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saranh3 's review for:
The Broken Elf King
by Leia Stone
Have you ever enjoyed something that you *knew* wasn’t very good? That is me with this series. I found this series during a respite I took from another book that was irritating me. Which might have helped me enjoy it more than I would have coming to it at another time.
There is a DEFINITE formula from the author for this entire series. Which becomes more and more apparent as you read each book. I actually decided to wait to write my review until after I had finished the 3rd/started the 4th book. But prior to the 4th book, I actually wrapped up the other book that I was running away from, and became more considered of my reading of these upon reflection. These books are definitely worse when you think about them, so I don't recommend that, at all. Which is how this list came to be. This is for all 4 books, together. But anything I want to say specific to each individual entry will be listed below ‘the list’. (All reviews for this series should be considered rounded down to a 2.5.)
1) Each FMC has a dependent family member (or 2, in some cases) that is used against them, to make them do things they otherwise wouldn’t.
2) Each FMC is held prisoner at some point. At least once.
3) The author appears to have a complicated history with alcohol, based on the way they write about it. There is at least one odd interaction about alcohol in every book. Books 2 and 3 especially. 1 and 4 only begin to stand out when you look at the whole.
4) There are laws and/or traditions in each respective ‘country’ that severely thwart the FMC at some point. And must be changed.
5) The FMC, in EVERY SINGLE BOOK is driven by duty to the point where they do things they shouldn’t/don’t want to that are big costly things.
6) There are big injustices done to the FMC in every single book. Unforgivable things. That they forgive anyway. The worst one about this, was in #3. She literally forgives the person who wronged her before she even leaves the room. Absolutely not.
7) Each FMC either has super special/rare, unexpected magic which is extremely strong, or is an extremely strong specimen of the expected magic in their region. They are all tippy top tier of “special”.
8) Almost nobody is effectively visually described. The only real exception being the FMC from book #3.
9) Child/teenage summer camp comes up a surprising number of times.
10) The third act is literally the author making things up for why a happily ever after can’t happen and throwing them at the characters for a quarter of the book. New information things. Not things the reader is going to know about in advance. So it often just feels bad to read about at that stage.
11) If you want spice, it isn’t really in ANY of these books. Kissing + bare outlines only. Just so you know upfront. In fact, all of the books have some purity culture elements. Even the 4th one, where it feels especially at odds with that land and circumstance.
12) ¾ books have rescue missions in them (and the one that doesn’t, still has a mission section, just not a rescue). It gets to the point where you just think of it as ‘the rescue section of the book’. Very repetitive methods on the author’s part. This literally feels so repetitive by the time you make your way through the series, that the 4th iteration of it, in the final book, made me just want to skim the rest of the way. Just to wrap it up officially but not give it that much time. I was really *tired* of ‘missions’ by that point.
13) Also worth mentioning that in EVERY SINGLE BOOK IN THE SERIES there is, at a minimum, discussion of one of the two members of *the* book’s romantic couple at least talking about sleeping with other people after they have come together as a couple. Trigger warning for how far (without consent) things go for the FMC in books 3 and 4. The good spice and the bad spice are not really covered in any detail, but still a bit traumatizing for some people at just the idea of non-consensual… events.
This one had the most realistic relationship build between the FMC and MMC of all the books. But when the author calls the King "Broken" in the title... yeah, that checks out. This one might be the best one, but that cursed 'throw everything at the couple not being able to be together after all section' that happens in all the books, and goes too far in EVERY SINGLE ONE affects this book too. Seriously, how do the FMCs forgive all this stuff that is done to them?
There is a DEFINITE formula from the author for this entire series. Which becomes more and more apparent as you read each book. I actually decided to wait to write my review until after I had finished the 3rd/started the 4th book. But prior to the 4th book, I actually wrapped up the other book that I was running away from, and became more considered of my reading of these upon reflection. These books are definitely worse when you think about them, so I don't recommend that, at all. Which is how this list came to be. This is for all 4 books, together. But anything I want to say specific to each individual entry will be listed below ‘the list’. (All reviews for this series should be considered rounded down to a 2.5.)
1) Each FMC has a dependent family member (or 2, in some cases) that is used against them, to make them do things they otherwise wouldn’t.
2) Each FMC is held prisoner at some point. At least once.
3) The author appears to have a complicated history with alcohol, based on the way they write about it. There is at least one odd interaction about alcohol in every book. Books 2 and 3 especially. 1 and 4 only begin to stand out when you look at the whole.
4) There are laws and/or traditions in each respective ‘country’ that severely thwart the FMC at some point. And must be changed.
5) The FMC, in EVERY SINGLE BOOK is driven by duty to the point where they do things they shouldn’t/don’t want to that are big costly things.
6) There are big injustices done to the FMC in every single book. Unforgivable things. That they forgive anyway. The worst one about this, was in #3. She literally forgives the person who wronged her before she even leaves the room. Absolutely not.
7) Each FMC either has super special/rare, unexpected magic which is extremely strong, or is an extremely strong specimen of the expected magic in their region. They are all tippy top tier of “special”.
8) Almost nobody is effectively visually described. The only real exception being the FMC from book #3.
9) Child/teenage summer camp comes up a surprising number of times.
10) The third act is literally the author making things up for why a happily ever after can’t happen and throwing them at the characters for a quarter of the book. New information things. Not things the reader is going to know about in advance. So it often just feels bad to read about at that stage.
11) If you want spice, it isn’t really in ANY of these books. Kissing + bare outlines only. Just so you know upfront. In fact, all of the books have some purity culture elements. Even the 4th one, where it feels especially at odds with that land and circumstance.
12) ¾ books have rescue missions in them (and the one that doesn’t, still has a mission section, just not a rescue). It gets to the point where you just think of it as ‘the rescue section of the book’. Very repetitive methods on the author’s part. This literally feels so repetitive by the time you make your way through the series, that the 4th iteration of it, in the final book, made me just want to skim the rest of the way. Just to wrap it up officially but not give it that much time. I was really *tired* of ‘missions’ by that point.
13) Also worth mentioning that in EVERY SINGLE BOOK IN THE SERIES there is, at a minimum, discussion of one of the two members of *the* book’s romantic couple at least talking about sleeping with other people after they have come together as a couple. Trigger warning for how far (without consent) things go for the FMC in books 3 and 4. The good spice and the bad spice are not really covered in any detail, but still a bit traumatizing for some people at just the idea of non-consensual… events.
This one had the most realistic relationship build between the FMC and MMC of all the books. But when the author calls the King "Broken" in the title... yeah, that checks out. This one might be the best one, but that cursed 'throw everything at the couple not being able to be together after all section' that happens in all the books, and goes too far in EVERY SINGLE ONE affects this book too. Seriously, how do the FMCs forgive all this stuff that is done to them?