hailslynn's reviews
233 reviews

OH MY GOD THAT ENDING WAS DIABOLICAL.

This was so fun and it hit all the marks for me. It wasn't groundbreaking in any means, but it's well crafted and enjoyable. Don't be fooled by the comparison to The Cruel Prince for all my Jude and Cardan fans out there though, as it is warranted but not in the way I hoped for. I did find it to be quite a breath of fresh air when it comes to recent romantasy releases.

I wasn't the biggest fan of our main character, Ivy, not because she's inherently bad or not a good character but because her sense of self almost gets lost once we enter the main plot of the book. Her main concern and driving motivation at the beginning is the well-being of her sister who disappeared from polite society for 2 weeks only to mysteriously reappear with no recollection of what happened. As the story progresses, she starts to have some intense disdain for her sister, which is 1000% warranted IMO, but it just feels wrong due to Ivy's personality.

Definitely worth checking out if you enjoy Belladonna, One Dark Window, and 2010's era YA fantasies like Caraval, The Selection, and The Infernal Devices.

The Golden Raven by Nora Sakavic

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Yeah Nora personally reached into my ribcage, ripped out my heart with a vice like grip, threw it in an incinerator, and then made a sandcastle with its ashes.

I love fundamentally flawed and tragic characters, and unfortunately I happened to find a series full of them where they all happen to be queer. And I especially love when they get to heal from their trauma and grow despite their flaws.

Nora's writing has drastically improved since the original trilogy, and it's terrifying.

I love these books so much god damn it.

The Will of the Many by James Islington

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Most of the reviews I've seen for this book say that they (ie the reader) feels like they're stupid while reading this. I don't think it necessarily made me feel stupid (except for like one part where there was math being explained), but it did often leave me confused enough that I had to reread several times to fully grasp what was happening. The world building is INSANE, so it's less my inability to understand and more "wait did I read that right?" and 9/10 I did but rereading the passage made it a more concrete concept.

There's very little that I think James does wrong in this book. IT'S JUST THAT WELL DONE. It has some of the best plot writing and character complexity I've seen in a while, and it's genuinely shocking that it hasn't won more awards. The plot twists were also fucking CRAZY, it had me physically reacting as I read them which I almost never do.

My score reductions mainly come down to 2 things: pacing (boring) and plot armor (BORING!!!). The pacing in all honesty is not that bad, but until you get to around the 1/3 to half way point, it kind of struggles to keep you interested in what's happening. I'm referring to it as the most boring training arc ever. It's not AWFUL but there's a reason I started two other books while trying to get through that section. And the plot armor HELLO??? I don't want to spoil anything but that man passed out so frequently in the last part I want him to get tested for POTS (joking ofc, there were reasons he wanted to take a quick nap).

Definitely worth the hype it gets, and I'll be desperately waiting for book 2 because the ending had me gagged speechless.

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced