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A review by peachylauren
A Song of Silver and Gold by Melissa Karibian
2.0
i am so sad. i wanted to love this book. based on the blurb and everything i had heard about it, it would be right up my alley!! my absolute favorite niche is fantasy lesbian enemies to lovers, but this ended up being suchhhh a letdown :(
my first issue is the characterization. aqeara and kae just feel sooooo flat and one-dimensional (also tiny nitpicky comment but kaeyln is such a name that a mormon mom would name her baby in 2019 and felt out of place in a fantasy novel alsdhfjsdf). kae's personality is "hunt sirens" and aqeara's personality is ....something? i guess try to kill kae? but she doesn't seem motivated in doing that at all? they also had absolutely no chemistry. they had barely any interaction and then all of a sudden they were in love. it's hard to call it instalove when it comes like 85% of the way through the book, but it really did feel like that.
that brings me to my other main issue: there was absolutely no tension in this book. there was no tension in the 'buildup' of kae and aqeara's relationship, and there was absolutely no tension in any of the plot. the plot itself was pretty weak, which i could forgive if the characters were more complex, but you could really feel how thin it was. conflict was introduced and resolved in a single chapter MULTIPLE times!! it's also kind of the epitome of telling instead of showing. the prose was incredibly simple and just didn't do anything to bring you into the story.
overall, this really was just not what i was expecting. i love a good easy romance novel, but you need the plot or the characters (or both!!) to be strong enough to carry the book...and this just didn't. i'm not like...morally opposed to this book, go ahead and pick it up if you'd like, it just didn't end up being the story for me.
my first issue is the characterization. aqeara and kae just feel sooooo flat and one-dimensional (also tiny nitpicky comment but kaeyln is such a name that a mormon mom would name her baby in 2019 and felt out of place in a fantasy novel alsdhfjsdf). kae's personality is "hunt sirens" and aqeara's personality is ....something? i guess try to kill kae? but she doesn't seem motivated in doing that at all? they also had absolutely no chemistry. they had barely any interaction and then all of a sudden they were in love. it's hard to call it instalove when it comes like 85% of the way through the book, but it really did feel like that.
that brings me to my other main issue: there was absolutely no tension in this book. there was no tension in the 'buildup' of kae and aqeara's relationship, and there was absolutely no tension in any of the plot. the plot itself was pretty weak, which i could forgive if the characters were more complex, but you could really feel how thin it was. conflict was introduced and resolved in a single chapter MULTIPLE times!! it's also kind of the epitome of telling instead of showing. the prose was incredibly simple and just didn't do anything to bring you into the story.
overall, this really was just not what i was expecting. i love a good easy romance novel, but you need the plot or the characters (or both!!) to be strong enough to carry the book...and this just didn't. i'm not like...morally opposed to this book, go ahead and pick it up if you'd like, it just didn't end up being the story for me.