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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
A good story and an interesting concept though there were a few things that left me scratching my head on how they got there. I can tell this was a first book, I don’t know if I will continue the series but I’ll definitely continue the author. She has a lot more stories under her belt now and her style and worlds are great they just needed a bit of help with the flow and development. All personal preference of course.
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
Perhaps the world should be Eradicated! Vhalla had never been more certain that she should rid herself of whatever magic she may possess. Everything she had always been told was right, and it only took half a book on the history of the Empire’s most mysterious war to understand this.
This quote is a good explanation for why I’m DNFing. The FMC takes this ridiculous stance on a subject she knows nothing about and then 2 pages later is reconsidering everything. I just can’t take her seriously.
Life is too short to read books that have not been properly edited 😞 I love the idea of this book with its Avatar-moody-fire-prince-energy, but it’s just not well executed. I would be more willing to give it a go if the subsequent books didn’t appear to have the same issues of confusing writing, silly FMC who claims to be soooo intellectual yet has 0 sense, and basic editing issues (like one chapter ends with “she didn’t recognize the writing” and the next chapter begins with “she didn’t recognize the writing” and two back to back letters from Phantom start with the exact same sentence 🤦🏻♀️ ).
Zuerst: Ich hatte Spaß beim Lesen, bin durch die Seiten geflogen und hab mich generell unterhalten gefühlt. Trotz eines gewissen Euphorie-Gefühls überwiegen im Nachhinein doch leider die Kritikpunkte. Der Einstieg ins Buch fällt leicht, vor allem weil die Welt nicht zu komplex ist oder anders formuliert: Das Magiesystem wird (noch?) nicht in Gänze erklärt. Mit den Protagonisten hatte ich einige Probleme, auf der einen Seite wirkten sie recht charakterlos, auf der anderen Seite verhielten sie sich unsympathisch (Aldrik: Turmszene etc.) und unnachvollziehbar (Vhalla's Umgang mit Sareem). So konnte mich die Liebesgeschichte zwischen den beiden emotional auch nicht erreichen
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This book left a lot to be desired. The world and magic were barely explained, the writing was awkward, and the characters were hard to like. I found Vhalla especially annoying. She's supposed to be intelligent, yet she is constantly saying and doing the dumbest things. The love interest Aldrick was such an asshole; I couldn't stand him. There was a lot of telling and not much showing. Vhalla claims to be childhood friends with Sareem, yet they are hardly friendly towards each other. Whenever she was with him, she seemed to always want to get away. Also, Vhalla was weirdly racist. She mentioned multiple times how she thinks lighter skin tones are more attractive. There were so many grammatical errors that it was painful to read. The story had potential, but it needed a lot more refining. I'm curious to see if Kova's writing has improved in her more recent books.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Death, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence
Minor: Racism, Death of parent
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:
Complicated
So, overall review for this series.....
Brief Summary: Vhalla Yarl: basically a snowflake, Avatar last Airbender shit. Then you have Aldrik the prick of a prince that should not have been forgiven so much. She finds out one-day she's a Windwalker because Aldrick pushed her off a roof. Blah Blah Blah she falls for Aldrik, kills people for Alrick. Becomes the property of the crown, so she's a soldier used to kill a misunderstood people (basically racism). She makes her way up the ladder until she's empress because she's like the only person that could ever love Aldrik I guess. She proves that she all types of intelligent and totally qualified to lead armies and rule a nation because she reads books.....
I'm conflicted because I expected so much better from the things I heard about it. Like if I'm being honest it felt like a waste of my time. But I kept reading because.....?
Well, the magic system-gave me very much Avatar. I kept reading because I really wanted to find out more about Vhalla's powers. The leaving her body thing was so cool that I read just for that but they didn't even use it as much as I wanted to. Like she could have been spying on everyone and stuff but unfortunately not. I loved the other people's powers though.
The other characters really carried this book. Well, kind of. Like I didn't care much when people died (except Baldair because *tear*, even though I knew it was coming) but I loved that she had other relationships.
Jax was honestly the most interesting character, I would have loved more from him. He honestly creeped me out with how unstable he was and I was living for it.
Vhalla is sooooo naive like it was unbearable sometimes. The amount of stuff she just let happen especially in the beginning. She just let people take her places and dump her into situations. AND SHE GAVE ALDRICK NO SHIT. For all the stuff he did you were supposed to make him wallow for a little bit. It's completely necessary, but noooo, you wanna be the bigger person and be all in love with him no matter what, ewww.
The romance was....I don't know how to explain it. Like I liked it but I did;t because he turned into the ultimate simp when he was supposed to be a badass. Like it was a crack that I continued with even though I was like this ain't really it.
Anyways what kept me going was the plot. It was very fast-paced and always something happening. It made all of my dislikes bearable. It was an entertaining story and I love the political planning wars talks like Game of Thrones and Throne of Glass so this was enjoyable in that area. That's pretty much what gave this series three stars. Plus it was such a long ride that I feel like I owe it to this book for keeping me through five books.
Brief Summary: Vhalla Yarl: basically a snowflake, Avatar last Airbender shit. Then you have Aldrik the prick of a prince that should not have been forgiven so much. She finds out one-day she's a Windwalker because Aldrick pushed her off a roof. Blah Blah Blah she falls for Aldrik, kills people for Alrick. Becomes the property of the crown, so she's a soldier used to kill a misunderstood people (basically racism). She makes her way up the ladder until she's empress because she's like the only person that could ever love Aldrik I guess. She proves that she all types of intelligent and totally qualified to lead armies and rule a nation because she reads books.....
I'm conflicted because I expected so much better from the things I heard about it. Like if I'm being honest it felt like a waste of my time. But I kept reading because.....?
Well, the magic system-gave me very much Avatar. I kept reading because I really wanted to find out more about Vhalla's powers. The leaving her body thing was so cool that I read just for that but they didn't even use it as much as I wanted to. Like she could have been spying on everyone and stuff but unfortunately not. I loved the other people's powers though.
The other characters really carried this book. Well, kind of. Like I didn't care much when people died (except Baldair because *tear*, even though I knew it was coming) but I loved that she had other relationships.
Jax was honestly the most interesting character, I would have loved more from him. He honestly creeped me out with how unstable he was and I was living for it.
Vhalla is sooooo naive like it was unbearable sometimes. The amount of stuff she just let happen especially in the beginning. She just let people take her places and dump her into situations. AND SHE GAVE ALDRICK NO SHIT. For all the stuff he did you were supposed to make him wallow for a little bit. It's completely necessary, but noooo, you wanna be the bigger person and be all in love with him no matter what, ewww.
The romance was....I don't know how to explain it. Like I liked it but I did;t because he turned into the ultimate simp when he was supposed to be a badass. Like it was a crack that I continued with even though I was like this ain't really it.
Anyways what kept me going was the plot. It was very fast-paced and always something happening. It made all of my dislikes bearable. It was an entertaining story and I love the political planning wars talks like Game of Thrones and Throne of Glass so this was enjoyable in that area. That's pretty much what gave this series three stars. Plus it was such a long ride that I feel like I owe it to this book for keeping me through five books.
medium-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
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Overall this book was good. Juvenile but engaging. Easily predictable but with decent enough characters.
While the world building could be better, it’s still a lot better than many books I’ve read. I wasn’t bombarded with a bunch of information at the beginning; instead the author has continued to give me information as I go. So there could still be more to come and I won’t count it too much against the book.
Vhalla. Oh, Vhalla. I can’t even think of how to word things I feel about her and her situation. She just… goes to the library every day and sorts books and reads, then goes to dinner with her friends, and then back to her tiny room that’s probably about the size of an isolation cell in a prison. Her father bartered for her apprenticeship but she never sees him? She says she and Roan are good friends yet she has no personality? She quickly changes her views and opinions after writing back and forth with her “phantom.” She thinks about trashing this gift that she didn’t even know she had despite thinking very little about it. I mean, I’m not exactly a “go getter” but I have a stable, well paying job, my own house, car, three dogs I love very much, but Vhalla is perfectly okay with just barely existing, eating palace scraps, living in her closet of a room, only reading about life through books and scrolls (and hey, I’m a reader, but we get out and do things many times a year, with real vacations 1-3x a year), and I guess because of that I don’t like her. I don’t like that she gets so enraptured with the princes so quickly.
Idk. It’s YA and I’ve been struggling with YA for months now. I’m not sure what even prompted me to start this series. But I’m going to go onto the next one and let it be the deciding factor.