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4.45 AVERAGE
4.45 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I got into the Throne of Glass series, but this one disappoints.
tl;dr: If you tolerate long books well, love an obvious "will they won't they" and don't mind heavy duty plot armor, unnecessary detail, and a world that contains 98% of the elements of all Western myths, folklore, religion, and fantasy plus a dose of sci fi and the trappings of early 21st century human life (e.g., cell phones, surveillance state, résumés, servers (the technical kind)) on a planet apparently 15,000 years into the future, then go ahead. But I'd just suggest the author's other series, personally.
The full tea:
For me to enjoy books longer than 350 pages, they really have to justify their length through a compelling story with appropriate detail about the characters, plot points, world, and any message the author is trying to convey. This book misses the mark.
If you can soldier (or skim) through the first ~40% of this tome, the pacing improves. But not the unnecessary, ponderous, and ultimately largely pointless detail. This book, while easy for the reader to fly through (except for the needless adaptations of common words to make them seem more mystical without adding anything to the story), is like 80% red herring and 20% substance (yes, even taking into account that it's a romantasy, not some kind of literary epic).
This book should have been made at least 50% shorter by eliminating the irrelevant characters, relationships, plot points, repetitive reminders of details, twists and retconning (author, multiple times: "oh, did I forget to mention this key plot point along the way explicitly so I could make it into a twist later--and that these twists don't even matter in the greater arc of the story? 😇 Silly me! Again!"). I understand some of these superfluous characters and plot points may return in future books, but I could not possibly care given how little they matter in this book.
Also helpful would have been committing to either an amateur detective story with a little magic/fantasy for fun or this full-blown orgy of fantasy and sci fi elements (I mean, on top of everything else, wormholes. really?).
And, there's no p-in-v sex scene despite obvious willingness (and eventually disgustingly near-constant longing that only adds to the pedantic length of this book) between the two MCs, and there are only a few other almost-sex scenes, only one of which really gets dirty. IN 800 PAGES. These characters are not ace or sexually repressed or too young or anything else that would be a believable obstacle. Just let them bang.
The final insult: the ending is not a cliff hanger. Why would I even bother reading the next book when it seems there's nothing much more to resolve? Throne of Glass cliff hangers grabbed me. This book just slid into the acknowledgements like a lazy mer-person into a calm river.
tl;dr: If you tolerate long books well, love an obvious "will they won't they" and don't mind heavy duty plot armor, unnecessary detail, and a world that contains 98% of the elements of all Western myths, folklore, religion, and fantasy plus a dose of sci fi and the trappings of early 21st century human life (e.g., cell phones, surveillance state, résumés, servers (the technical kind)) on a planet apparently 15,000 years into the future, then go ahead. But I'd just suggest the author's other series, personally.
The full tea:
For me to enjoy books longer than 350 pages, they really have to justify their length through a compelling story with appropriate detail about the characters, plot points, world, and any message the author is trying to convey. This book misses the mark.
If you can soldier (or skim) through the first ~40% of this tome, the pacing improves. But not the unnecessary, ponderous, and ultimately largely pointless detail. This book, while easy for the reader to fly through (except for the needless adaptations of common words to make them seem more mystical without adding anything to the story), is like 80% red herring and 20% substance (yes, even taking into account that it's a romantasy, not some kind of literary epic).
This book should have been made at least 50% shorter by eliminating the irrelevant characters, relationships, plot points, repetitive reminders of details, twists and retconning (author, multiple times: "oh, did I forget to mention this key plot point along the way explicitly so I could make it into a twist later--and that these twists don't even matter in the greater arc of the story? 😇 Silly me! Again!"). I understand some of these superfluous characters and plot points may return in future books, but I could not possibly care given how little they matter in this book.
Also helpful would have been committing to either an amateur detective story with a little magic/fantasy for fun or this full-blown orgy of fantasy and sci fi elements (I mean, on top of everything else, wormholes. really?).
And, there's no p-in-v sex scene despite obvious willingness (and eventually disgustingly near-constant longing that only adds to the pedantic length of this book) between the two MCs, and there are only a few other almost-sex scenes, only one of which really gets dirty. IN 800 PAGES. These characters are not ace or sexually repressed or too young or anything else that would be a believable obstacle. Just let them bang.
The final insult: the ending is not a cliff hanger. Why would I even bother reading the next book when it seems there's nothing much more to resolve? Throne of Glass cliff hangers grabbed me. This book just slid into the acknowledgements like a lazy mer-person into a calm river.
adventurous
dark
hopeful
inspiring
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
emotional
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
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Loved this more than I thought I would!
3-3.5 stars really great parts but also really slow parts
The story is so interesting, and I am rereading it to read her new one. But, dear Goodness, it is slightly hard to read with how much information dumping there was in the beginning. There was WAAAAY too much telling and not nearly enough showing. If the information is important, it should come up naturally in a situation. This is high fantasy; so it’s a different world with a lot of moving parts, so I understand the hardship of depicting that and her excitement in telling us about that world because it is so entertaining. It lost a star because it is hard to read with so much information thrown at me constantly in the beginning. My hypothesis is that because she is so well-loved to there is no need to edit her story because people will read it regardless of its state in the drafting process. A view more gentle criticisms could have made this incredible.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
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
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
tense
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