L'Homme rune

This book was the weirdest rollercoaster I've ever been on.

The first part where every character was introduced was great and interesting. I liked that we got solid long chapters from everyone's POV, while simultaneously getting to know the world a little.
Though I don't personally agree that this is a character-driven book (as it's often described as). Though quite a bit of time is spent on the story of these characters, they are nothing to write home about. The plot and whatever needs to happen for it still takes center stage.

Even if some of the chapters were long, they were easy to get through and so this book was quite an easy read. The way it is set up means you're not immediately thrown into the thick of things, which is nice! I prefer getting to know the world bit by bit instead of spending the first half of a book super confused.

Now let's talk about when my rollercoaster started going downhill.

With the entire world being in danger from demons, and people frequently dying, offspring and children are important. So there is a lot of focus on babies and sex and how you only mean something as a woman if you're also a mother. So girls that are old enough to do these things are cast off to a man so they can make some babies.
That of itself is a bit what we've come to expect from your average fantasy world, and while it's not something I like, it's something I can be alright with as long as the characters (and especially the female ones) get to rise above that.

WELL.

There is, as far as I could count, exactly ONE woman whose story isn't focused on sex and motherhood. And she was also the most enjoyable character of the bunch - Bruna.

Leesha, although plagued with bullying from her mother and her ex and her town, seemed to rise above it. She found it weird, didn't want to take part in that, just wanted to focus on healing people. Never even has sex.

And then the narrative punishes her for it. She gets gang-raped while being robbed.This isn't even the worst part.She spends maybe a few days being traumatized by it. Up until she meets The Warded Man and oh, she's in love and they have sex and she is absolutely fine with all of that even if she was raped only a few days before. All is fine and dandy!Why did the rape even have to happen in the first place?? I legitimately got mad while reading lmao.On a sidenote, I read a few reviews from the next few books, and apparently this becomes a common thing? Virgin characters getting raped?

Yeah let's just say, don't think I'll be checking out the sequels.

RATINGS ARE TOUGH. First 3/4 was a solid 4 stars, maybe 3. Last 1/4 is either 2 or 1.
Overall this deserves 3 stars, which for me would imply “it was fine”, but I also wouldn't ever recommend this book to anyone or think it's worth checking out based on rating alone, so I don't know. It's harsh but I think I'm going with 2 stars and maybe upgrade it sometime in the future after I've had a while to think about it.