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opalmars 's review for:
Nightstrider
by Sophia Slade
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
2+ years in my tbr, and it should’ve stayed there…
Listen…… this book wasn’t terrible, it was simply underwhelming, to me. Everyone talks about how epic this is, but most of the book felt like setup. I just kept waiting for something interesting to happen.
There are 2 parallel worlds: the normal-world and the dream-world. In the dream-world live creatures that are basically manifestations of the dreams/nightmares of people from the normal-world, which is a really interesting concept!
In this story, there’s an Evil Guy ™ who wants to rule both of these worlds, and he plans on doing so with the help of a super powerful child. Our 4 MCs all oppose this Evil Guy ™:
➤ Wren – works for Evil Guy ™, but he mistreated her and she wants revenge. She either wins fights super easily or gets super injured and needs to be rescued. No in-between.
➤ Alaric – used to work for Evil Guy ™ but is now with the rebels.
➤ Ila – is the adoptive sister of the child Evil Guy ™ wants to use, so she wants to save the child + free her country from Evil Guy ™’s army.
➤ Caine – son of the Evil Guy ™, and although he dislikes his daddy, he’s mostly just following Ila around without a clear motivation.
The characters themselves were alright (except for Caine – he was kinda boring and I wish he’d been evil, cuz then at least he’d have some ~flavour~). Their relationships, however, left a lot to be desired. Caine and Ila were boring as hell. Wren and Alaric were kind of interesting. However, in both of these cases, I just didn’t understand why they liked each other. They simply fell in love in like, 2 days, and I didn’t buy any of that. And, mind you, 1 person in each couple was in a relationship with somebody else (I can kind of give Wren a pass bc her relationship seemed a bit on-and-off, but Ila was fully in LOVE with her partner since they were teens!!).
We’d just get vague descriptions of how 1 person is attractive and the other one feels their pulse rising / gets aroused looking at them, and that’s it. 😐😐😐 There was literally nothing interesting in these romances.
Also, idk why this book is tagged as lesbian. This isn’t a lesbian book. There’s a wlw sex scene at the beginning between Wren and a SC we barely even see, and that’s it. I mean, Wren is very much bi, so this book is still queer, but to tag this as a **lesbian book** when none of the MCs is a lesbian + the relationships between the MCs are all m/f is just… incorrect, methinks. 🫤
Now, regarding the plot: I found this story painfully basic. It took sooooo long for anything interesting to even start happening! It was just the MCs coming together and walking/riding. Some small things would happen here and there, I guess, but nothing that substantial or intriguing. It felt like side-quests. 🫤 When cool stuff actually started happening, it was all so predictable that it wasn’t even enjoyable to read. I don’t even mind a predictable plot! The problem is that this entire book felt like buildup for a really underwhelming ending, which means that it truly just gave me *nothing*. It wasn’t even a fun journey to go on, you know?
And sometimes, when we’d get (potentially) cool scenes, they’d be written in the weirdest way????? Like, at some point Wren and Alaric go through a bruuuutal fight — there were literally DOZENS of bodies piled around them, and they were drenched in blood and gore! — and yet the fight scene was literally just 1 page 😭💀………… Like??????????? I just spent 200 pages seeing these characters basically go on a long walk, and when I finally get some action, it’s basically OFF-PAGE?? I just have to *believe* that it was really cool and epic and brutal?? JUST LET ME SEE ITTTTTTT!!!!!!! 😭😭😭😭😭 Did the author just not want to write the action scenes?
Idk man, but I was BORED reading this!!! It seems like a good setup for book 2, and this wasn’t even a terrible book, but I ain’t touching the sequel.
Listen…… this book wasn’t terrible, it was simply underwhelming, to me. Everyone talks about how epic this is, but most of the book felt like setup. I just kept waiting for something interesting to happen.
There are 2 parallel worlds: the normal-world and the dream-world. In the dream-world live creatures that are basically manifestations of the dreams/nightmares of people from the normal-world, which is a really interesting concept!
In this story, there’s an Evil Guy ™ who wants to rule both of these worlds, and he plans on doing so with the help of a super powerful child. Our 4 MCs all oppose this Evil Guy ™:
➤ Wren – works for Evil Guy ™, but he mistreated her and she wants revenge. She either wins fights super easily or gets super injured and needs to be rescued. No in-between.
➤ Alaric – used to work for Evil Guy ™ but is now with the rebels.
➤ Ila – is the adoptive sister of the child Evil Guy ™ wants to use, so she wants to save the child + free her country from Evil Guy ™’s army.
➤ Caine – son of the Evil Guy ™, and although he dislikes his daddy, he’s mostly just following Ila around without a clear motivation.
The characters themselves were alright (except for Caine – he was kinda boring and I wish he’d been evil, cuz then at least he’d have some ~flavour~). Their relationships, however, left a lot to be desired. Caine and Ila were boring as hell. Wren and Alaric were kind of interesting. However, in both of these cases, I just didn’t understand why they liked each other. They simply fell in love in like, 2 days, and I didn’t buy any of that. And, mind you, 1 person in each couple was in a relationship with somebody else (I can kind of give Wren a pass bc her relationship seemed a bit on-and-off, but Ila was fully in LOVE with her partner since they were teens!!).
We’d just get vague descriptions of how 1 person is attractive and the other one feels their pulse rising / gets aroused looking at them, and that’s it. 😐😐😐 There was literally nothing interesting in these romances.
Also, idk why this book is tagged as lesbian. This isn’t a lesbian book. There’s a wlw sex scene at the beginning between Wren and a SC we barely even see, and that’s it. I mean, Wren is very much bi, so this book is still queer, but to tag this as a **lesbian book** when none of the MCs is a lesbian + the relationships between the MCs are all m/f is just… incorrect, methinks. 🫤
Now, regarding the plot: I found this story painfully basic. It took sooooo long for anything interesting to even start happening! It was just the MCs coming together and walking/riding. Some small things would happen here and there, I guess, but nothing that substantial or intriguing. It felt like side-quests. 🫤 When cool stuff actually started happening, it was all so predictable that it wasn’t even enjoyable to read. I don’t even mind a predictable plot! The problem is that this entire book felt like buildup for a really underwhelming ending, which means that it truly just gave me *nothing*. It wasn’t even a fun journey to go on, you know?
And sometimes, when we’d get (potentially) cool scenes, they’d be written in the weirdest way????? Like, at some point Wren and Alaric go through a bruuuutal fight — there were literally DOZENS of bodies piled around them, and they were drenched in blood and gore! — and yet the fight scene was literally just 1 page 😭💀………… Like??????????? I just spent 200 pages seeing these characters basically go on a long walk, and when I finally get some action, it’s basically OFF-PAGE?? I just have to *believe* that it was really cool and epic and brutal?? JUST LET ME SEE ITTTTTTT!!!!!!! 😭😭😭😭😭 Did the author just not want to write the action scenes?
Idk man, but I was BORED reading this!!! It seems like a good setup for book 2, and this wasn’t even a terrible book, but I ain’t touching the sequel.