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A review by kayanoelle
Fall of Ruin and Wrath by Jennifer L. Armentrout
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I love this book!!
Calista is a great protagonist! She asks the right amount of questions (*cough* Poppy) and I feel like her character is very realistic. She’s brave and sometimes even bold when her intuition tells her to be but she has a sense of self-preservation, too (which I loved).
Thorne as a love interest is… something. I LOVE him. At the beginning, I was a little put off by his bluntness and how he just decided things but after finding out how other Hyhborn behave, he seemed mellow in comparison lol. Anyway, I enjoyed how he actually listened to Calista and tried to respect her wishes after she explained why it’s so important to her. And I genuinely just love men who simp for their love interests👀
The story was perfectly balanced in my opinion, it was heavy on the romance especially in the middle (which I liked though) whereas the beginning explored the characters & world and the last third focused on the plot. Also, we didn’t get a lot of info dumping concerning the world building which is something that bothers me in FBAA, especially the Crown of Gilded Bones and the War of Two Queens. Instead, it was incorporated into the story in a way that made it seem natural but we still get all of the information we need in order to understand the world.
I also feel like the world building isn’t too complex and there’s things that are revealed throughout the book or still unclear at the end (in a good way).
I liked the writing style, it was very easy to read and had a flow to it that made it hard to stop. I also noticed that there weren’t any typos as opposed to some of her other novels, so that’s an improvement.
Every scene that JLA included felt necessary and that also added to the flow of the story. None of the conversations or scenes were too long or seemed forced which made this really fun and I was never bored while reading. We got the perfect amount of information about the characters, their relationships and the world while simultaneously leaving enough room to elaborate in the sequel.
One minor thing that bothered me was that I found two inconsistencies within the storytelling.
1) At the beginning of one chapter, Lis said that several weeks had passed since she saw Thorne in the garden but then when she went to see Claude, she referred back to his “earlier outburst” which to me sounded like the outburst happened on the same day (because why would she still be referencing it as “earlier” if it had been several weeks ago?)
2) When Thorne asked Lis to sleep in his bed, she said that she’d only ever shared a bed with Grady but later in the story (when she was looking for Claude in his chambers before the attack) she talked about a memory of hers in that chamber where she woke up with Claude and they had breakfast in bed??
Apart from that, I loved this book and I can’t wait for the second one! I wouldn’t say the ending was a terrible cliffhanger but I wouldn’t mind having the next book in my hands right now:)
Calista is a great protagonist! She asks the right amount of questions (*cough* Poppy) and I feel like her character is very realistic. She’s brave and sometimes even bold when her intuition tells her to be but she has a sense of self-preservation, too (which I loved).
Thorne as a love interest is… something. I LOVE him. At the beginning, I was a little put off by his bluntness and how he just decided things but after finding out how other Hyhborn behave, he seemed mellow in comparison lol. Anyway, I enjoyed how he actually listened to Calista and tried to respect her wishes after she explained why it’s so important to her. And I genuinely just love men who simp for their love interests👀
The story was perfectly balanced in my opinion, it was heavy on the romance especially in the middle (which I liked though) whereas the beginning explored the characters & world and the last third focused on the plot. Also, we didn’t get a lot of info dumping concerning the world building which is something that bothers me in FBAA, especially the Crown of Gilded Bones and the War of Two Queens. Instead, it was incorporated into the story in a way that made it seem natural but we still get all of the information we need in order to understand the world.
I also feel like the world building isn’t too complex and there’s things that are revealed throughout the book or still unclear at the end (in a good way).
I liked the writing style, it was very easy to read and had a flow to it that made it hard to stop. I also noticed that there weren’t any typos as opposed to some of her other novels, so that’s an improvement.
Every scene that JLA included felt necessary and that also added to the flow of the story. None of the conversations or scenes were too long or seemed forced which made this really fun and I was never bored while reading. We got the perfect amount of information about the characters, their relationships and the world while simultaneously leaving enough room to elaborate in the sequel.
One minor thing that bothered me was that I found two inconsistencies within the storytelling.
1) At the beginning of one chapter, Lis said that several weeks had passed since she saw Thorne in the garden but then when she went to see Claude, she referred back to his “earlier outburst” which to me sounded like the outburst happened on the same day (because why would she still be referencing it as “earlier” if it had been several weeks ago?)
2) When Thorne asked Lis to sleep in his bed, she said that she’d only ever shared a bed with Grady but later in the story (when she was looking for Claude in his chambers before the attack) she talked about a memory of hers in that chamber where she woke up with Claude and they had breakfast in bed??
Apart from that, I loved this book and I can’t wait for the second one! I wouldn’t say the ending was a terrible cliffhanger but I wouldn’t mind having the next book in my hands right now:)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Murder, Sexual content, Blood, and Death
Moderate: Vomit
Minor: Violence