or nervous or tired to speak so they sit in companionable silence. Except they were always in companionable silence. The few moments that Nina and her mom spoke was in passing, or when they first arrive to England and the mom kept saying things like “You’ll be able to get a public transport pass known as an Oyster Card.” Like she’s some kind of tour guide. There were also moments where things were mentioned like Daphne telling them to go up and have a cup of tea and no one ever had any tea until like the next day.
This sentence: “He seemed to gaze into my soul, and then he
smiled. I felt heat run through my body, and then we both dropped the gaze.” *((Chapter 13)
The prose in this published book overall felt like the equivalent of being given a piece of charcoal when I paid for a diamond. While I don’t expect every book to be perfect (especially debut books), I can expect a modicum of proofreading. There were two instances where “koi pond” was written as “coy pond” and I knew it was meant to be “koi pond” because a white and orange “coy” was swimming around in one. Topics were switched so quickly in a single paragraph I got whiplash. Descriptions were made only by answering the questions of what is seen, smelled, and heard and each answer is one sentence. Author has a bad case of tell don’t ever show and it made reading this a chore. It was too close to fanfiction and that’s not a good thing. All our information came from an all-knowing teenager and nothing was ever something new to her she always knew what some artifact was or where some event happened.
Characters were so one-dimensional they were thinner than the paper they were written on. Random characteristics were thrown at you by the author (but never any descriptions - if they described Nina/Nimue, it was the parts I skimmed because I was so over this) and then they were just never brought up. Like Nina wanting to paint Hampstead Village like she does that every day or something and then she just never picks up a pencil or a brush and never mentions colors of anything ever again. Ganieda heals cancer??? She’s just some random witch living in Hampstead and no one ever bothered to tell anyone else that their cancer is gone cause she did a little Irish jig around them or something. I feel like this could have had higher stakes. She also just has Nina’s dad on ghost speed dial and that just killed me (Chapter 6). Another way the author skips over dialogue and character development is by having another character with all the answers not want to answer any of Nina’s questions and just having them tell her she has all her answers inside her already. Nina was an insipid child with no sense of self preservation at all when faced with being potentially kidnapped and when a mysterious woman says she’s a Mage. She just accepts it like it was the most obvious solution to all her issues and then drinks tea offered to her by her kidnapper with the only assurance is that it “isn’t poisoned.”
Mysterious woman known as Morgen casually hints that she’s the three faced goddess to some nobody kid from the US. Nina also conveniently has an ancestral connection to the ladies of the lake which were never explained in detail. timeless, powerful, and immortal witch with infinite reincarnations has to color code doors to different dimensions otherwise she forgets what they lead to - sure Jan. She also hops (Chapter 11) and drinks $12 “Premium Osmanthus Oolong Tea from China.” Even the Chinese aren’t safe from the author’s proper-noun-ification.
Owen was mentioned once before she arrive in England and wasn’t brought up again until it was convenient for the plot when he suddenly is needed to find the holy Grail. They’ve supposedly been dating for two years but this is never expanded on or elaborated. It was so unnatural for a literal teenager to not put up a single fight when faced with being separated (perhaps permanently! This is never clarified because sometimes Nina made it sound like she was leaving the US forever and sometimes sounded like an adventure for the summer) from her SO of two years.
Merlin was a random white guy who shows up and kisses Morgen and she grants him power. I would explain the ritual but it was never explained int he book. World Changing Events are mentioned multiple times and never broken down - the how, or the why. Merlina was a horrible counterpart to him and screwed up by creating a double of herself after she replaces Merlin and once again just is never explained why this is such a horrible thing. The double has no malicious intent - it’s just a mindless shadow counterpart of Merlina/Nimue/Nina. But there’s a grand old show ff going to Gwyn and begging for his help, etc. then catching it and putting it back into Nina. I was so over the story at this point I skimmed it and I was not surprised to find that nothing happened at all with stakes that low.
The best part of the whole work was the storytelling. There was great use of seemingly well researched terms for the late medieval age of King Arthur, but it was bordering on overuse of the proper nouns that had little to no explanation until someone asks a question with stilted dialogue or it’s explained in one sentence.
It was less a story about a girl coming of age(?) and more just the author talking rituals and magic that were brought up once and then never again. Author uses a series of sentences to explain events that shouldn’t be explained so quickly and then over explains events that don’t matter or were never brought up again. One example that stuck out to me were Ganiade and her bottles. She gives Nina not one but two bottles of special magic fairy liquid and the next chapter completely jumps to the next day. This was supposed to be some groundbreaking event where Nina starts to realize who she was in her past live(s), but all we got was one chapter where she’s sort of interrogated, and another chapter where Nina visits, cries when she’s told who or what she is, then gets magic bottles and soup, and leaves. It felt like fluff and the significance of it was lost because right after she just wakes up the next day!
The dialogue was weird and stilted. If someone read these aloud, it wouldn’t sound anything like a natural conversation. My biggest pet peeve was Nina calling her mom “Mother” instead of mom. It was hard to be drawn in when the first chapter specifically says it takes place in the twenty first century and we got Nina trying really hard to be a manic pixie dream girl and a girl who “summers” in the Hamptons at the same time. Dialogue was also abrupt a lot of of the time - the piss poor lore dumping in the beginning with Ganiade and then with Morgen was rough to sit through. And because it seemed there was difficulty writing dialogue between people who’ve known each other since one of them was born, the author usually thought it best to just skip dialogue altogether. Instances were “mother” was too upset or nervous or tired to speak so they sit in companionable silence. Except they were always in companionable silence. The few moments that Nina and her mom spoke was in passing, or when they first arrive to England and the mom kept saying things like “You’ll be able to get a public transport pass known as an Oyster Card.” Like she’s some kind of tour guide. There were also moments where things were mentioned like Daphne telling them to go up and have a cup of tea and no one ever had any tea until like the next day.
This sentence: “He seemed to gaze into my soul, and then he
smiled. I felt heat run through my body, and then we both dropped the gaze.” *((Chapter 13)
The prose in this published book overall felt like the equivalent of being given a piece of charcoal when I paid for a diamond. While I don’t expect every book to be perfect (especially debut books), I can expect a modicum of proofreading. There were two instances where “koi pond” was written as “coy pond” and I knew it was meant to be “koi pond” because a white and orange “coy” was swimming around in one. Topics were switched so quickly in a single paragraph I got whiplash. Descriptions were made only by answering the questions of what is seen, smelled, and heard and each answer is one sentence. Author has a bad case of tell don’t ever show and it made reading this a chore. It was too close to fanfiction and that’s not a good thing. All our information came from an all-knowing teenager and nothing was ever something new to her she always knew what some artifact was or where some event happened.
Characters were so one-dimensional they were thinner than the paper they were written on. Random characteristics were thrown at you by the author (but never any descriptions - if they described Nina/Nimue, it was the parts I skimmed because I was so over this) and then they were just never brought up. Like Nina wanting to paint Hampstead Village like she does that every day or something and then she just never picks up a pencil or a brush and never mentions colors of anything ever again. Ganieda heals cancer??? She’s just some random witch living in Hampstead and no one ever bothered to tell anyone else that their cancer is gone cause she did a little Irish jig around them or something. I feel like this could have had higher stakes. She also just has Nina’s dad on ghost speed dial and that just killed me (Chapter 6). Another way the author skips over dialogue and character development is by having another character with all the answers not want to answer any of Nina’s questions and just having them tell her she has all her answers inside her already. Nina was an insipid child with no sense of self preservation at all when faced with being potentially kidnapped and when a mysterious woman says she’s a Mage. She just accepts it like it was the most obvious solution to all her issues and then drinks tea offered to her by her kidnapper with the only assurance is that it “isn’t poisoned.”
Mysterious woman known as Morgen casually hints that she’s the three faced goddess to some nobody kid from the US. Nina also conveniently has an ancestral connection to the ladies of the lake which were never explained in detail. timeless, powerful, and immortal witch with infinite reincarnations has to color code doors to different dimensions otherwise she forgets what they lead to - sure Jan. She also hops (Chapter 11) and drinks $12 “Premium Osmanthus Oolong Tea from China.” Even the Chinese aren’t safe from the author’s proper-noun-ification.
Owen was mentioned once before she arrive in England and wasn’t brought up again until it was convenient for the plot when he suddenly is needed to find the holy Grail. They’ve supposedly been dating for two years but this is never expanded on or elaborated. It was so unnatural for a literal teenager to not put up a single fight when faced with being separated (perhaps permanently! This is never clarified because sometimes Nina made it sound like she was leaving the US forever and sometimes sounded like an adventure for the summer) from her SO of two years.
Merlin was a random white guy who shows up and kisses Morgen and she grants him power. I would explain the ritual but it was never explained int he book. World Changing Events are mentioned multiple times and never broken down - the how, or the why. Merlina was a horrible counterpart to him and screwed up by creating a double of herself after she replaces Merlin and once again just is never explained why this is such a horrible thing. The double has no malicious intent - it’s just a mindless shadow counterpart of Merlina/Nimue/Nina. But there’s a grand old show ff going to Gwyn and begging for his help, etc. then catching it and putting it back into Nina. I was so over the story at this point I skimmed it and I was not surprised to find that nothing happened at all with stakes that low.
booknerd_lifestyle's review
I love the idea of Arthur and Nimue but could not get into this book.
The story was dry, with inconsistencies that pulled me out of the story (like Mom, Mother, Diana ... pick a name for the mother, please!).
I couldn't connect with Nina, the main character, as she felt one-dimensional.
It's obvious the author knows a lot about Arthurian Legends, Celtic mythology and Merlin ... but for the most part, it felt like I was reading a textbook with someone's journal loosely slapped on top of it.
Great possibility, poor execution.
DNF-ed at 32%
The story was dry, with inconsistencies that pulled me out of the story (like Mom, Mother, Diana ... pick a name for the mother, please!).
I couldn't connect with Nina, the main character, as she felt one-dimensional.
It's obvious the author knows a lot about Arthurian Legends, Celtic mythology and Merlin ... but for the most part, it felt like I was reading a textbook with someone's journal loosely slapped on top of it.
Great possibility, poor execution.
DNF-ed at 32%
jennderqueer's review
1.0
Absolutely terrible. DNF at 8%. The writing style is pretentious and annoying and the main character, who is supposed to be 17 and modern, sounds like she thinks she's in an Austen novel.