charliauthor's Reviews (531)

It actually hurts me to say this, but Children of Anguish and Anarchy was a huge disappointment.

After waiting almost 4 years for the conclusion to this trilogy, I find the final instalment malformed and rushed. 

I was immediately not a fan of the enslavement parallels at the very start of the book and by almost 20 chapters we were still fighting to get off the boat after being captured by a brand-new enemy who had not previously featured. We all know how much I despise the slave narrative and while this was not a central focus of the book, having this magical Black cast in this type of bondage for so long admittedly made me dislike it a lot more than I probably would have. The author has taken everything that was magical and special about this world and its people and joined it into struggle and plight and I hated that about this. 

Where this book ultimately doesn’t work is that it is completely disjointed from its predecessors. Everything about Children of Blood and Bone and Children of Virtue and Vengeance seems to be completely forgotten. Characters are gone, motives disappear and even certain people are literally killed off so that we don’t have to deal with them anymore. It genuinely feels like this plot was an afterthought and simply inserted just to bring the series to an end when no thought on how to do so had previously been established. 

The pacing and quadruple POV’s create a choppy narrative that even though I have found to be better for reading in previous stories, just made this feel too fast and unrealistic. Zelie is meant to learn how to control her new powers from new allies  and I have no idea how she did it. I felt like they spent more time beautifying her then actually teaching anything which made everything feel sacrificial which I didnt care for. At one point, someone says theyd trained for 9 days but were suddenly capableof taking on armies. The rituals didnt make sense. The villain deaths were super easy and i had no clue how they were travelling back and forth so easily across the oceans. 

While there was a solid attempt at worldbuilding around Orisha, I'm not entirely sure where they are and how the two worlds are connected. The use of their language while wonderful to see included felt unnecessary because you can't pronounce them anyway. I wanted to feel more connected with this and whenever a book has too much of a language I don't understand, it takes me out of the story.

I hated the ending and while I understand that you might not always get the ending you desire, this did not feel well thought out enough for it to be accepted as the ending that was needed. The deaths felt transient and unfair and the sacrifices hollow in order to pander to current tropes.

I will always be grateful to the author for paving the way for mainstream Black lead fantasy but unfortunately and to my utter heartbreak, the conclusion was not as mighty as the people it portrays. 

2.75 but I have rounded up to 3 because the smut was really good, the world building was adventurous and original but the plot was a bit too convoluted and the reasoning/ending not satisfying enough to have gone through all of that. 

An aura/which named Briar Stone was just a bit too basic for me as well as a wolf being called Kane Slade was just a bit too romantic paranormal by text book for me lol
I loved the werewolf lore. I loved the idea of being commanded. I loved the pack mentality and family element of the book but I was a little confused because at no time did he actually turn into a wolf? If this is part of their world set up then fine but it wasnt really clear to me from the start. 

I wasnt a fan of the dialogue which while funny at times i found a little immature. It had an essence to it that was modern which fit the theme but it just wasnt a personal fave for me. Ive seen it done well in say Bride but this felt a little out of place at times. 
I also wasnt a fan of the “obsidian” and “sage” references for swear words or versions of “oh my god”. It just sounded silly lol

As mentioned, i liked the smut a lot although i would have liked more aggression from kade both in the bedroom and when fighting. Other than one moment he didnt really show how bad he was despite the FMC saying it every five seconds lol

I love a happily ever after but the end left me feeling a bit deflated. However in a world where books are forced into being trilogies where its not needed, this was a nice aurprise to just be a standalone. 

Thank you to NetGalley for this digital arc. All thoughts are my own. 

Unfortunately, I didn’t love this as much as I wanted to and this is largely due to pacing throughout. However, I will continue with the sequel because I am interested to learn more but it felt like a bit of a slog towards the end so I wasn’t as invested as I really wanted to be.
Jai is the youngest son of a king whose kingdom was conquered by the mighty Sabines and he is taken as a prisoner of war/ward to keep them in line, along with his two older brothers. Jai spends the next decade or so the manservant of the aged emperor who has now passed on power to his cruel son Constantine and his insufferable Joffrey-esque heir, Titus.
Jai of course is mistreated and is basically nothing more than a slave but when a princess from a kingdom to the north who have dragons, comes down for a political marriage alliance, shit starts to go down. In this regard, as my friend @ladymairreads says, this book slaps balls lol it was dark, it was gross, it was very GRRM with the gruesome deaths etc. and the point where Jai gets his dragon egg was absolutely fxcking insane but I was heeere for it. However, once this initial set up and excitement was over, everything after that went downhill for me.
At one point, after a murder and soon to be assassination attempt, Jai actually sits down to read a journal. Don’t get me wrong, there is a reason for this but the very concept of sitting down and having the time to read when someone is literally going to come through the door at any minute to kill you was extremely wild to me. This lowering of stakes continued throughout the latter half of the book, which really took me out of the story because I knew exactly what would happen the more I read. Jai would travel for a bit with his companions, they’d be accosted by some bad guys, he’d survive just by the skin of his teeth, then repeat. It went on like this for three hundred pages until the very end when he ends up somewhere he never intended to go (but really should have just done this from the start), telling people who he is, and we’re meant to be what…surprised?! Jai while nice enough was a little too naïve for me. Every minute he was getting his feelings hurt and you just wanted to slap his face off! The Brom-esque character (from Eragon for those that don’t know) didn’t even have that good a backstory for him to behave the way he did. How they even found him was weak and for those that have read, why have we not read the fxcking journals yet! Like come one! I wanna know!
Overall, this had some great moments that turned to the ‘I am destined to ride a dragon’ trope on its head but largely, the pacing and low stakes ruined what would have otherwise been an incredible book rather than just a good one.

The best way I can initially describe Five Broken Blades is that its not the book thats sold through the blurb. I went into this thinking there was going to be some real sneaky shit, some espionage, some real intrigue but instead it was an InstaLust Fest without any actual smut.

My issue with this is not only the miss sell but the simple fact that if you're going to make this a story about loveable rogues finding love, then at least put your big girl pants on and actually follow through. For three separate couples to have slow burn that just fades to black is extremely childish. I dont care how childish that makes me sound for wanting it lol but it basically set the book up to be a tease. It starts out with content warnings for fuck sake and nothing about this was remotely worthy of a warning sign so I was really annoyed by the set up to not actually follow through.

I didnt go in with any expectations or knowledge of what this was so for those expecting romance, it might not have been such a let down. For those like me who thought it would have more substance, then i was left a little confused if i'm honest. A big thing that let this down was the repetitive nature of the writing. It was quite immature and all very obvious with more telling then showing. We knew what was motivating them all the time, there was no real mystery about anything. Even the reveals at the end were fairly predictable and I'd guessed all but one by the end which while isn't terrible, just felt a bit unfulfilling.

What I did like however was the play on the title. Five Broken Blades is not any physical blades being broken but the broken psyche and lives of the killers of the story. I liked that all of them had some kind of backstory/past that was fuelling them towards taking part in this heist. The plot itself was fairly straightforward although a little repetitive as mentioned.

There are quite a few characters in this and even though i listened to the audio, it was actually difficult to really differentiate between the characters. Mikhail, Euyne and Tiyung all sounded the same. Only Royo made me laugh and his way of speaking really messed me up haha so funny. I actually laughed out loud so many times with him that it really made helped me stay around for the rest of the story. Aeri was really childish and even though this was explained by the end, it didnt really help after disliking her so much at the start. She just felt silly.
So much more could have been done with Sora being a Poison Maiden aka an assassin but not much was shown of that either.

There was an overall negative gaze on women throughout the novel which wasnt really set up well enough for me. Sure, men didnt really like women a lot in this world but it was never explained...why. So there was just random misogyny for no reason which didnt help me connect to the world in the best way.

Overall it was just a little lacklustre for me.

Where was everyone when this first came out and why was noone telling me how GOOD it is!

I'm actually really annoyed that i wasn't put onto Squad 312 earlier than this because SQUAD 312 FOREVER!!!

Honestly dude, this series was sooo much fun. With the exception of Auri, I loved everyone member of the squad and my relationship with them was just made that much better because I listened to the audio. The narrators did an absolutely phenomenal job of adding the appropriate humour and emotion and personality to each of them that i was so excited to listen to each chapter (except auri's), knowing I would have some laughs and emotional response.

Its just so straightforward and fun and built up without taking itself too seriously. The final act was a little dragged out near the end, namely because it was an Auri chapter and I just found her really annoying, overpowered and boring lol other than that, I have nothing bad to say about this.

Chapter 11 between Tyler and Saedii is *chef's kiss*!!! I actually could not deal with how beautiful it was. The grump/sunshine trope was just stunning and I actually listened to the chapter 3 times cause it was just so nice.
Don't get me started on Zila! The absolute queen that she is, carrying the fate of the galaxy on her fucking back! OMG OMG! I cried ugly tears with that one and it was just sooo lovely!!

Even though this is a collaborative venture, JK being one of my fave authors just shows that he's able to do what he does best in a different genre and I am here for it.
I cannot commend this series enough simply for being pure vibes all the way through. I love that even with a host of typically, 'main' characters, these B characters, misfits with oddities get to get the girl or get the guy and be the Main in their own narratives.

Loved it. Absolutely loved it!
(except Auri lmao)

ultimately this was a 3.5 but I have rounded up since i was intrigued all the way through even though I didnt really understand 70% of it! lol

Firstly, this book is more Sci Fi than it is Fantasy which i didn't expect but while this does not take anything away from the novel itself, it was difficult to really understand the world at times because of all the jargon it required to explain it.

The Fifth Season opens with a woman who's husband has murdered her infant son and she sets out to find her husband so she can enact revenge. The husband has also taken their daughter so she must find out whether the child is alive or not. The reason this is in question, is that the woman in question and her children are what's known as orogenes, people who have the power to manipulate the seismic shifts and the like. They can feel and move the earth, i guess like air bending but like, not as cool, but they are feared and abused for this for reasons you learn.
The world they inhabit basically goes through various armaggeddon levels of destruction every few years or so and noone knows how long they will last. As an effect, the world is regressed into a primitive society who protect the useful, dismiss the useless and enslave those they are afraid of.
Frightening how familiar that reads, eh?

Anyway, we follow three POVS, one of which is written in 2nd person which took a while to get into but was very immersive which i enjoyed. 2nd person present was a new outing, and i really dug it. It was emotional, intense, gut wrenching in parts and just so very adult. After a run of childish YA - not saying YA is childish but that people have been writing lower end YA - it was nice to have something that made my brain work.
Saying that however, my brain did WORK! I am not a geometrist or meterologist so this was very difficult to truly love simply because it was so new. There were moments of revelation from the characters that i simply couldnt follow because I just didnt get it. I felt like i need Wikipedia on the side to explain what tectonic plates are the density of zyonite or some shit haha

It was very particular which was great but even by the end when everything finally came together, I still felt like I was hanging off a cliff just waiting to fall. Waiting for the impact that would do something to me.

Overall, this is an ambitious and inventive take on the ecogeddon/armageddon/world destruction narrative and I loved the social and political commentary that mirrors a lot of our failing world.
A favourite for some and where I can see why, I doubt its one I would read again. I will read the sequel but I think I need to cool my brain down first before it overheats!

DNF at 22% because I couldnt deal with the really annoying FMC anymore. Her idiocy and prejudice were just too much of an irritant to be able to get through. If she called the guy a Hypsos one time I’ll scream. It was the YA book equivalent of using the N word and it annoyed me to no end. Coupled with the misplaced dialogue, odd plot, weak inciting incident and characters who made no sense doing the things they did or being where they were, I just could not handle this silliness. 

What is her brother sick with?
Why is she poor if shes apprentice to the second most powerful person in Egypt?
Why would the Queen Mother care who she is?
Why is Nefertari a villain?

A lot of this might have been explained later but i wasnt interested enough to get there cause the premise and initial chapters felt so juvenile. 

I received an earc from Netgalley. All thoughts are my own.

After the stream of duds that i've read this year, it was refreshing to find something that i had no expectations for which turned out to be really entertaining.

I've not read so much Sci Fi but this was another decent journey into the genre. A collaboration book from one of my favourite authors, Aurora Rising is about a bunch of misfits in space who are pushed into a intergalactic coverup from the powers that be and it was really fun.

Aurora or Auri wakes up on a spacship some 200 years after she set sail into the galaxy towards a new colony. There, she ends up meeting a crew of Golden Boy hottie Tyler Jones, his sexy but smart twin sister, Scarlett, brainy but not very emotional Zila, sarcastic alien Finian, boisterous mo hawked Cat and Legolas lookalike warrior, Kal. I listened to this so I really enjoyed have different voices for each character. It was so fun having the blend of accents and tones from the narrators but even without this, they would have all had distinct personalities. The authors did great in having a cast who you didnt feel like you were missing out when reading a chapter. All of them were exciting.

I enjoyed that while adhering to YA stereotypes, it still manages to make them feel original and fun rather that just another run of the mill book. An incredibly easy read/listen that for the first time has paid off buying a whole series thats been sitting on your shelf for a year.

Filled with jokes, romance, action and at its core, the Found Family trope, Aurora Rising is a really good read and you should definitely give it a try if you like YA that isnt too immature and just hits a sweet spot of decent plot, dialogue and worldbuilding.

I received an ARC of this from the author and all views are proudly my own. 

If you are a lover of high epic fantasy with a host of magical creatures, deep plot lines, intricate world building, and amazing action and dialogue, then this is the book for you.
TGWSTD pays homage to classic fantasy while still being fresh and exciting.
I love the obvious passion and research that has gone into this and praise the author for their talent and skill in this genre.

So, this is about two heirs of powerful nations whose thrones have been usurped by some overzealous religious bad-guys. The heirs: confident, competent yet beautiful Fionnuala and cinnamon roll werewolf hottie Aiden, must unite in marriage to bring about the end of this tyrannical regime. Along the way me meet a whole host of characters who all have such rich backstories and bold personalities. Some of my faves include a shield-maiden named Ulfhild and a She wolf named Rhea, who are both super badass and sarcastic which is always fun!

What's great about this book is that I feel it has something for everyone. Yes, its battle/action heavy - its man fantasy, what do you expect? Lol - but it also has a lot of emotion and even romance. The relationships throughout are really good and not just romantically. The familial and professional dynamics of them hold such weight and I cant commend it enough. As mentioned, it is very action based and I would have preferred the action spread out to even out the pacing, but ultimately it doesn't take away from the story which is very important. Simply, this is an incredible debut and l implore you all to pick it up to meet some new faves.