ellenareads's Reviews (564)

just not in the mood for a thriller currently ...

The progression in the relationship between Max and Tisaanah  was the selling point of this book, and the thing that kept me invested in the story even though I found a plot to be lacking in some parts. The descriptions were very abstract, and I personally, found it very hard to follow what was going on in the fighting scenes as well as when magic was being described. I found the story engaging and well paced.  The relationships between the main protagonists and side-characters were very well done. The reveals of Max's and  Tisaanah's past was done perfectly and they would always deepen my understanding of the character, making me feel and care for them even more. Ending of a chapter would always leave me wanting more romance or more worldbuilding/magic. So much that I read the book in two sittings.
Some of the things that I hope to see improve in the next book are expansion of the world, better and more in-depth explanation of the magic as well. Also I would love to see side characters a bit more well flesh out (their backgrounds, families...) beside just the relationship with the two main protagonists. I feel like this story has a lot of potential, so I'm excited to see if the sequel lives up to the expectation.
Would recommend to the fans of Sarah J. Mass.

I’ve known about this book for a long time but never really looked into it more deeply until I participated in the bingo card challenge from the r/fantasy on reddit. I read this book to fulfill the prompt: book set entirely in the forest.
I felt the story was very quick moving and it kept me very engaged. The audiobook was a great format to experience it through. The narrator did sound the characters a bit younger then I would have thought they would sound, so if that is something that bothers you, skip it.
The strongest point of this book is the magic system for sure. If you are a reader that needs a well fleshed out characters (main and side characters) that come of the page - maybe try a few chapters before buying the book. Even though I liked exploring the world through their view, they aren't the most compelling part of the story for me. The first third of the book makes a lot of time jumps. The focus is definitely on the world and the two main characters.
The ending was a bit predictable but I didn't see it going as dark as it did. I heard that the other books in the series expand the world even more to the other regions. Hoping to get to the sequel by the end of the year while it still fresh in my memory. This could possibly be a new comfort-read author for me.

It took me 4 months to read this book. Clearly something didn't work for as well as it did in the first book in this series. I think it might be the pacing that slowed down in the middle part of the book or the romantic sub-plot that bored me to tears.
And with all of that, this was still a 4 star read.

The first book in this bind-up was a 5 star for me, but the second book had a lot more info dumps and the plot of it made sense after the 90% mark. Because I felt the plot meandered, it made me lose a bit of interest and I kept putting the book down several times. But the characters were engaging enough to keep me reading. And the last 10% were satisfying enough.