This wasn’t my cup of tea at all I’m afraid. My biggest qualm with this book was the writing style. It was very, very weird in word choice and also1/5
This wasn’t my cup of tea at all I’m afraid. My biggest qualm with this book was the writing style. It was very, very weird in word choice and also structure. A chapter would end on a cliffhanger and the next one starts with our main character thinking about her childhood for 3 pages before getting back to telling us what’s going on, and it just sort of makes the anticipation not build up as much as it could have. The final sequence of the book being just talking was an interesting choice, just as not describing the battle scene was. I can’t say that I found the romance cute because I didn’t honestly think that Misery and Lowe interacted enough throughout the book for it to be believable. Would Lowe have even loved her if she hadn’t been his mate?? I personally found Misery to be insufferable but whether that was her personality or the atrocious first person writing style of this is the true question, and it’s likely a mix of both. I really enjoyed ‘The Love Hypothesis’ and I’ll likely stick to Ali’s rom com books in the future!...more
Hmmm! Unfortunately this was very boring and the plot was laughably predictable. The romance lacked depth, and Freya was an absolutely terrible mai1/5
Hmmm! Unfortunately this was very boring and the plot was laughably predictable. The romance lacked depth, and Freya was an absolutely terrible main character. She could not physically be anymore annoying if she tried!...more
I loved the atmosphere and I truly believe that Harley is a talented author! I just couldn’t get over how dumb Rae was and the insta-love was too2.5/5
I loved the atmosphere and I truly believe that Harley is a talented author! I just couldn’t get over how dumb Rae was and the insta-love was too much for me I’m afraid...more
A typical NA fantasy. The initial premise is very interesting but unfortunately it’s just tropey and cliché. I can already see how this series will3/5
A typical NA fantasy. The initial premise is very interesting but unfortunately it’s just tropey and cliché. I can already see how this series will go, and I don’t think it’s for me! ...more
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
A really cute story!! Maya and Noah were definitely a couple with chemistry. I loved the F1 setting and their own personal arcs , and DOUBLE POV. T4/5
A really cute story!! Maya and Noah were definitely a couple with chemistry. I loved the F1 setting and their own personal arcs , and DOUBLE POV. The cute scenes were absolutely the best and the smut scenes were excellent and came through. It was a fast read with quick pacing and lovable characters for sure! ...more
Thank you to the publisher, NetGalley, and Olivia Rose Darling for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!
No part of me is happy to be giving t2/5
Thank you to the publisher, NetGalley, and Olivia Rose Darling for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!
No part of me is happy to be giving this book this review because I’ve been wanting to read it for YEARS, literally since it was being written by Olivia. I never got to reading the indie version (mood reader curse, I’m afraid) but I jumped at the chance to read the newly revised version that’s going out for traditional publishing. Unfortunately, not even the editor could completely salvage this book.
I found the writing itself to not be by any means bad, but rather clearly that of a debut author. There was a lot of detailed descriptions of locations that just sounded like listing everything around Elowen instead of immersing the reader, and there was a lot of telling us what characters did or liked but we never saw these interests on page. Elowen likes to read smut and garden! Great but we see her read once in this book and she doesn’t garden at all.
The side characters, for the amount of page time they get, are remarkably well fleshed out and developed, so points there! But our main character, Elowen? Oh I despised her. She’s written so flatly that the only thing she thinks of is getting revenge on her father. Seriously. All her inner monologue is thinking of how she’ll exact revenge and see her dragons again, but she never actually makes the plans herself for said revenge?? She just lets someone else plan everything she’ll do. And when she’s not feeling bloodthirsty, she either desperately wants to get drunk (I don’t think I’ve read a fantasy that has one POV where the character goes drinking this often??? In multi POVs, yes, but when we only have one POV and she’s not sober for a good chunk of chapters… it’s such an odd choice. I was wondering why they kept going to taverns when they had a heist to plan) or she’s thinking of wanting to have sex. Literally no in between. If Elowen is being written to have a villain arc, this book sets her up wonderfully for it. Her unchecked ambition and desire for more all the time is pretty Macbeth-esque. But I suspect she isn’t going to end up being a villain, so it makes little sense to me why she’s characterized like this.
The love interest, Cayden Veles, has about the depth of a puddle. He spends his time either looking extremely angry or he’s just staring at Elowen. This man is fully obsessed with her, to the point where it becomes his only personality trait. Everything he does is for her, he puts her above everyone else, and just seems to have no personality that doesn’t revolve around Elowen. He is the commander of this country. How was he able to spend 3 days taking care of Elowen after she gets drugged??? Does he not have a job??? The way he spoke to his boss was just ridiculous like that’s not how it works at all?? His dialogue is either a joke about getting into bed with elowen, saying how much he loves her, saying how he’s about to kill some one for her, or how good she looks in his bed. I was just constantly wondering who he was outside of Elowen and violence.
The plot is so poorly developed that I was shocked. The main heist of this book takes up maybe 3 chapters at the 85% mark and is laughably easy for the characters to do. Random monsters of the world pop up for action sequences, and Elowen just happens to run into a cult that gives her the powerful amulet she needs to free her dragons. Everything was so convenient. After they easily free the dragons, the bond was super anti-climactic like she couldn’t even talk to them?? Maybe it’s just me but guys she has FIVE dragons. She should have some cool power too at least. Also, I have to say again how dumb Elowen is. It’s so frustrating to see her do nothing the whole book. She nearly gets killed TWICE by assassins and always lets someone else do most of the hard work into tracking them down, until she figures out where the mastermind is - a brothel! So then she and Cayden have to pretend to be getting it on (which leads to a confusing scene where he quite literally takes her to the main room of the brothel and they’re like making out fully. And then go back to a private room to actually get each other off and somehow this lures the assassin out????) and the plot feels like tropey scenes stringed together. There were so many moments that could be amazing if it didn’t seem as if they’d been written for the purpose of being taken out of context to promote the book. I also am unsure of how this will be a four book series. The plot doesn’t seem to be that difficult to grasp and there is such a lack of dimension to it that I’m not even sure what book 2 will fully be about. The ending of this book is almost laughable in how plainly unrealistic it is, even for a fantasy novel.
The romance was lacklustre. The banter was subpar, Cayden fell in love at first sight so it was the opposite of a slow burn, and the author tried to frame it as a forbidden romance but I just couldn’t buy it. The sex scenes were also really boring and uninspired. I just couldn’t get behind how these characters came to love each other because we’re told that they do instead of seeing that love on page. Love is made out of the small things, and I felt we only got big gestures - nothing that shows how Elowen and Cayden were soulmates on all levels. I didn’t get the quiet devotion or steady presence that I think love truly is. (And I did see the foreshadowing of them being some form of mates.)
The world is interesting but the magic system was so light that it was non existent. Since we’re in a country that has banned magic, we don’t see a lot of it so I was left very confused over how it was used, who could use it, and more. We’re told that there are gods for every element, but the religion is never developed. What were the gods like before they left earth? Why are they worshipped? How are they worshipped? Everything just fell super flat to me. We’re told these things are there, but I couldn’t immerse myself in the world because we didn’t have any of the little details that truly bring these things to life.
I also found the editing to be poorly done, oddly since this is a traditionally published version of the novel. There were several instances where the characters would be doing something and then the next paragraph they’d be moving into another room or have some object in their hands that they’d be using and I was often confused as to how that object had gotten there or why they were moving around.
I unfortunately won’t be continuing this series, but I am interested in whatever Olivia has plans for beyond this series....more
I’m so sad this series did not end with a bang. I love Sebastian but he was not it in this book. I also loved Yelena at the start but idk…. Her cha3/5
I’m so sad this series did not end with a bang. I love Sebastian but he was not it in this book. I also loved Yelena at the start but idk…. Her character arc wasn’t great? This book was too plot heavy so the romance didn’t get enough development and everything felt super rushed to set up the spin-off series and to make it all end sort of happy....more
This book was…. Meh. I didn’t particularly like Dante or Simone; they just fell flat to me. I didn’t enjoy the plot of this one a whole lot, and 3.5/5
This book was…. Meh. I didn’t particularly like Dante or Simone; they just fell flat to me. I didn’t enjoy the plot of this one a whole lot, and I think it was too insta lovey for me. But I hope the next ones are better ...more
I sort of expected more from this since it’s such a popular series, but I guess it wasn’t for me? I was way more invested in the mystery plot than I3/5
I sort of expected more from this since it’s such a popular series, but I guess it wasn’t for me? I was way more invested in the mystery plot than I was invested in the romance, which didn’t work since this was 90% romance. I was sort of surprised with how much fade to black was going on in this book, since it’s adult I sort of expected a bit more? And even the scenes we did have were very sub-par…. I felt that it was insta love (enemies to lovers in WHAT world???) and I felt no chemistry whatsoever going on between our two leads. Speaking of them: did I like griffin? Nope. Not my kind of person. Did I like Winslow? No. Not really. She just was an average person, but didn’t interest me. I thought the mystery took such a backseat that at the end when it gets resolved it felt way too sudden. There wasn’t really any investigations going on at all, and for 60% of the book Winslow wasn’t even sure there has been a murder. So it was a bit underwhelming. Overall I will pick up the second one as that seems to be the favourite of most but I won’t have high expectations...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
☀︎El In Oz☀︎
>
Books:
insta-love
(74)
Loading...
