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3.15 AVERAGE
3.15 AVERAGE
DNF at page 72
I have never been a fan of the phantom of opera, but I've always considered obsessive love an interesting factor in stories. I kinda got bored with this book and started to skim read. And then
DNF it.
I have never been a fan of the phantom of opera, but I've always considered obsessive love an interesting factor in stories. I kinda got bored with this book and started to skim read. And then
DNF it.
RoseBlood is no where near as good as I was expecting. The summary made it one of my most anticipated reads, but sadly it is too basic for me. The idea of it and the vibe are on point, but there is too much in the plot that I've seen way too many times. For example the no cell phone reception, the teenage girl with power or whatever she can't control, the clique of mean girls, and etc. By about halfway through I was just bored by the whole thing.
3.4/5 Stars
Short Synopsis
Rune Germain has a weird ailment which causes her to get unwell every time that she sings, so she gets shipped off to Roseblood academy - a conservatory that is also a boarding school - in the hopes that this will be treated and she can go on singing with her angelic voice without ailing herself.
The school is rumored to have ties to the the phantom of the opera and strange things happen all over the place.
Rune becomes friends with a mysterious, masked boy named Thorn who just happens to be the phantom’s son, and he somehow cures her off her ailments, then they fall in love -you know the deal- BUT his father is watching and his father wants Rune to himself and for a very specific reason…
SOOOOOO....
Roseblood is a perfect read if you’re looking for a well-thought creative inspired retelling and/or if you like The Phantom of the Opera!
The author’s created the perfect ambience which causes you to really immerse, that is, if you’re not bothered by the immensely detailed way of describing even the most minor of things.
The characters are well-built but remain a bit of a mystery which in turn adds to the incredible ambience which results in the reader wanting to read more, learn more.
On top of that, the main characters have their own history and intensions and it all fits together quite well, besides the feeling of overly produced-ness that you can sometimes get.
Yet at the same time, the way certain characters are the way they are, and the discoveries throughout the story are gripping and keep you longing for more.
So overall it’s a pretty good read!
The reason why I gave it a meek 3 stars is because I thought it was just too detailed causing me to almost slump and avoid the book at certain points, while the story itself is very creatively written!
This can easily be a 4/5 or even a 5/5 star read for you if you can overlook this detail, or if this doesn’t bother you.
For a full non-spoiler review (with a little more detail) you can check out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=femj6hPoOZ0
Short Synopsis
Rune Germain has a weird ailment which causes her to get unwell every time that she sings, so she gets shipped off to Roseblood academy - a conservatory that is also a boarding school - in the hopes that this will be treated and she can go on singing with her angelic voice without ailing herself.
The school is rumored to have ties to the the phantom of the opera and strange things happen all over the place.
Rune becomes friends with a mysterious, masked boy named Thorn who just happens to be the phantom’s son, and he somehow cures her off her ailments, then they fall in love -you know the deal- BUT his father is watching and his father wants Rune to himself and for a very specific reason…
SOOOOOO....
Roseblood is a perfect read if you’re looking for a well-thought creative inspired retelling and/or if you like The Phantom of the Opera!
The author’s created the perfect ambience which causes you to really immerse, that is, if you’re not bothered by the immensely detailed way of describing even the most minor of things.
The characters are well-built but remain a bit of a mystery which in turn adds to the incredible ambience which results in the reader wanting to read more, learn more.
On top of that, the main characters have their own history and intensions and it all fits together quite well, besides the feeling of overly produced-ness that you can sometimes get.
Yet at the same time, the way certain characters are the way they are, and the discoveries throughout the story are gripping and keep you longing for more.
So overall it’s a pretty good read!
The reason why I gave it a meek 3 stars is because I thought it was just too detailed causing me to almost slump and avoid the book at certain points, while the story itself is very creatively written!
This can easily be a 4/5 or even a 5/5 star read for you if you can overlook this detail, or if this doesn’t bother you.
For a full non-spoiler review (with a little more detail) you can check out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=femj6hPoOZ0
I feel like this book could have been really great if it wasn't quite so long. The story itself was good but it was a bit of a slow burn for me.
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This review contains spoilers, but hoenstly, it’s better than reading this book.
I love POTO, I really do. And typically I love most adaptations of the work. But this…this was rough. Not only does Rune remind me of every self-insert Fanfiction protagonist ever, but she is dreadfully boring. Also, “Thorn”, the son that Erik adopted from a sex trafficking ring, is possibly the blandest white boy of the month to ever exist. And I love a good white boy of the month. Even the vampire plot line, I could have forgiven. But I draw the line at the big *twist* at the end. For the book, we are led to believe that Erik and Christine reunited, but she died tragically and he’s been preserving her body to put Runes voice back into since part of Christine’s soul lives in her now. But no, it’s not Christine’s body being preserved, but the infant corpse of Erik and Christine’s premature baby girl.
What the fuck?
I had to reread it several times to understand what I had just read. In the end, Rune and Thorn get a happy ending because Erik has a change of heart and decides that the boy he adopted is more important to him than the dead daughter he’s been preserving so he just fucks off to Canada? I don’t even know.
The most interesting part of the book was the throwaway lesbian romance that blossomed between the two mean girls. Wish I read a book about that.
Also, the author insists on using the word “gypsy” throughout to describe the Romani people? The whole thing felt incredibly uncomfortable especially when it continued to be paired with words like “curse” and “blood.”
What the fuck?
I had to reread it several times to understand what I had just read. In the end, Rune and Thorn get a happy ending because Erik has a change of heart and decides that the boy he adopted is more important to him than the dead daughter he’s been preserving so he just fucks off to Canada? I don’t even know.
The most interesting part of the book was the throwaway lesbian romance that blossomed between the two mean girls. Wish I read a book about that.
Also, the author insists on using the word “gypsy” throughout to describe the Romani people? The whole thing felt incredibly uncomfortable especially when it continued to be paired with words like “curse” and “blood.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Slavery, Trafficking, Grief, Death of parent, Cultural appropriation
Kinda sorta really disappointed in this book. I try to avoid posting spoilers but I can't help it here ... I'm just so 🙄🙄🙄
Psychic vampires?! Really?! That's the bright idea behind this book? My god what an awful idea. I hate vampires so I was none to thrilled to find them in a Phantom of the Opera retelling. Like really?
And the twins souls, made for each other crap .... insta love at its finest 🙄 I was really looking forward to this book and was seriously let down by it. Definitely not one of the better retellings out there.
Rune wasn't a bad character, a little too trusting and naive but that's okay. I thought Thorne was creepy and the phantom was a downright psycho .... I'll have to be careful with her next book.
Psychic vampires?! Really?! That's the bright idea behind this book? My god what an awful idea. I hate vampires so I was none to thrilled to find them in a Phantom of the Opera retelling. Like really?
And the twins souls, made for each other crap .... insta love at its finest 🙄 I was really looking forward to this book and was seriously let down by it. Definitely not one of the better retellings out there.
Rune wasn't a bad character, a little too trusting and naive but that's okay. I thought Thorne was creepy and the phantom was a downright psycho .... I'll have to be careful with her next book.
I'm being generous with the two stars.
Rune is being sent, largely against her will, to a private school for gifted artists in France. Except, apparently in this world, "gifted" really translates to eccentric and at times just plain alien. Rune has her issues: she feels her sanity slipping through her fingers, mostly because she believes her father's death is her fault. Oh did I mention her grandmother tried to kill her? No? Oh... well she does and I still am not sure what the point of that information is other than to make the plot seem more dramatic. When she finally arrives at this school for the gifted, she starts seeing someone in shadows and feels watched. She soon discovers, after weeks and weeks go by where mysterious crap keeps happening to her, that there is a phantom abroad and he has special plans for Rune and her vocal talents.
This is my problem with this book; I loved what AG Howard did with Alice in wonderland in the Splintered series, and since I've had a love affair with the Phantom of the Opera all my life, I expected to adore this book. My god was I wrong. Rune, sadly, is your classic Mary Sue; she's really not special but the author continually bangs you over the head with her ingenuity, that you kind of start to believe it. But then you keep reading and growing more and more annoyed with her apparent willful ignorance that you lose all sight of her special-ness...
This book took me over two months to read. It's boring, not well paced, and in sore need of a serious edit, which I hope happens. I was hoping for a new, explorative rendition of The Phantom of Opera, but really,
POTO is just used as a guise for a bad plot and cliche YA characterization.
Rune is being sent, largely against her will, to a private school for gifted artists in France. Except, apparently in this world, "gifted" really translates to eccentric and at times just plain alien. Rune has her issues: she feels her sanity slipping through her fingers, mostly because she believes her father's death is her fault. Oh did I mention her grandmother tried to kill her? No? Oh... well she does and I still am not sure what the point of that information is other than to make the plot seem more dramatic. When she finally arrives at this school for the gifted, she starts seeing someone in shadows and feels watched. She soon discovers, after weeks and weeks go by where mysterious crap keeps happening to her, that there is a phantom abroad and he has special plans for Rune and her vocal talents.
This is my problem with this book; I loved what AG Howard did with Alice in wonderland in the Splintered series, and since I've had a love affair with the Phantom of the Opera all my life, I expected to adore this book. My god was I wrong. Rune, sadly, is your classic Mary Sue; she's really not special but the author continually bangs you over the head with her ingenuity, that you kind of start to believe it. But then you keep reading and growing more and more annoyed with her apparent willful ignorance that you lose all sight of her special-ness...
This book took me over two months to read. It's boring, not well paced, and in sore need of a serious edit, which I hope happens. I was hoping for a new, explorative rendition of The Phantom of Opera, but really,
POTO is just used as a guise for a bad plot and cliche YA characterization.
I'm saying 3 stars, but more like 3.5? I didn't love it enough to round up, but explanations for 3 stars are necessary. I think. Because 3 means I really liked the book! I just didn't love it.
I've had a weird sort of journey with this book. I heard about it who knows how, and decided it sounded brilliant. I do love retellings, for the most part. So I decided I needed to buy this book the second it came out (which I did) and also read the original story (also, yes) because I knew nothing about it. Then silly me didn't realize the owlcrate theme clearly pointed to this being the included book. Which turned out okay because I returned the $18(?) book and bought 926483774 more books less $18 haha. But. Of course but. I REALLY didn't like the original story. Like forced myself to finish it but actually wanted to throw it through an open window. I thought it gave a billion details on characters I hated (Christine and Raoul are absolutely insufferable to me) and not who ugh about ones I liked (basically the "opera ghost" messing with everyone and being insane and tortured and such). So I put this book off for a small eternity. Like maybe two months. Lol at time.
I liked this book MUCH more than the original, as it was less a retelling and more of a continuation. I read the author's note at the end, and she really researched well. (And she thanked book reviewers and fan page admins in her acknowledgements, which was amazing to see!) I felt like I got more of the evil but not completely evil Erik that I wanted, and more interesting characters thrown in.
A thing I thought was confusing and kind of bothers me a lot... At first, I thought Rune was a siren of sorts. Because her singing was powerful. But she didn't really lure or kill anyone? So then I thought succubus, even though it wasn't always sexual or nocturnal. THEN the psychic vampire thing was revealed and I was ???? all the confused. There's a customer I see at work who is super high energy...the type of person who can't finish sentences because she's so excited to get to the next one. Most of my coworkers find her annoying or overwhelming, but I adore her and her big personality. I told my coworker friend that the customer always made me feel energized but I'm pretty even tempered and chill at work, so I kind of seem to calm her down. And my friend called me a psychic vampire - which I then looked up and thought "lol people really believe in this stuff?!" So. Anyway. I just found the succubus/psychic vampire blend bizarre and confusing. That was a weird thing to discuss in a review so....on to the lists!!?!?!!!!
(Another quick thing - I thought the red print would be distracting or hard to read, but it absolutely wasn't. Some pages seemed darker read at the edges which was interesting but probably not on purpose. And I'm glad I read the original story or I wouldn't have understood why it was written with red ink)
Likes:
• Opera/classical references! I don't really like opera, especially sopranos, but I listen to classical music almost exclusively (because I seriously cannot stand half the shit on the radio omg these damn kids today and their synthetic music #getoffmylawn). Seeing Prokofiev and Dvořák written on paper and actually recognizing the names and knowing pronunciations was weirdly exciting.
• The cat!! (I don't have the book in front of me - Diable? I think that's how it was spelled). So much personality. And Ange the strange red swan! Like the horse in the star-touched queen following Maya, offering to eat people for her...more animals. Always. All humans in books should have animal sidekicks/familiars/pets/consciences. I love them!!
• Rune's friends, at home and at school. They're all mentioned tons! Even though we never meet her friends from home, she thinks of them often and she writes letters to them. By hand. PRECIOUS. I'm a big fan of pen and paper, in general. We didn't have a computer in my house until I was about 14? (I'm 32 now) and we didn't have cell phones until I started driving at 17, and even then my mom and I shared one. I didn't know what a text was until I received words on my screen like magic my freshman year in college. And the next day my friend who'd texted me had to explain what a text was and how to answer one, haha YES I'M A DINOSAUR. But I appreciate simple things like mailing pieces of paper to friends. But I digress!
• Second bullet for Rune's school friends. Males and females! I love that she first sees Jax and makes all these stereotypical assumptions about him, and he's actually not at all what he seems. It's lovely. And Sunny (while the accent thing confuses me) is great - she's a loyal friend and that type of person who is instantly comfortable with people the second they meet, but she steals ALL the things and it's endearing.
• I surprisingly enjoyed the idea of twin flames. Two bodies sharing one soul. It's romantic in a poetic way, but not sickening, and it didn't make me roll my eyes. When Rune and Thorn are bonded and they sense when something is wrong with the other, it just felt real to me. It felt like how you sometimes instinctively know something is wrong with a loved one. Or when I'm thinking about my boyfriend and I glance at my phone and a few seconds later he texts me. It's giving an explanation for that weird feeling you get when you're hyper aware of loved ones' emotions and needs? If that makes sense. But love usually doesn't make sense.
• The buildup to the romance. Thorn played violin for Rune so she could sleep. Rune makes the toe socks for him. They send Diable to the other to make sure things are okay. They exchange letters and have these wild song/dance dreams? Idk, I liked it. And I liked how when she finally unmasks him, she's kind of like meh I knew what he looked like all along because I knew his soul and that's what matters. It was NICE. Of course he's physically "beautiful" as all book boys are. Just once, I wish someone would fall in love with a normal looking male. Please. I DARE YOU, WRITERS.
• Thorn's struggle with Erik as a father figure. Erik does some creepy/crazy stuff for his ?dead? daughter, and Thorn can't understand why his love isn't enough for Erik. *readers' hearts shatter* *Howard eats the pieces as a midnight snack*
• Rune's character development is so interesting! She's scared to go to a new school. Her mom stays with her in her dorm room for a WEEK to make sure she's okay. And by the end, Rune is strong enough to decide she wants to stay in France because it's where she belongs. And her mom comes to visit. It's lovely!
• GIANT LIKE: the writing style!!!! I am a trader who devours description. I want to know what Rune had for breakfast and how well she slept and what her first thought was upon waking and what she learned in class. It's how I connect with a story and a character. I could easily picture everyone and everything in my head. I know lots of people hate details and such, and call necessary information info dumping (which it usually doesn't seem like to me?), but I enjoy it.
Dislikes:
• Sunny's accent??!? She's from Texas...but I thought Rune was too? So why is Sunny's accent so different and infuriating and grammatically incorrect? I physically cringed the first time she said "ain't" and I just cringed again because autocorrect added the apostrophe for me. Ugh. What why. This is also a thing that annoys me in life - how the "typical American" accent people from other countries think of is a sort of southern accent. And lots of people think it makes us sound dumb? Which in itself sounds dumb to me. Is it because the speech patterns are slower? Simpler? It's a stereotype that pisses me off because it's mean and also because that's only one part of the country. Someone from the north in England sounds nothing like someone from London, so why would a person from Oklahoma sound anything like a person from Massachusetts? It's all so annoying. Said the girl from northern New Jersey. :)
• Romance. MEH.
• The pacing at the end was sort of weird in terms of wrapping things up. Aside from the last few chapters that are like the epilogue in Deathly Hallows where everyone eats funfetti cake together and skips around in clouds of glitter. It's revealed fairly early on what Rune (and Thorn and Erik and other Germains) is, and it felt kind of slow after that. Like that was her big mystery to figure out, and once she did, it was meh? There was a point when I felt I had to finish the book tonight but I kind of wanted to get it over with. It's hard to describe, and I don't remember the exact point reading felt tedious. After the rave, I think.
• Thorn/Etalon's physical perfection. UGH. He's described as beautiful. Which always drives me crazy. He's strong, he has hard muscles, strong arms, he's tall and thin, dark hair...you know, just like everyone else. Except he's different. *eye roll* Can someone please write a male love interest that doesn't understand his strength and crushes the girl with kindness and bear hugs and she snuggles onto his soft belly that hangs over his pants and sticks out when he's lying on his back? Because I've dated that type of guy. And it's way better than a beautiful boy. I can't be the only girl in the world who doesn't like tanned skinny boys with six packs. Hard pass. Just saying.
• Rune still thinks of/refers to her father as "daddy" - which is a thing I see a lot in books. Too much, actually. This one I can almost excuse because she was young when her father died so probably she never called him anything else. But still. She's presumably 17 now? I don't think I called my parents mommy and daddy after I turned 5 maybe? Personal preference perhaps, but I find it creepy and unsettling when a teenager or even an adult refers to her parents like a child would.
• Chapter titles and quotes. Distracting and unnecessary.
• Tense shifting. I'm sure Howard was trying to do something with this. I originally thought it was because Rune was actively taking control of her life (so present tense) and first person because she's the main character, and Thorn couldn't move on from his past or felt stuck (so past tense) and third person because he was really Etalon and Thorn was a creation for/of himself but also he was separate from?...but then some chapters toward the end had Rune "speaking" in first person past and my brain was confused. And then it switched back. So I stopped analyzing and went with it. Maybe not a dislike per se, but definitely something of which I couldn't grasp the reasoning or necessity.
I've talked about this for way too long! It's almost 4am. My goodness. My reviews are getting ridiculous. So! A good read. I'd definitely say I liked it overall very much. I don't know that I'd ever reread it? But I don't think I'd get rid of it either. Which I suppose translates to 3.5 stars! I hope.
:)
I've had a weird sort of journey with this book. I heard about it who knows how, and decided it sounded brilliant. I do love retellings, for the most part. So I decided I needed to buy this book the second it came out (which I did) and also read the original story (also, yes) because I knew nothing about it. Then silly me didn't realize the owlcrate theme clearly pointed to this being the included book. Which turned out okay because I returned the $18(?) book and bought 926483774 more books less $18 haha. But. Of course but. I REALLY didn't like the original story. Like forced myself to finish it but actually wanted to throw it through an open window. I thought it gave a billion details on characters I hated (Christine and Raoul are absolutely insufferable to me) and not who ugh about ones I liked (basically the "opera ghost" messing with everyone and being insane and tortured and such). So I put this book off for a small eternity. Like maybe two months. Lol at time.
I liked this book MUCH more than the original, as it was less a retelling and more of a continuation. I read the author's note at the end, and she really researched well. (And she thanked book reviewers and fan page admins in her acknowledgements, which was amazing to see!) I felt like I got more of the evil but not completely evil Erik that I wanted, and more interesting characters thrown in.
A thing I thought was confusing and kind of bothers me a lot... At first, I thought Rune was a siren of sorts. Because her singing was powerful. But she didn't really lure or kill anyone? So then I thought succubus, even though it wasn't always sexual or nocturnal. THEN the psychic vampire thing was revealed and I was ???? all the confused. There's a customer I see at work who is super high energy...the type of person who can't finish sentences because she's so excited to get to the next one. Most of my coworkers find her annoying or overwhelming, but I adore her and her big personality. I told my coworker friend that the customer always made me feel energized but I'm pretty even tempered and chill at work, so I kind of seem to calm her down. And my friend called me a psychic vampire - which I then looked up and thought "lol people really believe in this stuff?!" So. Anyway. I just found the succubus/psychic vampire blend bizarre and confusing. That was a weird thing to discuss in a review so....on to the lists!!?!?!!!!
(Another quick thing - I thought the red print would be distracting or hard to read, but it absolutely wasn't. Some pages seemed darker read at the edges which was interesting but probably not on purpose. And I'm glad I read the original story or I wouldn't have understood why it was written with red ink)
Likes:
• Opera/classical references! I don't really like opera, especially sopranos, but I listen to classical music almost exclusively (because I seriously cannot stand half the shit on the radio omg these damn kids today and their synthetic music #getoffmylawn). Seeing Prokofiev and Dvořák written on paper and actually recognizing the names and knowing pronunciations was weirdly exciting.
• The cat!! (I don't have the book in front of me - Diable? I think that's how it was spelled). So much personality. And Ange the strange red swan! Like the horse in the star-touched queen following Maya, offering to eat people for her...more animals. Always. All humans in books should have animal sidekicks/familiars/pets/consciences. I love them!!
• Rune's friends, at home and at school. They're all mentioned tons! Even though we never meet her friends from home, she thinks of them often and she writes letters to them. By hand. PRECIOUS. I'm a big fan of pen and paper, in general. We didn't have a computer in my house until I was about 14? (I'm 32 now) and we didn't have cell phones until I started driving at 17, and even then my mom and I shared one. I didn't know what a text was until I received words on my screen like magic my freshman year in college. And the next day my friend who'd texted me had to explain what a text was and how to answer one, haha YES I'M A DINOSAUR. But I appreciate simple things like mailing pieces of paper to friends. But I digress!
• Second bullet for Rune's school friends. Males and females! I love that she first sees Jax and makes all these stereotypical assumptions about him, and he's actually not at all what he seems. It's lovely. And Sunny (while the accent thing confuses me) is great - she's a loyal friend and that type of person who is instantly comfortable with people the second they meet, but she steals ALL the things and it's endearing.
• I surprisingly enjoyed the idea of twin flames. Two bodies sharing one soul. It's romantic in a poetic way, but not sickening, and it didn't make me roll my eyes. When Rune and Thorn are bonded and they sense when something is wrong with the other, it just felt real to me. It felt like how you sometimes instinctively know something is wrong with a loved one. Or when I'm thinking about my boyfriend and I glance at my phone and a few seconds later he texts me. It's giving an explanation for that weird feeling you get when you're hyper aware of loved ones' emotions and needs? If that makes sense. But love usually doesn't make sense.
• The buildup to the romance. Thorn played violin for Rune so she could sleep. Rune makes the toe socks for him. They send Diable to the other to make sure things are okay. They exchange letters and have these wild song/dance dreams? Idk, I liked it. And I liked how when she finally unmasks him, she's kind of like meh I knew what he looked like all along because I knew his soul and that's what matters. It was NICE. Of course he's physically "beautiful" as all book boys are. Just once, I wish someone would fall in love with a normal looking male. Please. I DARE YOU, WRITERS.
• Thorn's struggle with Erik as a father figure. Erik does some creepy/crazy stuff for his ?dead? daughter, and Thorn can't understand why his love isn't enough for Erik. *readers' hearts shatter* *Howard eats the pieces as a midnight snack*
• Rune's character development is so interesting! She's scared to go to a new school. Her mom stays with her in her dorm room for a WEEK to make sure she's okay. And by the end, Rune is strong enough to decide she wants to stay in France because it's where she belongs. And her mom comes to visit. It's lovely!
• GIANT LIKE: the writing style!!!! I am a trader who devours description. I want to know what Rune had for breakfast and how well she slept and what her first thought was upon waking and what she learned in class. It's how I connect with a story and a character. I could easily picture everyone and everything in my head. I know lots of people hate details and such, and call necessary information info dumping (which it usually doesn't seem like to me?), but I enjoy it.
Dislikes:
• Sunny's accent??!? She's from Texas...but I thought Rune was too? So why is Sunny's accent so different and infuriating and grammatically incorrect? I physically cringed the first time she said "ain't" and I just cringed again because autocorrect added the apostrophe for me. Ugh. What why. This is also a thing that annoys me in life - how the "typical American" accent people from other countries think of is a sort of southern accent. And lots of people think it makes us sound dumb? Which in itself sounds dumb to me. Is it because the speech patterns are slower? Simpler? It's a stereotype that pisses me off because it's mean and also because that's only one part of the country. Someone from the north in England sounds nothing like someone from London, so why would a person from Oklahoma sound anything like a person from Massachusetts? It's all so annoying. Said the girl from northern New Jersey. :)
• Romance. MEH.
• The pacing at the end was sort of weird in terms of wrapping things up. Aside from the last few chapters that are like the epilogue in Deathly Hallows where everyone eats funfetti cake together and skips around in clouds of glitter. It's revealed fairly early on what Rune (and Thorn and Erik and other Germains) is, and it felt kind of slow after that. Like that was her big mystery to figure out, and once she did, it was meh? There was a point when I felt I had to finish the book tonight but I kind of wanted to get it over with. It's hard to describe, and I don't remember the exact point reading felt tedious. After the rave, I think.
• Thorn/Etalon's physical perfection. UGH. He's described as beautiful. Which always drives me crazy. He's strong, he has hard muscles, strong arms, he's tall and thin, dark hair...you know, just like everyone else. Except he's different. *eye roll* Can someone please write a male love interest that doesn't understand his strength and crushes the girl with kindness and bear hugs and she snuggles onto his soft belly that hangs over his pants and sticks out when he's lying on his back? Because I've dated that type of guy. And it's way better than a beautiful boy. I can't be the only girl in the world who doesn't like tanned skinny boys with six packs. Hard pass. Just saying.
• Rune still thinks of/refers to her father as "daddy" - which is a thing I see a lot in books. Too much, actually. This one I can almost excuse because she was young when her father died so probably she never called him anything else. But still. She's presumably 17 now? I don't think I called my parents mommy and daddy after I turned 5 maybe? Personal preference perhaps, but I find it creepy and unsettling when a teenager or even an adult refers to her parents like a child would.
• Chapter titles and quotes. Distracting and unnecessary.
• Tense shifting. I'm sure Howard was trying to do something with this. I originally thought it was because Rune was actively taking control of her life (so present tense) and first person because she's the main character, and Thorn couldn't move on from his past or felt stuck (so past tense) and third person because he was really Etalon and Thorn was a creation for/of himself but also he was separate from?...but then some chapters toward the end had Rune "speaking" in first person past and my brain was confused. And then it switched back. So I stopped analyzing and went with it. Maybe not a dislike per se, but definitely something of which I couldn't grasp the reasoning or necessity.
I've talked about this for way too long! It's almost 4am. My goodness. My reviews are getting ridiculous. So! A good read. I'd definitely say I liked it overall very much. I don't know that I'd ever reread it? But I don't think I'd get rid of it either. Which I suppose translates to 3.5 stars! I hope.
:)
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No