dbguide2's Reviews (863)

This was such a fun and quick read. I know Doescher wrote William Shakespeare’s Star Wars as well so I might pick that up whenever soon. I’ve watched Mean Girls about a hundred million times so I knew nearly about the entire movie. 

It’s been a while since I’ve read a Shakespeare play so it took me a while to get used to the writing; but not so long that it made me like the play less. 

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would! It’s fun, an easy read where you sit down to read a chapter or two and whoops 5 or 10 chapters have just flown by. And I love it when I do that with books! Where I don’t even realise I’ve read 8 or even like 12 chapters because I’m so focused on reading the book. I’ve just started Feener’s other book now and I think it’ll be an easy read too as I think her books and writing are that easy and quick to read.

Abandoned Things tells a very interesting story about Frankie, a famous writer of a very popular web novel, who doesn’t realise the fictional world and the characters he’s so famous for (even though he writes under a pen name) is actually real. Not until some of the characters come into his world, our world as well.

It’s a thrilling ride of action and adventure, love and passion (regarding writing and romance). The characters drew me in and the story kept me wanting to read until the very end. It’s definitely something I also enjoyed and now makes me want to read more of the author’s other books. 

As much as I enjoyed reading about Frankie, Rook definitely took the prize of the favourite character – he’s a bad boy, come on! Of course I’m going to root for him. He was sarcastic, romantic (which are two things that I do love a lot 😄). That type of character you can’t help but love because he makes you smirk at his antics or grin when he’s doing something romantic. And of course, he’s a good bad boy (as opposed to boring or supposed bad boys but all they do is like ride a motorcycle (wow!) or wear a lot of black (so bad!).

Frankie and Rook had great banter and I liked seeing them in scenes together. It was an easy banter which turned into a relationship I could see – which I like to see in books. And this was the case here. I’ve probably said this before but I do always enjoy when the banter and the relationship attached to that banter are both easy ones that I can see working out. Nothing I dislike more than relationships with no chemistry, or there’s ‘chemistry’ but it’s more platonic than romantic – you get my gist.

Then there was Sage, who’s one of the main characters in the web novel, who sort of becomes Frankie’s other love interest. I say sort of because it was obvious who Frankie would end up with. Not that I minded the lead up to that, definitely not. I like d what we got of him; and I definitely wouldn’t say no to Feener possibily writing Gold and Silver – Frankie’s series. 

The plot and action that went along with that was both written quite well. I could tell that the author knew how to write action scenes well – either from reading a lot of fantasy books or from writing all of her other books- which she has quite a backlist of! That’s another thing I really enjoy being able to see when I read books – how much the author enjoys writing in the genre.

The easy way Feener wrote the plot also meant that it was an easy book to read – another point of the book that I liked. I’ve already started another book of hers and I think I’ll like it too! I can tell that I’ll like it too and probably/mostly other books of hers that I get around to read. 

When I say I want a gothic novel this is what I want. This dark, atmospheric story that absolutely captivates every one who dares enter its pages. You can’t stop yourself from reading it. I’m quite certain in saying that you will cancel your plans to continue reading this book because I probably would’ve.

I read the audiobook and it was a fantastic experience. It definitely added to how much I enjoyed reading this as I’m not so sure I would have had the same level of enjoyment had I read it as a book. The two narrators were very well chosen and they enhanced my reading so much that I don’t think they could’ve chosen better narrators if they tried. They also added to the experience of the audio and how much I enjoyed it. Even if you don’t listen to a lot of audiobooks I think this one would be an amazing start.

But also I would love a physical copy to be able to annotate as I went along. There were so many amazing quotes that I heard and wanted to highlight, I wanted to see them written down on a page. Yes, I suppose that’s why people buy physical copies as well 😅. Really, I think what I want the most is for when you open the book the audio starts playing for each page – yes, like those singing birthday cards 😂.

I actually like codependent characters in books. I don’t have an actual reason or reasons, but I like them. Maybe it’s the way they interact with each other. That while they do love each other, it’s a type of harmful love, even if they don’t see it; or the harm is a gradual one. Or maybe it’s just that I like to see the characters hurting each other because it’s close to angst and I love angst? (which, yes… is not a good take, I know that😅). Either way, this codependency in this book was well-written; Chokshi did such an amazing job at it – if she decides to write another book featuring a codependent relationship, I’m all for it!

if you’re not a fan of codependent relationships or if you have issues with it then I don’t recommend you read the book. As much as I want just about everyone to read this book it’s important to remember that not everyone is able to read what everyone else is reading (because of the content in the book).

I found Indigo to be such an interesting character. Everything is about Indigo – she chose the games they would play, the outfits they would wear, everything was about what she wanted to do. I don’t think that Azure ever got to suggest something but even if she did I think it would be a case of “is this you or Indigo’s influence?”.

The thing about Indigo – like many other manipulative people – is that she makes you feel so special, includes you in private moments so that you think you’re very special to her. You only start seeing her issues or the fact that you matter less in the relationship when you’re about ready to leave or when you’ve had enough of it all. You’re left thinking (or at least I did) how much does Indigo love Azure? And of that love, how much of it is real and how much is that possessive type of love? 

Now I absolutely loved the characters. Indigo and Azure were for sure the main characters and then there was the unnamed man who married Indigo and narrates his own chapters in the present while Azure narrates hers showing her relationship with Indigo and everything they did together.

We’re never told the name of Indigo’s husband. His chapters are First Person POV and they’re just named The Bridegroom. I liked that because it added to the fairytale feeling of the story. I also loved how fascinated he was with fairytales and how that fascination was actually more of an obsession. And also probably the reason why he and Indigo were drawn to each other. Indigo is definitely basically a walking, talking fairytale, and he’s only too happy to be caught up in her. I think she was also drawn to him because he loved to recite fairy tales – and she was all too happy to let him do so.

Azure was quite an interesting character because she both wanted to do everything with Indigo, go anywhere with her; and also strikeout and create her own name. Her desire to walk both paths, be both people, had the same amount of desire for them – she never really wanted one dream over another until later on in the book. I like characters who know what they want but also characters who are afraid to express their feelings, follow their dreams for whatever reason. Most of the times – like 90 or so percent – there comes a time where they do blurt out their feelings, shout out their dreams to the world. Those scenes are always quite emotional because they’re finally getting to say what they want to say, they’re putting themselves first. 

As I’ve experienced before with The Gilded Wolves, Chokshi once against proves herself with impeccable writing and a captivating plot. Chokshi’s characters are always multi-layered and you want to know more about them from the start. I’ve never found myself to be bored while reading her books and I don’t expect to with her other books that I haven’t read yet. 

Straight from the beginning I could tell this book was going to suck me in. Although I had to pause and highlight characters’ names and their Saints if they were disciples; I quickly became accustomed to hearing about the Saints and the way they were integral to the world. Lobb did amazing work with the world-building. It was never forced, most of the world-building was explained to the readers in a natural way. I didn’t feel like she was pushing the world-building on me, the reader, or like I was being forced to understand the world in order to carry on reading. It made sense – in a book with such a big religion you would have have a lot of talk surrounding the religion – Lobb definitely did that in a great way and I can’t wait for the sequel and whatever else she writes.

The writing also really added a lot to my experience and enjoyment of reading it. The writing mixed with the world-building complimented each other well and aided each other so well. I liked learning about the different Saints and disciples and the magic that’s in them – that’s definitely something I want to see more of in the next book. Not that I want the magic system and all the explanations of the Saints to be a bigger plot than the mystery and romance; but definitely more than what we got this time around.

The whole mystery was also done well. I was surprised and didn’t even suspect the culprit – which was a change as usually I figure out the culprit before they’re revealed. I’m not saying that books where I can spot the culprit/part of the plot bad or badly written – just that it’s like a nice surprise when I don’t manage to solve the mystery before it gets solved for me.

I liked how Lobb approached the topic of Saints and their religion and quite often the fealty that comes with that. She managed to be respectful and critical of the topic – which I really enjoyed to see. Speaking as someone’s who’s been raised in a religious family and who is religious – there is criticism to be found with religions and just because a religious person is critical doesn’t mean they are less religious than the next person. I definitely want to see more of the criticism and how different people view the same topic. 

I felt for Damian, the one main character. He’s scrutinised a lot by his dad who wants him to be this perfect soldier – so much so that he probably doesn’t even see that Damian is not at all suited to the war front. Which was hard to read because Damian most certainly has PTSD but his father refuses to see it because he just wants a perfect soldier. I have no idea what type of psychological help there is available in Ombrazia, but I hope that in the next book he starts to heal and works through some of his trauma.

Damian was the type of character I didn’t think I would like, just because I didn’t think much of him at the start. But as I carried on reading I realised that I really liked him. I got to know him, his personality, and everything he’s been through. He’s a strong character and I can’t wait to see what Lobb does to him in the next book – how much he has to go through (again), and how much I will be feeling for him. He really does want to help people and that was hard to do when he’s being forced not to do that – to only focus on disciple matters and not help the others.

I loved Roz so much. She was also a strong character – Lobb really knows how to write these type of characters, and I was all here for that. I hope that in the next book she really starts to come into her own, becomes stronger and stands up for injustice even more. I definitely got the vibe that she wanted to but didn’t and I very much hope that’s a plot point for her come the sequel.

Literally every single moment Damian and Roz had together I had feelings for as well. Grinning, angst, etc etc. I loved every bit we got with them and if we don’t have a lot of happy scenes in the next book I will riot (I’m joking because I actually really love angst in my books 😂). There’s also some mutual pining mixed with a good amount of angst – as per usual with those two tropes. The two are very high up on my list of favourite tropes.