Location:Norway
455 Books
See allI liked this book just fine, which is kind of disappointing since I thought I'd love it... The premise is very interesting, and raises a lot of questions (all of them falling somewhere in the area of “how does it work?”) that are fun to think about but don't necessarily require answers (for me anyway), but in the end the execution fell flat for me. I could not get into the characters at all and I kinda wish the story had been very different with a different set of characters. A lot of the writing felt to me like it belongs on the “I'm 14 and this is deep” sub-reddit, it was trying too hard to be poignant and profound and sad but it just dragged on and on and it was frustrating to read.
Another review mentioned the overload of sadness on every page kinda ruining it and I couldn't agree more. It's like every single character had something tragic going on, I couldn't bring myself to care, and it just lessened the impact of the central element of these two teenagers being doomed to die. Throughout the book the main characters don't just run into a bunch of people, we also follow some of them in third person narration and it takes up a good chunk of the book and it added nothing at all for me. It felt utterly pointless.
At least it was a quick, easy read, and it wasn't bad, but this book didn't do it for me at all.
This book was so cute, and a perfect mix of romance, teen drama, and real, emotional things for me. I finished it in one sitting, it was so easy to get through and I was having such a good time I didn't ever feel like putting it down! It was kind of nostalgic too, it really reminded me of some of the sweet, romantic, easy reads I used to finish in an afternoon when I was a teen, except better because queer people didn't really exist in any of those books. I feel Seen™. This book would have been everything to me if I had read it 10+ years ago, for sure! ❤
I really, really loved this book, until the last 100-odd pages just went off the rails.
I had a couple of minor issues early on. While Sarene and Hrathen's chapters were slow and meticulous with things unfolding very slowly, Raoden's chapters were pretty fast-paced and almost episodic, and they ended up feeling shallow by comparison. The writing also wasn't always great and it took me out of the experience.
That said, I loved the overall worldbuilding, the characters were interesting and likable, and I thought the magic system and the intrigue surrounding it was stellar. I could only rarely predict where stuff was going, and I liked the pacing, the politics, the various character dynamics, I could go on.
Near the ending a lot of the story just fell apart for me. The pacing changed completely but rather than giving a sense of urgency it just felt rushed and sloppy to me. There were a few too many weird and unnecessary twists, conveniences or just straight up deus ex machinas. I can't really explain it without going into some pretty intense spoiler territory, I just really didn't enjoy it and it soured the entire book for me :( I considered giving it 3 stars but I just enjoyed the rest of it too much to let a bad ending bring me down as anyone who's heard me talk about Mass Effect 3 will tell you. It's a really great book with a really blah last fifth, and I'm incredibly excited to read more of Sanderson's books! :D
This was such a good time, just a bonkers roller coaster from beginning to end. Sometimes I thought I knew what was going on and I was right, other times I was delightfully wrong, either way it was fun and exciting the whole time! This book was just the right level of WTF, crazy without being too confusing too often.
A couple of things keeping me from giving it 5 stars:
- I wish the Amanda thing had been resolved differently, and that maybe she'd mattered more?
- Aside from near the end Jason's inner monologue made me feel like he didn't care about Charlie all that much. It was very “Daniela Daniela Daniela my wife Daniela my wife oh and Charlie too”, which took me out of it a bit. By the time Charlie was given any consideration as an individual it was a bit too late...
- I'm an optimist and I like happy (or happy-ish) endings, so the last couple of chapters just bummed me out. That's a taste thing more than an actual criticism but hey this is my review! :D