Joanna

â­ï¸ 2 stars

DNF @ 50%

A powerful story, Iâm sure, but it dragged for me and I didnât enjoy Joniece Abbot-Prattâs narration. Iâm also coming to understand that I really struggle with lyrical prose, which this has enough of for me to find frustrating. I found the lyricism got in the way of understanding what exactly was happening.
Iâm a fan of Octavia E. Butler, and as this was marketed to her readers and I found the premise intriguing, of course I picked it up. But at the halfway mark I mostly felt frustrated and my interest dwindled, so gave up on this one.
Maybe if I were in a different frame of mind and reading the book, not listening to audiobook, Iâd be able to finish.

DNF @ 14%.

Wait⦠this is supposed to be a strong female-led adult historical story with a feminist bent?

Then why am I following the life of an emotionless young woman who has just been drugged, kidnapped from her home and family, is forced to marry a stranger, and that said stranger seemingly has no problems with this scenario, let alone acknowledges the fact but is in lust with her so, yâknow, whatever - and our strong female protagonist has no strong feelings about this? All Iâm hearing is that she canât believe her dream life came true and the guy has cute dimples. There is a serious lack of depth.

The writer didnât think perhaps this is an important subject and is an opportunity to acknowledge and give life to the historical (and current) issue of violence, misogyny and objectification of women? Particularly the violence - physical, sexual, emotional - perpetrated on women of colour? That so many women in history have been kidnapped, traded and forced to live a life enforced by men? That maybe the âfeministâ lead should have a bit of humanity in experiencing terror, shock, trauma and loss?

I just couldnât get past this point of fluffery and internalised misogyny on a topic that is incredibly important, but has been completely ignored here.

If this is a YA fairytale romantasy, please market it as such.

One redeeming quality is the narration by Ariel Blake, who does a wonderful job of giving as much life to the story as is possible.

Also - what about exploring the story of the women blacksmith guild? That sounds so interesting, yet weâre just given a few crumbs that theyâre hard workers and shunned as witches. This is such a missed opportunity to show the strength, skill and complexity of these women and their place in history. Iâd probably read a book just about them.

I was looking forward to this one, because I think it could have been really interesting given the location and time in history - if it were actually rooted in reality and given the dignity and depth it deserved.

â­ï¸ 1.5 stars

DNF @ 15%

Struggled with the stilted, yet sometimes weirdly lyrical writing and the author's boring tales of his own exploits. Not what I was expecting, though I really wanted to enjoy this one. Couldn't take any more.

Can't stand Teri Schnaubelt's narration. But I plan to come back to this with a different edition. 

DNF at 57%.

Although I enjoyed Dan Floresâ narrative style, and the prehistoric aspect was reasonably well covered, I found the unending focus on the bloodthirsty decimation of animals and environment during the time of colonists too much to continue. Yes, itâs a hard fact, and those disgusting actions of 200 years changed a continent that had an ecology finely tuned for millenia, and it makes me weep in anger, and we must bear witness to this and learn from this and not sweep it under the rug. There are incredibly important lessons to be learned and never forgotten from this period in human and animal history.
However, this was the focus of at least 1/4 of the book, and I stopped during the mid-1800âs. Where is the epic history of Native American culture and their complex relationship with animals before colonisation? Surely this would require 1/4 of the book before colonialism? But there was barely a mention at the start. Iâm going to generously presume their relationship with animals post-colonialism is covered somewhere in the last half of the book.
I also acknowledge that Iâm not in the right state of mind to read this harrowing story - and I may never be. I actually cried several times while listening - even with the sub-par narrator (Clark Cornell). But Iâm very glad I learned a few very important things from this book and will try to share it with others. And Iâll continue to do all I can for our environment, wildlife and human compassion.

What a slog. DNF at 42%.

Boring, way too many characters, and I couldnât give a hoot about any of them. Wouldnât matter if it started to become an amazing fast-paced thriller from the next chapter where I left off, Iâm done with this one.

Yet another popular book that does nothing for me. Moving on.

DNF @ 30%

A depressingly flat, boring read from page 1. I had zero interest in the main character or what would happen to her. The plot itself is interesting and could have really sucked me in if the character and writing were given more life. 

Unfortunately the reader of this audiobook had such a grating, monosyllabic voice that I just couldn't continue past the first few chapters.
I'll eventually have another crack at this iconic book, hopefully in page form.

Enjoyable light read, easy writing style, witty and good for my fellow ladies who fear becoming a lonely old spinster. I'd read more by this author.

I couldn't get through all of this book; after waiting for something interesting to happen, I gave up. Three words to describe: boredom, annoyance, lifeless. I've never read any Trollope books before, so I can't judge as to her general style, but I think this story could have gone somewhere if it weren't for the mind-numbing writing style and lack of any spark.

🎧 Audiobook

DNF @ 10%

I don't think I'm the intended audience (young gamer guys of the cliche variety). Granted, I don't consider myself a gamer, and this is my first attempt at reading LitRPG. But I do like playing games, love fantasy and sci fi, and am very familiar with tech. I'm sure there's probably some niche female-written books in the genre I could possibly like, but I (perhaps naively given the culture surrounding a lot of gaming) thought this could be a good first step as it seems pretty popular. I thought perhaps it would be in the flavour of Tad Williams' Otherworld, but with more technical elements of game play. Alas. This was literally like watching a teenager's Twitch stream. If that sounds like your thing, you might like this book. 

The attempt at simplistic humour, boring protagonist, plodding writing and pace, and constant interruptions of in-game notifications/descriptions just did my head in. The narrator really didn't help either. Not even going to try getting further in. I doubt another 26 hours of this book was going to be pleasant. 

Note to self: LitRPG may not be your thing. 

DNF @ 7%

🎧 Audiobook

Unfortunately Wren Mack's narration is awful; they seem to think the audience are easily distracted children. Which is a shame because I was looking forward to this one. I might try the book instead at some point. 

Unfortunately I just don't have the brain energy to work through this one. I can sense this could be an epic series, but the technicality of the world and the dry writing style both demand a lot of brain work I can't give it. Perhaps I'll pick it up again for another try in the future. 

Nope. DNF @ 50%. 
The plot itself is ok; I wouldn't be saying there's much world building or epic-ness. It's kind of action fairy tale, not my usual kind of fantasy. Though I think I could have continued despite this if it weren't for the other big issues. In fact, there were some really great descriptions of creepy animals in the Wood that I enjoyed - at which point I decided to give up, if that gives you any indication of how bothered I was with other content I address below. The writing was vivid and easy to follow - until it wasn't. There are some places with weird phraseology and odd sequencing of scenes that jolts you out of the story.
The big issues: The unquestioned and unaddressed underage sexualisation of girls, and the lack of any mention of empathy or other feeling for graphic animal death and cruelty, really put me off from a story I could have generally otherwise enjoyed. Come to think of it, the lack of emotion about triggering subjects is just generally very odd.
I'm incredibly disappointed that a female writer is perpetuating the normalisation of much older men sexualising underage children. Also the (unexplained) targeting of teen girls for a wizard to choose from and take for his own unknown use every 10 years is never fully explained. Why girls, why teens? There is no explanation for this, just that it happens, and that villagers suspect they're sexually abused (shared without any anger/horror/outrage/whatever). I get that these situations will be part of fiction, but you cannot present them as if they are acceptable. I suspect this is part of the story just to carry the age-old trope (that is not ok) of using girls as protagonists to be seduced by older men and/or to include sexual elements the patriarchy has told us is the most desirable (i.e. older men lusting after teenage girls). Of which I very much do not care to read as acceptable. I just have no patience for this shit anymore. It's not needed. It's harmful. There is no place for this rubbish anymore, especially from a female author.