Astrid Hawk
Added to listKindle First Readswith 4 books.
Added to listDystopiaswith 26 books.
I was pleasantly surprised, AT FIRST, to find that this book isn't at all what I thought it would be from the blurb. (Review preview - things went from good to a bit cringe to laughably bad.) I was expecting a more typical fantasy setting - the usual medieval-like fiefdoms with some magic thrown in. Instead, I was excited to realize in the first chapter that this is a modern or indeterminate-future dystopia! Right up my alley.
The premise is that the world as we know it has been "ripped" in a number of places to not just reveal but haphazardly mingle with a parallel universe. Among other things, this has let in an epidemic that turns people into mindless violent killers, and has created a food crisis and other scarcities due to the fact that nothing can grow in the mixed soils from the two worlds. But "Theirland" has also brought advances in pharmaceuticals, armaments, and nutrition science, which allows the resulting dictatorship to keep the population subdued in the name of safety through the use of a combination of martial law and fear induction psychology.
Really cool setup, right? I thought so anyway. Amid this setup, we're introduced to the main character Arden, who is recruited right away in the book's opening to join a trainee group at the military academy, which is revealed pretty quickly to be more like a prison laboratory. At first, it seems like the underdog-at-the-military-academy trope is going to be really fun and work well. I breezed through the first 80 pages of the book in a single sitting.
But pretty quickly after that, Arden meets Cyrus and things start devolving into the typical doe eyes, damsel-in-distress can't-help-falling-for-the-bad-boy-with-the-face-scar-and-muscles thing. The rest of the book plays out a lot like everything I complained about in my Heartless Hunter review. Arden also has a "good guy" love interest, which, like Rune/Alex in Heartless Hunter, is quickly eclipsed by the "inescapable" chemistry between Arden and Cyrus. Arden's attraction to Cyrus, in contrast, seems to be mostly reduced to pheromones - I cringed the first time his overpowering "ambrosia" scent is mentioned, and it seems to be mentioned with increasing frequency through the book, as if we'd forget that first jarring mention.
By the end of the book, I was seriously reminded of an 8- or 9-year old girl just telling themselves an imaginative love story. At one point, Arden wears "the pinkest, frilliest dress" with more ruffles than she's ever seen to a party (where she and Cyrus spend all of 5 minutes unsuccessfully prying secrets out of people before pulling a minor heist and then leaving). The whole thing just feels really juvenile, like the author is really just living in her own imaginary girl world rather than trying to stay true to the characters and the story.
At no point is magic directly mentioned in any of the technology they're using, but there's also no explanation given for how some of it might theoretically work. At the same party where Arden wears the frilly dress, she also wears a necklace that somehow ensures her voice can't be recorded (huh? how would that work?) even though she can talk at a normal volume and be heard by whoever she's talking to (and did it also mute Cyrus's half of the conversation, or others...? never explained). That same frilly dress miraculously renders her invisible to cameras (how convenient), even though she's perfectly visible to other humans, and the dress is not a body suit - it is sleeveless and does not cover her head. Earlier in the story, Cyrus gives her biometric trackers ostensibly to monitor her fear/panic level via heart rate (how convenient for the love interest to have access to her pulse!) that also conveniently allow him to watch her and talk to her (through... bone conduction, I guess?).
It just seemed to get more and more ridiculous without at all adding to the dystopian hero story I thought we were getting in the beginning. I seriously considered giving this just 2 stars - but I did really like the premise and... I guess I was feeling generous? (Edit: nope, downgraded to 2 after more reflection.) I'm not sure if I'll read the second book. It has potential to be better than the first with a greater focus on political intrigue and potential backstabbing, dual loyalties, etc... but looking at the rest of this author's repertoire, I don't have high hopes that she can stop herself from letting the romance overtake the story again.
I was pleasantly surprised, AT FIRST, to find that this book isn't at all what I thought it would be from the blurb. (Review preview - things went from good to a bit cringe to laughably bad.) I was expecting a more typical fantasy setting - the usual medieval-like fiefdoms with some magic thrown in. Instead, I was excited to realize in the first chapter that this is a modern or indeterminate-future dystopia! Right up my alley.
The premise is that the world as we know it has been "ripped" in a number of places to not just reveal but haphazardly mingle with a parallel universe. Among other things, this has let in an epidemic that turns people into mindless violent killers, and has created a food crisis and other scarcities due to the fact that nothing can grow in the mixed soils from the two worlds. But "Theirland" has also brought advances in pharmaceuticals, armaments, and nutrition science, which allows the resulting dictatorship to keep the population subdued in the name of safety through the use of a combination of martial law and fear induction psychology.
Really cool setup, right? I thought so anyway. Amid this setup, we're introduced to the main character Arden, who is recruited right away in the book's opening to join a trainee group at the military academy, which is revealed pretty quickly to be more like a prison laboratory. At first, it seems like the underdog-at-the-military-academy trope is going to be really fun and work well. I breezed through the first 80 pages of the book in a single sitting.
But pretty quickly after that, Arden meets Cyrus and things start devolving into the typical doe eyes, damsel-in-distress can't-help-falling-for-the-bad-boy-with-the-face-scar-and-muscles thing. The rest of the book plays out a lot like everything I complained about in my Heartless Hunter review. Arden also has a "good guy" love interest, which, like Rune/Alex in Heartless Hunter, is quickly eclipsed by the "inescapable" chemistry between Arden and Cyrus. Arden's attraction to Cyrus, in contrast, seems to be mostly reduced to pheromones - I cringed the first time his overpowering "ambrosia" scent is mentioned, and it seems to be mentioned with increasing frequency through the book, as if we'd forget that first jarring mention.
By the end of the book, I was seriously reminded of an 8- or 9-year old girl just telling themselves an imaginative love story. At one point, Arden wears "the pinkest, frilliest dress" with more ruffles than she's ever seen to a party (where she and Cyrus spend all of 5 minutes unsuccessfully prying secrets out of people before pulling a minor heist and then leaving). The whole thing just feels really juvenile, like the author is really just living in her own imaginary girl world rather than trying to stay true to the characters and the story.
At no point is magic directly mentioned in any of the technology they're using, but there's also no explanation given for how some of it might theoretically work. At the same party where Arden wears the frilly dress, she also wears a necklace that somehow ensures her voice can't be recorded (huh? how would that work?) even though she can talk at a normal volume and be heard by whoever she's talking to (and did it also mute Cyrus's half of the conversation, or others...? never explained). That same frilly dress miraculously renders her invisible to cameras (how convenient), even though she's perfectly visible to other humans, and the dress is not a body suit - it is sleeveless and does not cover her head. Earlier in the story, Cyrus gives her biometric trackers ostensibly to monitor her fear/panic level via heart rate (how convenient for the love interest to have access to her pulse!) that also conveniently allow him to watch her and talk to her (through... bone conduction, I guess?).
It just seemed to get more and more ridiculous without at all adding to the dystopian hero story I thought we were getting in the beginning. I seriously considered giving this just 2 stars - but I did really like the premise and... I guess I was feeling generous? (Edit: nope, downgraded to 2 after more reflection.) I'm not sure if I'll read the second book. It has potential to be better than the first with a greater focus on political intrigue and potential backstabbing, dual loyalties, etc... but looking at the rest of this author's repertoire, I don't have high hopes that she can stop herself from letting the romance overtake the story again.
Six morally gray killers are recruited to work together in a plot to commit regicide against a brutal god-king and place one of the six on the throne instead. Each has their own dark secrets in their past that motivate them to participate in this quest, and each brings unique skills to the game. With that setup, it *should* have been a really interesting story that practically compelled me to keep turning the pages... but somehow it fell short.
The book follows their individual (well, paired) paths to join the group for the first half, and then follows the group's journey and coup attempt for the second half. I found the first half, while the group is split up into 3 pairs doing different things, a bit dull. Each pair encounters some drama along the way that challenges them to work together, but ultimately they feel like isolated incidents. They have no real bearing on the rest of the story beyond allowing the characters to showcase their skills, develop their personalities a bit better for the reader, and test/grow their bonds. But the incidents themselves feel like side quests that never really get tied back in at the end - especially Euyn's and Mikail's.
The story is told from each of the 6 characters' perspectives - some get more narrative time than others, but all are told in 1st person present tense. Unfortunately, all of their inner voices sound extremely similar. Royo uses "tough guy" speak, occasionally using "ain't" and sometimes mismatched subject/verb agreement (e.g. "it don't matter none") - but it isn't consistent, and feels jarring when it happens. Aeri occasionally has a bubbly, spritely inner voice, but it's also not consistent. The rest of them all sounded the same to me, and if you didn't read the chapter titles (which include the narrator's name and their location) it was possible to lose track of who was narrating when they were all in a group together.
It didn't help that most of the chapters were extremely short, some only 3 pages, and few in the 10-12 page range. There was little overlap in the timeline between one character's chapter and the next - more overlap might have helped add more opportunities for intrigue or puzzle solving, since it would have helped the narrators seem more reliable than they were. Instead, it felt a bit like they were sharing a camera, passing it between them from moment to moment, and the story felt a bit disjointed. In many cases, the perspective switch didn't really add much value.
Where most books earn the title of romantasy because they're really romance stories with a fantasy setting, this book actually features THREE romantic pairings. Fortunately, although this sounds like 3x the romantic nightmare, the author does a good job of making the dynamics of each relationship different - and none really overtakes the story or any of the individual characters. Euyn and Mikail's relationship is especially challenging (which makes it more compelling), as they are wrestling with class differences and the fact that they are both killers with strong self-interest. They think they love each other, but they also know that they won't sacrifice themselves or their individual goals for their love for the other. It's an interesting dynamic to watch, and I found it refreshing compared to the usual romantasy tripe.
I found it an enjoyable enough story over all, with plenty of secrets to slowly reveal (and a few saved for the next book) - it just wasn't as riveting as I thought it could have been from the premise. I'll likely read the next one to see where the series goes. While I'm not particularly attached to any of the characters or their relationships (slightly disappointing), I'm still interested in the group overall and their path to learning to be a found family.
Six morally gray killers are recruited to work together in a plot to commit regicide against a brutal god-king and place one of the six on the throne instead. Each has their own dark secrets in their past that motivate them to participate in this quest, and each brings unique skills to the game. With that setup, it *should* have been a really interesting story that practically compelled me to keep turning the pages... but somehow it fell short.
The book follows their individual (well, paired) paths to join the group for the first half, and then follows the group's journey and coup attempt for the second half. I found the first half, while the group is split up into 3 pairs doing different things, a bit dull. Each pair encounters some drama along the way that challenges them to work together, but ultimately they feel like isolated incidents. They have no real bearing on the rest of the story beyond allowing the characters to showcase their skills, develop their personalities a bit better for the reader, and test/grow their bonds. But the incidents themselves feel like side quests that never really get tied back in at the end - especially Euyn's and Mikail's.
The story is told from each of the 6 characters' perspectives - some get more narrative time than others, but all are told in 1st person present tense. Unfortunately, all of their inner voices sound extremely similar. Royo uses "tough guy" speak, occasionally using "ain't" and sometimes mismatched subject/verb agreement (e.g. "it don't matter none") - but it isn't consistent, and feels jarring when it happens. Aeri occasionally has a bubbly, spritely inner voice, but it's also not consistent. The rest of them all sounded the same to me, and if you didn't read the chapter titles (which include the narrator's name and their location) it was possible to lose track of who was narrating when they were all in a group together.
It didn't help that most of the chapters were extremely short, some only 3 pages, and few in the 10-12 page range. There was little overlap in the timeline between one character's chapter and the next - more overlap might have helped add more opportunities for intrigue or puzzle solving, since it would have helped the narrators seem more reliable than they were. Instead, it felt a bit like they were sharing a camera, passing it between them from moment to moment, and the story felt a bit disjointed. In many cases, the perspective switch didn't really add much value.
Where most books earn the title of romantasy because they're really romance stories with a fantasy setting, this book actually features THREE romantic pairings. Fortunately, although this sounds like 3x the romantic nightmare, the author does a good job of making the dynamics of each relationship different - and none really overtakes the story or any of the individual characters. Euyn and Mikail's relationship is especially challenging (which makes it more compelling), as they are wrestling with class differences and the fact that they are both killers with strong self-interest. They think they love each other, but they also know that they won't sacrifice themselves or their individual goals for their love for the other. It's an interesting dynamic to watch, and I found it refreshing compared to the usual romantasy tripe.
I found it an enjoyable enough story over all, with plenty of secrets to slowly reveal (and a few saved for the next book) - it just wasn't as riveting as I thought it could have been from the premise. I'll likely read the next one to see where the series goes. While I'm not particularly attached to any of the characters or their relationships (slightly disappointing), I'm still interested in the group overall and their path to learning to be a found family.
Added to listOwnedwith 44 books.
