lilsquishy97 's review for:

Gods of the Wyrdwood by R.J. Barker

3.5

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Overall, I walk away from this book feeling good about it, but it was a bit of an uphill battle. I struggled with pacing for most of the book, until the last third of it which I ate up in one sitting. What it does well is give us an interesting world with a lot of thought, detail, and intrigue, the action scenes are great, and the finale is very well executed. What it does less well is that the worldbuilding is often delivered in a way that leads to confusion, and I found some of the characters were a bit flat and almost frustrating at times, I did not find myself loving them like I normally would. I do think the sequel has a lot of potential from what I am seeing, so I hope I like the next one a bit more.

3 for being OK overall, +0.5 for a compelling finale