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citrus_seasalt's review against another edition
1.5
Oh goodness where do I start with this one lol. (And if StoryGraph glitches again, I’m gonna fight it lol.)
To be honest, I gathered the plot from the summary and it seemed like a couple of other books I’ve either heard about or read(mostly YA, to be honest), but with queer people! And wolf shifters. (And, the other thing I knew was that it was narrated by Vico Ortiz, lol.) Somehow, that would fit into the retelling genre, although that’s a sort of loose descriptor for the book—probably for the best actually: not much happens in Sleeping Beauty, so as long as you have the sleeping curse and a true love’s kiss to break it, you can fill in the blanks of the plot with whatever you want. And romantasy is a genre I usually avoid, and I don’t like soulmates/Fated Mates, but I was curious about this one.
Arguably, my negative review is partially influenced by my own personal preferences. But I was still willing to go on with the book and overlook my own opinions of some of the tropes, because judging it only by that would be completely unfair.
Unfortunately, my issues are not only personal. For an adult novel, most of this felt very YA. (I get that this is most likely meant to be NA, but still.) The descriptors and the romance were very Wattpad-reminiscent, which started out hilarious but became progressively more grating. There was almost nothing left for interpretation, because Calla would say a character’s motivation for their reaction or behavior, or said character would state it themselves. If a theme was supposed to be in the text, it would be explicitly stated instead of left as subtext. The plot was very formulaic, for it being an adventure it was very slow, and none of the characters felt three-dimensional. Even Calla, who we spend the duration of the novel being inside their head.
I was anticipating Calla’s self-discovery—I knew they would eventually come out in the book as nonbinary/gender-fluid. But there’s not a proper arc for that?!?! Yes, there are crumbs leading up to that point that show they have some kind of discomfort in being called a “woman” or “girl”. Considering how that overlapped with their hate of the wolf society’s patriarchy, I assumed that part of their arc would be untangling what parts of that were them not wanting to be trapped as someone AFAB, and what was them not wanting to be trapped in the role of a woman. Surprisingly there was no discussion of that? I also wish them and Ora had a stronger bond. It’s clear that Ora kicked off Calla’s genderqueer awakening, but instead of it feeling like something to be discovered in the middle of a meaningful friendship, Ora felt like a character meant specifically for that plot point. Which sucks, because I latch onto gender-nonconforming characters easily and wanted to like them more over the course of the story. (And also, that part of the story was so short!)
Also, what was the reason for having a very transphobic villain lmao?!?! (Sorry to my cat, who I accidentally woke up after yelling “SHE’S A TERF?!?!” in response to my audiobook.)
Talking more about characters, the found family fell flat for me. The rest of the wolves in the main cast catch up to Calla during a point in the story where they haven’t bonded with Galen den’ Mora enough yet, so Calla’s relationships already came off as unbalanced. Grae was an…interesting love interest?!?! Conceptually, he’s not terrible, and he has a healthy relationship with Calla, but personality-wise he feels a little too “engineered to be the perfect love interest”. (Complete with the tragic backstory, and the brooding nature.) He also had the most cringy lines in the book. The romances were all very rushed, Briar and Maez’s being the biggest offender imo, but arguably Calla and Grae’s had the same vibe. At least in Grae’s case, him being a childhood friend of Calla’s gives an excuse for them being in love from the very start of the story, but their childhood bond didn’t seem very fleshed out.
(But! The highlight of the cast, imo, was Sadie. Probably biased because she has the name of my aforementioned cat, but I thought her voice in the audio fit her pretty well, and her being both kind of silly and the most ready of the characters to murder somebody made her entertaining. I wished Calla’s friendship with her had been explored more outside of their obvious thematic parallels.)
I’m gonna try to wrap up my list of grievances in this review because otherwise I would be very frustrated, the last things I’ll say is that A) I hated the worldbuilding. Yes, this was European-inspired fantasy, but what are the cultural differences in each wolf kingdom?!?! Besides the climate?? There was a ton of infodumping on stuff like the bits and pieces of kingdom politics, which made listening to this book annoying at times. B) There was clearly meant to be sexual tension between Grae and Calla, but it was very poorly-timed, often grinding the plot to a screeching halt, or sometimes even vice-versa! They got interrupted FOUR TIMES. Literally getting their own room was not enough for most of the book lmao.
I gave up on keeping this at above 2 stars lmao. Even if there were a couple parts I liked, and most of this remained entertaining enough that until the end I didn’t consider DNF’ing it, all the elements of the story get worse the more I think of them. Didn’t stop me from caring a lot about this book for an uncomfortably long amount of time, though. My ADHD unfortunately got other plans, so it latched onto this and it was one of the only things I could think about for weeks?!?!?!?! (Which was an unfortunate, but expected, result. And “AROGB” is an autofill option on my phone now, someone sedate me.) Which is also why this review is so damn long. And I probably read into a couple things too much.
(P.S., to the reviewer on here who said “came here for queer people, left when I entered Wattpad wolf mating territory”, you are a national treasure and an inside joke to the few friends who I told about this book)
To be honest, I gathered the plot from the summary and it seemed like a couple of other books I’ve either heard about or read(mostly YA, to be honest), but with queer people! And wolf shifters. (And, the other thing I knew was that it was narrated by Vico Ortiz, lol.) Somehow, that would fit into the retelling genre, although that’s a sort of loose descriptor for the book—probably for the best actually: not much happens in Sleeping Beauty, so as long as you have the sleeping curse and a true love’s kiss to break it, you can fill in the blanks of the plot with whatever you want. And romantasy is a genre I usually avoid, and I don’t like soulmates/Fated Mates, but I was curious about this one.
Arguably, my negative review is partially influenced by my own personal preferences. But I was still willing to go on with the book and overlook my own opinions of some of the tropes, because judging it only by that would be completely unfair.
Unfortunately, my issues are not only personal. For an adult novel, most of this felt very YA. (I get that this is most likely meant to be NA, but still.) The descriptors and the romance were very Wattpad-reminiscent, which started out hilarious but became progressively more grating. There was almost nothing left for interpretation, because Calla would say a character’s motivation for their reaction or behavior, or said character would state it themselves. If a theme was supposed to be in the text, it would be explicitly stated instead of left as subtext. The plot was very formulaic, for it being an adventure it was very slow, and none of the characters felt three-dimensional. Even Calla, who we spend the duration of the novel being inside their head.
I was anticipating Calla’s self-discovery—I knew they would eventually come out in the book as nonbinary/gender-fluid. But there’s not a proper arc for that?!?! Yes, there are crumbs leading up to that point that show they have some kind of discomfort in being called a “woman” or “girl”. Considering how that overlapped with their hate of the wolf society’s patriarchy, I assumed that part of their arc would be untangling what parts of that were them not wanting to be trapped as someone AFAB, and what was them not wanting to be trapped in the role of a woman. Surprisingly there was no discussion of that? I also wish them and Ora had a stronger bond. It’s clear that Ora kicked off Calla’s genderqueer awakening, but instead of it feeling like something to be discovered in the middle of a meaningful friendship, Ora felt like a character meant specifically for that plot point. Which sucks, because I latch onto gender-nonconforming characters easily and wanted to like them more over the course of the story. (And also, that part of the story was so short!)
Also, what was the reason for having a very transphobic villain lmao?!?! (Sorry to my cat, who I accidentally woke up after yelling “SHE’S A TERF?!?!” in response to my audiobook.)
Talking more about characters, the found family fell flat for me. The rest of the wolves in the main cast catch up to Calla during a point in the story where they haven’t bonded with Galen den’ Mora enough yet, so Calla’s relationships already came off as unbalanced. Grae was an…interesting love interest?!?! Conceptually, he’s not terrible, and he has a healthy relationship with Calla, but personality-wise he feels a little too “engineered to be the perfect love interest”. (Complete with the tragic backstory, and the brooding nature.) He also had the most cringy lines in the book. The romances were all very rushed, Briar and Maez’s being the biggest offender imo, but arguably Calla and Grae’s had the same vibe. At least in Grae’s case, him being a childhood friend of Calla’s gives an excuse for them being in love from the very start of the story, but their childhood bond didn’t seem very fleshed out.
(But! The highlight of the cast, imo, was Sadie. Probably biased because she has the name of my aforementioned cat, but I thought her voice in the audio fit her pretty well, and her being both kind of silly and the most ready of the characters to murder somebody made her entertaining. I wished Calla’s friendship with her had been explored more outside of their obvious thematic parallels.)
I’m gonna try to wrap up my list of grievances in this review because otherwise I would be very frustrated, the last things I’ll say is that A) I hated the worldbuilding. Yes, this was European-inspired fantasy, but what are the cultural differences in each wolf kingdom?!?! Besides the climate?? There was a ton of infodumping on stuff like the bits and pieces of kingdom politics, which made listening to this book annoying at times. B) There was clearly meant to be sexual tension between Grae and Calla, but it was very poorly-timed, often grinding the plot to a screeching halt, or sometimes even vice-versa! They got interrupted FOUR TIMES. Literally getting their own room was not enough for most of the book lmao.
I gave up on keeping this at above 2 stars lmao. Even if there were a couple parts I liked, and most of this remained entertaining enough that until the end I didn’t consider DNF’ing it, all the elements of the story get worse the more I think of them. Didn’t stop me from caring a lot about this book for an uncomfortably long amount of time, though. My ADHD unfortunately got other plans, so it latched onto this and it was one of the only things I could think about for weeks?!?!?!?! (Which was an unfortunate, but expected, result. And “AROGB” is an autofill option on my phone now, someone sedate me.) Which is also why this review is so damn long. And I probably read into a couple things too much.
(P.S., to the reviewer on here who said “came here for queer people, left when I entered Wattpad wolf mating territory”, you are a national treasure and an inside joke to the few friends who I told about this book)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Violence, and Misogyny
Moderate: Blood, Outing, and Death
Minor: Dysphoria
icelandicbookreview's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
tense
medium-paced
5.0
Is it too early for me to say that this will be one of my top reads of the year? Because I LOVED this one. You know it’s good when a book makes me cry. I’ve really enjoyed AK Mulford’s books so far but this one is definitely my favorite. TW/CW: misgendering (not included in the content warnings below)
Cannot wait to see where this series goes! Need more ASAP!
Cannot wait to see where this series goes! Need more ASAP!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexual content, and Violence
booksalacarte's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
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
3.75
River of golden bones- 3.75⭐️ 3🌶️
New Adult
Fantasy romance
Coming of age
Wolf shifters
Princess Warrior
Fated mates
🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️ characters
He fell first
Slow burn
Open door spice
Twin princesses, hidden away until one is to marry a prince. This was an interesting reimagining of sleeping beauty’s children dealing with what happens when you don’t chase down the villain.
The main characters were fine, but the main character read very YA. I wonder if that was intentional with them being raised in a secluded cabin mansion… but I still wanted them to grow up and have the energy/mentality to match their badass fighting skills. It got better as the book moved on, but I didn’t like not enjoying them for the first half of the book.
The MMC was the broody manly man. Standard for the genre. I like that he fell first and harder and that he loved the main character through everything. His devotion was very well done.
A big hangup is the pack mentality, but the twins never lived in a pack, so I found it a little asinine that they cared so much about something they never experienced. I would have liked to have seen a little more friction in that space. Having the twins live in a wolf centric world for more than 24 hours and truly experience the hierarchy they never had… then break away from it. It would have been so much more satisfying.
Another complaint that I had was that for pivotal statement moments, the pacing came to an unrealistic complete halt. It was like the opposite of the jokes about the typical villain monologuing. I kept thinking “well villan, you could have killed them 10 different ways during all that.” Add a forced outing (that should have been revealed WAY before in order to lean into it) to the mix… nope.
Also, the way the story was wrapped up for this book made it feel like a standalone, not a series opener. I very well could walk away now and not feel as though I have missed anything by not reading further in this series, which is an unfortunate feeling to have when I enjoyed the book so much.
Thank you NetGalley andHarper Collins for providing and Advanced eReader Copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Misogyny, Confinement, Death, Gaslighting, Outing, Cursing, Murder, Sexual content, and Kidnapping
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