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3.97 AVERAGE
3.97 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is hard for me to rate. Overall, I did enjoy it but too many things worked against it for me to fully feel like it gave me what I wanted.
First of all, my expectations were ALL wrong going into this. Calling this a fantasy romantasy feels like a stretch. It's not really as magical as you'd expect which could be fine, but the romance is also like the C plot and within that it's convoluted. So the main marketing for this book missed both marks for the crowd it's aiming for. But like I said, I did enjoy the story and it was well written AND a debut? These days, and i hate to say it (not really), but debuts have been slop so I'm happy this one was actually good lol.
What I liked:
- the scheming political main plot. I liked that almost everyone had ulterior motives and it was up to us to figure out wtf was going on
- Anton. He was probably the only likeable character in the story for me lol
What I didn't like:
- Vasalie, the fmc. Considering how many plots she was involved in, she was not nearly smart enough. I didn't understand or agree with most of her choices which is crazy when you're supposed to be rooting for her to come out on top. She did the silliest stuff, trusted EVERYONE even though she claimed she wouldn't like, cmon girl. It was so easy to see who the super evil people were in this story but for some reason she took them all at face value and believed the stuff they said. What's not clicking sister?
- the dancing. Couldn't care less. She was supposedly disabled from being in prison but she was also still a great dancer? Which would be fine except the book spends a lot of time telling you that she actually can't dance that well anymore due to the disability that disappears after the plot gets moving. So which is it? The dance scenes were also hard for me to visualize which I recognize is a me problem, but it made it even harder to care.
- the sad attempt at a love square. There were 3 will-they-wont-they love interests in this and it makes no sense the deeper into the book you get. Like, out of all 3 men only one makes a shred of sense and it was annoying having to be jerked around acting like the other 2 options were viable for as long as the story did. Yet another reason why I disliked Vasalie. If it was this obvious to me as the reader, why did it take her 400 pages to get the picture
- a lot of this story felt really predictable, and you could tell where the "twists" were going before they were revealed. The issue is that we spent more time on the obvious stuff and no time at all on the actual interesting stuff like the MAGIC IN THE FANTASY. There is a whole subplot about cheating death and the magic behind that but it gets explained in like 5 pages at the end of the story which makes no sense. There are a lot of magical things in this story that get 0 screentime which sort of seems opposite of the point when reading a fantasy.
Like I said, this book was conflicting for me. I felt like the pacing was off. We spent too much time on unnecessary stuff. With that said, I actually did enjoy it, and I will be tuning in for the sequel lol
First of all, my expectations were ALL wrong going into this. Calling this a fantasy romantasy feels like a stretch. It's not really as magical as you'd expect which could be fine, but the romance is also like the C plot and within that it's convoluted. So the main marketing for this book missed both marks for the crowd it's aiming for. But like I said, I did enjoy the story and it was well written AND a debut? These days, and i hate to say it (not really), but debuts have been slop so I'm happy this one was actually good lol.
What I liked:
- the scheming political main plot. I liked that almost everyone had ulterior motives and it was up to us to figure out wtf was going on
- Anton. He was probably the only likeable character in the story for me lol
What I didn't like:
- Vasalie, the fmc. Considering how many plots she was involved in, she was not nearly smart enough. I didn't understand or agree with most of her choices which is crazy when you're supposed to be rooting for her to come out on top. She did the silliest stuff, trusted EVERYONE even though she claimed she wouldn't like, cmon girl. It was so easy to see who the super evil people were in this story but for some reason she took them all at face value and believed the stuff they said. What's not clicking sister?
- the dancing. Couldn't care less. She was supposedly disabled from being in prison but she was also still a great dancer? Which would be fine except the book spends a lot of time telling you that she actually can't dance that well anymore due to the disability that disappears after the plot gets moving. So which is it? The dance scenes were also hard for me to visualize which I recognize is a me problem, but it made it even harder to care.
- the sad attempt at a love square. There were 3 will-they-wont-they love interests in this and it makes no sense the deeper into the book you get. Like, out of all 3 men only one makes a shred of sense and it was annoying having to be jerked around acting like the other 2 options were viable for as long as the story did. Yet another reason why I disliked Vasalie. If it was this obvious to me as the reader, why did it take her 400 pages to get the picture
- a lot of this story felt really predictable, and you could tell where the "twists" were going before they were revealed. The issue is that we spent more time on the obvious stuff and no time at all on the actual interesting stuff like the MAGIC IN THE FANTASY. There is a whole subplot about cheating death and the magic behind that but it gets explained in like 5 pages at the end of the story which makes no sense. There are a lot of magical things in this story that get 0 screentime which sort of seems opposite of the point when reading a fantasy.
Like I said, this book was conflicting for me. I felt like the pacing was off. We spent too much time on unnecessary stuff. With that said, I actually did enjoy it, and I will be tuning in for the sequel lol
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
mysterious
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Ich brauche das nächste Buch...ich kann nicht mehr 6/5⭐️
I had a very difficult time reading from the point of view of such a passive narrator. So much intrigue is going on, and she is at the center of it, yet she somehow knows almost nothing and does not care to find out until a bit past the 50% mark.
I think I dislike Vasalie because she reminds me of an early 2000s heroine, where she doesn't have to do anything or be interesting in any way for everyone to love her and want to help her. In fact, she is actively a bad person and still people want to help her. I do think it's important to recognize that you don't have to have value or even be good to be valuable, and I think that's the message the author wanted to hammer home, but it felt almost unrealistic how frustrating Vasalie was at times.
As someone with a chronic illness I really appreciate the representation in fantasy, and we need more of that, I think this main character's personality just was not my cup of tea. I did like Anton and several side characters (also the Brisendale princess was serving, idc that she's a villain, I would read a book about her).
I think I dislike Vasalie because she reminds me of an early 2000s heroine, where she doesn't have to do anything or be interesting in any way for everyone to love her and want to help her. In fact, she is actively a bad person and still people want to help her. I do think it's important to recognize that you don't have to have value or even be good to be valuable, and I think that's the message the author wanted to hammer home, but it felt almost unrealistic how frustrating Vasalie was at times.
As someone with a chronic illness I really appreciate the representation in fantasy, and we need more of that, I think this main character's personality just was not my cup of tea. I did like Anton and several side characters (also the Brisendale princess was serving, idc that she's a villain, I would read a book about her).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic relationship, Violence, Death of parent, Gaslighting
Minor: Vomit
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes