A review by noellelovesbooks
Violet Made of Thorns by Gina Chen

dark mysterious fast-paced

3.75

 

I received an ARC of this book, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.


Content Warnings: Death, self-harm, blood, gore, murder, racism, child abuse, violence, and some sexual scenes.


After reading the summary of this book, on Netgalley, I knew I wanted to dive in. I’m a sucker for fantasy novels that follow someone who’s labeled morally gray.


We meet Violet, the Kingdom seer, who works closely with the King to ensure peace and prosperity for their land. Everyone trusts her divination except for the crown Prince who’s determined to prevent her from continuing as Seer once he’s crowned King.


Since Violet was brought to the castle, when they were children, Prince Cyrus and her have fought loudly, and openly, for all to witness. Both stubborn they refuse to see eye to eye or find common ground. So when the King instructs Violet to grow close to Cyrus to ensure he believes her divination of meeting his true love, Violet’s at a bit of a loss.


I was fully invested, from the very start, and ended up reading this book in one day, practically in one sitting. The beginning and middle were strong and had me invested in Violet, her powers, and her potential friendship with Cyrus. I did find myself struggling to stay immersed the closer we got to the end though. The development of a tentative trust between Violet and Cyrus was shown throughout the book but the ending had it feeling a bit rushed, like one minute there was trust then immediately none, and then back to trust. I wish a little more time would have been spent on the ending for the back and forth to make more sense to me. This could honestly just be a me issue but I just felt like it didn’t line up with what all we’d learned previously.


The way the story ended has me hopeful that there will be another book. If this is a standalone I’d be sad, as I felt it didn’t tie up everything it should have. On either Goodreads or Storygraph, I saw something saying it was book one in an untitled duology so I’m hopeful that we’ll get another book. 

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