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amandawells's review
2.0
I had trouble connecting to the characters in this book, it felt like a lot of the relationships between the characters were rather forced and when they talked to one another it came across as if they were saying catch phrases. I enjoyed some of the reveals as they were unexpected and were the few moments I actually had a reaction to in the book.
ezrasupremacy's review against another edition
2.0
review and rating to follow because i fear i would be too mean if i said anything now.
[Edit]
I promise I really wanted to like this, hell, I expected to like this. While this certainly isn’t my preferred genre (I’m not a big fan of YA generally and I don’t tend to read a lot of Fantasy) there was also nothing about this that seemed objectionable to me, and I had heard good things about this author due to her previous (mildly related to this) series (which I had not read before and would not read now).
But oh boy! I sure did not like this!
From the start I felt that the writing was very very juvenile, which may be more a subjective judgement, but turned me off a little nonetheless. It also meant that this was incredibly easy and quick to get through though, so I wasn’t particularly complaining just yet. I sure would get to things to complain about though!
My first major criticism, which has genuinely infuriated me to the point where I have now ranted about this to four separate people, is the worldbuilding. Like, if you have read this and you aren’t completely blind you will recognise that the “worldbuilding”, vampires and supernatural stuff aside, is quite literally just British emperialism/colonialism. And there’s nothing wrong with that being your setting/background, R.F. Kuang did the same thing in 2022 with Babel and that was fantastic, but what pissed me off in this case was that it was exactly that historical aspect, but all the countries were just given different names. To me that feels like a lazy cop-out from having to actually be particularly historically accurate, but again, might just be personal opinion. Now the thing that gets me though; if you’re going to change nothing but the place names, why the FUCK would you still keep the lingo and cultural stuff around? Sari, Habibti, Hanbok, don’t piss me off. If you’re not going to change those terms as well, or at least describe them instead of straight up just taking those names from our real world, then why bother at all? Why not just call things by what they are? EJC my ass.
Now to the plot. First off: Whoever marketed this as “King Arthur meets Peaky Blinders” genuinely needs to rot in hell, because the “King Arthur” element is 1. Brought up and explained to be a scam literally within the first 1/4 of the book and 2. Has zero actual importance to the plot. And don’t even get me started on the fucking Peaky Blinders part. I love Peaky Blinders, great show. Please tell me how someone having one (1) legal business and happening to “collect secrets” is comparable to a crime group that regularly commits murders. Genuinely, feel free to tell me.
Also, on the topic of said legal business — that was like the central element this was marketed with, it’s in the title, why was it so irrelevant to the plot, wanting to “save it” aside? This book could’ve been exactly the same without even one mention of Tea, which is what really gets me.
Now to the fucking heist. This is what actually made me almost DNF this book, because from chapter like two or three onwards everything centers around planning this heist and setting it up and how they need it to save their business, and then the next chapters are all about executing the heist, only for it to turn out that the heist was genuinely 100% unnecessary and that Arthie could’ve totally just had like one conversation with her adopted Dad and he could’ve saved them a tonne of work and even given them a new place to rebuild their business, therefore saving them all that trouble. Genuinely unhinged way to resolve what was marketed as the central plot of your book.
Now let’s rapid fire discuss some other plot points.
- If you were surprised by Arthie being a vampire I need you to go back to middle school and take even one (1) english class and learn about this thing called “media literacy”
- Flick’s mother being the Ram makes near zero sense and while it is the only twist in this book that was kinda surprising, part of that was just because it is so unreasonable. How would Arthie have talked to her and not realised the gender or anything? Fuck off.
- Flick generally just pissed me the fuck off. Could excuse it with being sheltered, but then she also had time to do illegal shit for however long that was and still remained that level for naive?
- Every single romance in this. Jin and Flick? Boring. So incredibly painfully boring. Genuinely what age are these characters supposed to be because anything above 15 would make this unrealistic, especially with Jin supposedly being a playboy. Don’t make me laugh. And the love triangle… Yawn. Played out. Also, old ass vampire falling in love with a teenager (?) trope. Arthie being so weak towards both of their flirting/advances from the start and all the time was annoying as well and kinda didn’t fit her characterisation or at least the way I perceived her character. But I’m also heterophobic and find all straight romance extremely boring so that may just be on me.
- The last chapter. My guess is that Matteo is the White Wolf. May come back to this to see if I was right when I’m done skim-reading book two.
- And last but certainly not least:
- THERE IS A FUCKING BTS REFERENCE IN THIS. I THOUGHT I WAS HALLUCINATING WHEN I SAW HIS NAME WAS JIN AND HE WAS DESCRIBED AS WIDE-SHOULDERED, BUT HE IS LIKE, POSSIBLY, ACTUALLY INSPIRED BY HIT K-POP GROUP BTS’ JIN?? WHY ARE YOU MAKING POP CULTURE REFERENCES IN A HISTORICAL FANTASY NOVEL GENUINELY THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO NEED TO DO THIS AT ALL I’M LOSING MY MIND
Anyway, I think it’s safe to say I will not be seeking out more of this.
[Edit]
I promise I really wanted to like this, hell, I expected to like this. While this certainly isn’t my preferred genre (I’m not a big fan of YA generally and I don’t tend to read a lot of Fantasy) there was also nothing about this that seemed objectionable to me, and I had heard good things about this author due to her previous (mildly related to this) series (which I had not read before and would not read now).
But oh boy! I sure did not like this!
From the start I felt that the writing was very very juvenile, which may be more a subjective judgement, but turned me off a little nonetheless. It also meant that this was incredibly easy and quick to get through though, so I wasn’t particularly complaining just yet. I sure would get to things to complain about though!
My first major criticism, which has genuinely infuriated me to the point where I have now ranted about this to four separate people, is the worldbuilding. Like, if you have read this and you aren’t completely blind you will recognise that the “worldbuilding”, vampires and supernatural stuff aside, is quite literally just British emperialism/colonialism. And there’s nothing wrong with that being your setting/background, R.F. Kuang did the same thing in 2022 with Babel and that was fantastic, but what pissed me off in this case was that it was exactly that historical aspect, but all the countries were just given different names. To me that feels like a lazy cop-out from having to actually be particularly historically accurate, but again, might just be personal opinion. Now the thing that gets me though; if you’re going to change nothing but the place names, why the FUCK would you still keep the lingo and cultural stuff around? Sari, Habibti, Hanbok, don’t piss me off. If you’re not going to change those terms as well, or at least describe them instead of straight up just taking those names from our real world, then why bother at all? Why not just call things by what they are? EJC my ass.
Now to the plot. First off: Whoever marketed this as “King Arthur meets Peaky Blinders” genuinely needs to rot in hell, because the “King Arthur” element is 1. Brought up and explained to be a scam literally within the first 1/4 of the book and 2. Has zero actual importance to the plot. And don’t even get me started on the fucking Peaky Blinders part. I love Peaky Blinders, great show. Please tell me how someone having one (1) legal business and happening to “collect secrets” is comparable to a crime group that regularly commits murders. Genuinely, feel free to tell me.
Also, on the topic of said legal business — that was like the central element this was marketed with, it’s in the title, why was it so irrelevant to the plot, wanting to “save it” aside? This book could’ve been exactly the same without even one mention of Tea, which is what really gets me.
Now to the fucking heist. This is what actually made me almost DNF this book, because from chapter like two or three onwards everything centers around planning this heist and setting it up and how they need it to save their business, and then the next chapters are all about executing the heist, only for it to turn out that the heist was genuinely 100% unnecessary and that Arthie could’ve totally just had like one conversation with her adopted Dad and he could’ve saved them a tonne of work and even given them a new place to rebuild their business, therefore saving them all that trouble. Genuinely unhinged way to resolve what was marketed as the central plot of your book.
Now let’s rapid fire discuss some other plot points.
- If you were surprised by Arthie being a vampire I need you to go back to middle school and take even one (1) english class and learn about this thing called “media literacy”
- Flick’s mother being the Ram makes near zero sense and while it is the only twist in this book that was kinda surprising, part of that was just because it is so unreasonable. How would Arthie have talked to her and not realised the gender or anything? Fuck off.
- Flick generally just pissed me the fuck off. Could excuse it with being sheltered, but then she also had time to do illegal shit for however long that was and still remained that level for naive?
- Every single romance in this. Jin and Flick? Boring. So incredibly painfully boring. Genuinely what age are these characters supposed to be because anything above 15 would make this unrealistic, especially with Jin supposedly being a playboy. Don’t make me laugh. And the love triangle… Yawn. Played out. Also, old ass vampire falling in love with a teenager (?) trope. Arthie being so weak towards both of their flirting/advances from the start and all the time was annoying as well and kinda didn’t fit her characterisation or at least the way I perceived her character. But I’m also heterophobic and find all straight romance extremely boring so that may just be on me.
- The last chapter. My guess is that Matteo is the White Wolf. May come back to this to see if I was right when I’m done skim-reading book two.
- And last but certainly not least:
- THERE IS A FUCKING BTS REFERENCE IN THIS. I THOUGHT I WAS HALLUCINATING WHEN I SAW HIS NAME WAS JIN AND HE WAS DESCRIBED AS WIDE-SHOULDERED, BUT HE IS LIKE, POSSIBLY, ACTUALLY INSPIRED BY HIT K-POP GROUP BTS’ JIN?? WHY ARE YOU MAKING POP CULTURE REFERENCES IN A HISTORICAL FANTASY NOVEL GENUINELY THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO NEED TO DO THIS AT ALL I’M LOSING MY MIND
Anyway, I think it’s safe to say I will not be seeking out more of this.
jcone's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
gretaholt's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
mcatcarr's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
goobdiddy's review against another edition
4.0
This book wasn't clicking with me for the first 60% or so, but the ending and surprise twist really pulled it up to a 4-star read. A fun heist story. I'm definitely reading book #2, after that cliffhanger!
spadden20's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
heathersbookcorner's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
itsjustbethg's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation
Moderate: War, Blood, Genocide, Violence, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury
katrina_ingram's review
I didn’t like the writing, I can’t quite put my finger on why but it was bothering me and I wasn’t enjoying it