A review by viselik
These Hollow Vows by Lexi Ryan

emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

At first, I just thought this book was boring and predictable but then it just started to get worse and worse. The book only gets good in the last 30-ish %, but I still had numerous issues with this book.

Please look up content warnings for this book, it deals with some pretty dark topics and the version I had did not have any content warnings in it.

1) There is no content warning and this NEEDED to have one.
  •  There is a fucking
    concentration camp
    in it and there was no warning about it before we find out about it. We find out about it in Chapter 15.
  • Emotional manipulation is a super big thing in this book, there is no warning about that.
    •  
      Like the entire character of Ronan/Sebastian should have had a content warning
       

2) 
The whole plot twist about Sebastian actually being the prince is just so bloody predictable if you have read romances before. He's written like a love interest for crying out loud.
 
  •  
    Once we learned that Prince Ronan was missing I instantly knew that Sebastian was Ronan. It was too obvious to me after we had it stated that Sebastian was going away the night after the first day of the ball.
     

3) The naming system of this world. Characters and the land.
  • We had the Seelie lands, the Unseelie lands and the Wild Fae lands... This just felt too basic for me.
  • Then there are the characters. 
  • Let's start with the main character's nickname, Brie. That is a cheese, a rather smelly cheese. I may or may not have just started calling her cheese girl.
  • The two love interests! We have Ronan/Sebastian and... Finnian. I was left slightly disappointed by these.
    • Finnian's uncle is called Mordred or something like that and his father was called Oberon. I expected more considering the name of the people around them.
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