Lucie
It was a fun read, I laughed out loud a few times and I had a great time following the story of our two protagonists. I liked the setting of the book, the various references alluded to by the author as well as the side characters that were for the most part quirky and funny. However, even if I enjoyed my read, I didn't connect with Cecilia and Ned as much as I hoped to, if Cecilia was quite well developed and I enjoyed her personality, I can't say I felt the same about Ned. He is handsome, charming and funny and that's about it. He lacked substance in my opinion. Their relationship was not developed enough to my liking as they were immediately drawn to each other. Despite all that, if you want a light read with a gang of old pirate ladies, flying houses, a villain with horrible poetry tastes and eccentric side characters, I think you might like it.
The start was quite slow and the characters already seen before, but still I enjoyed my read. The story really did pick up after a few hundred pages and it was a delight to follow the adventures of Bran and Aisling. Without spoiling it, the end surprised me in a good sense, even if I was quite baffled at the decisions of some of the characters and reasoning behind them. Still, I'm excited to read the second and last book of this duology.
I really tried with this book. Really. I'm a big fan of Cassandra Gannon, whose books I discovered last year, and Yesterday's Heroes was written by her sister. The synopsis made me think of The Boys, one my favorite TV shows, so I was intrigued and pretty excited at the idea to read it. But gosh was I bored reading it.
I didn't care much about how this guy mentioned one time and who isn't relevant to the story at all is named Brussels Sprouts the Third and kidnapped puppies and made them fight cobras in an alligator farm. I didn't give a damn as well about what he is thinking, even less when his point of view was followed by many more in the same vein. It felt so superficial to me. Like all these characters had one job: info-dumping on the world-building. And gosh was the info-dumping thick at times, the size of a dwarf moon crashing into Pluto.
What also bothered me were the numbers of monologues the characters had in their heads or even conversing with others. It helped to understand them and know them, that's for sure, but it was really redundant at times. The worst of it was when the ML was introducing a bunch of characters in a row at the beginning and just listed all their history. It seemed like it would never end and I hated it. But what got on my nerves the most was the way the FL, a grown ass woman of 27 yo, was so naive and unknowing of so many basic things... She didn't seem to understand irony and sarcasm, or why some people would possibly search to avoid conflicts by attending meetings that always involved fights and arguments. If she had her moments, most of the time she was oblivious and lacked hindsight on a lot of things. Her relationship with the ML was also insta-lusty, which isn't my jam. However, he was the only saving grace in this book for me. I really liked him: he is grounded, rational and sarcastic and has been through a lot. Apart from his character, I didn't have a great time reading Yesterday's Heroes.