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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
First off, I love this kind of book. The story surrounding my issues below, is good. The plot is mysterious and intriguing and there's good character growth. These are the sole reason I won't DNF this series. The following are what I have major issues with.
I found WAY too many similarities to a very popular series (ACO...excuse me?) in this book. I loved that other series and those types of things in my books, but this book literally had me saying WTF 🤯, at all the instances there was an exact or incredibly similar circumstance. It was so obvious, I started a running list.
Let's delve. The first novel in this series was published in 2021. The last/latest book about silver flames in that other popular series was published in 2021.
This book alone included:
A beloved artists district. A secluded mountain cabin/retreat. A palace that is in the mountain area so while its cold, the inside/balconies are kept warm by magic. A river winding through/near their city. A sorceress imprisoned & no one knows where she came from. Bargain marks/tattoos on the skin that disappear when fulfilled. Traveling (bending time and space to go places where it legitimately describes it as folding a map to make 2 points closer... pretty positive this is the exact explanation in that popular series, but it's been a while since I read it). A member of the inner court able to move around unseen/be a spy. Pocket realms to store things. The oracle appearing different to everyone (hello, bone carver). Dreamers/stars. Mind communication/mates - (now, I hesitate/give the benefit of the dount on these 2 only bc they're fairly common fantasy themes). However, the mmc is keeping it from the fmc.
While these are all things I loved in that other series, and they can most definitely be recycled and used by other authors in other ways, the amount and way they were used in these novels are really, really suspicious and upsetting to me. I'm not trying to throw shade 😣. I'm sure the author worked really hard on these books, especially considering the main plot is different. I'm just saying that these instances are similar with all caps. So since I've read them in the other series first, I'm naturally making the comparisons back to it. And there's a lot of them.
The characters and happening/journeys they're taking are different. And I am enjoying that part! But having read that other series, all the similar parts are so distracting. These books could've been so instanely good. But where do you draw the line?
I found WAY too many similarities to a very popular series (ACO...excuse me?) in this book. I loved that other series and those types of things in my books, but this book literally had me saying WTF 🤯, at all the instances there was an exact or incredibly similar circumstance. It was so obvious, I started a running list.
Let's delve. The first novel in this series was published in 2021. The last/latest book about silver flames in that other popular series was published in 2021.
This book alone included:
A beloved artists district. A secluded mountain cabin/retreat. A palace that is in the mountain area so while its cold, the inside/balconies are kept warm by magic. A river winding through/near their city. A sorceress imprisoned & no one knows where she came from. Bargain marks/tattoos on the skin that disappear when fulfilled. Traveling (bending time and space to go places where it legitimately describes it as folding a map to make 2 points closer... pretty positive this is the exact explanation in that popular series, but it's been a while since I read it). A member of the inner court able to move around unseen/be a spy. Pocket realms to store things. The oracle appearing different to everyone (hello, bone carver). Dreamers/stars. Mind communication/mates - (now, I hesitate/give the benefit of the dount on these 2 only bc they're fairly common fantasy themes). However, the mmc is keeping it from the fmc.
While these are all things I loved in that other series, and they can most definitely be recycled and used by other authors in other ways, the amount and way they were used in these novels are really, really suspicious and upsetting to me. I'm not trying to throw shade 😣. I'm sure the author worked really hard on these books, especially considering the main plot is different. I'm just saying that these instances are similar with all caps. So since I've read them in the other series first, I'm naturally making the comparisons back to it. And there's a lot of them.
The characters and happening/journeys they're taking are different. And I am enjoying that part! But having read that other series, all the similar parts are so distracting. These books could've been so instanely good. But where do you draw the line?
adventurous
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:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
adventurous
dark
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
dark
emotional
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:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
emotional
tense
slow-paced
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
The bones of a story are there, but the execution is so lacking. It also merges the plot of throne of glass with ACOTAR, which I didn't hate but it just felt a little too repetitive. There are classic tropes that are fine to have in any fantasy book, but when the characters are carbon copies of others... I just didn't love it like I wished I did.