A review by bangiebangs
The Book of Azrael by Amber V. Nicole

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 4* 
- ends on cliffhanger (unfinished trilogy/series) 
- spice: 3/5 (only bc there were so few scenes, but those were excellent and worth the wait) 

This had been on my TBR for a while and I finally started reading it because an author I follow loved it. Have to admit, I almost DNF’d this because it took me forever to get into the story. Not sure why but for the first quarter I wasn’t sure I knew what was going on, or cared too much either. 

That said, once I got into it, boy was I into it! I knew this was an E2L story so I was excited to see how that would happen. But this isn’t even the best part (though that slow burn, hmmmm delicious!), I thought the world-building was just excellent. I still don’t totally get how one world “fell” into another or what happened to that first world exactly (it seems to still exist? Or is that another planet?) but it seems to make sense most of the time. I just think of it as continents, basically. 

I really liked that the villain here is the FMC, which is somewhat unusual. And if she is bad, you really dislike her – she is not just a little villainous for show, she is a mass murderer. It does make sense that some of the other characters are not exactly willing to overlook that. If you’re a Nesta fan, you’ll probably like Dianna, though. 

I think in places the antagonism and self-hate may have been a little overdone, but overall, it worked. The MMC also has his fair share of self-loathing to carry, and we get a good view into depression and recovery from different points of view, and different kinds of depression. I thought that was done really well. 

Other than that, you get the usual fantasy bodies that are flat and muscled and whatnot with the endless thick shlong you expect (getting a tad tired of this, ngl, just give me a realistic body every once in a while, not this “hulking guy plus petite woman” porn-ish thing), and if I read “you need to be ready” and “he fed me his dick inch by inch until finally seated fully blah blah never felt so full” I might abandon ship. 

So tl;dr, the book picked up significantly in the second half for me, and I immediately started reading the next one. The cliffhanger was only bearable bc book 2 is already out, but otherwise I would have been in pain. Best wait until the next (last?) one is out if an unfinished series is not your flavor of masochism ;)

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