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i really liked quinn anderson's hot line and deeply disliked her the other five percent, so i hesitated a lot before choosing to request this book on netgalley. in the end, cam boy sits between the two other works by her i read before, not as good as one & not as bad as the other.
cam boy is a fun story. the secondary characters are great & interesting, but the main couple lacks chemistry and an actual developed romantic relationship. sexual attraction does not a romance make, at least for me, so i never managed to truly simpathize with both main characters.
i liked the ending well enough, though, and i really enjoy how anderson doesn't shy away from keeping her characters true to themselves. it's pretty common to see characters in the sex industry retire/give up on it for the sake of their relationship and it's nice to see something different here.
3.0 stars for cam boy
i read the excerpt from netgalley.
i was excited for this book but i must confess said excitement melted away a bit after reading the excerpt. not because it is bad, but because it is a very different type of book than that of what i expected. first, because it's told through diary entries, which in my opinion always takes a bit of the tension of the story off. second, because the beginning is very slow.
i will still read because i like the author and i really liked windwitch, plus the story seems to have nice bits of lore/history and i'm always a fan of that.
so far i'd give it 3.0 stars. i'll update the review once the book is out & i've read it.
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I was super excited for this book and I'm glad to say it didn't disappoint.
Furyborn first caught my attention because of the time difference between the two POVs and how the legend of Queen Rielle was perceived in the future. I've talked about it on Twitter & on my blog a lot, but I absolutely adore writing and reading about lost history and how time & perspective/narrators change the events of the past. It's quite literally my kryptonite – #antisnowwhite, #merpirate and#aroaceprincess all talk about it in a way or the other.
Despite my excitement, I wasn't that thrilled about Rielle's chapters because I'm sick and tired of trials in fantasy books. But to my surprise I ended up really liking them, and for the first half of the book I couldn't decide which one I liked more, Rielle or Eliana. They are both interesting characters and the author did a great job on bringing them to life.
But what I liked the most about Furyborn was the worldbuilding. The world Legrand created is fascinating, both in Rielle's and Eliana's time. I loved the stories about the saints and angels (and the war between humans and angels) and about the gate that keeps the angels locked away. It was very interesting and the world felt beautifully real.
Sadly, the book lost me a bit in the second half, especially in Eliana's chapters. I finished the story with Rielle as my favorite POV character because Eliana's last chapters bothered me a bit. Eliana herself is, as I've said before, a wonderful character, harsh and sharp because of what she had to do to provide for her family. But towards the end her character arc just... hurries to its end. The switch between I-must-kill-to-survive-and-I-have-no-regrets to I'm-a-monster-omg was just so... sudden. I could see it coming since the beginning, of course, but the moment when she let it all out felt cheap and unearned.
Her pseudo-romance with Simon was also pretty bad, because just like her character arc it came out of nowhere and with an intensity I just couldn't find believable. Their banter throughout the book was also annoying and painfully obvious.
In conclusion, I'm now much more interested in Rielle's story than in Eliana's. I want to know how things went so bad and what made her act the way she did. As for Eliana, I'm okay with her and her story, but so far I'm not that curious about her and her future.
In the end, Furyborn was an fast, intense read with great writing, characters and worldbuilding, though it does have its flaws when it comes to character arc & relationships. I can't wait to read the next book. 4.0 stars.
ENBY WATCH: there are no enby characters in this book and the narrative doesn't acknowledge the existence of nothing but men and women.
i'm sad to say almost nothing about this book worked for me.
which is a surprise, because i enjoyed other books by avon gale (in fact, i adore her book empty net). everything felt undeveloped in this book: the romance, the characters... but especially the romance. it started out well, but quickly went off the rails for me, though that might be a me problem instead of the book's. as an asexual reader, i wasn't exactly impressed by how sebastian and tristan's relationship was only about sexual attraction/sex at the beginning, and when it changed to romantic feelings i wasn't that invested to actually care about them.
i'm not sure i'll read the next books, though i might because of how much i enjoyed gale's other novels. 2 stars for off the ice
so... this book is complicated.
the writing is super nice and the characters are beautifully developed. the worldbuilding is interesting, mixing original elements with elements from our world (like christianity). the book does ramble a bit, sometimes going into tangents that seem unnecessary and that only makes the story bloated and longer than it should be. even then i'd probably have given silver scales four stars, because the writing/characters/worldbuilding are really good.
but.... it has an aromisic paragraph in there. it has a possible romance between a 17 year old girl and a guy in his twenties (though the guy didn't know she was 17 until later in the book, and it doesn't seem like he will go on with their... almost relationship? but who knows) and a would be rapist is suddenly redeemed in the end of the book because he helps the protagonist (and like, would be rapist isn't a rapist because the main character stopped him). that was SO unnecessary and made me a bit uncomfortable.
plus, the christianity is strong in this one. that's a me problem, obviously. but oh well. 2.0 stars for silver scales
I was super excited to read A Forest of a Thousand Lanterns from the moment I read its blurb and I'm glad to say it didn't disappoint.
From the moment I started reading this book I just couldn't stop. The writing is good and flows easily, making it easy to get a good impression of all characters and to visualize what is happening (something very important for me, since I have trouble visualizing virtually anything). The characters also felt very real, even the secondary ones, though Xifeng, of course, is the true star of the story.
Xifeng isn't likable by any means. She's selfish and way too vain, and other people's safety or well-being aren't often enough to damper her ambition or stop her from doing what she wants. Still, I couldn't help but feel for her during the whole book, from when she lived with her Guma (who abused her constantly) to when she became part of the empress' household. Xifeng is more than just a well developed character – she is interesting, and it's fascinating to read about her and about her relationships, especially the one with the Empress. It was very complex and felt for both of them.
The world where she lives is just as interesting and feels very real. I loved the mythology, especially the demons of the forest (I loved their chapters), and as a fan of prophecies I really liked Xifeng's. The one thing I didn't like about A Forest of a Thousand Lanterns and the reason I didn't give it five stars is the “darkness” inside Xifeng. I didn't find it convincing and the moments where she says she feels it inside her were the only ones where I felt kicked out of the story, so to speak. Still, it's a minor detail in an otherwise incredible book.
I can't wait to read the next book and to see where the author will take Xifeng's story. 4 stars for A Forest of a Thousand Lanterns.
This book legit had everything I like in a romance book: slow burn, nerdy things and characters who seemed to be endearing (and very little sex, amen). A plus, obviously, was also the fact that it is set in Japan and I love reading romance books (or just books in general) set outside of the U.S.
But the connection just didn't happen.
I'm still trying to figure out why, so maybe writing this review will help. Would it be okay to love you? has an interesting premise and good writing, but I could never connect with the characters. With the idea of them, yes – it's impossible not to sympathize with Aoi's money struggle or with his complicated non-relationship with his parents, or understand Sato's desire for a relationship. On the surface, everything is perfect – but book never quite manages to make both characters seem real.
To make matters worse, the relationship between Aoi and Sato just isn't interesting. There is no chemistry (and here I'm not talking in the sexual attraction sense – just chemistry) and its central conflict is too weak and solved too easily. It was basically just Aoi realizing he likes Sato and that's it. Relationship problems solved!
The ending also came out of nowhere. Things weren't tied up nicely. At one moment Aoi is isolating himself from everyone because he isn't getting any jobs & blames himself for a certain accident for no reason and the next moment everything is fine, he has jobs and the urge to isolate himself is gone. I wanted to see this process, to understand his development, but the story doesn't give me the chance to do so.
And that's the problem with it. Too much happens too fast with very little development and because of that the ending feels unsatisfying. Still, I enjoyed some of the book: its setting and the idea of both characters' personalities, mainly.
In conclusion, Would it be okay to love you? had a good premise and could have had good characters, but the execution was too weak to make that happen. 2.0 stars.
Merged review:
This book legit had everything I like in a romance book: slow burn, nerdy things and characters who seemed to be endearing (and very little sex, amen). A plus, obviously, was also the fact that it is set in Japan and I love reading romance books (or just books in general) set outside of the U.S.
But the connection just didn't happen.
I'm still trying to figure out why, so maybe writing this review will help. Would it be okay to love you? has an interesting premise and good writing, but I could never connect with the characters. With the idea of them, yes – it's impossible not to sympathize with Aoi's money struggle or with his complicated non-relationship with his parents, or understand Sato's desire for a relationship. On the surface, everything is perfect – but book never quite manages to make both characters seem real.
To make matters worse, the relationship between Aoi and Sato just isn't interesting. There is no chemistry (and here I'm not talking in the sexual attraction sense – just chemistry) and its central conflict is too weak and solved too easily. It was basically just Aoi realizing he likes Sato and that's it. Relationship problems solved!
The ending also came out of nowhere. Things weren't tied up nicely. At one moment Aoi is isolating himself from everyone because he isn't getting any jobs & blames himself for a certain accident for no reason and the next moment everything is fine, he has jobs and the urge to isolate himself is gone. I wanted to see this process, to understand his development, but the story doesn't give me the chance to do so.
And that's the problem with it. Too much happens too fast with very little development and because of that the ending feels unsatisfying. Still, I enjoyed some of the book: its setting and the idea of both characters' personalities, mainly.
In conclusion, Would it be okay to love you? had a good premise and could have had good characters, but the execution was too weak to make that happen. 2.0 stars.
Well, this book was a surprise, and not a good one.
I'm a fairly new m/m reader (I think I began reading it last year?) but I was very picky from the beginning because I didn't want to run into the infamous queerphobic m/m romances, the ones full of stereotypes and thinly veiled (or not) misogyny. Despite one bump here and there, I'm glad to say I didn't come across them.
Until now.
The Quarterback is full of stereotypes and cringe moments. At first it was kinda weird, but not weird enough to put me off, but as the story goes on it gets worse and worse until it's just a shitfest. I'm not kidding: when a girl, the girlfriend of one of the MC's best friends, finds out that the MC is gay she legit squees and says it's just so sexy. At another point, the two young sisters of the MC flat out ask him (or the LI, I can't remember) if he's a top or a bottom. There are not the only moments like that - the book is a bizarre collection of women squeeing at how hot gay guys are.
Which is, honestly, disturbing.
On a sidenote, “asexual” is used once in this book, by the LI/second MC, when he's mad at the MC because he (the MC) is afraid/hesitant to be in public with him. I'm not going to look for the exact quote, but it's something along the lines of “well, because it's easier to be gay in an asexual way?” or something like that. And like, I get the sentiment, but I bet gay ace men would disagree with you here.
Annoying/problematic aspects aside, the story isn't that strong. Maybe because of the dialogue (which is quite bad), maybe because the main relationship goes from yay-I-want-to-fuck-you to I-love-you way too fast and without development, but I just couldn't get into it. The characters didn't appeal to me, the writing was kinda meh and overall I didn't care about anything or anyone in this book.
In conclusion, 1.0 star to The Quarterback.
You know when you are really excited for a book, but cautiously wary because you've been disappointed too many times? That was me when I started reading The Uncrossing. This book looked like everything I want from a retelling, minus the contemporary setting: it's queer, the worldbuilding seemed incredible and I had heard only good things about it.
I'm glad to say it didn't disappoint.
The Uncrossing won me over at first because of said worldbuilding. I loved the world Eastlake created, with curses and uncrossing and magical families fighting over NYC, but it was the characters that made me love this book. Luke and Jeremy just worked, together or otherwise. I could understand them, sympathize with them and root for them since the beginning. Together they were awesome: Jeremy's love for Luke was so endearing and I liked how the author managed to portray Luke falling in love with him too without it feeling forced.
The secondary characters were also great and so developed. My favorites were Luke's sister and Jeremy's uncles. Not because they are good people (Jeremy's uncles are quite questionable) but because they were complex and interesting, and I liked reading about them just as much as about Luke and Jeremy.
My only complaint is the ending, which was a bit confusing. I couldn't understand well what was going on, but maybe that's just me and I need a reread to get it right. Still, I finished the book knowing I had loved it but confused at how it had ended.
In conclusion, The Uncrossing is fast read that manages to develop most if not all of its characters and still has an awesome plot. I can't wait to read more from this author. 4.0 stars.
I was expecting a lot of this one (I mean, a Nigerian-influenced fantasy where most characters are black and the mythology is incredible? Sounds amazing) but it sadly fell flat for me.
First of all, the world is gorgeous. I loved the concept of sin-beasts and aki and Mages, and all of it was done really well. At some points I got pretty lost because the author doesn't waste time trying to explain the world or how everything works, but I got used to it and the story started to flow. But then came in my biggest problem with this book: it is too slow and the villains aren't interesting enough.
Now, I like slow books. I'm a fan of adult fantasy after all, where things are usually less fast paced than in YA, but Beasts Made of Night didn't draw me in. I didn't get a sense of cause and consequence in the book, so to speak; things happened almost as if the character had to wait for them to happen and not because the plot advanced or because the characters themselves made it move. At one point, for example, Taj, the main character, is chosen as the royal aki aka the royal sin-beast eater, but.... he never does anything while in the job. He is called zero times to Eat and spends most of his stay in the palace eating, sleeping and talking with the princess. Then he leaves to train the young akis but out of nowhere weeks have passed and he's already used to training them. Like, what? He left the palace literally in the last chapter.
The ending is.... well, it could've been great. Have I talked about how wonderful the worldbuilding is? Because it is awesome and in the ending that is made quite clear. But the antagonist ends up being super disappointing. Can't say who because spoilers, but they were cartoonish, almost childish, and I couldn't take them seriously. Same for the plot twist re: one of the characters. I didn't see it coming, but it didn't feel believable.
Honestly, this one feels more like a draft than a polished, published book. Beasts Made of Night has incredible ideas and characters that could've been great, but all that is buried in a story that drags and doesn't seem to go anywhere. The writing, while good, also wasn't engaging for me, maybe because of Taj's voice. In the end, I could see how wonderful this book could've been, but the execution failed and most of its shine was unfortunately lost.
I don't think I'll be reading more in this series. Again, I loved the premise and the world, but the writing and pacing did ruin Beasts Made of Night for me. 2.0 stars.
Also on my blog.
First of all: there is no genderfluid character in this book.
I'm pretty sure the author didn't write the blurb/didn't have control over it, but whoever is at fault for this should sit in the corner to think really hard about they did. I had never heard of this book or this author before and only got to know about it because I saw people being excited about the supposedly genderfluid character on Twittter. When I saw that it involved sports and ballet and had black main character as well, I was thrilled. It seemed the kind of romance made just for me.
But Victor isn't genderfluid. He never, ever, thinks about his gender during the story. He refers to himself as man all the time and doesn't even hint at being genderfluid. If it weren't for the blurb, I wouldn't never have thought him to be anything but a cis man. Because that's what he is. But since he's a more or less androgynous gay man who likes makeup someone thought it'd be good idea to say he's genderfluid in the blurb? I guess?
This is false advertisement, this is a mess and this is frankly dishonest. I hope the blurb is changed at some time so genderfluid/non-binary readers don't get their (our) hopes up just to be disappointed.
But speaking about the book itself... I didn't like it.
His Convenient Husband unfortunately reads like a first draft. The writing is cliché and not that engaging and the characters make no sense at all. The conflicts are forced and come out of nowhere, which then forces the characters to act out of character. An example: one minute Isaiah is reluctant to even go talk to Victor (who is at a bar drinking because his asylum request was denied) but then when he gets there he takes two drinks and proposes to marry him to keep him safe. Like, what? And it didn't even seem like he did because of the drinks, since not once he considers this or regrets proposing. The book is full of moments like this: the characters make choices or speak things only to create conflict and make the plot move. It's one of the biggest Because the Plot Said So I've read recently.
And that (if we ignore the whole genderfluid thing) was what ruined the book for me. The characters are so inconsistent it was impossible to like or relate to them, and that along with the poor writing made His Convenient Husband almost painful to read. Which is a pity because I did like some of its themes (like speaking out when you have the platform and things like that).
In conclusion, His Convenient Husband had an awesome premise, but the execution failed to make it a good book. 2 stars.
I received an ARC in exchange for a free and honest review.
I was expecting a lot from this book, then I wasn't and then, well... I was. Again.
I heard about Fortitude Smashed months before its arcs were out in the wild. The concept of soulmates, so popular in fanfiction, was something that drew me in as soon as I read the blurb. Despite some concerns (soulmates aus always treat aro and often ace people like crap), I couldn't wait to get my hands on it.
But when I started reading the eARC I got through Netgalley, my excitement evaporated. First, because it was so awfully formatted. I mean, it's an ARC. It's not supposed to be perfect. But the change of POV, the lack of space between words and dots and so on, started to grate on me a little. And the story wasn't that interesting. Disappointed, I set the book aside for some time and days later got back to it more out of stubbornness than anything else.
But then I hit 20% in the story and boom!, I was hooked.
I couldn't stop reading it. The writing became so more lush and, I don't know, lyrical? I must be honest and say I'm usually not a fan of what most people call “beautiful, evocative writing”. It always end up feeling like purple prose to me, or at least like the author is trying to manipulate me into feeling something (which, as a writer myself, I know it's true, but I don't want to notice what is happening). So you can imagine my surprise when the more evocative writing of Fortitude Smashed really got to me.
Still, the strength of this book lies in its characters. I love it when a book manages to treat its secondary characters well and Fortitude Smashed definitely did this (also, I think I already know who the next book is going to be about and I really hope I'm right). All of them had convincing personalities and had their own stories, problems and life.
The main characters, though, were the best of all. Shannon and Aiden are complex and completely real, and even though they are so different they still managed to convince me of their love for each other, which is the main problem for me in most romance books. I still can't explain exactly how they did it because even though I do like soulmates aus I hate instalove. And even though Aiden and Shannon fall in love kinda quick, it never felt like instalove. Does that make sense?
Anyway, Fortitude Smashed was a beautiful, pleasant read. I can't wait to see what the next books will bring. 4.0 stars.
ARC acquired through Netgalley.
This book, y'all. This book is absolutely awful.
When I first heard about Antisocial, I was excited. A m/m book with a gray-ace character that also had an aroace non-binary side character? It sounded wonderful. It's almost impossible to find m/m romance (or just romance in general) with ace characters, let alone a m/m romance with more than an ace character, with one of them being aro. If ace characters are rare in romance, arospec characters are freaking unicorns, and so are non-binary characters (aroace non-binary characters then!)
So yeah, I was excited.
But it all melted away when I read Xan's review of it. And Daniela's. And Annie's. The book I wanted so much to read was a mess when it came to Japanese culture and the ace rep and the nonbinary rep. At this point I had already got an ARC from Netgalley, so I threw my hopes out the window and braced myself to read the book just so I could write an accurate review of it. I was expecting something bad.
I got something awful.
The way this book portrays and treats Japanese culture is absolutely disgusting. I've never read something so blatant fetishizing. Antisocial is set in a fictional university called Benten that was funded by American “admirers” of Japanese culture. Just that would be iffy, but there is no Japanese or Japanese-American character in this story and all of the important/major characters are white. And what is worse, they are all weaboos. For real. I understand admiring & enjoying Japanese culture because I grew up watching anime and reading manga and even tried to learn Japanese at some point (I still kinda want to, one day) but there is a line between admiring something and fetishzing it and this book is absolutely fetishizing Japanese culture.
Some examples:
Something inside Xandder snapped - he could almost see it, and it was a tiny, red-hot rubber hand. “Hai. Take off your clothes, all of them, Skylar-san, onegaishimasu.” When Skylar only stared at him, he clapped his hands twice. “Hayaku.”
“I think I'd appreciate your skivvies.” Skylar cleared his throat. “And...a sock for myself. Ku..Kud...“
“Kudasai.”
“A sock, kudasai.”
“Do you know what I wish?” Skylar held Xander's hand tight as he looked up at the falling leaves. “I wish we could stand like this in Japan, under real chery trees. Ones in bloom.”
“We have real cherry trees in the United States, you know.”
“The ones in Japan feel more real, somehow.”
Xander smiled. “Then let's make it a vow. Someday we'll stand under cherry blossoms in Japan.”
Skylar smiled back, and there was only weariness, no more shadows in his face now. “It's a promise.”
[...] but mostly the college was a bunch of rich white people, a handful of people of color, and an explosion of Japanese culture that made no sense when you looked at it from the outside.
Man looked. Whether they were dating or not, looking for a partner or not - they looked. It wasn't cheating or offensive, or it wasn't intended to be. It simply was. Xander would lie in hot coals for one kiss from Skylar, one brush of his fingertips on his naked chest, but if the right guy walked by post-workout without a shirt, it would take willpower not to steal a glance and file images away for the spank bank.
27 Hours was probably my most anticipated book of the year. I first got to know about it on Twitter before it had been announced thanks to the author's #queerteensinspace, so it's safe to say I've been waiting for this one for a long time. Did it meet my expectations? Honestly, not quite, which I can understand in part because my expectations were really high.
I still liked it well enough and will continue reading the series, but this book feels a lot like a debut (and it is). The plot is nice, the writing is good and the characters are entertaining, but the execution doesn't quite manage to make it all shine as it should. Some of the banter was a bit tiring and I really missed knowing more about the world, and most of the relationships didn't convince me. I didn't dislike them, but I didn't fall for any of them either.
And honestly? The big culprit here is the one right in the title: this book happens in only 27 hours, which is a whole night in the Sahara. I tried, really, but I just can't understand falling in love with someone in 27 hours. Liking them? Liking them a lot? Of course. But love? Not that Rumor and Jude say the three words, but I felt like they got too close too fast because the initial romancing (?) had to happen in the first book instead of because it was the natural progression of things. Nothing big, but certainly something that made me only kind of interested in their relationship instead of full on invested.
The other thing that bothered me was the worldbuilding, or the lack of it. There is no infodump or anything of the sort, which is nice, but the world – Sahara – feels too thin. The history of humanity's arrival also felt too sparse and I couldn't actually follow how everything happened.
Now on to the rep: the more I think about this book, the more confused I get about Braeden's sexual and romantic orientations. Yeah, he defines his asexuality as not wanting sex, which wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't made clear that's how it works for him and not for every ace (asexuality is about attraction, not behavior, and yes, lots of aces don't want sex because they don't feel sexual attraction, but not having sex =/= ace), but that part didn't bother me much, to be honest. Which left me puzzled was his romantic orientation. Or how he doesn't even considers it.
At first, back when 27 Hours had just been announced, Braeden was said to be aroace. Then the author corrected it and said he was only ace and would find out more about his romantic orientation in the book. Which, fine, I get it. Except... he doesn't? Maybe she meant in the series (which will be a trilogy, if I'm not mistaken) and not the first book in specific, but the thing is, Braeden doesn't even think about his romantic orientation. During the whole book, he mentions many times that he doesn't want sex and doesn't get how everyone is always crazy about it, but not once does he reflects on how relationships can exist without sex (or sexual attraction) and where he fits in all this. I got strong aro vibes from him and really strong queerplatonic vibes from him and Trick, though I'm still thinking that is me projecting. If that's the end game, I will be really happy, but still puzzled. If Braeden finds out he is aromantic or at least in the aromantic spectrum later, what let him to not question his romantic orientation sooner? Didn't he know about aromanticism? If that's the case, why did he know about asexuality and not aromanticism? (Or why did all other queer identities were known, but aromanticism was not?)
Again, this is all me speculating because as far as I know Breaden can end up being bi or gay or hetero or whatever and not aro. But I did feel like he was aro.
Last thing about the rep: Aimal wrote an awesome review highlighting how 27 Hours centers colonialist views since most characters are colonists and even the one who isn't is still a human aka the alien species aka the invaders. Not one of the POV characters is a chimera, the indigenous species to Sahara.
But now that I've talked about the bad and the confusing, let's move on to the good, or the reason I still liked this book and plan on reading the next volume: 27 Hours is fun, engaging and well, important. Most of its characters are diverse and all of them have well developed personalities. It's easy to feel for them, to care about them and their problems, and to hope everything will turn out okay for them.
My favorite was Rumor. He was, in my opinion, the most complex of all and the “core” of the book, so to speak. He went through a lot of shit, is (rightfully) angry and is at the same time honest and just good. He's the main reason I'm interested in this series.
I also loved Breaden and Dahlia (and, well, all of them, but mainly these three) and really enjoyed some of the worldbuilding, like Nyx being able to hear the moon and the tech the characters used. The chimera were also really interesting and I liked how they were not a monolith, each of them having their own personalities and ideologies. Even the antagonist pleased me.
In conclusion, 27 Hours is a flawed debut that still manages to be fun and entertaining, having the most interesting and well developed cast of characters I've seen in some time. 3.5 stars.
This book was such a disappointment.
I disliked almost every second of it. It was just too boring, but now I realize I should have seen it coming.
I read Meadows' The Orphan Queen and I though I didn't love it I didn't hate it either. There were some cool elements despite the meh romance & the characters I couldn't relate to. So when the author announced Before She Ignites, I was tentatively excited. Dragon trafficking! A chosen one kind of character who falls from grace! A MC with anxiety and OCD! What's not to love?
Everything else, it seems. But like I said, I should have seen it coming. It's on the blurb: most of this book happens in a prison. It is a very boring prison, y'all. We barely see any dragon trafficking, though it is happening. Somewhere. Not where Mira, the MC, is. In fact, there aren't that many dragons in this book. Sure, they are there on the background, showing up here and there to remind us that Mira loves dragons and that dragons are thing and they are surely important, but remember the prison? 80% of this book happens in said prison. Where there is a dragon, all right, but she only shows up in like, two scenes.
But Ren, you might be asking, why care so much that there weren't that many dragons doing plot stuff?
And well, the answer is expectation vs reality. I expected a book full of dragons and adventure and politics and that wasn't what I got. So maybe it's on me and not on the book, I guess. It doesn't matter now. I believe that even if I went into Before She Ignites knowing it'd be mostly prison-survival with a hint of politics, I would still be annoyed by it. I liked the main character, Mira, and I liked the guy I believe will be the love interest in future books, Aaru, I liked how their possible romance wasn't forced down our throats, I really liked the worldbuilding and I even liked the blink-and-you-will-miss-it queer rep, but I disliked everything else.
The plot drags. The relationships, esp between Mira and her friends from home (whose names I've already forgotten), are shallow and not developed. Even her relationship with the little dragon LaLa feels forced. I hate to say this because it's become a cliché, but everything is told, not shown and therefore I couldn't care less.
The before/after format also didn't work. (Possible spoilers ahead? I mean, you probably already know this but SPOILERS.) We get before and after chapters showing Mira already in the prison vs what Mira did to get herself in said prison, and the author attempts at some kind of mystery (what did Mira find out to make the powerful guys throw her in prison after all?) but if you followed the initial promos for this book, you already know why. Guys. The goodreads blurb doesn't mention dragon trafficking. How did I already know about this before starting the book? Because it was everywhere when this book was announced, even before it got a title. So really, if you go into this book knowing that and you probably will, there is no mystery here. You will know what Mira found out, what made the powerful guys throw her in the Pit.
It was obvious and since it was obvious it made the whole before/after thing a nuisance.
I won't be reading the next in this series. I liked how Mira's anxiety and OCD was portrayed (though I don't have either & can't talk about the specifics of both) and Mira herself was a interesting protagonist. But everything else was just bad. I have no interest in what might happen in the next installments of the Fallen Isles trilogy. 2.0 stars.
EDIT: most people in this book are brown or black skinned. Meadows is a white woman and I'm a white latinx. I didn't notice anything re: her portrayal of characters of color, but again points I'm white. When more reviews come out I'll link some by readers of color here.
I confess I wasn't expecting much from this book because of the title, which is a bit eye roll-worthy. The story was actually really nice, though, with the main character, David, being an absolute delight. He was the best part of the story and what made the first half of it so charming and interesting. The second half is a bit rushed and not nearly as strong, but it was still nice to read.
My main problem with this story was, honestly, the beast himself, Alun. I didn't hate him, but I didn't like or cared about him either, and that was what stopped me from giving this book full 4.0 stars. David gets 5.0 all for himself, but the kinda rushed second half + Alun not being that interesting brought down my rating a bit. I'll read the other books - this world is so charming and well-built, and so different from what I usually see in the urban genre (more a question of framing than new things, honestly) that I can't not to. 3.5 (or 3.7?) for Cutie and the Beast.
This book didn't work for me.
Which sucks, because I've heard good things about this author and have been meaning to read something by them for a long, long time. I'm choosing to believe this one might simply not be for me, since I intend to check out their other books at some point.
Why House of Cards didn't work for me, though? I must admit I'm not sure. It had all the elements I usually love in a romance book: a slow burn (ish) romance, characters who stand by themselves and are not only what the relationship requires of them and a diverse cast of supporting characters. The book is about tattoos too, which is also something I like, and that might sound weird, but I loved the chickens. I grew up in a farm, so taking care of chickens is something I understand quite well.
But (as I've said), I didn't enjoy House of Cards. Some of it might have been because of the writing (which is nice, but didn't draw me in), but I'm placing my bets on how the plot... well, happened. I just had this feeling that I was waiting during the whole book, and not in a nice way. That's it, though: I waited for the couple to get together because this is a romance book and that's what happens in romance books (not complaining here), not because the plot convinced me that the couple would get together. In a way, I felt like I was reading a bunch of scenes that came one after the one, but that didn't feel connected, didn't feel like dominoes falling, you know? It just kind of happened and didn't interest me in the least.
Does this make sense? Probably not, but that's how I felt. 2.0 stars for House of Cards.
