DNF @ 36%
I should have trusted my gut with this one. I'm never drawn to Anastasia retellings, but I wanted to support this author after the appalling way she was treated last year and decided to give this book a try.
Reader, I shouldn't have.
Is this a terrible book? No, and it's a book with plenty of good ideas, but it's just so tropey and the characters are so dull that I was incredibly bored while reading this. It's an easy enough read so I could have pushed my way through this, but I want to be reading books I actually enjoy and, sadly, I wasn't enjoying this one.
Ana makes dumb decisions all the time that put her and her friend, May, at risk and it's infuriating. When she stands up for another Affinite at the market who's getting punished for giving May a cake for no money, she literally has money in her pocket that she could have handed over to avoid causing a scene. Instead she uses her magic to start a fight, thus revealing herself as another Affinite, which leads to May getting taken. I'm all for characters making mistakes, but Ana doesn't seem to learn from hers? She just uses her blood magic and then has a 'woe is me, I'm a monster' moment and it's super boring and repetitive. Ramson isn't much better. As someone who's supposed to be a savvy conman, he gets duped pretty easily, and to be honest neither he nor Ana are particularly likeable. Especially considering Ramson is happy to plan selling Ana into slavery even though he only escapes from prison with her help.
I love a morally grey character, but Ramson was really quite horrid yet written in the kind of heart-eyes way that makes it obvious his and Ana's relationship is going to develop into some kind of romance at some point. Although admittedly I didn't stick around long enough to know that for sure. By all means give me a morally questionable character, but don't tell me how dreamy he is like I should be swooning over someone who's involved in human trafficking.
I do appreciate the themes that the author wanted to explore, and her love for this book is clear, but it's not for me.
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Jess Gofton
Compelling ideas, but dull characters
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 February 2020Verified Purchase
Bananas1989
🥀 𝑩𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝑹𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒆𝒘 - 𝑩𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝑯𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒃𝒚 𝑨𝒎é𝒍𝒊𝒆 𝑾𝒆𝒏 𝒁𝒉𝒂𝒐 🥀
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 January 2021Verified Purchase
🥀 𝑩𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝑹𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒆𝒘 - 𝑩𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝑯𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒃𝒚 𝑨𝒎é𝒍𝒊𝒆 𝑾𝒆𝒏 𝒁𝒉𝒂𝒐 🥀
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 January 2021
I can't believe this is an authors debut book. Amazing! So many emotions inflicted by this book. Amélie really got me in the feels and made me think deeply about certain things that happened.Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 January 2021
This book has Intrigue, Love, Friendships, Sadness, Fear & Hope 💖
I really loved this book, Amélie has a beautiful yet powerful way with words, which is why I ended up picking three quotes for my journal. I could have chosen many more. My favourite is the last one as it really resonated with me.
Some of my favourite parts in the book is how Amélie intertwined the past of our two MC's, given us snippets at exactly the right places. The way Ana and Quicktongues relationship grew was beautiful. I may have wanted more for them but it was nice to see, if and how, any kinship would develop with the obstacles thrown at them.
My heart was in my throat many times with the plot twists 😱.
Learning about the Affinites gifts was intriguing and also sad at times, especially with the oppression in Cyrilian.
I also enjoyed how Amélie explained the different cultures & religions of the neighbouring Kingdoms/Empires surrounding Cyrilian .....we learn alot on Ana's journey!
Among each Empire/Kingdom the citizens have been brought up with different beliefs and assumptions of eachother, some unfortunately true but others are not. I loved how characters discussed some of these important issues with care and understanding. Opening their hearts to eachother, especially later in the book when my favourite character pops up, Linn.
The book also contains gods in many forms and I found some of these to be unique and refreshing.
This book isn't just about a princess trying to find her fathers killer and take back her title, it's so much more. I left this book with a feeling of hope, hope for the world they live in and hope for those oppressed by the those of higher power. I hope that in 'Red Tigress' we see some old faces return and that they become allies in the future of Cyrilian.
I can't fault anything in this book. Amélie will now be an auto buy for me. 💛
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Megan King
Great weekend read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 February 2020Verified Purchase
Stephen R Collins
Vampire done different
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 February 2020Verified Purchase
Teenietinybookreview
Recommend.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 May 2020Verified Purchase
