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krisalexcole's review against another edition
Moderate: Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Child abuse, Alcohol, Blood, Confinement, Death, and Murder
anastasia_raf's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
The characters felt two- dimensional. All we ever got about Kaye's past was that her mother was dead...And in a weird sense I felt like she was grieving her in everyone else's eyes other than her own? What I mean by this Is that death seemed like an excuse to everyone's actions but without necessarily having dealt with such grief or actually stop and feel it. Was she actually grieving her mother? because that's what it kept saying and yet not showing.
The end was unsatisfactory to say the least.
Ava was a mix of Bella with some nuances of Rapunzel and some sprinkles of a cliche ya protagonist. I just wish it would've done more. Especially from a such overused "genre" like vampires and witches. It relied too much on it being an inspiration of famous tales, series and stories that it forgot to bring it's own. Everything was so underdeveloped. Predictable. And calluna did never feel like a person that really existed. I guess in that sense it succeed in her being a memory but not actually empathizing with her or caring for Kaye's loss.
The pace was satisfactory. The audiobook's narration was very pleasant.
Graphic: Grief, Murder, Emotional abuse, Violence, Animal death, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, and Kidnapping
devynreadsnovels's review against another edition
- 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? Yes
1.0
Moderate: Blood, Violence, Death, and Murder
collinsd's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Murder, and Confinement
I didn't realise until a few pages in that this book was a retelling of Rapunzel/Tangledhobbithopeful's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Ava and her Mother are both vampires, with Ava being kept locked in the attic for the past two years. Her Mother regularly drains her of her magic in order to maintain her human disguise, and often leaves her to the cruel experiments of her step-father. Ava longs to escape, and often looks out the window searching for her best friend.
Kaye is a Flame witch, and has a single minded goal, wipe out vampires. Vampires killed her Mother, and she will let nothing get in the way for her revenge. She used to be best friends with Ava, but after seeing her in an attic window with blood running down her face knows she must be put down.
When Ava finally escapes the two must work together to get through the forest alive, no matter how much Kaye seems to hate her now. But the forest seems to be dying, and Ava's Mother has plans of her own.
I'll be honest with you dear reader, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. Like I loved it! A lot! I didn't expect all the world building, the lore, the history. There was so much to this world and I was so blown away. I thought I knew what was going to happen in this story but the reveals that kept happening really swept the rug out from under me!
I really loved how the book had such themes as humans as the real monsters, fighting for freedom, and what happens if you hold your loved ones too tightly.
I will say I feel this book is 95% fantasy/angst and 5% sapphic romance but I'm not complaining. So many sapphic books are very light hearted romance, and it was nice to read a book where the focus was on more action and adventure instead.
One last thing I want to say I am so surprised and disappointed by how many reviewers are lowly rating this book because it is "not exactly like the original Rapunzel story." (People please use your critical thinking skills and look up what a retelling is. If it wasn't clear by the fact this is a book about vampires, why would you think this is going to be like the original fairy tale?) I also saw so many bad reviews complaining about the formatting for netgalley arcs, which isn't at all relevant to the actual story.
I highly recommend this book, especially for fans of world building, vampires, and of course fairy tales. I will definitely be reading more from Francesca Flores.
The Cover
Holy cow. Do y'all see this cover! I would like to give a round of applause for the cover artist, Olga Grlic! This is truly a work of art, my goodness. I love how we get so much information from them holding hands.
Ava's nails are blood red, with the ring from her Mother perched on her finger. I like how Kaye is almost seeming to be about to push it off of her. (Some symbolism of Ava breaking away from her Mother perhaps?)
Kaye's nails are gold, like the magic she wields, and her favored Flame witch bracelet is show on her wrist. (You guys do you see how detailed this is!) All around their hands are fireflies, flowers, and forestry. I believe the flowers are the ones that are heavily featured through the book. (I won't spoil for you what they do!)
I love how the title is lower on the page, it just flows so well with the composition. I really feel like the font works to convey the mood perfectly, and it goes with the cover.
Really the only microscopic complaint I would have is I feel the authors name would have been better suited to being white like the title font.
Cover design by Olga Grlic Cover illustration by Colin Verdi
Graphic: Death of parent, Blood, Death, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Murder and Racism
brewingespresso's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
I wanted to love this book, but I’d say I only enjoyed it. It definitely drew me in at the end and got me to the “well I gotta finish it now.” point, however the overall plot is kinda rocky. I feel like there wasn’t a whole lot of time dedicated to planning out the whole book and instead it was made up along the way. I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t realize it was a Rapunzel adaptation until I read the description. The only similarities are that Ava is trapped in a tower and forced to grow out her hair. The rest is so wildly different that I had kinda just chalked the similarities up to coincidence. For a book with such “strong” main characters, their resolve flip-flops around and they lose so many fights. Then there was Tristan. Tristan was written in a way that makes me assume he was meant to be even just a little important. Nah. He’s just there. Sometimes.
Graphic: Death of parent, Death, and Blood
taelights's review against another edition
The writing is bad and repetitive. The world building is bad and hard to understand. Plus both main characters are both so annoying to me.
Also like i don't have issues with witches and/or vampires in general becaus I think there are respectful ways to write those types of creatures. But then there are ways to write those creatures that play into antisemitism. Personally I thought this book kind of protrayed vampires, and in a way witches, with antisemitic / blood libel themes which I personally foubd uncomfortable and yucky.
Graphic: Blood, Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Death, Emotional abuse, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Physical abuse, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Antisemitism
atthelibrarywithmegan's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Graphic: Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Blood, Confinement, Murder, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Physical abuse
diannasbooks's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.75
I was very excited to receive this book. Sapphic? Yes please! Rapunzel retelling! Yes! Witches, and vampires? It all sounded amazing. However this read as an upper middle grade rather than a YA for me. Which there isn’t anything wrong with that. I read it fairly fast. I really like the world that Francesca created. The romance was adorable, and I loved the world building as well. Overall it’s a quick and easy fantasy read!
Moderate: Physical abuse, Confinement, Child abuse, Violence, War, Death of parent, Death, Torture, Gaslighting, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Vomit
ezwolf's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
The most interesting character through the whole book is one of the side characters who has maybe ten lines. I disliked both Ava and Kaye and they were written with almost no differing personalities (at one point I read half a chapter from Kaye’s POV thinking it was Ava’s) and I was over half way through the book and their characters should have been well established.
The whole book was all telling, not showing, us anything and so many things were repeated and drilled in I almost feel like the author thought people would lack the ability to have long term memory or good reading comprehension. This was most problematic when it came to character relationships. I am still not convinced that Ava and Kaye like each other in any way and Tristan was just like a weird addition to try and give them friends and some kind of backstory? Nothing any of them did made me inclined to think they had ever been friends.
The way things were named was also so uncreative, ie witches who could manipulate fire are Flame witches and the ones who could use water are Storm witches, a literal wall of bones was the Bone Wall, a tree connected to the heart of a vampire is the Heart Tree.
Overall, the plot had a lot of great potential but suffered greatly from how it was written.
Thank you to NetGalley for making this available in exchange for an honest review!
EDIT: Oh, I cannot believe I forgot this part, but including crosses burning vampires seemed like a bizarre choice? By placing this story in a fantasy world you can do whatever you want with vampire lore (these vampires don’t burn in the sun so clearly we’re not adhering to original vampire characteristics), but added the cross, to me, implies that Jesus existed in this world and they adhere to some kind of religion but that’s never discussed.
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Blood, Death, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Physical abuse, Gaslighting, Confinement, Murder, Torture, and Racism
Minor: Animal death, Vomit, Death of parent, and Child death