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Graphic: Cursing, Death, Gore, Sexual content, Blood
Graphic: Cursing, Torture
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Sexual content, Slavery, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Excrement
Minor: Vomit, Pregnancy
What truly blew me away was the ending—I never saw it coming. It was bold, emotional, and brilliantly executed. I felt bound to this book, unable to put it down and completely immersed in the experience.
This is officially my first 5-star read of the year—and I don’t hand those out lightly. I’m already eagerly anticipating the next book in the series!
Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death
Graphic: Cursing, Sexual content, Violence, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Death
Minor: Animal cruelty, Confinement, Sexism
Raeve and Kaan have interesting relationship throughout the whole book.
The side characters and the subjects you’ll need to follow the story.
Graphic: Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Pregnancy, War
Moderate: Cursing
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Cursing, Death, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent
Moderate: Animal death, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual harassment
Spice: 🌶️🌶️ there’s a couple of detailed scenes, but nothing as intense as other books in the genre.
If you like vibes, this book definitely had those. However, I needed more out of everything for it to really land the way it was intended. Raeve was supposed to be a morally grey female main character with a soft heart trying to be callous and wit for days, but—honestly—she just came across as flat and trying too hard. The banter in here wasn’t banter, it was just telling every man (sorry, male) they had small genitals in so. Many. Unnecessary. Words.
Like did this need to be 690 pages? No, but it really was. The plot was predictable, which would have been fine with likable characters or even tropes done really well, but the only part of this I kind of even liked was the world building. The magic system was pretty cool, though inconsistent at one point in the book for the sake of making the male main character even better than everyone else. It just didn’t make up for the fact that there were so many words used to explain roughly ten plot points. The book could have been cut in half without losing anything.
My biggest complaint, however, is the prose. “The organ in [his/her/my] chest,” “masticated by the fear,” and the sheer number of times something “split” —be it the world, the sky, her chest— nothing seemed to be whole very long or well-phrased. After a while, the book was just repetitive, which made connecting with and caring about any of the characters or events more difficult. If it could have figured out if it was supposed to be romantasy, grimdark, or just straight fantasy, it might have had an easier path, but the book is confused and it takes away from bringing every element to its full potential.
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Cursing, Sexual content, Torture, Blood, Grief, Murder
Moderate: Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Pregnancy