A review by sphynxreads
The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon

Did not finish book. Stopped at 28%.
DNF at 27%
DNF rating: 1

I feel bamboozled and flabbergasted by the amount of love this book has gotten both pre- and post-release. If I gain at least some wisdom from this, this will be the last time I will let myself be persuaded that I will like a book from pre-publication hype and from rave reviews of readers whose tastes I am not familiar with.

This is so poorly edited and poorly written. So much of the word count was unnecessary. The amount of run-on sentences, proper nouns, and adjectives that added to neither story nor worldbuilding was appalling. It tries so hard to be purple prose but fails because the story itself isn't strong. There is so much telling that I felt like I wasn't really given a chance to experience the worldbuilding organically. Every single detail is heavily described and detracts from the already uninteresting characters.

Maybe fanfic-style books just don't work for me. I also didn't like Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell for about the same reasons I don't like this book. The world-building feels self-indulgent, and there seems to be an expectation to be invested in the characters despite having barely any character work or development.