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comfycryptid's review
adventurous
dark
funny
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
I might be an outlier when I say I think this book is a mess. From the convoluted plot to the unlikable characters to the world-building; it all felt like one giant, overwhelming infodump. You will spend most of this book confused and not sure what's happening but not in a way that felt at all rewarding by the end.
This book is extremely fast paced but that may be it's downfall because it made for a lot of confusion and throwaway world building. K.D. Edwards does excel at dialogue, I will give him that! His banter is funny and it made me exhale harshly out of my nose a few times. Reading the action and the explanations of the magic system, which I STILL don't feel like I understand at all, felt jarring and overwhelming in comparison.
Also there's some quirky little body shaming moments, misogyny, and a little racist throwaway line which was very cool of this white male author to do.
The book leaves you with a StIcK aRoUnD aNd FiNd OuT for MOST of the interesting/infuriating(see spoiler) plot points. And there was so many untied and badly executed threads I truly don't even care to read the rest of the series.
Spoilers ahead (trigger warning for graphic sexual assault and rape of a minor):
The villain reveal barely felt like a reveal. My friend put it well when they called it a "Scooby-Doo ass reveal." I had to go back and recheck who was who because some of these characters were so forgettable or swept away in other explanations of other things that I genuinely didn't know who they were.
Also soulbound soulmates is my favorite trope and SOMEHOW I still hated the "romance". They had no chemistry and it leaves you on an unexplained cliffhanger that I don't even CARE to try and read the second or third book to find out. You literally create a universe where characters' souls are intertwined and you mAyBe intertwined the 2 characters who have 0 chemistry. Nice.
Then we come to my BIGGEST gripe. The rape plot. The rape as a plot device was handled poorly. In fact, it felt barely handled - just thrown at you a few times. Then it slaps you with the weirdest couple of sex scenes to drive the point home that Rune is extremely traumatized some more I guess? It doesn't truly get resolved in this book so if you need a resolution or some sort of unpacking you don't get it in this book. I don't need to read the next 2 books to know this plot point will get stretched out even more and that feels really inappropriate.
I do feel bad ripping into this book so hard because it is very obvious that the author put his heart and soul into it. HOWEVER, the execution was not there for me. Maybe it's me, because I've read so many glowing reviews that I genuinely wasn't sure I was reading the same book as everyone else.
This book is extremely fast paced but that may be it's downfall because it made for a lot of confusion and throwaway world building. K.D. Edwards does excel at dialogue, I will give him that! His banter is funny and it made me exhale harshly out of my nose a few times. Reading the action and the explanations of the magic system, which I STILL don't feel like I understand at all, felt jarring and overwhelming in comparison.
Also there's some quirky little body shaming moments, misogyny, and a little racist throwaway line which was very cool of this white male author to do.
The book leaves you with a StIcK aRoUnD aNd FiNd OuT for MOST of the interesting/infuriating(see spoiler) plot points. And there was so many untied and badly executed threads I truly don't even care to read the rest of the series.
Spoilers ahead (trigger warning for graphic sexual assault and rape of a minor):
Also soulbound soulmates is my favorite trope and SOMEHOW I still hated the "romance". They had no chemistry and it leaves you on an unexplained cliffhanger that I don't even CARE to try and read the second or third book to find out. You literally create a universe where characters' souls are intertwined and you mAyBe intertwined the 2 characters who have 0 chemistry. Nice.
Then we come to my BIGGEST gripe. The rape plot. The rape as a plot device was handled poorly. In fact, it felt barely handled - just thrown at you a few times. Then it slaps you with the weirdest couple of sex scenes to drive the point home that Rune is extremely traumatized some more I guess? It doesn't truly get resolved in this book so if you need a resolution or some sort of unpacking you don't get it in this book. I don't need to read the next 2 books to know this plot point will get stretched out even more and that feels really inappropriate.
I do feel bad ripping into this book so hard because it is very obvious that the author put his heart and soul into it. HOWEVER, the execution was not there for me. Maybe it's me, because I've read so many glowing reviews that I genuinely wasn't sure I was reading the same book as everyone else.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Rape, Torture, and Sexual assault
Minor: Misogyny and Racism
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