coralinejones's Reviews (556)

Hunger Games you will always be famous

I refuse to slog through this.

I had fun but also?!!(&?&( Lmao???? This was like watching a live action adaptation of a Disney classic. Both good and bad. Entertaining enough but not as good as the source material.

In this case, the source material being The Hunger Games and many well written fantasy based media that has came before it. 

And in my opinion? The last act was so confusing to me. So many, "actually I'M THE VILLAIN!" moments I was like literally what the hell is going on.... Well I may continue the series ngl

I had so much fun with this book, oh my goodness. What a fun adventure. There was something epic going on, on every page. The magic system is EVERYTHING, the setting is so beautiful and atmospheric, I really enjoyed every character including the villains. I loved this book so much I stopped in the middle of my reading to make a Pinterest board for it. This is the real deal.

I adore how the author doesn't hold anything back. The characters are so unapologetically apart of and in tuned to their culture. The villains are ACTUAL villains but are still layered and not corny. Our protagonists have such a realistic dynamic as they endure all these negative aspects of their journey. It's so entertaining.

The only reason this book isn't a 5 star read is because at one point I thought the characters started to bleed into each other a bit. This novel has multiple points of view, and sometimes, I would forget whose eyes I'm reading through because they talk so similarly to one another.

Other than that, no notes. Everyone read this now. 

Wow. I don't have anything to say. Just read this. My goodness...

It's well written and extremely detailed with it's world building but I didn't care all that much about any of the characters aside from Jian. I found him to be the most interesting, so when we were focused on other povs I just couldn't focus as heavily. Not to mention the first 150 or so pages were EXTREMELY strong while the rest fell a bit flat. All the action scenes capture my attention; they were tense and full of aggression, however the rest was a little slow, especially when it came to the political intrigue 

Mild spoilers ahead.

I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't simply pick books up because I enjoy the covers. Had I'd known this would be ROMANTASY I would've never put this on my TBR to begin with. The gothic atmosphere, religious undertones, and mild horror were all very stunning and parts of the story I enjoyed. But the romance KILLED all the momentum. I'm so sick of the, "I'm supposed to HATE you but you're so ATTRACTIVE so I INSTANTLY fall in love with you instead." give me a break.

Not to mention, this forest God creature being this conventionally attractive emo seventeen year old boy golden rings ad freckles is so pathetic, especially in this setting. I understand it's meant to divert expectations of our main character and make her realize the society she's been brought up in is so cult-like and phony but... Please. These tropes man, these tropes.

Okay! What the fuck!!!!

Significantly lame in comparison to the first two books. I get why people don't like this one as much. I did NOT care about Tobias' backstory and felt like nothing present in this book was as interesting, or even related to Avery, the way the first two installments were. I was mostly confused reading this one as, again, there were so many characters and dynamics to keep track of. I just did not care for Rebecca.

I can acknowledge this is 100% on me but, this series did not play out the way I wish it did. The mystique and the aesthetic in the first book was so exciting. This random girl inheriting billions and nobody knows why. The danger of everyone gunning after her to get what they think is theirs. Ough. It was everything.

Then slowly all these twists and turns made the story lame. Like not as "scary" as it once was, for lack of better word.

The ending of this one annoyed me as well. This all ended over a chess game? Girl. I guess.

Okay, so. This review will be all over the place because I kind of just want to start book 3.

As much as I love mystery novels, book two suffers from what most mystery novels suffer from, and that's becoming extremely convoluted and ridiculous by the end. Way too many twists and turns start to occur about 70% of the way through, and it's not really fun to read anymore because too much is going on. Just too much. I found myself growing really confused and slightly agitating the more twists unfolded. Between finding out the fathers of each Hawthorn, or lack of fathers in Avery's case, the romance plot, fucking MAX (I will get into her in a bit), all the new characters and family dynamics, and having to wrap up what we learnt in book one... I was ready for it to be over.

Not to mention I thought the ending was dumb but I assume my opinions will change once I start book 3.

I still enjoyed the book though. There were many moments early on that were super fun to read and, of course, the games were fun to follow with our main characters. However, unlike in book one where we learned who everyone was and what their relation to their grandfather was, this was very repetitive in comparison.