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A review by miyawakiss
On Wings of Blood by Briar Boleyn
Did not finish book. Stopped at 35%.
In theory, I should have liked this. Perhaps the author raised the bar by pulling names like Harry Potter, Fourth Wing, Zodiac Academy + Dramione romance. Perhaps it was the publishing company's decision. These claims are quite the stretch in my opinion, perhaps just to get people to give this book a try. It's one thing for a reviewer to state these claims, it's another coming from the official source. If you need such tactics, it may prove that this book isn't very good.
This is an academia setting with vampires. Blake is not remotely close to a Draco Malfoy besides being born blonde from a prominent family. He WISHES he could be Draco Malfoy, at least he would have some personality and redeeming qualities. Heads up: He's already betrothed to another girl. It was arranged but I hate OW drama even if it's not by his choice. And he does have a somewhat good relationship with her but she's also a bitch which makes the whole dynamic so annoying.
Then comes our main girl. The only time when Medra resembles Hermione is her immediate thought that humans are slaves to the vamps and that she needs to do more research. Speaking as a Harry Potter fan, I liked Hermione's character though I recognized that I would hate her irl and we wouldn't be friends but wow Medra is so much worse. She's a woke version of Hermione - constantly being snarky and sassy to everyone and acting like she's all that. I know it's the trend now to have "strong" FMCs because no one likes damsels in distress anymore but why would you act like this when you don't know what's going on, why you're here and what everyone is capable of? Medra wakes up on a pile of corpses and her first instinct is to start mouthing off and pissing off the people who found her like she isn't vulnerable and lost. She continues to keep doing this instead of pretending to be meek and gathering sympathy and allies and gain intelligence. I find her incredibly stupid for acting like a brat, she could have been smarter than this. Honestly, Hermione would have kept her mouth shut and bided her time. Normally I don't do this and compare books and characters like this but the author was asking to be compared by making such bold claims in the first place.
So far, the only redeeming parts of the book are the great side characters. Why can't the two main leads be more like them because the side characters like Florence and Naveen, and the professors are way more likeable and easy to root for. This showed that the author was capable of writing good characters but chose to make Medra and Blake annoying af - probably to push the enemies to lovers narrative but was that really necessary?
DNFing at 40% and about 200 pages in. The characters are too insufferable and stupid to drag myself through another 300 pages. I do want to see and experience the dragons but I don't have the patience to wait for Medra and Blake to be more mature and I doubt that they will improve.
This is an academia setting with vampires. Blake is not remotely close to a Draco Malfoy besides being born blonde from a prominent family. He WISHES he could be Draco Malfoy, at least he would have some personality and redeeming qualities. Heads up: He's already betrothed to another girl. It was arranged but I hate OW drama even if it's not by his choice. And he does have a somewhat good relationship with her but she's also a bitch which makes the whole dynamic so annoying.
Then comes our main girl. The only time when Medra resembles Hermione is her immediate thought that humans are slaves to the vamps and that she needs to do more research. Speaking as a Harry Potter fan, I liked Hermione's character though I recognized that I would hate her irl and we wouldn't be friends but wow Medra is so much worse. She's a woke version of Hermione - constantly being snarky and sassy to everyone and acting like she's all that. I know it's the trend now to have "strong" FMCs because no one likes damsels in distress anymore but why would you act like this when you don't know what's going on, why you're here and what everyone is capable of? Medra wakes up on a pile of corpses and her first instinct is to start mouthing off and pissing off the people who found her like she isn't vulnerable and lost. She continues to keep doing this instead of pretending to be meek and gathering sympathy and allies and gain intelligence. I find her incredibly stupid for acting like a brat, she could have been smarter than this. Honestly, Hermione would have kept her mouth shut and bided her time. Normally I don't do this and compare books and characters like this but the author was asking to be compared by making such bold claims in the first place.
So far, the only redeeming parts of the book are the great side characters. Why can't the two main leads be more like them because the side characters like Florence and Naveen, and the professors are way more likeable and easy to root for. This showed that the author was capable of writing good characters but chose to make Medra and Blake annoying af - probably to push the enemies to lovers narrative but was that really necessary?
DNFing at 40% and about 200 pages in. The characters are too insufferable and stupid to drag myself through another 300 pages. I do want to see and experience the dragons but I don't have the patience to wait for Medra and Blake to be more mature and I doubt that they will improve.