I think I just have grown out of the YA fantasy genre at this point to be honest. The world is really, really interesting and I loved the concept o2/5
I think I just have grown out of the YA fantasy genre at this point to be honest. The world is really, really interesting and I loved the concept of other born, but the characters were just so annoying. The lack of brain cells was so frustrating to read about. It was so annoying. The romance was really lack lustre (I mean - we’re made to think the guy has a girlfriend for 80% of the book. And you can fall in love with people who are dating other people, of course, but this was just here for unnecessary drama) and had no actual chemistry. The plot …. Well I could have told you how it’d turn out right away. YA books unfortunately tend to make characters fall into archetypes that make the villains super easy to detect. And I hoped they wouldn’t make my favourite characters the villains, but they did! All in all, it’s a meh book, but isn’t mind blowing....more
Thank you so much to the publisher and NetGalley for this e-ARC!
4/5
What The River Knows is an atmospheric YA historical fantasy, following our MC InezThank you so much to the publisher and NetGalley for this e-ARC!
4/5
What The River Knows is an atmospheric YA historical fantasy, following our MC Inez as she travels Egypt for answers concerning her parents death.
This is a very stereotypical YA novel; which isn’t to say that it’s bad - it just follows YA genre patterns. Our MC is a very solid character, but nothing about her particularly stood out to me. I will say she did not get one break in this book and I felt so bad for her. Bad things upon bad things kept happening to her and no one was honest with her at all, they literally played her a fool a million times. The plot is very linear, and there aren’t any stand out twists. The magic system is very soft and I found it to be a bit confusing because of how soft it was. I also feel like it was way to easy to do certain things plot wise, but that’s fine! The romance isn’t really anything special; I didn’t really like Wes. The setting of Egypt is quite vivid, and very well described. All in all it’s a solid YA fantasy book!...more
An intriguing start to a series, but definitely not anything special so far. Rose is a bit annoying to me, and I feel this book would have benefite3/5
An intriguing start to a series, but definitely not anything special so far. Rose is a bit annoying to me, and I feel this book would have benefited as a dual POV book between her and Lissa. Both romances lacked chemistry and the plot was very generic, but as this book is quite old I guess it’s expected.
That being said, there is enough intrigue in the world itself that has me wanting to continue the series!...more
This is a really solid YA fantasy book! That being said I found it to be a bit dragged out and slow at points. I also didn’t like the ending becaus4/5
This is a really solid YA fantasy book! That being said I found it to be a bit dragged out and slow at points. I also didn’t like the ending because how are you going to judge someone for doing something and the DO IT YOUR SELF ??? And still insist the other person is the ultimate bad guy?? Either way it was an enjoyable read, if not a bit frustrating ...more
I don’t want to be overly negative with this book, so I’ll lost what I loved first: - the world is very interesting and I loved how Holly expanded3.5/5
I don’t want to be overly negative with this book, so I’ll lost what I loved first: - the world is very interesting and I loved how Holly expanded it, added more lore, and showed us more places
That’s about it! This book, to me, was just… flat. It didn’t have any part that stood out to me. It wasn’t bad, it was boring. Dreadfully boring. Wren is a flat character that doesn’t have much development except for her 180 switch within the last 15 pages which doesn’t really count. Her POV is very self centred in the way where she focuses on her own struggles the most. Which isn’t bad, it just means I feel like we barely got to see the personalities of any of the other characters. Who even was oak??? I could tell you more about him based on Jude’s pov in TFOTA trilogy than this. The romance wasn’t a romance. It was wren’s abusive past making her search for love in every person she could associate a good memory with. Holly relied too heavily on the flashbacks to justify why they’d care about each other, despite the fact so much time has passed since then. The plot itself is very straightforward. A quest, nothing really happens other than that. Where as with The Cruel Prince; when you think that Jude becoming a knight is the main plot, Holly throws a curveball and adds so many layers to the story. This book wasn’t twisty. I missed the politics, the power plays, the strategies. This book has 20 pages where everything changes but it didn’t seem monumental to me. I don’t understand why wren feels so betrayed??? Like honestly I could care less about what was revealed at the end, but whatever. I don’t like her anyways. I hope the second book at least gives us some cameos (why is the only og person we see besides oak MADOC? Like come on now) to make it somewhat interesting because this was very average....more
Unfortunately this was not giving dark and scandalous vampires. It instead presented us with vampires who do complete 180 personality changes (I li3/5
Unfortunately this was not giving dark and scandalous vampires. It instead presented us with vampires who do complete 180 personality changes (I liked Michal more when he was an asshole at the beginning) and main characters who reach new levels of naïve and dumb (sorry Célie but what were you thinking??? Ever??). The plot is lacklustre and honestly kind of more based on vibes than intricacies. That being said, Shelby has the unique talent of writing books that are addictive and for the most part well written writing style wise. It wasn’t that good, but it wasn’t that bad either. ...more
Unfortunately, this book was a mess. I think my main issue with it is that it has a very odd writing style, that reads as very surface level. I str2/5
Unfortunately, this book was a mess. I think my main issue with it is that it has a very odd writing style, that reads as very surface level. I struggled in connecting with both of the MCs. I definitely liked Damien the most, I found Roz to be extremely annoying. The plot took far too long for my liking to develop, and I feel like the plot twists were quite obvious and typical of YA fantasies. The romance also fell flat. I wish we had gotten a true best friends to lovers to enemies to strangers to lovers romance as promised, but unfortunately, everything regarding the romantic arc was underdeveloped and had no real feeling or depth to it. I’m so sad I didn’t enjoy this, but the writing style and basic plot did not interest me at all....more
This series so far is better than PJO but it still maybe is a bit too MG for me. The writing is far better than in the lighting thief but the main 4/5
This series so far is better than PJO but it still maybe is a bit too MG for me. The writing is far better than in the lighting thief but the main issue here is that the plot drags on. It’s extremely interesting but I’m not sure how it managed to be over 500 pages. This book had a lot of repetitive scenes that really didn’t need to be included.
I liked Sadie and Carter equally as MC’s and enjoyed their POV’s about the same. Although the secondary characters never intrigued me much and the villains all felt very 2-D. I enjoyed Bast as my favourite character though! She was super funny and very well written. I hope we see more of her in the sequels.
The worldbuilding and all is obviously not something Rick came up with, since it’s all Egyptian mythology. I enjoyed most of the interpretations of stories and the personalities of the gods. The one thing that irked me was the way Cleopatra was represented as a foolish queen. She really was very iconic and deserved a better mention than that.
Overall it was a good book and I hope the sequels are as good :)...more
“We all have a choice right now. Are we girls or are we demons? Are we going to die or are we going to survive?”
Wow. This is definitely one 4.5/5
“We all have a choice right now. Are we girls or are we demons? Are we going to die or are we going to survive?”
Wow. This is definitely one of my favourite debut novels ever - right up there with Throne of Glass , Where Dreams Descend and Raybearer. This novel is bursting with life and so, soooo good.
I could gush about the world building for hours. It’s done so naturally with zero info dumping. It’s easy to understand and super well though out and realistic. The premise of this book is already super cool, and it pays off. Basically we are in a world where blood decides the purity of someone. Red blood indicates purity, gold blood indicating impurity. Those with gold blood are demons, descendants of The Gilded Ones, the four demons who created their world. Our main character, Deka, is horrified when she spills gold blood on the purification ceremony day, and is soon subjected to the Death Mandate- essentially where the gold blood people, called Alaki, are killed over and over again until their true death. Essentially all Alaki have one true death, all other deaths are false almost deaths, that they are able to come back from with the help of the gilded sleep.
Deka is forced to go through nine deaths before she is rescued by a woman she names White Hands, who takes her to the capital city to train to become part of the emperor’s army. She becomes close friends with another girl named Britta along the way.
The emphasis on friendship in this book is so amazing. The friendship between Deka and Britta is super heartwarming and sweet. The friends to lovers romance between Deka and Keita is also super perfect. They’re super sweet and fluffy together <3
All this time, I've been afraid of my ability, when instead I should have been regarding it as a treasured weapon.
The plot is good. I can’t say it’s the most shocking plot once ever read, because I predicted everything. That being said, it’s still very well thought out and I really enjoyed it. It’s fast paced and super easy to follow.
There is something really good about the writing. I can’t place my finger on why I loved it so much, but I did. It’s not lyrical or anything, it’s super factual 1st POV, but I loved it so much. It’s really vibrant with the perfect mix of description, inner thoughts, and dialogue.
“The physical body—it heals. The scars fade. But the memories are forever. Even when you forget, they remain inside, taunting you, resurfacing when you least expect.”
The characters are super amazing too. Deka is one of the best MCs in a debut I’ve ever read. She isn’t annoying, and has just a really cool personality. The other characters aren’t as well fleshed out, but they still have significant depth to them.
Overall this was an amazing debut, and I’m super excited to see how the sequels will be!
“No matter my origins, there is worth in what I am.”...more
This was a really good debut book! I really enjoyed the world as a whole and the phoenixes were super cool. My problems were found in 2-D charact3.5/5
This was a really good debut book! I really enjoyed the world as a whole and the phoenixes were super cool. My problems were found in 2-D characters and predictable plot twists. I may read the sequel, we’ll see. ...more
Hahah I sadly am pretty disappointed by this book, but I sort of expected that. This is a book that’s an urban fantasy that centers around 4 queer 3/5
Hahah I sadly am pretty disappointed by this book, but I sort of expected that. This is a book that’s an urban fantasy that centers around 4 queer teens and a murder mystery. Honestly I’m so sad that I didn’t enjoy this book as much as some of my other friends did.
I think I’ll start with the positives. The world is very cool. I like the general idea of it. That being said, the info dumps in this book killed me. Literally every chapter, even the last one, had some info dump on some part of the world. And I get Ashely probably wanted this world to be as detailed as possible, but there was too many things to keep track of. There’s seelie and unseelie beings, each represented by a different season. Then we have the more general groups of Fae, Faeries and Ironborn. We have also a gazillion different other creatures in this book. We have multiple gods and high beings, so many in fact I’m confused as to who actually is the main ruler of this world. We have a petty squabble over the bone crown when literally Luck is a literal being?? Luck?? Like seriously I couldn’t help but laugh at how dumb half the struggles seemed in this book in the grand scheme of things.
I really loved the writing style. It was very immersive. That being said, it was sometimes too detailed. There were overly long descriptions of rooms that I didn’t need, a general vibe is enough for me. I found myself skipping pages of my e-book because I didn’t need to know the specific colours of the tiles in the room the characters were in.
The characters were overly not my favourite. Our main character is Arlo, an Ironborn who seems determined to not be anything in life. Seriously this girl will spend pages talking about how she wants to have magic but when she realizes the responsibility and consequences that can come with magic, she suddenly is all ‘I don’t want magic or to be a hero’. I’m sorry I could care less for her.
Nausicaä, aka Nos, is an immortal, sarcastic lesbian that I slowly hated as the book continued. She starts off pretty likeable, with that badass vibe and attitude. She complains about ‘teenagers’ since she’s like 500 or something but she acts the most childish of any of them. She complains all the time and she overall is someone I would probably never be friends with. Her vibe is not my vibe.
Aurelian is just a bland character. The only thing I know about him is that he’s gay and also being threatened apparently. He has like 2 chapters in his POV across the entire book, so we don’t have much chance to get to know him anyways. He’s pretty boring.
Vehan is probably the only MC I didn’t dislike in this book. He’s a cinnamon roll (and if you didn’t know, my type is either a cinnamon roll, anti-hero, or super angsty boy but he’s actually just a sad cinnamon roll) so he gets points for that. He has a small amount of POV’s which is sad because he’s the least annoying.
The best character in this book is ofc Celadon, who doesn’t get nearly enough page time.
I think this book is so slow. Super slow. Probably one of the slower books I’ve ever read. The main characters don’t meet until literally 65% through. Half this book was useless filler and unnecessary scenes that I didn’t care for.
The mystery itself never had any stakes. We’re never given any answers to make it seem like there’s much of an issue. I just didn’t care for the plot much. The finale was super anti climactic.
The villain was so 2-D I laughed. Seriously, there was no real reason for them to be a villain. It’s a typical thirst for power goal. That type of goal is my vibe, but it was super bland here. I just truly didn’t care much.
At the end of the day, I didn’t care much for this book but it was a solid 3 star. I’m not sure if I will read the sequel, we’ll have to see.
(Thanks to Lia for discussing this book with me! It was very fun, and overall I loved some of your thoughts!) ...more
First things first, if you are just starting out in the fantasy genre, this book is an excellent starting3.5/5
“A king of ashes is still a king.”
First things first, if you are just starting out in the fantasy genre, this book is an excellent starting point. It has everything a solid fantasy book should have, and it checks off lots of boxes on what makes an enjoyable book. That being said, behind a self proclaimed fantasy connoisseur, I have really specific tastes.
This book has lots of good elements, but it’s let down by the amount of POV’s, slow plot, and overall lack of immersive world building. We have so many characters in this book and 5 POV’s that it’s almost too much. The thing is I like multiple POV books. But with this book, the way it was one POV per chapter specifically and had an uneven distribution of POV’s, made it less enjoyable. and towards the end I had to force myself to read I was so uninterested.
Our MC is Corayne and she really wasn’t interesting. She was a typical fantasy heroine and didn’t really bring anything new to the table. Her POV was the most common and also the most boring. She just was pretty bland for me. she’s the chosen one and all that, but she doesn’t do anything. Most of the decisions made aren’t hers, and she really doesn’t have much personality.
Andry is another MC who has a POV. He’s likeable but, again, he doesn’t have a personality that you can really describe. He’s kind and sweet but beyond adjectives, he isn’t really anything. He’s just.... there.
Sorasa was annoying. She’s the assassin and she just is..... there. She kind of is your typical assassin character I guess and she has a mysterious past and all that and that was that. She’s basically the trope of being super intelligent and powerful and not letting anyone in and also having a mysterious past that involves people wanting to kill her. How original.
Domacridhan, or Dom is the immortal MC. His POV’s are just okay. Like I think by now you can see a pattern. He isn’t that interesting, has no actual personality and overall doesn’t bring anything new to the book. He’s the immortal who refuses to feel anything trope , but made 10x more boring and uninteresting.
Everyone is boring. That is, everyone but Erida . She’s a villain, yes. But her POV is interesting. She has unique goals and her marriage of convenience with Taristan (the real true villain) is interesting and the possible villain romance between them? Yes. She actually has motives with the want to prove herself and to protect her kindgom’s legacy. Being Queen since she was fifteen I believe, she has lots of decisions to make and she is interesting. The only character I liked. She’s strategic, smart, and most of all, makes powerful decisions.
“If I must betray the kingdom to save her, I will do so.”
The plot is a solid fantasy plot. It’s easy to follow and really not complicated. That being said it’s boring. It’s typical . There aren’t any plot twists, the one there was I guessed a mile away. It’s start of a book that is a lot of preparing and getting the group assembled to fight rather than fight. It has an approach where the characters are supposed to make you stay, not the plot. That being said I can see the plot becoming interesting. I just have higher expectations at this point for most books and for a high fantasy book inspired by LOTR I was expecting more from it.
“Sorrow is a mortal endeavour. I have no use for it.”
The setting is a typical fantasy setting. Nothing that makes it stand out in my mind, or that interesting. The magic of the world isn’t described nor are the creatures. Or even who What Waits is. Like ?? Is it a god? Idk.
Also the lack of romance kind of made this book flat. Like the villain romance was right there but it’s not there yet. The other two romances that I have a feeling will develop in later books had the possibility to start with a crush or something. But that’s just my opinion. I like romance in my books ...more
Well this fell super flat for me. I’ve only seen average reviews for this book, and I guess I fell into that category. I have a few issues, and I2.5/5
Well this fell super flat for me. I’ve only seen average reviews for this book, and I guess I fell into that category. I have a few issues, and I’ll explain them all.
One, characters. They all had one quality and were the same person except for this one quality, which was usually just their job as a crew member. Fable starts this book as a strong character but fades into a bland YA MC by the end. West, the love interest, is very uninteresting. He doesn’t have a personality. Nor do the rest of the crew have personality. Willa, and the others are very boring. Saint, Fable’s dad, is poorly written and hard to understand. Her mom, Isobel or whatever, is just a confounding character. The issue is, I suppose, the author tries to make us see why these characters care for each other when they shouldn’t, but it doesn’t work out.
The romance was bad. It was under developed and had no build up, and quite frankly, no use. This book would’ve been better without it, something I rarely say. The only good thing was the first kiss was pretty unique and cute.
The plot was non existent. It was just very boring. All about ships and petty rivalries. Nothing that interested me. The seas no one can navigate are navigated in like 3 pages. The plot just was very bad. The world building wasn’t there either. Apparently Fable is a gem sage (?? Idk what it is) but how this skill works is poorly explained, and the use of it doesn’t make sense either. It’s all about Fable wanting to find her father, but she finds him halfway through, so the second half of this book is stuck in a limbo. We get Fable being sad and all about learning her inheritance isn’t a spot in his crew, but she spends so much time not doing anything. Also, for a fantasy book (I think?) there’s few fantasy elements. I wish we had seen maybe sea monsters, or something, but nothing much really happens.
The writing also fell flat. It was very 2-D and not atmospheric or lyrical, or anything unique. I suppose the 1st POV also was a factor in this because not all of Fable’s thoughts brought substance to the story.
Either way this was not for me and just not a enjoyable read....more
“I’d give you the world if I could. The moon, stars, and all the suns in the universe. Anything for you, my heart.”
I did not expect to love4.5/5
“I’d give you the world if I could. The moon, stars, and all the suns in the universe. Anything for you, my heart.”
I did not expect to love this so much. I really enjoyed the first two Caraval books and their whimsical atmosphere and magic. I never could get into the last one though, but this book was really perfect and I found myself not lost at all. You truly don’t need to read Caraval to love this series.
This book opened up a bit unexpected for me, right before the events of Legendary actually. There’s a large time gap that did make it a bit hard to pick up from but this book is insanely fast paced. The pacing is simply perfect and the chapter lengths are also perfect. I sped through this book without even knowing it and I was honestly so sad I had reached the end when I did.
This story is whimsical and fairytale like. It has this writing that just sucks you in, lyrical in some ways and straightforward in others but it is definitely atmospheric. The magnificent North is such a cool place and I definitely prefer it to wherever Caraval took place (some kingdom??). The slight world building is very clever as the North is known for being cursed in peculiar ways- essentially, some stories and history can never leave it’s borders (no one outside knows these stories) and more often than not, the stories that do get out are often cursed so no one can remember how they end- even in the North it’s a mystery. The history of the Valors and how they have magical arches is so so cool and I’m very intrigued over what the truth really is.
She just wanted someone to want her the way Jacks had wanted this girl. And she didn’t want it to be because of a spell or a curse. Evangeline wanted a real love powerful enough to break a spell.
I’ll be honest and say Evangeline annoyed me for probably 75% of this book. She was naive to an absurd point at the start, and her actions throughout the book until the last quarter left me so mad. But she was also really endearing in a unique way, kind of like how you can’t help but love close friends despite their dumb decisions. She was honestly so kind and hopeful I can’t help but really admire her strength in knowing how will find a happier ever after (something similar with Jacks ...more
I can’t even explain what happened in this book. This book was a mess. I’m glad that if you liked it you liked 1.5/5
”Fine. Make me your villain.”
I can’t even explain what happened in this book. This book was a mess. I’m glad that if you liked it you liked it, but I could not for the death of me understand what the hype was.
Alina. My oh my. Well, the first chapter made me like her, get used to her. Than she uses her power, tries to convince people she’s useless, and complains. A lot. To people who are just going their job...more
“A rose is a rose, even by another name,” he whispered. “But we choose whether we will offer beauty to the world, or if we will use our thorns 3.5/5
“A rose is a rose, even by another name,” he whispered. “But we choose whether we will offer beauty to the world, or if we will use our thorns to sting.”
I’m honestly kind of sad this book didn’t meet my expectations but I kind of expected it. I knew before I read it that if it had a lot to do with the political landscape of that time I would get bored, and it sadly was. I just really didn’t care for any of the political schemes happening to gain power of Shanghai and since everything tied into that, I got really bored. The fact is I thought the plot was really weak in this one. The first book had lost of suspense and mystery to it. This one started off slow and then had so much happening at the end it was really oddly paced to me.
“To have and to hold, where even death cannot part us. In this life and the next, for however long our souls remain, mine will always find yours.”
I was sooooo disappointed by the romance in this book. It was my favourite aspect of the first one and it all just disappeared in this one. The romance between Benedikt and Marshall was top notch of course but between Roma and Juliette, I was so disappointed. Sure they had some good scenes but overall it was lacking the emotional turmoil that book one had. I also didn’t like almost any of the characters. I loved Roma in book one but didn’t care for him here ...more
☀︎El In Oz☀︎
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