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fayesmovinglibrary 's review for:
Dark Rise
by C. S. Pacat
dark
tense
medium-paced
⭐️⭐️⭐️.75; the first half of this book was solid 5⭐️ vibes for me, but the second half did drop my rating a decent bit.
Positives:
- I absolutely adored this world and concept. The lore all felt heavily Arthurian x Dragon Age x The Last Unicorn and I was so impressed by the dark fantasy-core writing in a YA novel
- heaaaaaaaaaaavily Invested in the Will & James dynamic and that’s kind of the core thing that makes me want to read book 2
- I really love Violet as well
Negatives:
- the second half of this book kind of fell apart for me in a lot of ways. The worldbuilding became really clunky and rushed and discombobulating, and a lot of the character dynamics also felt quite random, forced, confusing, and hard to follow.
- at times this book remind me heaaaaavily of Cassandra Clares Shadowhunters books (specifically The Infernal Devices/The Last Hours) & it made me side eye a little.
*SPOILERS GOING FORWARD*
I think i definitely will read the next one & will possibly like it even more than the first? (Time will tell). Unrelated side note, I kind of hated knowing the main trope of this series, that trope being that this series is a villain origin story, because it made the book feel suuuuuuper predictable. The plot twists I think could have been a lot more shocking and raw for me if I had gone into this book not knowing that detail.
Positives:
- I absolutely adored this world and concept. The lore all felt heavily Arthurian x Dragon Age x The Last Unicorn and I was so impressed by the dark fantasy-core writing in a YA novel
- heaaaaaaaaaaavily Invested in the Will & James dynamic and that’s kind of the core thing that makes me want to read book 2
- I really love Violet as well
Negatives:
- the second half of this book kind of fell apart for me in a lot of ways. The worldbuilding became really clunky and rushed and discombobulating, and a lot of the character dynamics also felt quite random, forced, confusing, and hard to follow.
- at times this book remind me heaaaaavily of Cassandra Clares Shadowhunters books (specifically The Infernal Devices/The Last Hours) & it made me side eye a little.
*SPOILERS GOING FORWARD*
I think i definitely will read the next one & will possibly like it even more than the first? (Time will tell). Unrelated side note, I kind of hated knowing the main trope of this series, that trope being that this series is a villain origin story, because it made the book feel suuuuuuper predictable. The plot twists I think could have been a lot more shocking and raw for me if I had gone into this book not knowing that detail.