A review by comebymoonlight
The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon

adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I'm not going to lie, I only bought this book because the edges of the pages were all purple and had moons down the side and I thought it was so pretty. Definitionally judging a book by its cover.

This is an enemies-to-lovers story and it is very tropey. The light vs. dark theme was laid out from the start, but there's also a

super special magical power that nobody else has, a surprise long-lost princess, an arranged marriage, every physical fight the main characters get into pre-romance immediately devolves into them rolling around in a totally not sexual way, and my absolute least favorite "we got so mad at each other we ended up making out"

. Both the main characters are inexplicably obsessed with each other long before they have any reason to be, which I guess is going for a sort of love-at-first-sight(-but-not-yet-because-we-hate-each-other) thing, but I found it irritating. And by far my biggest criticism of the book is that Talasyn's traumatic past seems to only affect her when it's convenient for the plot.

All that said... I immediately bought the sequel upon finishing this one and I'm excited to read it, so I can't pretend I didn't enjoy it. The world building was fun, both the magic system and the politics, and the romance may not be ground-breaking but it's exactly what I wanted it to be. It's a cheesy, obvious, slow-burn romance and it's not pretending to be anything else. Just make a conscious decision not to take it too seriously, and it's great.