Katie
4.5 stars
How do you rate a book like this? It's a familiar enough dystopia, yet strange enough to stand apart. The afterword claims that this rejects a box and I can't think of a more accurate description. The curiosity is eating at me but, of course, that's the point - I'm not her. I have known men.
3.999 stars, very narrowly avoided 4...?!? TBH just my pride keeping me from the 4....Ah fuck it
My expectations were in hell. This grabbed me by the hair, dragged my smoldering corpse up to the earth's crust, and kept going.
Is this going to win literature awards? No. But it IS the best written romantasy I've read in at least the last several years. I would go so far as to say that categorizing it as “romantasy” is a generous compliment to the genre.
FMC that isn't a cringey sass queen nor a passive noodle? ✅
Love interest(s) with personalities that aren't flimsier than the condoms used in preg kink erotica? ✅
Attraction that doesn't conflate lust with love? ✅
Romance that doesn't go from 0-3,000 within ten pages? ✅
Fantasy that doesn't try to solely qualify itself with the vaguest mention of magic? ✅
Plot that isn't scraps of erotica padded with drawn out conflict that relies solely on misunderstandings? ✅
Prose that is neither below a second grade level nor a blatant advertisement for Thesaurus.com? ✅
As soon as I finished this, I literally forced my boyfriend to help me procure the second book. IN HARDCOVER.
I don't even know who I am anymore.
Very interesting.
A little denser than I expected. Great if you like complex political maneuvering in space. Clearly a lot of work done to build the world. That will also turn people away.
I would have enjoyed a bit more action, and a bit more tension. May seem to drag at parts but I enjoyed it all around the four star mark.
It was...fine. Lots of unlikeable people. A lot of characters felt similar to each other, especially the men. Romance was pretty lame.
Felt like the ending didn't have a solid enough foundation. I guess there was foreshadowing sort of but it was very weak. A lot of time was spent on trying to throw you off in too many directions at the same time.
Honestly was bored halfway through, but it was an audiobook so it was easy to truck through while doing things I enjoyed more.
This was hot garbage. I finished it purely out of spite.
There are a million reasons to dislike it, but one of my favorites is the absolutely frantic plot movement at the end, like author realized she has only two chapters left to get through the entire story. It's so off-putting to have something new shoved at us every other line. I found myself reading and thinking of the “sure, Jan” meme the whole time.
A very soft 4 stars, maybe 3.85 stars.
I love what I've read so far of Kingfisher's work but this is the first one where I felt a little...meh by the end. I enjoyed so much of the story, but that last 10% is wild and moves way too fast. It's conceivable, but the pacing absolutely is not. I don't normally have a lot of meta thoughts while reading, so it stands out that, around page 280, I asked myself how it was all going to resolve with 30 pages left. Well, it does, but with a cost.
Fairytale evil magic mom and Ella Enchanted vibes.
Definitely pushed through the last 100 pages just to say I finished it. Not entirely sure I read the same book that others rave about. Evangeline was somewhat insufferable in her naïveté and much of the relationships were contrived. Not interested whatsoever in finishing the series, and removing Caraval from the shelves as well (since they're related).
