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A review by laurenbrennan
Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
tense
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
4.0
I think this book had a lot of pieces that were missing for me, compared to Divine Rivals. There were parts of it that moved me to tears, and as expected with this author, the world and relationship building within the book were very well done.
I think the fact that we were already clued in to what the war was about helped me enjoy this book a lot more, and I think it had more exciting moments throughout the story that kept the pace up. However, I still feel that the overall pace of the book felt a little too slow for my taste. I’m honestly not sure why these books continue to feel this way for me, because there were plenty of exciting elements, as I just mentioned.
A couple more specifics:
I was literally groaning internally every time Iris and Roman kept something on their person that they shouldn’t have. Like I get that you’re in love, and all of your correspondences and gifts/whatnot have sentimental value to them, but SURELY not enough to risk the fate of the entirety of your civilization. You are far too intelligent to be doing this, and especially SO frequently.
I did love all of the little pockets of the story that were astonishingly exciting. It did have a LOT of “keep you on the edge of your seat” moments; I won’t go into detail on all of them as to not spoil some of the craziest parts of the book!
The. Plot. Twists. I am always a SUCKER for a good plot twist, AND I consider myself hard to fool (usually/very frequently guessing plot twists really early into the story and failing to get surprised by them), but I was caught off-guard by pretty much every plot twist this story had to offer. I was pretty delighted by that, although I’d probably have preferred a little more “shock and awe” when each of them come to light. Similar to some of the moments in DR, I wished there had been more of a reaction/conversation about some of these bigger revelations.
Overall, I preferred this book to DR, and there were tons of moments to fall in love with.
I think the fact that we were already clued in to what the war was about helped me enjoy this book a lot more, and I think it had more exciting moments throughout the story that kept the pace up. However, I still feel that the overall pace of the book felt a little too slow for my taste. I’m honestly not sure why these books continue to feel this way for me, because there were plenty of exciting elements, as I just mentioned.
A couple more specifics:
I was literally groaning internally every time Iris and Roman kept something on their person that they shouldn’t have. Like I get that you’re in love, and all of your correspondences and gifts/whatnot have sentimental value to them, but SURELY not enough to risk the fate of the entirety of your civilization. You are far too intelligent to be doing this, and especially SO frequently.
I did love all of the little pockets of the story that were astonishingly exciting. It did have a LOT of “keep you on the edge of your seat” moments; I won’t go into detail on all of them as to not spoil some of the craziest parts of the book!
The. Plot. Twists. I am always a SUCKER for a good plot twist, AND I consider myself hard to fool (usually/very frequently guessing plot twists really early into the story and failing to get surprised by them), but I was caught off-guard by pretty much every plot twist this story had to offer. I was pretty delighted by that, although I’d probably have preferred a little more “shock and awe” when each of them come to light. Similar to some of the moments in DR, I wished there had been more of a reaction/conversation about some of these bigger revelations.
Overall, I preferred this book to DR, and there were tons of moments to fall in love with.