Rating: 2.5 Stars

I'm very conflicted with this book. There were elements that I really enjoyed, like the magic system and the world. The book includes elemental magic, which is my favourite kind of magic in fantasy, and I loved the way the magic was incorporated into this world. But the characters really let this book down for me.

None of the characters really worked for me. Vhalla, our protagonist, was boring and immature and made the stupidest decisions. Prince Aldrik's character development was all over the place. When we first meet Prince Aldrik, he's unjustly mean and cruel towards Vhalla. And then the third time we meet him, he has a completely different personality, and is kind and sweet. The complete change in behaviour was so random, and we aren't even given a reason as to why he was so awful to Vhalla? It was just so bizarre.

For a fantasy romance, the romance was surprisingly bad. It seemed like every male character in this novel had a thing for Vhalla, and for what reason lmao? Not only that, she liked them all back and it made no sense. There was no chemistry between her and any of the men that could've been a potential love interest. It felt like Elise Kova was shoving the endgame relationship down my throat. For it to be a convincing romance, there has to be chemistry, there has to be a spark between the characters, and I didn't really see that between Vhalla and Aldrik. Because while Vhalla was "falling" for Aldrik, she was flirting with his brother and going on dates with her friend??? I'm so confused. If this was a polyamorous romance, I would've been fine with the multiple love interests and Vhalla's constantly changing interest in men. But it wasn't a polyamorous romance, which just makes the romance badly written and unconvincing in my opinion. Sorry.

The plot in itself, also wasn't great? At around 320 pages, Air Awakens is very short for a fantasy novel. Because the novel is so short, everything just felt rushed and undeveloped. The character development, like I touched on earlier with Aldrik, the romance, the "threat".... all of it was just not developed enough for me to actually care. This book really could've done with just more detail. More information on the characters. Rather than Aldrik randomly having a personality transplant, I want to actually see him realising his mistakes and being apologetic. Rather than Vhalla falling for or being attracted to mutliple men, I want to know why she's attracted to them. Delving deeper into the characters would've made me care for them so much more. I think there was just a lot of telling and not showing, and that really affected my overall enjoyment.

The threat at the end appeared out of nowhere. We aren't told anything about the threat and the conflict throughout the story, and at the end we're dumped into this random fight, and I had no idea what was happening or where the enemies had come from.

I'm not sure if I'll continue with the series, if I'm honest. I might give it a go, if the reviews for the next book are good and convincing enough. I just don't think this series is for me. I am open to trying more of Elise Kova's works, though.

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