charliauthor's Reviews (531)

What a pile of ever loving horse shit!
Wtf even was that? After a gut wrenching 40% trying to establish a plot point, i skimmed most of rest and it was all bad.
Terrible retelling. No substance. Smut was weak. Im angry i wasted a free download

I'm writing this review with 1.45 mins to go until i'm actually finished and i don't care because i am a BROKEN individual!
This book is brutal in the best and very worst ways and there just arent enough words to truly explain the emotional rollercoaster i went on.

The only ONLY reason this isnt a full on 5 is because the first half was very very dense. The war strategy, the politics, the poetry, was just all a bit much when there was so much more i wanted to know about. On top of that, i was listening to this so a lot of the explanations etc. went over my head cause i found myself drowning out. I decided then to read it physically and once i did, and paid attention, i read almost 400 pages in one sitting.

At this point in the series, there's not much i can say without spoilers but if you've read this, WTAF did we just go through! and if you haven read it, WTF are you waiting for? lool Do you not want to be emotionally wrecked for the remainder of your natural life? Then hurry up!

Things to note is that the sexual element is really amped up in this outing and not in a good way. The realities of war and the power some abuse during it, is prevalent and while nothing is explicitly described, the knowledge of it is enough to really break your heart ;(
I wasn't a fan of the Obsidian deaths for the simple fact that they always seem to be the ones to die, whether you like them or not. I feel like other colours need more deaths. Maybe the historical correlation of Obsidians and enslaved Blacks, makes it an irritant for me but it did piss me off quite a bit. Giving their cultural background a Norse element doesnt completely take away from the slave similarities which i'm not a fan off.

I missed Sevro a lot in this one so hope he does a bit more in Lightbringer. As ever, he is just the best of men and i love him.

Lastly, while Darrow has so much to answer for, my last words are for Victra au Barca nee Julii.
There is nothing in this world that i wouldn't do for that woman. A mountain among giants and an absolute boss b*tch who deserves all the accolades. Cannot wait to see how she enacts vengeance....

Hmm, where to begin.

I think overall, i found this pretty basic.

While there were a lot of things going for it, there were elements missing that I personally need in order to really get invested into a story. I'm a sucker for action, cliffhanger chapter endings and intrigue etc. and this didnt give as much in that regard for me. The worldbuilding was very ambitious and even by the end of the book, while many things came to light, there was still some uncertainty about who was who and what was what.

So, what's it about?
In a world that is divided by magic and race, Jasminda is half White (Elsiran) and half Black (Lagrimari). The Lagrimari have magic known as Earthsong which the Elsirans are jealous/scared of and the two have been at war for years. The leader of Lagrimar is some kind of mysterious dictator stealing Earthsong from his people, so they're running away, forced to become refugees in neighbouring Elsira.

Cue the race/struggle narrative where our heroine Jasminda goes through life being the Other and no one liking her because she's Black. Yawn.
We continue on and she meets Hot White Boy Jack and since he's down with the swirl and knows her language and stuff, so even though he's technically the 'enemy' of course she loves him. Yawn.

We have another group of characters in Ella and her husband Benn, who were probably the most interesting. They're fighting against some sinister sisterhood of nun types who stole a baby and she has to try and get it back for reasons unknown. While Ella and Benn were sweet enough, there was too much unnecessary backstory for them and lack of answers for the amount they were on page.

So not to be completely negative, the best thing about this was the world and the thought that went into creating it. It is layered to a certain point of complexity, but as this is a lengthy series, there is a lot of room to make matters a lot clearer. While i like to have my information upfront and early on, others don't so this works fairly well.
There is also romance/sex in this. Nothing too heavy but its present for those that care about that. I found it to be a bit insta-love which while i dont have an issue with, was annoying because no matter what was going on, they had time to worry about how much they fancied each other. Like come on. Refugees are being shot. Priorities ma boi! Ha!

Overall, it just felt a little too plain for me. I wasn't excited to turn the page and i wasn't super invested until over half way through/almost 350 pages. The pacing was off for the most part and with characters not particularly layered, it takes a while to get into.

Because of that then, 3 stars and im still not even entirely sure i want to continue the series. There's clearly a lot to discover/learn but i'm not sure i care to get through the snail pace to get there.

While I don't think 3 stars are particularly low by any means, the fact that i enjoyed the predecessors, makes this a bit of a bad outing.

Saying that, I'm also very aware that i read the previous book - King of Thorns - so long ago, that it took me awhile to get invested in the story because I'd forgotten everything!

However, once i was able to get invested in the story again, there were a lot of things going for it but equally a lot that wasn't. For me, this was mainly the time hopping, the internalising and to an extent, the main character himself.

Jorg Ancrath is by far one of the most unlikeable characters i've ever come across but where Darrow in Pierce Brown's Red Rising series has an inept reasoning and somewhat justification for his actions, Jorg's motivations are shallow and based at its core.

While the writer in me marvelled at the extent of his insidiousness and depravity in the first two books, the reader in me got annoyed with his continued lack of care for basic things such as friends and family. I understood that he'd been broken irreparable after his ordeals - abuse at the hands of priests was a particularly shocking scene - but to not have learned much about redemption for others or himself during that time was a bit much.

While there was a lesson learned nearest the end, it came almost too late so rang unrealistic. Why now? Why this? After everything you've ever said?!

The story is incredibly clever in its post apocalyptic nature and the mesh of future-turned-feudal world was amazing to read but just fell off a little at the end.

I do recommend people read it though, just to understand how infuriating Jorg is and at times how clever, witty and actually quite wise he really is.

I may have enjoyed or even hated this book, more than I did, if not for the hype surrounding it.

I went into this with nothing but the never ending hype up on bookstagram and booktok, and for a long time, I refuse to read it, simply because it was being rammed down my throat!

In the end, I inevitably caved, and I’m more annoyed because it wasn’t stand out enough for me to have done so. In saying that, there were some interesting parts and as an overall read, I did enjoy it, but there was still a lot to be desired.

Fourth Wing is Hogwarts meet Divergent, coupled with How to Train Your Dragon with an additional bit of spice. It’s poorly written, it’s repetitive, the plots, reasonings, and stakes are severely lacking in places. However, because it practically bleeds every young adult fantasy trope that exists, it gets its stars from the masses.

Blonde haired, childhood boy, crush on you can do no wrong? Check
Dark haired, brooding, mysterious love interest who calls to the darkness in you? Check
Best friend, who happens to belong to multiple minority groups in order to keep the heroin grounded? Check
Beautiful, yet overpowered heroin with a redeeming feature that keeps her just the right side of likeable? Check

This book has it all in that regard, but then in the same respects has nothing. It’s a weird blend of gossip girl in a fantasy setting, in that their contemporary speech doesn’t match with their surroundings.

The best thing going for it by miles, are the dragons. The different species, personalities abilities, how they communicate with their riders etc. was all fun to read and made it bearable when the plot began to lack. Considering the point/plot didnt really take off until literally 90% in, this says a lot.

I will admit that even though he is bad-boy-book-boyfriend by numbers, Xaden is hot and definitely earned his place in the YA Spice world. He is, however almost a carbon copy of Rhysand mixed with Azriel and a little bit of Cas. Which of course it’s why he works, but it still doesn’t mean that it’s any less of a copout from the writer.

Read it, dont read it, Fourth Wing is either for you or it isnt but in no why is it reinventing the wheel the way the hype implied. It was fun in parts, sexy at times but falls into the meh pile for any real emotional attachment.

The end was a nice enough surprising so i will likely continue for the fun of it all.

Wow wow wow! That was a rush!

I’d had HMRC on my shelf for awhile, but not knowing what it was about, it took me a while to even consider reading it. When my friend Esme, however, read it and said she was enjoying it, it got bumped up to the TBR and I’m so glad that it was!

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, or HMRC is about a group of five childhood witch friends who grow from Spice Girls loving little girls into powerful witches in contemporary UK. They have to protect mundanes (non magical people) from magical threats. One particular prophesied threat is on its way and they must band together to defeat it.

There are POVs from each of the girls and even though multiple POVs usually can get quite annoying, this didn’t feel that way at all. There are distinct characteristics in all of them some staple, some a little stereotypical but still enjoyable overall.

What I liked about this book, were the genuine surprises and plots directions. I didn’t expect this to have a heavy queer presence, which was both interesting, educational and somewhat political to an extent. The contemporary fantasy was a great setting for these social commentaries including focusing on transgender identity, as well as other types of queer relationships.

It was funny in parts, it was actually scary sometimes, as well as thought provoking. What I enjoyed about this was that these are not “11 herbs and spices” witches. These are genuine super-powered, mutant type witches and it was wonderful to see that action on the page.

The history and lore woven into the dialogue and world building was really cleverly done, and was just a compelling and page turning read.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the singular black witch and her stereotypical nature but her views are extremely real and valid in this setting. I can respect the direction in that respect but feel it could have come from a better angle.

That ending had my jaw, hitting the floor, voicenoting my friends and absolutely losing my entire shit; ready to move onto book two!

This book definitely fell into filler territory because it dragged so much and i didn't have a clear idea of what was going on. There was so much going on but nothing actually happening that it began to drag which took me out of the story.

Speaking of: what was the story? The whole prophecy seemed to be self fulfilling because it's glaringly obvious that Rielle is a selfish, vain egomaniac so why she had to hide this or more importantly, why they couldn't see this makes no sense.
The whole thing was rather nonsensical in that the rebellion felt hollow. At any one point i couldn't tell who, what or where they were fighting.

Everything was too excessively and unnecessarily described. At one point there was a half page of what someones wedding dress looked like and i really struggled to care. I struggled with any emotional connection to most of it tbh, especially the love connections. Especially with Simon and his completely unnatural, incestuous and paedophilic feelings towards Eliana. It just isn't right and weirded me out!

The angels, while good to have an outing with angels as villains, fell rather short; especially Ludivine and the wraith Zahra. Their odd Stockholm Syndrome relationship with Rielle and Eliana respectively was annoying to read and i couldn't understand what use they were meant to be. They don't tell them anything, they don't fight etc. Just sitting there being a liability.

*sigh* I'll continue to complete the series but i hope the third book isn't as much of a chore. It gets a pass because book 2s usually do this but i'm continuing to find out the whole Simon element cause that ending was ridiculous and unexpected.

I  realise that this is probably really unfair to not finish at only 4% but I have tried to start this book too many times and keep getting sidetracked with other things because I'm simply not interested. I may come back to it at some point but it's not going to be on my list of things to read, primarily because the first book went completely over my head that I was only reading this to complete the set but have no emotional attachment to it.
I wasnt 100% what was even going on.

The Final Strife has an interesting premise, a wonderful world and is backed by decent writing but falls short in all other aspects that made this a chore to read.

We enter a world whose people are segregated by the colour of their blood: Red (Embers), Blue (Dusters), Translucent (Ghostings). Embers are the ruling class, Dusters are the poor drudgery and Ghostings are essentially slaves who are dismembered in order to keep them subservient.
The Dusters concoct a plan to swap out Ember babies with their own Duster babies, in order to raise the Ember child with the mindset of a Duster and take the system down from within.

While this sounds like a great plan, its not executed nearly as well as it could have been, namely because of the glaring plot holes and the weak characterisation.
Why not find sympathetic adult Embers to aid your rebellion? As a consequence, those Embers could just raise sympathetic Ember children and have them takeover. Better yet, they could just make the change themselves! Theres another issue but that would include spoilers so i'll have to omit.

The biggest issue with this whole book is the characters. I (and the others in my readalong) had no emotional attachment to any of the characters who were a mixture of immature, annoying, childish and just plain stupid. Theyre meant to be 20 years old but act like children so it made nothing read true about why they acted they way they did.
Sylah is struggling with addiction which i didnt have much empathy for until the last few chapters and this was mainly because her initial motives werent set up correctly.

Anoor is a terrible caricature of an overprivileged white woman who discovers the error of her racist ways as soon as she gets a Black friend. It was all very cliches and shallow and i probably disliked her and her naivety the most.

The two main FMC as well as the secondary male characters were all a bit of a chore and if not for the ease of the writing - again which was good - i probably wouldnt have finished it.
The best of the bunch was a Ghosting named Hassa who was the only person with any real agency but even that was at a minimum.

There was some decent LGBTQIA+ rep but also some that felt a little forced. The sapphic element was fine but where others had been injected into the world seamlessly, the relationship between the two FMCs didnt feel as natural.

It sound contradictory to say someones writing is good while hating the story but while the author has a talent/skill for putting words together, the actual story she was weaving left a lot to be desired.

The sequel to HMRC didnt disappoint by falling into second book filler territory. It was just as gripping as the first with explosive scenes, amazing surprises and just good old Girl Power.

Soo much was going on but i was invested all the way through, especially when we went on a little European adventure with Leonie and got to look into some ancient histories and myths and legends. In one of my updates, I mentioned it being Charmed meets Indian Jones meets X Men and i think thats the best way to describe it.

The women in this novel are truly so amazing and fun to read. They are a mix of emotions and personalities that you can find someone to relate to. The inner monologues of Theo working through their transition was great to read as well as really informative about what it means to be a woman through a different gaze.

The sinister underlining misogyny that runs through the book via the few male characters, while disheartening in its reality, was almost empowering in its declaration. The fights we fight constantly just to be heard and respected was great to see in black and white.

I expected more from the actual Shadow Cabinet but in hindsight, that ending more then made up for the idea of what that really means and who we should be scared of.

Again, some surprisingly dark stuff in this book but as always, i was totally here for it and cannot wait for book 3.