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A review by ashley_mrose530
Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Yarros relies heavily on pulling the emotional reactions from her readers and unfortunately falls short on good writing especially on the technical side of it.
She knows how to put her characters in situations that will make the reader want to cry or laugh, but when it comes to the more technical aspects of writing - imagery, exposition, world building - she gives it next to no thought. I barely know what anyone in these books looks like unless their physical description was part of the plot and the settings are even worse.
The world building is pretty convoluted. I had no idea that there were other countries outside of this main continent let alone that they don't have magic or some of them do I guess? (That was also never explained as to why some do and other don't) I would think this would be at least mentioned in one of the first two books in this series but no. And the exposition is always given to us in weird ways. The first book it was all Violet reciting it out loud and then this one I noticed everything important was actually put in those little parts in between the chapters? For example,I had no idea that parents would dedicate their children to a specific god or that it was outlawed until I read it in that little excerpt thing. And then it was clear that's what Violet's parents tried to do to her. But that really shouldn't have been put in a tiny excerpt in between two chapters. It should have at least been in the prose. (Now I didn't reread the first two books before this so it very well could have been mentioned before I land I just don't remember, but I somehow doubt it)
This book also just didn't have much going on in the way of plot. A majority of it was traveling around or waiting for things to happen. In this book they were mostly looking for Andarna's kin so I was prepared for a little bit of a slower moving plot because of that but I would have expected a higher payout after that wait but instead it was very lackluster.I would have been satisfied with the payout if Andarna had left and not been back by the end of the book! It would have been so much better if she had stayed away until close to the end of the series, hell, I would have even taken the end of the next book based on Yarros's penchant for cliffhangers, but the end of this one? That was just stupid and felt like what was even the point?
Anyway, I did still like the ending and the set up for everything. I did predict a lot of it and probably know how the whole series is going to go, but I did enjoy it still so I'll probably continue reading it, but this one was not the best in the series at all.
She knows how to put her characters in situations that will make the reader want to cry or laugh, but when it comes to the more technical aspects of writing - imagery, exposition, world building - she gives it next to no thought. I barely know what anyone in these books looks like unless their physical description was part of the plot and the settings are even worse.
The world building is pretty convoluted. I had no idea that there were other countries outside of this main continent let alone that they don't have magic or some of them do I guess? (That was also never explained as to why some do and other don't) I would think this would be at least mentioned in one of the first two books in this series but no. And the exposition is always given to us in weird ways. The first book it was all Violet reciting it out loud and then this one I noticed everything important was actually put in those little parts in between the chapters? For example,
This book also just didn't have much going on in the way of plot. A majority of it was traveling around or waiting for things to happen. In this book they were mostly looking for Andarna's kin so I was prepared for a little bit of a slower moving plot because of that but I would have expected a higher payout after that wait but instead it was very lackluster.
Anyway, I did still like the ending and the set up for everything. I did predict a lot of it and probably know how the whole series is going to go, but I did enjoy it still so I'll probably continue reading it, but this one was not the best in the series at all.