Review by bellascheider - Heartless Hunter

bellascheider 's review for:

Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli

2.0

dark tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

To begin, getting into this book was like pulling teeth for me. Immediately I felt as if the writing itself was semi-juvenile. The internal monologues felt repetitive, the information was laid out in a fairly unoriginal and uncreative manner, and it was really difficult for me to get past that.

Second, the way the story unfolded didn’t make any sense. At least, in terms of the relationship between Rune and Gideon. As I’ve seen others say, their continual distaste and eventual hatred towards each other felt very forced and irrational.

They both felt in love, but it was so easy for them to commit acts of ultimate betrayal? I kept thinking that perhaps Gideon wasn’t actually as cold hearted as he was letting on and maybe he would eventually save her from the purging? But no. He takes Rune directly to be purged. No second thoughts or much inner turmoil. Then, I kept thinking that at the end Rune would shoot Cressida before she got to shoot Gideon, but she didn’t , and Alex ended up stepping in front of her instead. The ending was beyond frustrating. There were other more feasible options for the ending that the author just blatantly ignored. I feel like she did it simply for the sake of there being a sequel. But I really can’t imagine the sequel being very good or captivating. I picked up this book to read a solid romantasy, where the plot focused on enemies to lovers. The only thing I can think that the sequel would be about is if the author went full high fantasy, and ignored the romance part that hooked so many readers. I really hate how things ended between Rune and Gideon, especially how Rune was so quick to choose Alex over him after she supposedly “fell in love.” Like I’m sorry, but if you’re in love, you don’t agree to marry that man’s brother, even if you think saying no would hurt him. Cause now what? Alex sacrificed himself without ever knowing how Rune was ever fully in love with Gideon? Without knowing the extent of their affairs? Everything about the progression of their relationship fell apart after their sexual encounter.

Then there’s the matter of Harrow. I hated this character. There is no way a character could be this flawless mystery solver, seeing past every little detail, without being of a higher rank or having a bigger part of the story. Harrow just felt like an easy and cheesy way for the author to consistently have Gideon figure everything out and keep the story going even when it didn’t make sense. After a while, I was kind of thinking that maybe Harrow had already known Rune was a witch and had her own nefarious motivations for wanting Gideon to discover it. I don’t know.

Overall, everything in this book just felt rushed, not well developed, and kinda fell flat of making an impression on me. The only reason I gave it the rating I did, was because I thought the storyline held promise and I initially thought the romance was headed in the right direction. Not excited to read the sequel, because I feel like it will be equally as disappointing.

Content Warnings