Reviews - Gild | The StoryGraph

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Reading reviews from Amazon readers having mixed feelings because they don’t know how Midas is going to be “redeemed” lmAO honey.
Enjoyed having an unreliable narrator because NA is usually so hit or miss with romanticising toxic dynamics that it kept me on my toes for ages guessing if this was going to pull through or flop. I think a lot of readers are uneasy because it’s only the first entry in a series, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that if you have any ability to pick up on subtext you will 100% be able to tell that this is a self-aware start for a character arc that I hope is going to conclude with Auren pulling a 180.

Pros:
- The protagonist is super unique design-wise
- Refreshing for a NA novel to portray the characters you should/will come to hate through the lens of romanticisation and the characters you’re siding with through the lens of ‘antagonist’. Couple of side characters here I will cheer for when they get their revenge and/or justice.

Negatives:
- Maybe it’s just me but I found the term saddle to be absolutely awful I cringed every time I read it
- Wanted some denser prose but it wasn’t bad
- Mixed feels over whether it was necessary to have portrayed that much SA

theglassedandthefurios's review against another edition

3.0

I was very interested to see how a re-telling of Midas worked out. To be honest, besides knowing about the gold-touch, my knowledge was pretty limited, on that saga. I have to admit, that at first I had some trouble trying to figure out which direction this novel would take and I didn’t quite get Auren (nice word play on the Latin name for gold, by the way). It felt that one moment she was snarky and confident and the next she was a scared and scarred little girl with no self-esteem. Yes, it added to the mystery of it all, but I just felt like it was a bit too inconsistent at times.

But that is really a minor thing, maybe I was just not in the right mind space for a new book, it happens. Once the story gets going, I found myself very intrigued and quite liked Auren. While she was a bit of a question mark for most times, it served the purpose well. You don’t want to know everything about a character from the beginning, and you certainly don’t want to be able to tell everything that will happen to said character from the beginning.
What I thought very weird was this idea of her ribbons. I kept trying to picture them without them being overly strange and I failed. I also don’t quite understood if she genuinely has no idea how to use them or just has to hide them or what exactly they all meant. Maybe I’ll get more answers to that in the next book.

Finally I do have to wonder which direction this series is going in. I felt like it really wanted to be a fantasy novel, but at the same time it really really REALLY focused a lot on sex, sexual violence and basically, men who think of little else. It was kind of weird and didn't quite fit for me. Maybe this will be amended in the second installment.

literaryreynstorms's review against another edition

3.75

challenging dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This was very slow in the beginning with a lot of world-building and rough scenes. So definitely check the trigger warning before you start. Also be careful if you listen to the audiobook. The FMC did a lot of internal monologue, and I mean like more than half of the book. It felt really stretched out and full of fluff. But a little more than halfway it got interesting. The story and plot picked up. Small character developments and there wasn’t any romance if that’s what you’re looking for. I like the concept and curious where it goes from here.