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3.51 AVERAGE
3.51 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
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
awfully written and routed in racism
This book is hard to rate! I truly didn’t hate it and I think it has potential, but damn, it was a mess. I read the newer version of it published by Bloom Books (apparently the publishing house started by the author of Fifty Shades of Gray), and it doesn’t seem to have changed much since it was self-published in February 2022.
The writing is shockingly bad. Sentences just don’t make sense—I read some over and over trying to grasp what she was saying and I just couldn’t. There are typos and grammatical errors everywhere. One character is called Erasmus and then a page later, Eramus. In the final pages, two students walk toward “Nox and Gadriel,” but Nox is hundreds of miles away and it should’ve said Amaris. Incredibly basic errors that should’ve been caught and fixed.
Additionally, Piper says everything 2-3 different times, as if she’s testing out the best way to say something. Sometimes it’ll be a bit more subtle, then more direct, then with a confusing metaphor. It bloats the book incredibly—at least 20% or more could’ve been cut from this novel. My eyes glazed over as I got the point over and over and tried to skip ahead past all the repetition.
In the first 100 pages, the book felt problematic. Nox (the Black protagonist) is obsessed with Amaris (the extremely white one), basically acting as her servant, and even takes a whipping for her. That scene was awful and shouldn’t have been in there. The book certainly depicts it as bad that a child is being beaten (and that the orphanage is selling children, yikes again), but it depicts it as right and fine for the Black girl to be obsessed with, in servitude to, and taking a whipping for the white girl. Nope nope nope.
Once they leave the orphanage, we lose Nox for like 20 pages. For what’s supposed to be a bi fantasy, Amaris sure does forget about Nox for years at a time while Nox is still deeply obsessed with her. I was glad Nox got some agency and power as a succubus… then read other reviews and started to understand how this was merely relying on a trope of hypersexualized Black women (while Amaris is still virginal and pure, of course).
I did get a little lost in the story at times when I was able to ignore the problems, it is somewhat entertaining. The world she is creating is interesting and I was mildly curious to see where it went.
Nox & Amaris’s reunion was very short lived. They’re reunited on page 480 for a moment and then Amaris flies away on a dragon snake thing at the end (apparently it’s just like a scene from Game of Thrones lol). Ugh. And it ends super abruptly.
This series has potential—her writing just needs significant editing and perhaps more time to marinate and develop. I’m glad it exists for those who love it.
The writing is shockingly bad. Sentences just don’t make sense—I read some over and over trying to grasp what she was saying and I just couldn’t. There are typos and grammatical errors everywhere. One character is called Erasmus and then a page later, Eramus. In the final pages, two students walk toward “Nox and Gadriel,” but Nox is hundreds of miles away and it should’ve said Amaris. Incredibly basic errors that should’ve been caught and fixed.
Additionally, Piper says everything 2-3 different times, as if she’s testing out the best way to say something. Sometimes it’ll be a bit more subtle, then more direct, then with a confusing metaphor. It bloats the book incredibly—at least 20% or more could’ve been cut from this novel. My eyes glazed over as I got the point over and over and tried to skip ahead past all the repetition.
In the first 100 pages, the book felt problematic. Nox (the Black protagonist) is obsessed with Amaris (the extremely white one), basically acting as her servant, and even takes a whipping for her. That scene was awful and shouldn’t have been in there. The book certainly depicts it as bad that a child is being beaten (and that the orphanage is selling children, yikes again), but it depicts it as right and fine for the Black girl to be obsessed with, in servitude to, and taking a whipping for the white girl. Nope nope nope.
Once they leave the orphanage, we lose Nox for like 20 pages. For what’s supposed to be a bi fantasy, Amaris sure does forget about Nox for years at a time while Nox is still deeply obsessed with her. I was glad Nox got some agency and power as a succubus… then read other reviews and started to understand how this was merely relying on a trope of hypersexualized Black women (while Amaris is still virginal and pure, of course).
I did get a little lost in the story at times when I was able to ignore the problems, it is somewhat entertaining. The world she is creating is interesting and I was mildly curious to see where it went.
Nox & Amaris’s reunion was very short lived. They’re reunited on page 480 for a moment and then Amaris flies away on a dragon snake thing at the end (apparently it’s just like a scene from Game of Thrones lol). Ugh. And it ends super abruptly.
This series has potential—her writing just needs significant editing and perhaps more time to marinate and develop. I’m glad it exists for those who love it.
This book was surprisingly not as predictable as I expected it to be when I read the back cover. Even though some of the story gave me strong Witcher tv show vibes, the story was still compelling enough to keep me interested, even skimming pages excitedly at the end when the story was particularly intense. I’ve already made plans to pick up the sequel.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
slow-paced
3.5 highly entertaining. I really enjoyed the the characters and the overarching plot. A few jumps in viewpoint that were hard to follow. I'm looking forward to reading the edited versions.
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
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:
No
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No