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A review by secty
The North Wind by Alexandria Warwick
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
I’m not normally one to go for retellings but I enjoy the story of <i>Beauty and the Beast</i> and <i>Hades and Persephone</i> so I thought I’d pick this one up. Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this in exchange for an honest review.
The main characters in this story, Wren and Boreas, are interesting yet at the same time a little 2-dimensional. I didn’t really believe in their love story and I didn’t really… feel much emotion for either of them. There wasn’t a moment where I was edge-of-my-seat flipping the proverbial pages to find out what happened next and I really didn’t care for their wellbeing. If anything, I found Wren to be too stubborn for my liking… which is a rare phenomenon when it comes to what I like in my heroines. Too many times I thought “for Pete’s sake, here we go again”.
Boreas was more pleasurable to read about, more up my ally in terms of misunderstood bad guy who is really good. He was well done and I enjoyed the language used to describe him.
This book deals with some dark themes. I thought the discourse around alcoholism in particular was well done. This is a sensitive topic for many and I appreciate it can be hard to do well. It was understated yet present enough, so I applaud Alexandria for this.
Overall I didn’t love it, the characters are my strongest draw to a book and I was disappointed about that but the plot was engaging and I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys retellings of the stories I have already referred to.
The main characters in this story, Wren and Boreas, are interesting yet at the same time a little 2-dimensional. I didn’t really believe in their love story and I didn’t really… feel much emotion for either of them. There wasn’t a moment where I was edge-of-my-seat flipping the proverbial pages to find out what happened next and I really didn’t care for their wellbeing. If anything, I found Wren to be too stubborn for my liking… which is a rare phenomenon when it comes to what I like in my heroines. Too many times I thought “for Pete’s sake, here we go again”.
Boreas was more pleasurable to read about, more up my ally in terms of misunderstood bad guy who is really good. He was well done and I enjoyed the language used to describe him.
This book deals with some dark themes. I thought the discourse around alcoholism in particular was well done. This is a sensitive topic for many and I appreciate it can be hard to do well. It was understated yet present enough, so I applaud Alexandria for this.
Overall I didn’t love it, the characters are my strongest draw to a book and I was disappointed about that but the plot was engaging and I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys retellings of the stories I have already referred to.