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ihateprozac's review against another edition
2.0
I’m not even mad, I’m just disappointed.
This had so much potential. Female friendship. Super cool magic system. Instahate turned to instalust. Palpable sexual tension. Complex villain. Magical creatures and items. A world not unlike our own.
And it just fell completely and utterly flat.
Y’know how people dread reading high and epic fantasy like Brandon Sanderson and George R.R. Martin because they think it’ll be dense and boring AF? This is dense and boring AF, and Brandon Sanderson and George R. R. Martin look like YA contemporary quick fluff writers in comparison! My mind is boggled as to how a YA fantasy could be so difficult to read.
One of my least favourite things about sci-fi and fantasy is when the author spends the first 100 pages world-building and nothing happens. Except the whole damn book I felt like nothing happened and the world still wasn’t fully formed at the end of it! I felt like I’d come into a series halfway through and had missed a book’s worth of information about the war, the truce, the nations, the witchery, and the cleaving.
The pacing and build up to events left a lot to be desired. It’s not as if nothing happened in this book: the heresy of paraphrase makes it sound like this was a whirlwind rollercoaster from start to finish. In reality, Dennard had such a curiously odd writing style and her pacing made seemingly significant and action-packed scenes i.e. seem like annoying little mosquito bites. Except when the larger conflict did happen, its impact was diminished just as much that I felt like I was watching a battle through Vaseline-smeared lenses.
I didn’t care for the characters all that much either. One of my least favourite things about fictional friendships (well, friendships irl too) is when one person in the friendship takes way more than they give. This is how I felt about Iseult and Safi. Safi takes so much from Iseult and gives nothing back except pain, complications, and drama. Iseult repeatedly finds herself in difficult and often painful situations as a direct result of Safi’s selfishness or lack of thinking. Safi makes this realisation over the course of the novel, but trying to do good in the last few pages just couldn’t redeem her in my eyes.
The only redeeming qualities were the incredible magic system and the palpable sexual tension between two of the characters. I’m dying to know more about the origins and categories of magic, what the hell the cleaving is, and more about our big bad villain. And though I didn’t love either of our female leads all that much, I genuinely felt the sexual tension between one of them and her love interest. All too often authors write instalust/instalove stories where you can’t see the purported chemistry between the two characters in spite of how often the author claims they’re meant to be or meant to bone. For once I actually felt the connection and attracton between the two characters!
Overall: While this had all the hallmarks of a kickass YA fantasy novel with strong female leads, everything about it just fell flat. The characters irked me, the world wasn’t fleshed out, the adventure lacked impact, and the pacing left a lot to be desired. I adore the magic system in this novel and had Dennard intended for this to be a duology, I would be willing to suffer through Windwitch to see more of the magic and mythology. However, I can see from Goodreads that Dennard intends on this being a quartet (at the very least) and I just can’t abide that. Life is too short to read boring books :(
This had so much potential. Female friendship. Super cool magic system. Instahate turned to instalust. Palpable sexual tension. Complex villain. Magical creatures and items. A world not unlike our own.
And it just fell completely and utterly flat.
Y’know how people dread reading high and epic fantasy like Brandon Sanderson and George R.R. Martin because they think it’ll be dense and boring AF? This is dense and boring AF, and Brandon Sanderson and George R. R. Martin look like YA contemporary quick fluff writers in comparison! My mind is boggled as to how a YA fantasy could be so difficult to read.
One of my least favourite things about sci-fi and fantasy is when the author spends the first 100 pages world-building and nothing happens. Except the whole damn book I felt like nothing happened and the world still wasn’t fully formed at the end of it! I felt like I’d come into a series halfway through and had missed a book’s worth of information about the war, the truce, the nations, the witchery, and the cleaving.
The pacing and build up to events left a lot to be desired. It’s not as if nothing happened in this book: the heresy of paraphrase makes it sound like this was a whirlwind rollercoaster from start to finish. In reality, Dennard had such a curiously odd writing style and her pacing made seemingly significant and action-packed scenes i.e.
Spoiler
the sea foxes smashing their ships and the riot in the Midenzi settlementI didn’t care for the characters all that much either. One of my least favourite things about fictional friendships (well, friendships irl too) is when one person in the friendship takes way more than they give. This is how I felt about Iseult and Safi. Safi takes so much from Iseult and gives nothing back except pain, complications, and drama. Iseult repeatedly finds herself in difficult and often painful situations as a direct result of Safi’s selfishness or lack of thinking. Safi makes this realisation over the course of the novel, but trying to do good in the last few pages just couldn’t redeem her in my eyes.
The only redeeming qualities were the incredible magic system and the palpable sexual tension between two of the characters. I’m dying to know more about the origins and categories of magic, what the hell the cleaving is, and more about our big bad villain. And though I didn’t love either of our female leads all that much, I genuinely felt the sexual tension between one of them and her love interest. All too often authors write instalust/instalove stories where you can’t see the purported chemistry between the two characters in spite of how often the author claims they’re meant to be or meant to bone. For once I actually felt the connection and attracton between the two characters!
Overall: While this had all the hallmarks of a kickass YA fantasy novel with strong female leads, everything about it just fell flat. The characters irked me, the world wasn’t fleshed out, the adventure lacked impact, and the pacing left a lot to be desired. I adore the magic system in this novel and had Dennard intended for this to be a duology, I would be willing to suffer through Windwitch to see more of the magic and mythology. However, I can see from Goodreads that Dennard intends on this being a quartet (at the very least) and I just can’t abide that. Life is too short to read boring books :(
stellabellabooks's review against another edition
4.0
Enjoyed this way more than I thought I would, the world is so interesting and I can't wait to read more.
jennc's review against another edition
3.0
Fantasy is not my genre. It's really, really not. So while I enjoyed some aspects of this book it just wasn't my favorite. I loved some of the characters (Iseult & Aeduan) and love some of the plot points but it wasn't an easy ready for me. Not bad just not my book. Still, I'm invested in the characters enough I'll probably read the rest of the series at some point. Just not anytime soon.
samjung's review against another edition
4.0
This book was actually teetering on 5 starts from me! Though I still struggle with connecting all the cultures and the dynamics between them the world was so rich and enveloping that I just felling into these pages headfirst. Also, Iz and Safi remind me of me and my best friend so I began to picture her and I as them and that made this whole book SO fun!!!
kimbapnboba's review against another edition
3.0
Read it in one sitting. Similar to the Selection books or Poison Study books.
Safiya, the loudmouthed emotional force of nature and Iseult, the level headed quick thinker who is Safiya's best friend. The book has it all: loyalty, love, action, and adventure. The only reason I gave it 3 stars is the story felt a bit predictable...the obstacles a bit too easy. But I liked it enough to be curious to see what happens in the next book.
Safiya, the loudmouthed emotional force of nature and Iseult, the level headed quick thinker who is Safiya's best friend. The book has it all: loyalty, love, action, and adventure. The only reason I gave it 3 stars is the story felt a bit predictable...the obstacles a bit too easy. But I liked it enough to be curious to see what happens in the next book.
elsecallerreads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-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
4.0
I enjoyed this a lot. The world was interesting and I liked how it was constant action. I also appreciated how the book seemed mostly centered on two women and their friendship. I do wish the romance had been a bit more drawn out. It was a little too instalove for my taste.
mairelon's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this but really struggled to get through it. After I do my next to ARC reads I think I want to jump into the sequel
canadianjules_'s review against another edition
4.0
I really liked this book, honestly a lot more than I thought I would. I've owned it for years and never picked it up, and only now was encouraged to because of a readathon.
I really like elemental magic, so learning about all the different witcheries was really cool. However, the witcheries didn't really seem to have clear rules of how they worked, and there were a few moments where I felt like she was inventing different kinds of witchery to get her characters out of certain situations, kind of just as an easy out instead of coming up with something more creative. Some of the witcheries also seem redundant and like it could all just be one thing instead of having some of them be specialized and some of them be general and therefore more powerful.
Other than that, I really enjoyed the characters and the undercurrent of political issues that were the driving force behind a lot of what happened in the story. Really looking forward to reading the next one!
I really like elemental magic, so learning about all the different witcheries was really cool. However, the witcheries didn't really seem to have clear rules of how they worked, and there were a few moments where I felt like she was inventing different kinds of witchery to get her characters out of certain situations, kind of just as an easy out instead of coming up with something more creative. Some of the witcheries also seem redundant and like it could all just be one thing instead of having some of them be specialized and some of them be general and therefore more powerful.
Other than that, I really enjoyed the characters and the undercurrent of political issues that were the driving force behind a lot of what happened in the story. Really looking forward to reading the next one!