heartbrekker's Reviews (797)

I had an interesting experience with this book, particularly due to the synopsis misleading me. Now I have never read a Natalie Haynes book before. I don't know if this is just a part of her writing style, but Stone Blind was not just Medusa's story. It was Medusa's, her Gorgon sisters, Perseus, Andromeda, Athene—even Hera had a few POV chapters. While I would typically love this incredibly intricate chain of POVs that come together due to the sequences of events of Medusa's story, the synopsis focused pretty solely on Medusa, so I made the assumption that she would be the lead. Granted, assumptions are never good when it comes to reading a book, but I cannot help those expectations when the synopsis tells otherwise. I counted up the chapters that are solely Medusa's before the Perseus/Medusa scene, and there's only six chapters in her name. And most of those chapters involved her doing next to nothing. She felt like a side character at times, and I really didn't enjoy that aspect to this novel.

The most moving scene of this book, in my opinion, is the chapter where Poseidon corners Medusa in Athene's temple. The scene actually cuts before Medusa's rape, but the conversation between the two of them held me enraptured. I couldn't stop listening to the audiobook, and my breath was held inside my chest. It was tense and haunting, and I just wanted to save Medusa. But once this scene concludes, I don't think we get closure, or Medusa doesn't for sure. Maybe that's the point of this story, and I'm being too critical. Medusa never leaves her cave until Perseus comes, and we all know how that ends. Maybe Natalie wanted readers to feel angry and upset about Perseus's cowardly self attacking Medusa in her depression, but I felt like we missed out on a whole part of Medusa's life. Something just feels wrong.

Ultimately, I found most of the other POVs to be quite boring. Athene really annoyed me besides her final few chapters involving Medusa's head. Actually, the ending was incredibly poetic and perfect, but it can't counteract all of the previous chapters that didn't do it for me. I'm pretty sad with my reading experience of this book. I wanted a Medusa retelling that made me cry to my core, and instead, this book just felt "eh" to me besides that chapter between Medusa/Poseidon. This makes me a bit more hesitant in picking up A Thousand Ships, and I need to take a long break from Greek retelling books for sure.

I have a special sweet spot for historical fiction that takes place in winter and involves a bit of magic, so you can definitely bet that I loved this story. It was slow at times, which affected my readability, but overall, I loved the mystery of the pythos and its relation to the Blake family. Having the three perspectives of Dora, Hezekiah, and Edward was perfect too because reader's get the distinct differing perspectives of Dora and Edward, and then, Hezekiah came in to just throw caution to the wind and piss me off throughout all of his chapters. Only Dora and Edward's sweetness could counteract the knee jerking reaction to want to suffocate Hezekiah's chapters every time he showed his ugly self. I saw a couple reviews say that Hezekiah felt like a cartoony antagonist, but I didn't experience that sentiment. He was more a bitter old man than anything, and I've had plenty of experiences with those sorts of men who teeter on that line of nearly doing anything for their own selfish, twisted desires.

The romance between Dora and Edward was another great part of the story. I enjoyed its gradual slow burn pace, and then, when it did become a reality for the characters, it didn't overwhelm the main plot in any way. It just altered the course a little, and the story continued like nothing happened. Also, because this involves romance of a different sort, I did not expect in any way for LGBTQ+ rep to be a part of this book at all. It is a side character, and that character doesn't receive a happy ending for their love, but it grabbed my attention to see a gay character represented in 1799 England. I'm hoping in the future any LGBTQ+ characters can be main characters or even have happier endings where they find their partner. I'll always be rooting for historical fiction LGBTQ+ rep!

Overall, if you're a fan of historical fiction with some magical elements, then, Pandora is perfect for you. It reminded me a lot of The Golem and the Jinni, The Binding, and Once Upon a River. As an added bonus, if you've found yourself not connecting to any of the Greek myth retelling that have release recently, try out Pandora because it takes Greek mythology and turns it into something new, specifically in a century thousands of years later. It was a very refreshing experience for me at least.

Just like antiquities, Pandora will make its round to its destined readers, and I'm so excited to read more of Susan Stokes-Chapman's works in the, hopefully soon, future! And I do highly recommend the audiobook because the narrator had a great tone to match the 1799 era.

Thank you to Harper Audio and NetGalley for this ARC audio! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

My first audiobook ARC was destined to be five stars when its Roshani's adult debut!

If it wasn't already obvious—I adore Roshani Chokshi, so this should come as a surprise to no one that I loved this hauntingly gothic tale of childhood friendship, marriage, and faeries. I actually don't think anywhere in the synopsis does it mention faeries, but they actually indirectly play a vital role to the entirety of this story, which was a pleasant surprise. The book market is oversaturated in faerie content currently, but Roshani brought the creeps and magic of true fae to the forefront of this story. I'm not going to go too much in detail because I think this story is told best by following along yourself. A lot can be considered spoilers so the less I talk about this book, the better.

Anyway, The Last Tale of the Flower Bride follows two dual perspectives. The first a man merely known as Bridegroom who marries Indigo and follows her back to her childhood home when her estranged aunt's health is near its end. The other POV does not appear for the first few chapters, but it was a pleasant surprise that I think a lot of reader's will find interesting. But back to Bridegroom—he starts to realize something is amiss as soon as he steps into the House of Dreams (Indigo's childhood home). The house seems almost... sentient, and Indigo refuses to acknowledge even a single detail of her past. It's all very peculiar and discomforting, so Bridegroom begins to investigate.

I found the unraveling of Indigo's secrets to be highly entertaining. She initially reminded me of Evelyn Hugo from The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo because of her larger than life aura, so it was great to learn about her from another character rather than her own POV. Obviously, that decision makes her wildly more mysterious. Her marriage to Bridegroom was interesting too because in the beginning, Bridegroom is certainly the one not in control when it comes to their relationship, but as the story unravels, Indigo does too. She becomes less composed and "seemingly" perfect. The House of Dreams unsettles her, and Bridegroom senses it too. To be honest, this story was a journey into whether this marriage would become stronger or obliterated. Readers will enjoy trying to guess what the endgame will be for these two.

The writing is extremely telling rather than showing (think writing like Erin Morgenstern), so if you don't like that then maybe don't pick this up quite yet. All gothic literature is very lyrical and detailed, so it didn't bother me one bit getting to listen to Roshani's laments of love. Her writing burns the brightest in this standalone; she was meant to write gothic literature. The fact that I read this in a day alone shows how entrancing it was, couldn't stop listening for a second.

Now I'm definitely going to come back to this review with spoilers. I want to scream about the other POV to the rooftops! I'm very excited to see people's reactions to this story, and I really hope Roshani decides to write more within this genre in the future. I'll be the first to read them!

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for the ARC audiobook. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

My first YA Tessa Gratton book and my first EVER Justina Ireland book! Needless to say, I was VERY excited about this new fantasy duology, and while I did have some issues with the story overall—and I'll get to those points later—Chaos and Flame has some of the most unique concepts and world building that I have ever seen without YA and even Adult fantasy. I truly cannot wait for the sequel because that cliffhanger came out of nowhere to smack me upside the head. I need to know what happens next! *cries*

Now's my time to shower Justina and Tessa with praise. For starters, the opening prologue of Caspian and his abilities? TOOK ME OUT. It solidified my inkling to read this ARC, and I couldn't hold back from delving immediately between the pages.

Caspian is actually not one of the dual POVs, but he is a significant character because he is the older brother to Talon, one of the POVs, and is the prince Regent of their kingdom. Buttttt rumors are swirling around him that he's going mad, and his boon power and its secrecy don't help those rumors at all. He has a prophecy boon, and it manifests through his artwork, specifically his preferred medium of painting. We actually meet the other lead Darling through his paintings because ever since his boon manifested, he cannot stop painting her. Like... his room is LITERALLY covered in images of Darling, and to our knowledge, he's never met her prior. Isn't this fascinating? I loved every minute of his boon experiences, and they truly made this novel standout. Not to mention the other boons are just as exciting—Darlings insane healing abilities that saved her from her family's annihilation and Talon's tracking abilities that expand even to someone who has a boon for invisibility. Literally insane how unique these boons are and I'm really hoping within the sequel to Chaos and Flame, we can learn more about the technicalities of boons. At this point, we just know they're at an all time low in this world when they used to be extremely common. I do think my favorite character is Caspian. He's an enigma throughout the book, but as a reader you question if he's as crazy as everyone makes him out to be, particularly when he shows a bit of his true self. We don't even get a good look at his true, open self, and it made him by far the best character.

Now that's not to say I didn't enjoy Talon and Darling—the leads. Their best moments were actually with one another, in my opinion, double points if they were alone together. They have great chemistry as enemies to lovers too, and their relationship is insta-love besides that initial enemies meeting/ fight. I would've liked their romance to be drawn out further, so the slow build from hating one another to loving appears more natural. It felt very cut and dry at first, and I got whiplash. To be honest, both leads are wildly curious, searching for so many answers throughout the novel, and to see their different approaches was a nice distinction. For character specifics, Darling's eyes are affected by chaos (the magic system of this world), so she has to wear special goggles to help with light sensitivity. I think in the sequel we're going to learn more about how her eyes got to that point because I get the feeling there's more to them than meets the eye. On the plus side though, she's great with night vision and that appears to be the extent to their perks. Then, in terms of Talon, he's just a big softie haha. He gives off golden retriever vibes to his loved ones, and as soon as he shifts that onto Darling, I was hooked!

Ultimately, what drew me most to Talon and Darling were their deeply ingrained loyalties to their loved ones. At first I wrote "sides" inside of "loved ones", but I deleted that and replaced it because over the course of the novel, we see how Darling and Talon just want what's best for the people they love. I liked watching their loyalties to their political affiliations crack over time in favor of peace, and while it made them appear younger to have all that optimism and hope for peace, it reminded me of just HOW young they are. Talon may be a war general and Darling a rebel in this war, but they're children too. They didn't choose to follow this path but were led to it by adults.

Finally, it is time to talk about my biggest gripe with this book—pacing. This realization shocked me because Tessa Gratton's adult books have always been slow paced, so it was a bit of a shock to see them write incredibly fast. I haven’t read any of Justina’s other works, so I’m unsure of her pacing. Anyway, the pacing didn't allow for the relationships and time jumps to feel as realistic as they could've been. I mentioned Darling and Talon's insta-love earlier, but we go to multiple nobility Houses over the course of the book, and I felt robbed of those weeks worth of travel that culminated into a couple pages. There was one ambush during their travels, but I wanted more of those deeper conversations and connections because travel brings people together, at least usually haha. When we get to the Houses even, some of those chapters felt WAY too quick. I wanted to get to know these people, but I couldn't, so their names went in and out of my brain like the span of a breath. This world is too complex to be roughly 350 pages, and I think it should've been at least 100 more. Plus, when major deaths happened within this installment, I felt nothing for the character and their relationship to the lead because I felt as if I barely knew them due to the pacing speed. Also, slight tangent, the character who killed the person revealed information about them that not even the friend character knew, so it really was jarring and random to read that entire sequence. What does it matter if they had prior allegiances? That character is dead now. What is the point? Maybe something will happen in the sequel, but it was just off-putting to add a very important detail at their death. I really hope the sequel is much much longer because this world deserves the lush descriptions, hallway conversations, and slow build to the climax.

Thank you to Penguin Teen and NetGalley for a review copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.