novelheartbeat 's review for:

Roseblood by A.G. Howard

3.0

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2.5/5

I have very mixed feelings about this book. It's definitely not Howard's best work. (Stain is FANTASTIC, read that instead.)

I loved the premise and setting - I've never read a Phantom of the Opera retelling, and don't see many of them to begin with. Howard's take on incubus/succubus lore was really cool! I also loved Rune's song and abilities and how they worked.

However, the romance utterly ruined it for me. The soulmate trope has to be done a certain way for me to enjoy it and this one just did not work for me. It was too instalovey and cheesy for me. I found myself rolling my eyes and zoning out in those parts. The "twin flame" (two halves of one soul) idea was interesting but the execution was not my cup of tea.

I also found some of the interactions and dialogue to be kind of juvenile and awkward. I don't have examples because I'm terrible about bookmarking audiobooks - I usually listen at work when my hands are busy so going back to find certain passages is difficult. I don't know if I'm just getting too old for high-school-esque interactions or what, but it just felt kind of shallow. I'm not a super huge fan of the boarding school trope anyway. I did love RoseBlood Academy itself and how it was dark and atmospheric!

The characters fell flat for me, too. I did really like Sunny but she was the only one I cared about. It didn't help either that the narration was kind of meh - I did like the French accents, though.

I'm so sad that I didn't love this one.


This review was originally posted on Novel Heartbeat. To see a breakdown of my assessment, please visit the full review here.