A review by maddylee19
Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

this book made me fucking mad. what the fuck. all THREE couples were instalove/insta-attraction, with seemingly no reasoning behind the attraction besides “her thighs” “her dress.” hypersexuality to the point where the characters didn’t even seem to know each other. completely fucked up pacing with extremely fast bits and other parts where they were just “hanging out.” it felt stilted. backstories thrown in there for the sake of it. so much showing and not telling, and an extremely juvenile writing tone. so much casual sexism. i understand that it’s “a part of the world-building,” but i really think it was executed badly. “she’s strong for a girl…” are we fucking twelve? the two main female characters are an assassin who sexualizes herself to kill and is indentured to male royalty, and the other one is “bubbly as a mask.” such classic female roles. i want to see a female brawler. give her a fucking axe. this shit put me into a reading slump. fuck that. the ending also felt like a cop out.