Scan barcode
louisepea's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Emotional abuse and Violence
Minor: Murder, Animal death, Alcohol, Abandonment, Blood, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail
fromjuliereads's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I love Lyra Selene's lyrical and metaphorical writing! And these characters?! I love them.
I'll write up a full review with more details soon!
I'll write up a full review with more details soon!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual content
Moderate: Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Death
Minor: Self harm, Violence, and Animal death
Animal death - horse is consumed by nature so technically dies. Self-harm - Fia uses pain with thorns and brambles on her wrist Suicide attempt -sol_journal's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
**Thank you so much Orbit books for the arc! All words and thoughts in this review are my own honest opinion!**
Posted to: NetGalley, Goodreads, and The Storygraph
Posted on: 12 March 2024
3 out of 5 stars.
It was hard for me to find how I wanted to rate this book at first, but after finishing up the review and sitting with it for a bit, I realized that I was just left a bit more dissatisfied with the read than I was left interested in it. This isn’t to say that I probably won’t continue the series- because I think I may, truthfully. It definitely just didn’t become one of my favorite reads of the month.
I requested this book on NetGalley because of the cover and the touches of the swan lake story that it promised. I wasn’t terribly disappointed, but neither was I too enraptured. There were times were I was sucked in by the prose or the scene, and other times where I was just annoyed and found myself skimming paragraphs to get through bits faster. This isn’t to say that the whole book overall was *terrible*, but it definitely wasn’t my cup of tea? At the same time, I can 100% see how somebody *else* can thoroughly enjoy it through and through- and kudos to them for enjoying it!
Anyways, let’s get to the pit of it all- there will be some minor spoilers as I have to touch upon some things to discuss where my thoughts are coming from, so be warned if you’ve yet to finish the book in its entirety! I’ll try to keep from anything major though!
When I say that I loved the prose, I mean I *loved* it- when it was *good*. I found our main character that we follow (Fia in the first person pov) to be a bit annoying at times. Some other reviews pointed out the constant comparing of herself to something from the forest and yeah- it happens a lot. Sometimes it’s a lovely addition to the scene and other times it starts feeling repetitive. More often than not, it feels repetitive, but again, it flows enough into the story that it at least isn’t a forced addition thrown in to add some flourish to the book.
What I didn’t enjoy as much as the prose and writing (can I say that when I still had my qualms about it nonetheless?) was the romance. We’re kind of thrown Rogan early on in the book. We get snippets of his history with Fia, and then we get a lot (and I mean a LOT) of pining and this-way-that-way love from these two. Rogan wasn’t really a fan favorite of mine. He has his moments where the words he says are swoon-worthy, but I feel like his character is a little flat? With the readers seeing the world as Fia does, and with her already knowing Rogan, it’s hard to develop any kind of feeling for him as a character when we’re constantly thrown around with what Fia feels for him (and it’s a lot of this-no-that-no-this-again feeling which I found uninteresting after the first few times of it happening).
There’s more like- y’all don’t understand, I just couldn’t vibe with this romance. I don’t wanna say too much, but I don’t think its a spoiler if I say the possessiveness is unattractive in this sense. It’s very… I dunno, I just didn’t enjoy it. Fia has given reason enough and tried enough to nip her feelings in the bud, but he- doesn’t push his attraction on her, but struggles to let her go. I guess I can’t fault him so much for *that* much and maybe it was just my book burnout that made me hate it as much as I did.
Irian is the second love interest we’re given and we at least learn about him *alongside* Fia. A few other reviewers have said that they didn’t enjoy another rendition of the ‘shadow magic love interest’ but I guess I haven’t read enough books featuring this character type because I kind of enjoyed Irian. He fits the bill type of some of my favorite kinds of characters but again, when it comes to the romance side of things, I lost interest. It was very… sudden? I don’t see where the hate to love/attraction comes in? It was quick. They see one another once a month for some time, but nothing ever really happens that makes me believe that they can go from distrust in one another to falling in love? There were also moments after they start showing some interest in one another and then Fia kinda snaps at him or they just have some mild animosity with one another, and then next thing you know, they’re leaning into that mutual interest again??
The characters are also hard to talk about. There were times where I loved them, and times where I couldn’t see why they were doing what they were. Since we follow Fia a lot, we mostly see *her* growth and change. However, there were some moments that didn’t make sense to me? This whole time, we are told Fia was ‘forged to be a weapon’ or ‘made into something sharp’ etc etc. We see her take down this beast too that even Irian had trouble taking down, but she gets whisked away when she gets a minor injury? There’s another moment towards the end where she’s not giving ‘warrior honed’ energy/she’s not shown to be the tough warrior she was forced to become (like keeping cool in the face of an emotionally heightened event which okay yeah, it’s excusable given the circumstances but imo, you can’t call this changeling a warrior and constantly note her strengths/her strict past/give her growth where she’s had to push her own emotions down to do what needs to be done and then turn around and give us this scene where she freezes up in the moment but I digress).
I loved to see the change and growth in Fia, but I wish we would’ve seen it more in Rogan, Irian, even in Eala and the rest of the swans too. Chandi was given a bit of a moment here and there too, at least. I hope that in the next book, some more focus is given to other characters? I feel like I’m also being a bit too harsh on this, because it was genuinely a good book! I enjoyed the story, but because of these other nit-picky bits, I didn’t love it as much as I hoped I would…
As I mentioned before, I can *totally* see how people could love this book! I’m being a touch *too* unforgiving against it and it probably has to do with the fact that it took me almost a month to finish this. I’d put it down, pick it up, read it for a few days and then leave it for a week before I tried to pick it up again. I’m the worst mood reader to exist and when I have to start forcing myself to finish a read (because I knew I didn’t want to DNF it yet also knew that the pub date was coming up and I wanted to post my review before if possible), I become more critical against it. I don’t fault the book so much for that, but I still think that three stars is a fair rating as I can’t seem to find highlighted marks that surpass the notes I made against it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Death, and Alcohol
As minimally spoiling of the plot as I can manage, the ‘drug use’ is a magic flower that characters consume at two different points towards the end of the book. It induces some effects/control over said characters, but mimics drug effects which is why I ultimately decided to mark it as ‘drug use’! No actual drugs were used. It’s all magic, but just in case that is something others need to know about.justinekorson's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this story.
SPOILERS TO FOLLOW
Happy Book Birthday to Lyra Selene!!!!
WHEW! THAT ENDING. I knew from the beginning that I shouldn't trust Eala. She was too.... welcoming of Fia. If I had been kidnapped as a child and replaced by a changeling I would feel nothing but hatred and loathing for my "sister". I didn't believe for a second that Eala liked or even trusted Fia (she obviously didn't trust her because she kept manipulating Fia). Eala constantly talked about how she didn't want to be used as a pawn anymore but then her big plan was "I'm going to make everyone else a pawn in my game". Make that make sense???
I also did not like Rogan AT ALL. I don't understand what Fia saw in the man. He was literally so useless and so damn oblivious. If he was meant to have golden retriever energy (that's what it seemed like and he was blond) then he fell very short of that.
Other than that I truly enjoyed this novel. It had some very vibrant world building and although I was able to see a lot of the plot points from the get-go (besides the whole Eala tearing out hearts bit) I still found the magic and the people interesting enough to continue reading.
I'm also confused though because.... A Folk at the beginning told Fia they were going to ask for a kiss in payment for saving her from some other creepy Folk person and then... that person NEVER came back. Fia only ever interacted with Irian or the maidens so I don't know what happened there. I'm pretty sure this is going to be a series so maybe that will be handled at a later date?
SPOILERS TO FOLLOW
Happy Book Birthday to Lyra Selene!!!!
WHEW! THAT ENDING. I knew from the beginning that I shouldn't trust Eala. She was too.... welcoming of Fia. If I had been kidnapped as a child and replaced by a changeling I would feel nothing but hatred and loathing for my "sister". I didn't believe for a second that Eala liked or even trusted Fia (she obviously didn't trust her because she kept manipulating Fia). Eala constantly talked about how she didn't want to be used as a pawn anymore but then her big plan was "I'm going to make everyone else a pawn in my game". Make that make sense???
I also did not like Rogan AT ALL. I don't understand what Fia saw in the man. He was literally so useless and so damn oblivious. If he was meant to have golden retriever energy (that's what it seemed like and he was blond) then he fell very short of that.
Other than that I truly enjoyed this novel. It had some very vibrant world building and although I was able to see a lot of the plot points from the get-go (besides the whole Eala tearing out hearts bit) I still found the magic and the people interesting enough to continue reading.
I'm also confused though because.... A Folk at the beginning told Fia they were going to ask for a kiss in payment for saving her from some other creepy Folk person and then... that person NEVER came back. Fia only ever interacted with Irian or the maidens so I don't know what happened there. I'm pretty sure this is going to be a series so maybe that will be handled at a later date?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Sexual content, Confinement, Drug use, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Death, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Blood, Death of parent, and Violence
More...