Reviews with content warning for Death - Hechizo

I don’t know. I expected slow burn enemies to lovers with a bit of fantasy but I got hit with kinda slow burn fantasy sun plot romance. I expected tension, pining but none of it was there. I am a bit disappointed but the book wasn’t necessarily bad, I just thought it would be better

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cait's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious tense 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? No

4.0

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cady_sass's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious 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? Yes

4.5

I genuinely can’t decide whether reading this immediately after Crave or after the the rest of the series is better. I feel like reading the others after this would be an entirely different experience… but I can’t bring myself to reread them all just yet. Someday.
Either way, I really like this. It’s still painfully cringey a lot of the time but I don’t care. I’m officially a Hudson fan girl now.

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cranberry101's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

1.0

I was really hoping that this book would be better than Court. But unfortunately, this is still terrible. This book covers the events from when Grace is frozen between books 3 and 4. My issues are as follows:

The writing is still awful. The plot and dialogue is also extremely juvenile, it felt like I was reading a script for a rejected Disney channel original movie. (For instance, take Page 78. Was straight up the dumbest thing I have ever read).
More on the writing: there is sooo much repetition. I don't know is Ms. Wolff thinks we're stupid but it's mentioned that Hudson is British 5 TIMES within the first 30 pages. Also Ms. Wolff is trying really hard to make Hudson seem cool.... he's British and has a pompadour.....
The plot is soooo dumb, and the pacing is ridiculous. Just like all other books in the series, the first 3/4 of the book is stupid, irrelevant filler, and the entire rest of the story is shoved into the last 100 pages or so. I guess it would be understandable for there to be filler romance scenes between Hudson and Grace so we as readers can understand how they fall in love. But there is none. They basically fight/don't talk to each other for the first part of the book, then there's a corny romance scene and *boom* they're in love.
My least favorite “characterization” of Grace is her obsession with Cherry Poptarts and Dr. Pepper. It is mentioned within the first 10 pages just in case you forgot it was mentioned 50000 times in the other books. Also, is that the only thing that she ate while she was trapped in the lair?
Another phrase that really annoyed me in Court makes a comeback in Charm!! YAY!! Anyways I really need Ms. Wolff to stop using “and all Hell breaks loose.” It is first used on Page 46 and is used again like 3 more times. Also, the corny chapter titles are back and worse than ever.
Ms. Wolff needs a new editor. Like I said before, there was no need for this to be 500 pages long. I initially thought that this was going to be a novella (like A Court of Frost and Starlight), and it should have been instead. Many scenes (such as dragon fight scenes) were way too long, and multiple events within those scenes were repeated. There was so much unnecessary dialogue, stupid fights between Hudson and Grace that could have been cut, and introductions of irrelevant characters (that were probably just gonna die anyways). Ms. Wolff has also been attending the SJM school of writing because she repeats everything so many times, it's ridiculous. She also over-describes literally everything, a simple description of Grace and how's she's sad is elongated to multiple sentences..... like we get it. Waste of words and paper. This book should have been 200 pages, 300 MAX.
The romance between Hudson and Grace is so corny and forced. I guess it's supposed to be an “enemies to lovers” type situation, but I thought it was way too forced. In the beginning, Hudson would say something slightly sarcastic and Grace would act like he just told her to jump off a bridge. She overreacted and got mad about everything he said, then was suddenly in love with him halfway through the book. At least Hudson was somewhat self aware about how corny and lame this romance was.
The world building of this series makes no sense to me, because the author suddenly introduces the whole Shadow Realm just to elongate the plot (and connect it to the end of Court I guess). But what is even more wild is the timeline. It is mentioned that Grace and Jaxon had been together for TWO WEEKS. The events of the first three books take place within two weeks and Grace and Jaxon decide they’re in love with each other. LOL.
Grace annoyed me in this book, as she is still a big stupid idiot that tries to be a #girlboss epic hero.
In the Shadow Realm, she was absolutely useless and couldn’t keep an entry level job to help with living expenses. Also what kind of person does not know what a choux pastry is? Also how did Hudson randomly get hired as a teacher? This was probably just included to make Hudson seem like “husband material”, but it makes no sense to me. What credentials does he have? Does he have experience in education? Or does this town just hire randos and trust them with their children?
Hudson playing Grace a 1D song and having it played off as peak romance was really corny. It really reminded me of something Troy would do for Gabriella in High School Musical. Additionally, WHY are One Direction and Harry Styles mentioned so many times. Could be nitpicky of me but I generally don't like it when books mention tv shows or singers to seem relevant. I think it's fine if its something iconic to pop culture (like Star Wars or Friends), but including singers that will probably be irrelevant in 10 years is silly.
I honestly don't care about Smokey dying. She was annoying, if I was Grace I would have curb stomped her. Also just like every other side character, she was introduced just for the sole purpose of killing her off and to make the reader feel bad for her. Additionally-- Why is almost every LGBT character killed off? Apparently any other side character is not allowed to feel love or joy because since book 1, one couple has had one person be killed off..... I can't even feel happy for characters finding a partner because there is a solid chance they will die. Their deaths are entirely pointless and preventable except we need something Grace to agonize multiple pages over so we can feel bad for her and so she can be comforted by Hudson (because he's so #husbandmaterial) and they can make out afterwards. Anyways.
The plot twist villain was as predictable as the other plot twist villains in this series.

That’s all. Will likely read Book 6. The only thing keeping me going is the hope that this series will end soon, and that I don’t have to pay actual money for these trash books. I love libraries!!!!!

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ashleyj_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

I still love this series. I love this book and everything it gives us about Grace and Hudson, especially the latter. Very interesting events and cast of characters these two dealt with!!

I’m a little unhappy with the placement in the series. My preference would have been for this part of the storyline to be placed after book 2 or 3. I get why it falls as number 5, but I don’t love it here.

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