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rwxtd 's review for:
A Cruel and Fated Light
by Ashley Shuttleworth
Writing this review on my phone, because my laptop has not been cooperating recently, and also I fully read this book like three months ago, so. This should be fun!
It was, much like the first one, just such a fun time reading this book. I think this series scratches the same itch as like, sparkly rocks and rainbow colors- it’s another shiny thing to put in my magpie nest of a brain. There’s so much going on, always, at all times, and really the only thing I can do is just turn my brain off and go along for the ride and it’s great.
That being said: this book does get pretty dark at parts, and it addresses some pretty serious themes. I was glad there were content/trigger warnings at the beginning, and would recommend taking a look at those if that’s a concern.
This book has a lot of like, political intrigue and machinations and that kind of thing. The first book ends at like, “This Is The Beginning Of Something Big”, whereas this ends with a huge cliffhanger and “The Wheels Are Set In Motion”. So it’s sort of a different feel. A *lot* of this book is also interpersonal relationship drama, which I personally enjoyed immensely.
We get to see Celadon POV in this one- amazing!!! Wonderful!!! 10/10!!! I love him dearly and I’m genuinely so excited that we got to see more of him in this. He’s protective and headstrong and clever and lonely and dammit I just love him so much. I’m pretty sure he’s gonna get paired off with someone at some point in this series, I just have no idea who. Could go a few directions. But that’s just my theory.
Nausicaä and Arlo do a lot of questing around, Arlo learns about her powers from Luck and Nausicaä is forced to confront her trauma regarding her sister. Their arcs both involve a lot of personal struggle and growth and relying on each other to help them through that. There’s also a lot of flirting and generally it’s very cute and sweet.
Our other main romance subplot is…complicated. For a few reasons, mostly boiling down to “these boys are jealous, madly in love, very horny, and incapable of having an actual conversation for some reason”. Basically Celadon and Vehan’s friend/probably-future-husband Theo are both spending the summer with Aurelian and Vehan, which means there are four very pretty and very gay boys all in the same place hanging out together and literally all of them have ulterior motives. Some plot stuff happens, but I mostly just loved the drama. Neither Vehan nor Aurelian can go five minutes without pining over the other one and it’s so funny to me. They’re useless gay dumbasses and I love them so much.
We also get a little bit of Riadne POV in the form of flashbacks of her life. It’s not current POV, but it was I guess useful to get her backstory. I didn’t care about it all that much, and I didn’t really enjoy reading those sections as much, but I get why they were necessary. I also kept getting annoyed at Arlo for continuing to support Riadne despite all evidence to the contrary. I just don’t like Riadne much, although I suppose that is the point.
We love a shiny magpie book. We love political intrigue and relationship drama and wild rollercoasters. We love writing reviews of books we read months ago (hahaha it’s fine it’s fine I’m fine).
Even if there were some parts I didn’t care about as much I still had an absolute blast reading this, like the first one, I texted my friend constant updates the whole time even though she hasn’t read these books (thanks Lizzie I appreciate it) and I’m excited for book three!
It was, much like the first one, just such a fun time reading this book. I think this series scratches the same itch as like, sparkly rocks and rainbow colors- it’s another shiny thing to put in my magpie nest of a brain. There’s so much going on, always, at all times, and really the only thing I can do is just turn my brain off and go along for the ride and it’s great.
That being said: this book does get pretty dark at parts, and it addresses some pretty serious themes. I was glad there were content/trigger warnings at the beginning, and would recommend taking a look at those if that’s a concern.
This book has a lot of like, political intrigue and machinations and that kind of thing. The first book ends at like, “This Is The Beginning Of Something Big”, whereas this ends with a huge cliffhanger and “The Wheels Are Set In Motion”. So it’s sort of a different feel. A *lot* of this book is also interpersonal relationship drama, which I personally enjoyed immensely.
We get to see Celadon POV in this one- amazing!!! Wonderful!!! 10/10!!! I love him dearly and I’m genuinely so excited that we got to see more of him in this. He’s protective and headstrong and clever and lonely and dammit I just love him so much. I’m pretty sure he’s gonna get paired off with someone at some point in this series, I just have no idea who. Could go a few directions. But that’s just my theory.
Nausicaä and Arlo do a lot of questing around, Arlo learns about her powers from Luck and Nausicaä is forced to confront her trauma regarding her sister. Their arcs both involve a lot of personal struggle and growth and relying on each other to help them through that. There’s also a lot of flirting and generally it’s very cute and sweet.
Our other main romance subplot is…complicated. For a few reasons, mostly boiling down to “these boys are jealous, madly in love, very horny, and incapable of having an actual conversation for some reason”. Basically Celadon and Vehan’s friend/probably-future-husband Theo are both spending the summer with Aurelian and Vehan, which means there are four very pretty and very gay boys all in the same place hanging out together and literally all of them have ulterior motives. Some plot stuff happens, but I mostly just loved the drama. Neither Vehan nor Aurelian can go five minutes without pining over the other one and it’s so funny to me. They’re useless gay dumbasses and I love them so much.
We also get a little bit of Riadne POV in the form of flashbacks of her life. It’s not current POV, but it was I guess useful to get her backstory. I didn’t care about it all that much, and I didn’t really enjoy reading those sections as much, but I get why they were necessary. I also kept getting annoyed at Arlo for continuing to support Riadne despite all evidence to the contrary. I just don’t like Riadne much, although I suppose that is the point.
We love a shiny magpie book. We love political intrigue and relationship drama and wild rollercoasters. We love writing reviews of books we read months ago (hahaha it’s fine it’s fine I’m fine).
Even if there were some parts I didn’t care about as much I still had an absolute blast reading this, like the first one, I texted my friend constant updates the whole time even though she hasn’t read these books (thanks Lizzie I appreciate it) and I’m excited for book three!