proseandpumpkins 's review for:

A Dance of Lies by Brittney Arena

4.5

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Things I loved:

• Anton
• The dancer concept
• Political/court intrigue for days
• The friends Vas makes
• The worldbuilding
• The slow burn romance

Things that I didn’t love:

• Slooooow beginning, super fast end (middle was perfect, though, and I still liked the end)
• The thing with
  Copelan
  was just unnecessary and distracting
• I don’t understand her father very much. I love that plot but I need more info. 
• Info-dumping in the beginning (contributed to the very slow pacing there)
• Vas has a disability and, while I appreciate that it contributed to how she danced and do NOT mind that she pushed through pain, it never actually seemed to have a truly negative effect. I love this strength in pushing through things (Ive got a disability and all to familiar with it), it’s okay to show that sometimes (or a lot of times) disabilities are real hindrance beyond what we feel internally/emotionally. You can show all the aspects of it.  I’m curious what happens in Book 2 if Vas is in the middle of a war. There’s a reason why soldiers (in the real world) don’t generally stay in if they get a disability: it’s a liability. Just saying!

I enjoyed this and absolutely WILL be reading book 2.