Sara

14/03: I have read a short excerpt of this book on epicreads.com and I am excited to read it.

22/03: I got all hyped, but I am not into it anymore. Premise is cool and I still like the story, but characters are flat, story lacks tension, and romance lacks chemistry. The thoughts of the main character are too repetitive.
She thinks of 3 things: how much she misses her relationship with Xavier when they were kids, how bad is her magic, and her guilt for cursing her father.

Unfortunately, I was never invested in the characters or the story to be able to enjoy it. I decided to push myself through it, because the book was short. Otherwise, I would have DNFed. I am so sorry. I wanted to like it so badly.

It's the 28th February. HOSAB came out a couple of weeks ago and 141 people already rated the book 4 or 5 stars. That's annoying.

12 January 2021: New year's resolutions
1. Continuing with what I started last year: I decided that I am allowed to buy a new book after I finished reading at least two books, in order to decrease my quite abundant paper tbr-pile (currently standing at 115 books). It worked so far, it just takes long.
2. Concluding the series that I have started and not yet finished, giving priority to books that I own in paper format:
- Midnight Breed
- Demonica Update: 01/12/2021
- Parasol Protectorate Update: 11/03/2021
- ASOIAF
- Fever Update: 25/07/2021
- BDB
- Night huntress
- Kate Daniels
- Legion
- Dresden Files
- Farseer trilogy
- Vampire Empire
- Throne of glass
- The falconer
- Legends of the first empire
- Lotus war
- Mistborn era 2
- All souls trilogy
- Heartstrikers
- Stormlight Archive Update 27/07/2021
- Iron Fey
- Legend of Drizzt
I am curious to see my progress on the second point throughout the year. It is unrealistic that I will complete all the listed series, but I would be glad if I will conclude at least three of them. Also, I am a person who needs to change after sticking to the same world (aka, series) for some time.

DNFed at 35%.

I was so excited for this book due to its premise and the high-rate reviews. I wanted to like it, but it ended up being a disappointment for me.
I will start with the positive aspects, for which this book still deserves a couple of stars. First, it is a well written book, well-thought and with graphic descriptions. Unfortunately, that's it for me. Not even the dragon was a good ground enough to keep going.
Why it did not work for me?
1. Plot: absent. Practically, nothing happens. Each chapter is about a battle of some sorts. I can argue of course that something might happen later on in the book and I just missed it. Yes, true. However, even in the hughest-rate reviews the lack of plot is mentioned and that did not give me any hope to go on.
2. Characterization: that's probably the main reason why I abandoned this book. We followed three characters, but they all sound pretty similar and besides for their name at the beginning of each chapter, I could not really say who was talking. Plus, I did not feel any connection for the characters. We are not told their motivations, so that I could get an impression of what the story could lead nor to feel any emotions for their choices.
3. World: the world did not catch my interest. The old gods are now dead and their bones are valuable, dragons feed on teeth. Ah. The author makes use of norse-inspired and partially invented words, of which I could not always find the meaning on the internet and this made my reading experience pretty frustrating. Sometimes, I could figure it out from the context or from viking-inspired TV series but was not always sure if what I imagined matched what the author meant. A glossary would have been of great help.

Even if this book did not work out for me, I will still give the author a chance and read his other series. maybe that will work better for me.