I'm such a sucker for fairy tales and this hit all the right spots for me!
The romance was a little predictable but enjoyably so. I could tell who wasI'm such a sucker for fairy tales and this hit all the right spots for me!
The romance was a little predictable but enjoyably so. I could tell who was paired off with each other but I enjoyed watching them slowly fall for each other. (p.s. there's an enemy to lovers trope that is delectable!!) As this is targeted for YA audiences, the romance doesn't get any more heated than a kiss, which feels appropriate story-wise too.
The writing was great and I have no complaints. The pacing felt a little slow at first, but my interest increased immensely as I got further in. Each of the characters were interesting to learn about and I really liked them by the end. The ending was so good, I hope this author writes a sequel! According to the beginning, it is based on Slavic folklore, which I knew nothing about until I started reading this. The trigger warnings and pronunciation guide were also handy and I appreciated them.
This book was so fun to read! I need to pick up a copy as soon as this comes out!
* Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for an advanced copy!...more
slow burns need subtlety and romcoms need humor. and this has neither.
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full disclosure, i bought this because the cover art was pretty. and i regretslow burns need subtlety and romcoms need humor. and this has neither.
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full disclosure, i bought this because the cover art was pretty. and i regret that.
this book is best read as a skim read. taking your time and reading every line will only bring confusion and/or frustration. people repeat phrases that were said seconds ago in the name of "humor" or "sarcasm" but it just reads as that person being weird or dumb.
there is little to no subtlety, which is absolutely crucial for slowburn romances. everything is blunt or forcefed and you can tell where the author was like "ah but i need to further the plot and every step needs to push the story along."
honestly this would have been a better story if a more skilled writer made this and that feels very mean to say. the characters, though annoying, had SO MUCH potential and the author messed it up by their blunt and forceful writing.
everyone says "oh its arthur and merlin if the writers werent worried about backlash." not really true. there's not much resemblance between the two and even if there was, the writing ruined that
not an enjoyable read. i only finished it (after months of putting it off) with the foolish hope that it would get better. there was only two good scenes (like ten pages total) overall.
not worth it. save your time and money for a different book....more
4.5 // i really liked it!! the writing was spectacular and i loved the narration style. the characertisics of the main cast feel very realistic and fa4.5 // i really liked it!! the writing was spectacular and i loved the narration style. the characertisics of the main cast feel very realistic and fair. quite entertaining...more
full rtc, but thought it was generally a good read, except for the confusing mess the last few chapters were. major trigger 4 - Intense but Intriguing
full rtc, but thought it was generally a good read, except for the confusing mess the last few chapters were. major trigger warnings!!! mixed feelings but I liked how the characters knew they made choices and weren't really romanticized...more
After 63 days of using Daily Pass, I finally have finished this series! It was tedious, but I am broke and can’3.75 - A blend of funny and mysterious!
After 63 days of using Daily Pass, I finally have finished this series! It was tedious, but I am broke and can’t use Fast Pass.
I don’t like Shena. That type of personality typically gets on my nerves, but hers was even worse than expected! She was so clingy, territorial, and violent. One benefit was that she really did care about Anna and so she was there for her.
Jay was one of my favorite characters. I’m glad they let him show weakness but also strength too. You need a balance of that in order to make an interesting character, and the author did such a good job with this.
The ending was a cliffhanger, which was one of the worst ways to end the series. If you are going to end a series, you have to get a good ending that wraps up everything or you’re gonna get upset fans.
The story was quite confusing. Sometimes the pace was fast while other times it was dragging on about pretty meaningless or annoying things (yes, I’m talking about Shena). We did get some good backstory, but only in the climax, which was only 5 episodes long. I wish the lore was more evenly spread out in the story. ...more
I’m loving this book. Throughout reading this I had a maniac grin on my face since nearly everything A fabulous fantasy world centered around dragons!
I’m loving this book. Throughout reading this I had a maniac grin on my face since nearly everything was so engaging. I expected to find another YA fantasy book that was just run of the mill. Those books are fine and I do like them, but this was not it. I would compare this story and prose to Shannon Hale’s Princess Academy instead of Kiera Cass’s The Selection. The beginning did have a similar idea to Cass’s Selection but it was carried out in a much more different way.
The pacing was decent. I did feel the beginning was much more slower than the climax. The story is centered around the characters, so I feel like this impacted the pacing the most.
This has historical accuracy and I’m going to cry. It was used in the book logically and was correctly placed. I am so impressed! Also, thanks author for not tightening Lena down to a size 0 waist size with the corset.
My two favorite scenes are the ceremony bowing scene followed by the garden honesty scene.
The characters were the most important part of the story. • The main character Lena was lit. She actually learned skills and learned more about herself. Her relationship with others seemed fairly natural. I found her personality to be almost perfectly balanced. • Tristan was fabulous. My biggest complaint with his character is that he was too perfect. I kind of wanted to see him fail, to be honest. He was too amazing. He’s such a good book boyfriend tho! I’m torn!! • The father and mother are the best supporters of Lena and its fabulous. Lena learned quite a lot from both of them and I’m glad she was able to grow past their mistakes. I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I didn’t see the mother a lot. I’ll have to reread to make sure. • I really liked the handmaidens because they were shown well and they had realistic personalities.
I did find some downsides to this book, though, hence the docking of a partial star.
The biggest was the lack of information about things not relevant to the plot or scene. Every scene is important to either character development or plot development, so everything included is important. It doesn’t include anything else to throw you off and make other guesses. Of course, there are plot twists included that I found witty. It wasn’t missing those at all. I would say it’s like a Youtube video with just a plain green screen and no filters used. It’s GOOD, yes. It was just missing that last element.
This book was very black and white good and evil. You could ask me who was the main bad guys and I would easily be able to point out the people. It could have been improved on this aspect too.
The final downside was the VERY spoilery summary included. I already knew to expect Tristan thanks to that, so I couldn’t really root on Lena with her other relationships before him.
I really enjoyed this!! I’m going to have to get a few copies for me and my friends. They’re going to love it! Thanks NetGalley and the publisher Melissa Ricketts Paperback for the ARC!!...more
The prose overall made the story hard to get into. I had to be reading for at least 5 minutes to understand what wasYour average YA fae fantasy book.
The prose overall made the story hard to get into. I had to be reading for at least 5 minutes to understand what was happening and why. Her phrasing was quite confusing at times. - Here’s a prime example of a strange pairing of words, “His eyes creased into a gentle smile.” That doesn’t sound right. I get what she was trying to say, but um picturing that makes me uncomfortable! - Also, sometimes the dialogue was really old fashioned and in other places it was super modern. I understand that the author had been in Germany for 15 years, according to her “About the author” section. I have translated sentences from German into English so I do understand the struggle of making the translation sound modern enough. But I’m not sure which language she originally wrote this in. - Sadly enough, I could not picture where any of the characters were at in any given spot. The dialogue helped clue me in, thankfully. One of the points where this could have improved would be the worldbuilding. I’m not sure that a Fae world would have mainly English speakers. Maybe Latin, but English?? That’s one detail that I had to chuckle at. - Thankfully, this is in only one perspective. I think that made this story better. It didn’t try to get into any other characters’ heads and struggle through it. It worked out quite nicely in that aspect.
I really didn’t like the characters. They had their good points, but the little quirks detracted from them.
Let’s talk about Dana, our main character. - She’s a Fan Princess, which she’s known for a while. I thought that aspect was pretty cool! A lot of the time in fantasy books, the main character has to take a while to realize who they are. That quirk I appreciated. - Since she was raised in a castle she was privileged. (Her words, not mine.) Whenever the author reminded us of it, it was done in a way that annoyed me. - Oh, but don’t worry. She’s not totally privileged though, since she can do “menial chores.” Nice try, but you didn’t quite convince me. - There are other quirks that I’ve found in stereotypical YA fantasy badass girls (loves reading, being a lover of horses, blushing randomly/for no reason). That’s okay. I didn’t really mind them all that much in this one since this didn’t try to push them onto me. - I don’t blame Thomas for not trusting her, though. Some of the choices Dana makes is really shady. (one prime example being making and breaking a promise to her father) - She’s independent and this comes through in an impressive way sometimes but other times it’s just irritating.
Poor Thomas was just a side character, though. - He wasn’t even included in the book’s climax or resolution. He just seemed to be a traveling partner she happened to have a crush on. - His characteristics: hot, ripped, tragic backstory and near her age. - He just checked off all the stereotypical “love interest” boxes. I appreciate it, I suppose, but he wasn’t that interesting. - I did really appreciate that they allowed him a few moments of weakness. - To spice things up, he was a “shifter” who changed into a werewolf. That point didn’t really impact this book’s plot at all. I thought that was super disappointing. I have my hopes up that the second book will have some Thomas influence, though.
Dana’s friendship/relationship with Thomas is quite strange. They met up, decided to travel together, and become friends. In the beginning of the story it’s like we’re just seeing bits and pieces of their friendship!
Gradually their friendship strengthens and one day Dana realizes that she has a crush on Thomas. - Oh no! The world is ending! She’s obviously having a mental breakdown! That is how it was portrayed, which aggravated me to no end. We can have girl power and romance in the same book! Powerful girls are allowed to fall in love naturally! It’s no mental anomaly. - Sometimes it was the opposite side of the spectrum, though. Whenever Thomas just touched her arm to get her attention she blushed. I didn’t enjoy this side but since it see it so often I’m just used to it.
Also! TW: torture and multiple kidnappings. I’m not sure why those two things were added. Maybe just to make sure that this is a YA fantasy. The torture and 2nd kidnapping of Thomas acted and seemed like it was just a plot device so they can show Dana saving him.
If you’re looking forward to a stereotypical YA fantasy book with girl power, this is it. Even though it doesn't seem like it, I did enjoy reading through this even through my grievances. If I had seen this amazing book cover at the library, I would have probably checked it out to give it a read through....more
You know you’re having difficulties with a story when you read literally any book but that one. After avoiding this like the plague foDNF @ page 100.
You know you’re having difficulties with a story when you read literally any book but that one. After avoiding this like the plague for a week or so, I finally have decided to stop reading this.
This would have been much better as either a graphic novel or the Netflix show. It was not suited for book format.
The characters WERE interesting and was the reason why I tried to push through this. I wasn’t a big fan of either the prose or the story. - The prose felt like a second draft. I’ve Beta-read novels anywhere from initial rough drafts to near final drafts, and this fell on the earlier end of the spectrum. - The story was the reason why I picked up this book. I had faith in the story all the way up until I lost motivation to read this.
I really didn’t like the illustrations. From what I can tell from the other reviews on this book, the artist was originally a comic book artist who did work on a Batman series. Great! The illustrations were not done very well. I thought the inking style was unique but only looked good on the cover. The colored pictures were weird. I don’t like this style since it seems very amateur. ...more
This was pretty fun. It followed Disney’s animated and live action Beauty and the Beast renditions pretty closely. It also alternated perspectiv3.75 -
This was pretty fun. It followed Disney’s animated and live action Beauty and the Beast renditions pretty closely. It also alternated perspectives between four characters occasionally.
Overall, it read like a decent fanfic. I’ll give it points for some original ideas but there’s some things that I didn’t enjoy. It flowed well and it was written decently. The targeted age group is younger than me but some of the content is not for some people.
This one could potentially be totally ignorable. Belle and the Beast suddenly became best friends. They’ve known each other for, what, 48 hours? And they’re chatting as if they’ve known each other for at least a year. It’s strange.
The descriptions and comparisons sometimes confused me. They were a little much. I personally don’t like these fluffy ways that raises up the author’s word count for the chapter, but others might.
Occasionally, the POV switching was confusing. Nothing too major.
It did drag in some places. The entire book is around 400 pages, so you’ve got to account for that. But I felt like the plot wasn’t evenly laid out.
The biggest problem I have is this open ending. It doesn’t wrap up enough! It’s sweet, for sure, but I want to see Belle’s reaction to the Beast’s human form. That’s half of the fun of reading “Beauty and the Beast” retellings!!
*****end of spoilers****
Fun and enjoyable with some darker twists. ...more
I have to say, I’m sort of disappointed at the way Maas wrote this.
I had read the first book a couple months before and hadn’t bothered to put a holdI have to say, I’m sort of disappointed at the way Maas wrote this.
I had read the first book a couple months before and hadn’t bothered to put a hold on this book right after finishing the first. When I picked this one up, I had completely forgotten the entire premise of the first and even the main character’s name (it’s Feyre btw. It’s strange how similar it is to “Fae” but what can you do. ...more
This was a complicated book. It didn’t really have a happily ever after. The resolution was very “meh” and not the best I’ve read.
The story was3.5 -
This was a complicated book. It didn’t really have a happily ever after. The resolution was very “meh” and not the best I’ve read.
The story was good. It didn’t make me think about it afterwards like other books I’ve read in this same genre, which is disappointing. It’s very similar to other books about rebellions and magic and girls being epic who also seduces men and etc. If you’re a fan of those tropes, this probably will be for you!
I honestly hated and still kinda do hate the MC. She is so selfish and manipulative. Arghhh.
The only thing that I appreciated a ton and found original was the sadness and depression of one character after a certain sequence of events happened. It seemed real but brushed over.
Meh. Good but there were a lot of eye rolls.
**** Spoiler **** Look at these sentences, “I see bits and pieces of my mother staring back at me, but twisted with hate and fury... I’m not sorry for it. I am angry. I am hungry.” (Page 344) Hungry... for what? Food? That’s what I thought when it said hungry. What a weird word choice. **** End of spoiler ****...more