Gild

I don't even know what to say. Yes I do lmao.

When I first started Gild, I was horrified not only by the absurd amount of graphic on-page sexual violence and overwhelming misogyny from every single male character, but also by the main character's Stockholm syndrome, stupidity, and whininess. Auren, who I unfortunately have to share 83% of my first name with, is one of the worst main characters I've ever had to read about. Actually, none of the characters were enjoyable. None of the plot, if you could go as far as to say that this book even had a plot, was enjoyable. This read like a glorified, drawn-out prequel or prologue, with no substance except to set up the upcoming novels. I'm trying to think of a redeemable quality this book has... it was a fast read?

I DNF'ed this book twice while reading it, first at the 10% mark and again at the 50% mark. I picked it up again twice in the hopes that the hype was real and that it would get better by the end— spoiler: it doesn't. This is a boring, shitty, awful, poorly-written book. By the 60% mark, I had lost any hope for this book and I was basically just skimming and hate-reading. Though fortunately for me, things started picking up with the pirates and the Fourth Kingdom plot— though the misogyny and sexual violence was still uncomfortably rampant.

When I finished this, out of pure wonder and curiosity for what the fuck I just read, I went down a Goodreads-TikTok-Reddit rabbit hole only to see that a lot of other people agree with me and think that this book is absolute shit. And while it feels nice to be validated in my feelings, these people have also unanimously agreed that the second, third, and so-on books get better and better and that it's worth it to push through this pile of utter garbage. So, against my better judgment and because I just can't help but be morbidly intrigued, I will be reading the next book, and maybe the book after that. At minimum it will be a hate-read to fuel my stress into. I'm done.

TL;DR: It is SO bad I wanna give it a zero, but that's not possible so I give it a one.

Edit: raising my rating a little because hindsight is an interesting thing. still the worst one in the series tho.

2.5 ⭐️'s
The start to this book was rough. It almost deterred me from reading the rest but I'm kinda glad I trudged through. It wasn't an amazing book by any means but it was somewhat enjoyable. I am left with a lot of questions and confusion but for a fantasy book this was a pretty short read so maybe the rest of the series will answer those questions? That's if I decide to continue. I have a lot of issues with Midas and Auren's relationship, giving Tampon from the ACOTR series but so much worse, I really hope we are supposed to hate Midas in the end. I also found Auren absolutely awful for so much of this book she only gets slightly less terrible towards the end. There's a few other gripes but it's giving knock off Sarah J. Maas but worse.