A review by opalmars
Dauntless by Elisa A. Bonnin

adventurous slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

 

I don’t know what to say about this book. 🫤 The story is really good, *on paper*. We’re following Eshai (a legendary beast killer) and Seri (a girl who killed her best friend after he got possessed by a beast – something that no one would believe happened). These 2 end up meeting and teaming up to kill beasts who recently started behaving and strategizing like humans. They go to the capital city to let people know what’s been happening with the beasts. There, Seri meets (and falls for) Tsana, who is revealed to be part of an outsider group that can control the beasts that are attacking the People. Seri is then torn between saving her people, or joining Tsana and her group (who, turns out, knows things about Seri’s family).

It sounds SO interesting!!!! Genuinely! But, for some reason, it just didn’t work for me. 😭💔 This book never managed to grab my attention or keep me invested, unfortunately. It took me daaaays to even reach the 25% mark – the first time the book managed to catch my attention; and, even then, I lost interest really quickly.

This is the type of book that, even though I didn’t care about, I could still actually recommend. Like, YES, I was bored reading this, but I can’t actually pinpoint exactly anything BAD about this book. Even the things that I didn’t like weren’t *enough* for me to be THIS bored while reading this book. I genuinely DO NOT KNOW what happened for me to not like this book more. 😅


Things I liked:

➤ The setting!!!!! A high fantasy story that takes place on a tropical rainforest, with tree-top societies, is SO UNIQUE! The setting was definitely my favourite part of this book! I also enjoyed the magic system (where valiants kill beasts and use their remains to forge armor and weapons specifically tailored to them). Very interesting.

➤ As I mentioned, the story is really interesting, on paper. I genuinely found the plot interesting, I just didn’t get invested, for some reason.


Things I didn’t care about:

➤ The romance. Eshai and her childhood friend Lavit’s relationship was kind of interesting, but I never really cared about it. The main romance was just boring to me. Seri and Tsana start liking each other really fast. They knew each other for just a couple of days and Seri was already really intent on finding and protecting Tsana (who, as far as Seri knew, was part of a group that commands beasts and murders Seri’s People). Their bond didn’t make any sense to me; they barely knew each other! 🫥

➤ The characters were fine, but I think I’ll forget about them quickly. Perhaps if I had cared more about the other aspects of the story I would’ve cared more about the characters, too.

➤ As I already said, while the story was overall interesting, I never managed to get invested in it. So I didn’t care that much about the characters, or the romance, or the plot. To me, this was just a book I read. 😐