ren
i'm surprised by how little i enjoyed this book. ive read many of the author's other books and enjoyed them a lot but this one just fell flat for me. i couldnt get a good grasp of the main characters, they kept changing their opinions about each other all the time and the pacing was a bit weird, especially in the second half. i wish the story committed itself to a few of the betrayals (so many!) instead of flip-flopping all over the place. it became a bit tiring.
the writing also wasn't that good. it felt very amateurish which is weird. idk. i dont know what happened here
i'm so confused by this series.
i loved the voice of the main character (only reason i read the three books tbh) but the mysteries were... bad? like, in the first two books kip isn't even investigating anything. things just happen to him/around him. also, the villains of book 1 AND book 2 had the same motivation??? which is just ???
writing was very stilted at times. idk. im not reading more of these.
did i enjoy this book? yes.
am i still slightly confused/baffled by it? also yes.
i never thought id say this but this could've been two books. like. i can count at least 3 times where the book couldve ended and i wouldve been satisfied. so a lot of it feels a tiny bit rushed.
i still liked it a lot though. i love the fae stuff.
i wish the seelie queen was more flashed out though. or the unseelie queen. as is common in mm, women are rare and they are the main ones and ehhhhh they are very one dimensional.
excited for the next one though!!
im fREE
god that was bad.
spoilers for the whole series below. pls dont read if you dont want spoilers.
also its long oops
review for the whole series so far bc i read it all in like 4 days and idk where one starts or ends that well anymore
- first one is the best one. poppy and casteel's relationship makes sense there, it is.... okay, and the plot is okay enough. very sappy at times but Bearable. i liked the wolves well enough bc well. wolves!
- once they resolved their does-s/he-like-back angst amidst their probably-fake engagement, they got extremely, ridiculously, boring. not that the angst was much better bc it definitely wasnt. but since they got together for reals theres been no development WHATSOVER for them anymore. get poppy and casteel from when they realized they liked each other for real and that they would marry for real and the poppy and casteel from the last page of book four and they are. the. same.
- the writing is really annoying in the sense that it doesnt try to be subtle AT ALL. it will explain everything to you. many times. repeatedly.
- the number of times casteel and poppy have sex at wildly inappropriate moments/places is out of this world.
- the number of times they actively grope at each other in public would make me want to shank them if i had to live near them.
- this book is so unbearably focused on sexual attraction/sex as a means of conveying the couple's closeness. you know poppy and casteel love each other bc they fuck every 20 pages and muse about how perfect the other is and nothing else.
- their relationship is BORING. have i already said that? bc it needs repeating.
- they use the same joke. ALL THE TIME. in ALL BOOKS. yes, casteel finds it hot when poppy stabs/punches him. she finds it disturbing (but not really) that he does. WE KNOW THAT. BELIEVE ME YOU DONT NEED TO MAKE ANOTHER JOKE ABOUT IT. STOP.
- the banter is so bad. it tries to be witty but its just the same shit over and over again (see above). and it's ridiculously humorous even at tense moments which nullifies all tension the scene couldve had. this feels like a marvel movie and book form and unfortunately i dont like marvel movies that much!
- poppy's level of power is a bit ridiculous. my girl goes from “maybe half-atlantian with nice healing powers” to “primal who can wish people dead” in four books, for goodness' sake, but the worst isnt even that. its how the author keeps leveling her up constantly after establishing that the last level was OP. like, “omg poppy maybe be descended from A VERY STRONG atlantian bloodline! people will be scared of her and call her soul eater omg”, and then 100 pages later, “omg poppy is actually A DEITY. SHES THE GRANDDAUGHTER OF THE KING OF GODS. and the deities were so powerful and so incredible they went mad with violence for being bored!!! omg!” and then in the next book (or whatever, as i said i cant be sure which book does what), “omg POPPY IS A GODDESS ACTUALLY. LIKE, AN ACTUAL GODDESS, THE ONES THAT CAME /BEFORE/ THE DEITIES” and then in this one, “omg you guys wont believe it! she's A PRIMAL. THE FIRSTEST OF THE GOD-LIKE BEINGS OF THE UNIVERSE”. and at this point i just wish this book would shut up.
- poppy and casteel's relationship isnt healthy at all. like, im usually a bit iffy when ppl complain about relationships being unhealthy in fiction bc lots of times this constant policing makes authors write the most boring shit ever. but poppy and casteel manage to be ridiculously boring while also being ridiculously unhealthy. it's kind of amazing. im ALL for reading about relationships where one part would do everything, including dooming the world, for the other. that shit is exciting! its fun!! look at all this conflict!! ...except here there is no conflict. no one warns them about how stupid they are. no one is worried that these two are the king and queen of atlantia and in a position to do something dangerous if one of them is hurt. ppl just accept it. yeah one of them might die and the other will probably doom the world bc of it but idk they seem cool i guess. let's give them all the power :) what could go wrong :)
- ngl i thought this was going somewhere in this fourth book. i had hope there for like 2 seconds. bc yeah!! isbeth and poppy are alike in some points!! poppy isnt the monster isbeth is, but she would destroy the world for casteel!! everyone knows that!! no one does shit about it!!! poppy is goddamn hypocrite!!! ....but it went nowhere of course. yet. maybe it will in the next books, though i doubt bc now casteel and kieran are tied to poppy's life so she wont watch them die anyway (probably).
- can you imagine raising a son for years and years for him to say to your face he will kill you if you try to put the kingdom you're responsible for above the life of his new girlfriend? the one HE kidnapped, lied to and betrayed? but he loves her now! fuck the people xD
- there are no consequences for the main cast in this book. at first i was surprised and even pleased at how mercilessly the book showed how war/oppression is like, but then i realized its always the extras who die. the family from book 1. the couple who helped them in book 4. arden who was mentioned like 5 times in the whole series. poor lyra who was there for 2 scenes. ian who was only talked briefly the whole series and then became an Issue in book 3 and then died like, super fast, while i was there wondering wHY SHOULD I CARE. i dont know this guy! poppy thought about him before knowing he was the envoy around 10 times in 3 books! i don't care!
- in the same vein, casteel is not punished for ascending poppy. she doesnt care that he'd have doomed her to a life as a fucking vampire bc he cant deal with loss. they are lucky it worked. woohoo!
- see also: casteel's parents not telling them who the blood queen was. NO PUNISHMENT WHATSOVER.
- most egregiously: everyone coming back to life at the end of book 4. like. dont get me wrong. id be mad if delano and whats-her-name-general had died bc thats like half of the queer population in this book. plus delano is nice. but bruh.
- talking about queer population. did someone point out this book was the straightest shit ever and then the author had to add two extra minor queer couples in to save face? because that's how it felt.
- isnt it weird how solis is super sexist and atlantia isnt and this is pointed out repeatedly in the books but poppy is super okay with gay people? should we assume that solis is okay with queer people then? bc otherwise she'd have been surprised by it, right? so is like.... solis is okay with queer people but not women fighting/having equal rights? how did that happen. how does that work. do we have a in universe explanation or just fuck it, we needed gay extras?
- reaver and kieran were right THERE. vonetta was RIGHT THERE. tawny was right THERE TOO. even malik was right there!!!! look at all these more than two line characters who were THERE. but no we get the general and her girlfriend who are so not important that i dont remember their names and delano and perry. dont get me wrong. i like delano. but hes barely a character.
- i like the soulmate trope a lot. i dont care if its sappy, i enjoy the fuck out of soulmate fic. but books like this one and sjmaas' stuff makes me want to purge it from existence. it's written so awfully here, and ITS SO BORING.
- which leads me to the writing. which i mentioned above as very annoying bc it isnt subtle at all. this goes for characterization, especially for poppy, casteel and their relationship. if you cut out half of their musings about how perfect the other is from this series these books would be much shorter. poppy and casteel gush so much about each other and how incredible they are that it feels like a cheap characterization trick. same for how other characters talk about poppy or her relationship with casteel. everyone goes on and on about how perfect they are for each other, and blah blah blah. you aint convincing me of shit, poppy is the most well developed character in this book and even her stopped developing a thousand pages ago. these characters are paper thin and boring. thanks.
- i almost forgot!!! the threesome!!! i heard rambling about it on twitter months ago but didnt know which series had it or why exactly people were mad but it was this series!!! and honestly idk if its bc i read these books in like 4 days but i saw it coming ages ago. like. it was no surprise at all and it wasnt even that bad. i like kieran and his relationship with both poppy and casteel is cute, im just afraid for his life bc he risks becoming boring as fuck by being near them. run, kieran, run.
- also id like to know more about how their whole arrangement works bc its pretty up in the air right now. which doesnt even bother me bc 1. things are weird sometimes so yeah 2. im not continuing this series, i dont care
- edit: i read some reviews and ngl i find hilarious that some ppl were so mad about it they started accusing “horny soccer moms” of influencing the author after fOUR BOOKS OF SEMI PUBLIC SEX BEING THE NORM. you aint blaming this one on soccer moms, buddy! the horny one here is you!
- edit-continued: also thats really sexist. you guys know this is sexist, right? this holier than thou attitude against ~soccer moms~ is pure misogyny. that's obvious, right?
- edit-continued2: im sorry. this is just really funny. you soccer moms wanting a threesome!! me, i just wanted public sex on the beach!!! or in a carriage after a goddamn battle!!! lmfao
- if you read this far you might be wondering why i even read these books. well. i was overcome with a bolt of insanity and longing for what never was (that is, my love-hate relationship with ya fantasy) and bought all four with my very limited book budget. book 1 was okay, book 2 got bad and then it went downhill from there. at some point i kept going out of spite.
- and its not like there arent good elements here. some scenes are really cool. the deity/god/primal thing couldve been really awesome if the book didnt read like a bad shounen anime level up. the realm of the gods was cool. i guess i like wolf/dragon shifters?
- one of the books was really weird with its pacing. it felt like nothing happened for like 70% and then the last 30% were like, travel to gods realm, get help, (fail), go confront evil queen, watch brother die, have love interest be kidnapped, get really mad, kill enemy's husband speedrun any %
- i didnt like this series at all and im once again reminded to not touch straight/cis/allo ya fantasy for my own sanity.
