gxuosi's Reviews (390)

fuck everyone except smythe and dolores. they did what they had to do.

this was so fucking stupid <3 i really hated it for the first 30%, was bored until 50%, and then it was like i mainlined ketamine and a margarita cause something flipped and i started having THEE time of my life.

tamsin the [insert gender] that you are. (klara i will never read your fucking pov again.)

this book is a dark scifi fantasy romance. several people, including the author, insist you check the warnings—there is no comprehensive warning list. so i made one.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: rape, childhood sexual assault, pedophilia, slavery, sexual servitude, childhood abuse, PTSD, dissociation, dissociative identity disorder, underage drinking, drugging/roofies, age regression (nonsexual), elements of grooming, disordered eating, self harm tendencies, parental death.

somewhere in this book is a shockingly well written social relationship between 14 year old flynae and her over 28 year old partner. the tension between them at times is romantically charged, but there is no actionable romance or sexual activity between them (despite allusions that there will be in future books). it’s a disappointment that i was robbed of what could have been an incredible “assassin accidentally adopts a new daughter” relationship in order to be given a shallow pedophilic romance packaged as “age-gap.”

this book is also plagued with FREQUENT continuity errors, some typos, and an instance of poor formatting. the plot diverts rather abruptly from political espionage and abuse to a bizarre lengthy period where we follow flynae and her stepsister through public school, ice skating, a house party, and a school dance which all have no pertinence to the larger political space opera at hand. the goal of the emperor and her uncle as established in the opening scene is to torture her and that she’s given ANY amount of freedom seems to be the complete antithesis to the pure violence and heartlessness which we know the 2 men act with.

there was nothing wrong with this book other than that i didn’t realize this wasn’t gonna be what i expected based off what i had been told. it’s not fair to hold it against the book but it did diminish my enjoyment coming to terms with my disappointment.

it was short and sweet. paprika on the spice level with just 2 scenes of bed sheet romping.

edit** i’m changing my review. i’m back and i’m mad as hell. why was 80% of the book spent on a despicable me minion flavored wisp, a goddamn leprechaun, and a bird boy?????

i’m gonna go all the way up. i’m gonna do it. stop hiding. you hiding forever. francis, when i catch you francis. francis, when i catch you francis. francis, when i catch you francis.

blood as lube! blood as lube! blood! as! lube!

it’s been some years since i’ve read this so my review is based on what i remember. this book takes an often meandering, comedic route on delivering the information in a way that can be redundant if you tried to sit down and read it all in one go. i read this section at a time over several months and it was such a fun take on quackery when it got to that stage of history. it wasn’t perfect by any means, but as a introductory look at frontier medicine it served its purpose well. its best read a chapter or two at a time over a prolonged period.

2.5 rounded down. if you’re looking for a quick read with a male POV of run of the mill bed sheet tango, this is for you. sex was used transactionally through this and the underdeveloped characters made it feel almost as if they weren’t actually interested in the doing a horizontal waltz, just a “oh, sure i can wang one out.” the length of the book was also too short to expand on the actually cool world building, but most people aren’t reading this book for zombie curses and magic wells.