You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
sparksbooks 's review for:
Firebird
by Juliette Cross
Booktok and Bookstagram will probably die for this book.
I don’t tend to like to post negative reviews, but this one feels like it's necessary. I’ll start out with the good aspects of the story. The world building is pretty good and using Roman history as a starting point for a kingdom run by dragon shifters is fantastic. I absolutely loved that. I also really enjoyed Malina as a character, much more than the copy and paste stabby FMC that we see in a lot of romantasy stories. I enjoyed her much more than Feyre in ACOTAR.
However, the fact that Julianus is a powerful Roman general who buys Malina as a slave and then they fall in love with each other so quickly is just…terrible. As a plot line I cannot support this book. Especially when Julianus talks about how his dad fell in love with his mom, who was a slave and he immediately went and had her status changed so she would not be a slave. Yet, Julianus does not do this. I thought it was going to be foreshadowing for his own actions, but nope. He keeps her as a slave. Sure, there are other political factors at play, but the power dynamic was disgusting. Definitely not a book for me.
Thank you to the publisher for the eARC. All thoughts are my own.
I don’t tend to like to post negative reviews, but this one feels like it's necessary. I’ll start out with the good aspects of the story. The world building is pretty good and using Roman history as a starting point for a kingdom run by dragon shifters is fantastic. I absolutely loved that. I also really enjoyed Malina as a character, much more than the copy and paste stabby FMC that we see in a lot of romantasy stories. I enjoyed her much more than Feyre in ACOTAR.
However, the fact that Julianus is a powerful Roman general who buys Malina as a slave and then they fall in love with each other so quickly is just…terrible. As a plot line I cannot support this book. Especially when Julianus talks about how his dad fell in love with his mom, who was a slave and he immediately went and had her status changed so she would not be a slave. Yet, Julianus does not do this. I thought it was going to be foreshadowing for his own actions, but nope. He keeps her as a slave. Sure, there are other political factors at play, but the power dynamic was disgusting. Definitely not a book for me.
Thank you to the publisher for the eARC. All thoughts are my own.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Slavery