ofclumsywords's Reviews (486)

This entire series is incredible, but this book is by far my favorite out of the series. While all Samantha Shannon’s books rip your heart out with jaw dropping revelations, this book arguably has the best character development. 

The reader is once again reunited with Paige back in London after escaping from Oxford. After the knowledge Paige gained while imprisoned, she somehow has to find out who she is now after all she has gone through. Paige is such an amazing character and I loved her journey to find herself and rise up to take the title of Underqueen of the syndicate. She is a natural born leader and even if this series is not complete yet, I know Paige will do anything it takes to take Scion down. 

While I guessed pretty early who the killer was and motive behind the plot, I have to give this book props for its heart pounding scenes and horrific deaths. But besides being predictable, the main character was a little whiny and caught up with her relationship and too focused on guessing the wrong killer. 

The second installment of the Murderbot Diaries takes a deeper look into our beloved Murderbots past and why it gave itself the name Murderbot. It was another great read and I’m so happy I started this series. It helped me get out of a reading slump. 

This was a fast and fun read about a robot who is more human than it seems. I can understand why this series is so well loved.

With all the hype surrounding this book, I was expecting a great fantasy book including dragons, romance, and an interesting plot. Well, this book certainly checks the boxes for dragons and romance. The plot? Not so much. This book isn’t even well written and even if it does take place in a fantasy world there is barely any world building. Instead it has a bit of dragons and a very slow plot that is heavily influenced by the romance that doesn’t happen even 300 pages in. 

I can understand the hype of this book with a snarky main character who is very bookish and a broody love interest. But this is just not a book I am interested in. I’m glad I gave it a shot, but I am also glad that I have become more willing to DNF books when they don’t interest me. 

This story was going great until the author decided to bring a pregnancy into the plot. Not only that but the fact that the supposed couple had only a few chapters together before they were separated and then each given their own plots. And each characters plot felt like it should have its own book instead of sharing a book and alternating POV’s throughout the book. Each time the POV changed it felt like being doused with a bucket of cold water as the reader was suddenly pulled away from one plot and had to reorient themselves onto the second plot. And don’t get me started on the lack of chemistry between the supposed couple. They are introduced as best friends and yet once they are separated one character makes the choice to go through with a marriage of connivence to save the underworld from a witch and then ends up pregnant and suddenly her personality does a 180 and she becomes a terrible character. And then the best friend shows up and suddenly it’s a love triangle. That is the moment I called it quits. But I did look at the last chapter to find out the pregnant character runs off with her more than best friend and has the baby and keeps it hidden from her husband. Talk about a soap opera.

I am so furious that another book I considered decent was ruined by a pregnancy trope and a barely there love triangle that had no chemistry. What a waste of time. 

While this book was interesting, the reader can tell that this was Sanderson’s very first book. There seemed like there were three plots happening at once and too many characters and POV’s to keep track of. Also, while the magic system was unique, it seemed too complex for the story that did not need magic in the first place; especially since religion and politics were more prominent in this book and overshadowed the magic. 

I did like it and enjoyed the two main characters. But this book needed a lot of editing and removal of a lot of its chapters and plot points.