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bree_h_reads's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-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
5.0
WOW! Like, this was actually so amazing.
The writing style reminded me of older books while still suiting the modern reader. It was charming and enchanting and really stands out against the other books I’ve read. It really leant to the feel of the book and was just detailed enough to paint a picture while clearly showing off all the character’s emotions.
All the characters also felt so alive and complex. They were well rounded and had flaws, but were still likeable despite them. You could really tell WHY they were the way they were and could really see how they grew and influenced each other. This also REALLY helped the main romance. There’s something so endearing and sweet and cute about watching two well rounded characters try to navigate their flaws and awkwardness and miscommunications to come together. And it takes a lot of skill to not make the miscommunication obnoxious.
The world building was also WILDLY fascinating. It left me really looking forward to reading book two with the world this book established. It felt real and you could see where the real world influenced some of the culture. I would happily sit and read a book sharing all sorts of facts on the world building. It always felt like it was delivered naturally and didn’t info dump or become annoying to hear about.
Honestly with a bit more work on the foreshadowing and a better handling of some of the more questionable thoughts/opinions had in the main romance I’d call it near perfect.
Overall a great read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Gun violence, Murder, Grief, Sexual content, Death, Death of parent, Cursing, and Violence
Moderate: Classism, Hate crime, Xenophobia, Alcohol, Sexism, and Misogyny
Minor: Cancer, Child death, Hate crime, Miscarriage, Religious bigotry, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Chronic illness, Homophobia, and Infertility
ruth_a's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Alcohol, Murder, and Blood
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Violence, and Sexual content
Minor: Pregnancy, Sexism, Child abuse, Infertility, Violence, Religious bigotry, Vomit, and Misogyny
craftysnailtail's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
I found this book easy and rather relaxing to read, even though it was decently violent at parts. The world and characters were fun and interesting, but I'm not sure if it's the sort of book I would recommend, especially with such a predictable ending. I found the sexual tension entirely over the top and thus mildly hilarious, but I'm sure that's partially due to my own orientation. Overall, I'm not upset I read it, but I also wasn't blown away.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Blood, Gore, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual content
Moderate: Mental illness, Xenophobia, Chronic illness, Death of parent, War, Grief, Misogyny, Murder, Infertility, and Sexism
Minor: Hate crime, Alcohol, and Pregnancy
lady_valhella's review
adventurous
dark
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
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? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Pregnancy, Hate crime, Violence, Death of parent, and Murder
amberinpieces's review
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Classism, Sexual content, Violence, Pregnancy, Murder, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Grief, Blood, Death of parent, Sexism, Death, and Alcohol
Minor: Medical content, Suicide, Drug use, Vomit, Gun violence, and War
skywhales's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
good lord i need to reread the sequel to this immediately this had so much of my favorite shit in it!!! awesome worldbuilding and magic systems, a romantic relationship i genuinely enjoy, gender fuckery, HURGH. this would've been perfect if it wasn't for like three things.
first off tsira and jeckran OHHHH i loved them both SO much. dare i say it. reigboss and malewife. their banter with each other and other people and their relationship...while tsira is not technically a woman this is still everything i wanted in a m/f romance and more. they're so protective of each other and so silly and cute i just adore them.i will say that the pregnancy shit felt unnecessary to me. like we have a character as cool and groundbreaking and gender complicated as tsira and somehow she's STILL reduced to angst about being able to have a kid. (also...tmi perhaps but every time they had sex it was Her fucking Him so like...when did they do the baby making sex lol.) maybe i just am a little squicked by pregnancy. i wouldn't even have really minded that much if they ended up adopting a kid or something it just felt weird and annoying to me.
onna was sadly a little disappointing. from the synopsis she seemed like the kind of character made for me. i love you genius girls forever!!! i wish more time had been put into her learning to not apologize for being smart and not have to put themselves down for men all the time because as much as i love girls who stick out and don't fit in and are unquestionably talented it makes me so sad when they cover up those talents and apologize for everything and let themselves get condescended to by men. i thought this was going to be a thing that she'd get character development for but it didn't feel fully fleshed out. also she was SO boy crazy it was a fucking slog. every time some new man entered the picture it's all about how handsome he is and his nice hair and whatever the fuck else. it was deeply deeply boring to read and i had to skim it. i kept forgetting who the fuck haran even was because whenever he entered the picture onna's internal monologue got so insufferable. she was a very likable character whenever she wasn't trying to impress some dude i wish we got more of that.
loga was also kind of a miss for me. he had a lot of things i could like in a character but i HATED how he talked to onna. it felt so condescending a lot of the time and sometimes even kind of flirtatious?? which was fucking gross. it got so bad that at one point i wondered if the twist at the end of the book would be he was taking advantage of her the whole time but no i guess that's just what their relationship is like. rubbed me the wrong way.i also didn't like the implication that he and jeckran had a thing going on near the end. not because i think tsira/jeckran have to be monogamously in love obviously but i just really can't stand the "one person gets off on being a nuisance to the other one and the other one just grumbles and gets flustered about it" ship trope. it annoys me every single fucking time. it felt like they were introduced to each other way too late in the story to have any sort of meaningful rapport.
i think we also could have done with more women in the supporting cast. but that's neither here nor there.
the worldbuilding and the magic system and all that were completely top tier. exactly what i like to see in my fantasy worlds. this is why i need to reread the sequel and pay more attention to it. i want to know more about the different schools (it was mentioned onna was specializing in illusion but that got dropped kind of) and how magic's practiced in different places and. all of it basically. god i love you worldbuilding. the plot was fairly interesting, even if the ending was slightly unsatisfying. i also wish the two storylines had intersected earlier because it did get a little headachey to follow at times. overall though i liked it quite a bit for the most part. i really liked seeing the different cultures of the world and how they interacted.
this gets to go with carter and saint death's daughter in the "4 stars for some personal reasons but also has stuff that'll live rent free in my head for the foreseeable future" corner.
first off tsira and jeckran OHHHH i loved them both SO much. dare i say it. reigboss and malewife. their banter with each other and other people and their relationship...while tsira is not technically a woman this is still everything i wanted in a m/f romance and more. they're so protective of each other and so silly and cute i just adore them.
onna was sadly a little disappointing. from the synopsis she seemed like the kind of character made for me. i love you genius girls forever!!! i wish more time had been put into her learning to not apologize for being smart and not have to put themselves down for men all the time because as much as i love girls who stick out and don't fit in and are unquestionably talented it makes me so sad when they cover up those talents and apologize for everything and let themselves get condescended to by men. i thought this was going to be a thing that she'd get character development for but it didn't feel fully fleshed out. also she was SO boy crazy it was a fucking slog. every time some new man entered the picture it's all about how handsome he is and his nice hair and whatever the fuck else. it was deeply deeply boring to read and i had to skim it. i kept forgetting who the fuck haran even was because whenever he entered the picture onna's internal monologue got so insufferable. she was a very likable character whenever she wasn't trying to impress some dude i wish we got more of that.
loga was also kind of a miss for me. he had a lot of things i could like in a character but i HATED how he talked to onna. it felt so condescending a lot of the time and sometimes even kind of flirtatious?? which was fucking gross. it got so bad that at one point i wondered if the twist at the end of the book would be he was taking advantage of her the whole time but no i guess that's just what their relationship is like. rubbed me the wrong way.
i think we also could have done with more women in the supporting cast. but that's neither here nor there.
the worldbuilding and the magic system and all that were completely top tier. exactly what i like to see in my fantasy worlds. this is why i need to reread the sequel and pay more attention to it. i want to know more about the different schools (it was mentioned onna was specializing in illusion but that got dropped kind of) and how magic's practiced in different places and. all of it basically. god i love you worldbuilding. the plot was fairly interesting, even if the ending was slightly unsatisfying. i also wish the two storylines had intersected earlier because it did get a little headachey to follow at times. overall though i liked it quite a bit for the most part. i really liked seeing the different cultures of the world and how they interacted.
this gets to go with carter and saint death's daughter in the "4 stars for some personal reasons but also has stuff that'll live rent free in my head for the foreseeable future" corner.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent
Moderate: Misogyny and Violence
Minor: Pregnancy
averi's review against another edition
The first excessive curing didn’t match with the world building
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence and Sexual content
wilybooklover's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
4.0
This was a really fun mashup of genres — part fantasy, part murder mystery, part romance, part coming-of-age. I really enjoyed the complex worldbuilding in this and how naturally it was incorporated into the story; no info-dumping or clumsy expositional dialogue here. It's a queernorm world which has some very interesting exploration of gender, sexuality, privilege, and cultural conflicts. I loved that the magical system was based on maths and all about creating logical formulae and definitions. I also enjoyed that it was a racially diverse world; Onna, one of the POV protagonists, seemed to be Black-coded, another main character was coded as East Asian, and several secondary characters were also POC/mixed race.
There were a few plotting issues. The two main plotlines were a little too disparate through most of the book and felt like they were kind of forced together towards the end rather than naturally converging. It was a bit jarring jumping straight from Onna's POV into Tsira's or Jeckran's. Some of the subplots seemed a bit pointless or didn't really make sense(e.g. Tsira's boxing matches, or the part where Mon Del Ras is killed off and an entire brothel was infiltrated, which didn't quite seem to jive with the killer's motives and methods). The villain was very predictable and easy to guess.
Overall though, this was great fun and very entertaining.
There were a few plotting issues. The two main plotlines were a little too disparate through most of the book and felt like they were kind of forced together towards the end rather than naturally converging. It was a bit jarring jumping straight from Onna's POV into Tsira's or Jeckran's. Some of the subplots seemed a bit pointless or didn't really make sense
Overall though, this was great fun and very entertaining.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Grief, Sexual content, Death of parent, Gore, Murder, Violence, and Death
Moderate: Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Child death, Gun violence, Misogyny, Sexism, Xenophobia, and Hate crime
Minor: Drug abuse, Animal death, Drug use, Suicide, War, Child abuse, and Pregnancy
ladythana's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
slow-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
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Medical trauma, and Murder
Moderate: Sexual content, Hate crime, Death of parent, Violence, Sexism, Blood, and Vomit
Minor: Infertility and Pregnancy
ohnoitskylie's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
An enjoyable fantasy-mystery read and world building that feels incredibly real. It is a bit more of a distant than close third person, so at times I did feel as I was being told about some events that happened to people rather than living it alongside the characters. That said, I did appreciate how the author changed up the writing style just a bit for each point of view. It made thing easier to follow and more interesting. Lastly, Tsira is one of my favorite fantasy characters now!!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent and Death
Moderate: Sexual content, Gun violence, and Violence