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A review by babblingandbooks
The Phoenix King by Aparna Verma
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
This book was... Perfectly fine. The romance was iffy, but the world building and characters were interesting. The writing was okay, it's very easy to read and get into. I might have even scored this book slightly higher, except for how annoyingly misleading the promo is, particularly from the author. "Indian-inspired fantasy" barely describes this book at all, and it is certainly not "enemies to lovers". I would describe The Phoenix King as "Indian-inspired Dune fanfic".
And here's where we get to my real issue with this book: it takes SO MUCH from Frank Herbert's Dune, while giving it none of the credit. No really, I made a running list of similarities between Dune and The Phoenix King. It's a lot. I felt like a conspiracy theorist ranting to my friends about how many things were straight up taken from Dune. And I haven't found any other reviews talking about this!
If the author had advertised Dune as a major inspiration for their work, I would have gone into this book feeling very differently. As it stands, I feel like I was falsely advertised a story that I did not get, and the one I did get was average at best.
If you like Dune, you might like this. Like I said, it was fine. Rant over.
And here's where we get to my real issue with this book: it takes SO MUCH from Frank Herbert's Dune, while giving it none of the credit. No really, I made a running list of similarities between Dune and The Phoenix King. It's a lot. I felt like a conspiracy theorist ranting to my friends about how many things were straight up taken from Dune. And I haven't found any other reviews talking about this!
If the author had advertised Dune as a major inspiration for their work, I would have gone into this book feeling very differently. As it stands, I feel like I was falsely advertised a story that I did not get, and the one I did get was average at best.
If you like Dune, you might like this. Like I said, it was fine. Rant over.