Dnf @37%. Idk maybe I鈥檒l come back to this sometime, but the romance mood has passed. And also I care so little about this that I actually forgot I waDnf @37%. Idk maybe I鈥檒l come back to this sometime, but the romance mood has passed. And also I care so little about this that I actually forgot I was reading it....more
I鈥檓 sorry in advance for being a hater. Tl;dr: not exactly bad, just super, super not for me.
I鈥檒l be the first person to admit I really had no businesI鈥檓 sorry in advance for being a hater. Tl;dr: not exactly bad, just super, super not for me.
I鈥檒l be the first person to admit I really had no business reading this book. I didn鈥檛 read the Hurricane Wars because everything I heard about it indicated it would not be for me, I don鈥檛 tend to love either romantasy or cozy fantasy, and I know nothing about Critical Role. But I do like a monster romance from time to time, and I was in the mood for something light and fun, so I hoped this might work for me. It did not.
I鈥檒l start with my most important critique, since this may get long and rant-y: I did not like the characters and their relationship dynamic. Like, at all. And this is subjective! If you love their dynamic, you鈥檒l probably like this book a whole lot more than I did. In a very real sense this is just the Disney movie Tangled (dare I say mashed together with a dash of Shrek) and that is just simply not a dynamic that I tend to enjoy. We鈥檝e got a gruff, worldly, competent man x a spunky but sheltered lady who makes flower crowns and naively befriends criminals. This CAN be an interesting pairing, if it鈥檚 thoroughly explored and well considered, but that鈥檚 not the case here. It just felt tropey, unoriginal, and pretty infantilizing of Guinevere.
Also, I HATE grumpy men. Free us from the grumpy male love interest. Why are they all grumpy. Let men have other personalities besides grumpy.
The longer, more nitpicky rant: okay, elements of this story are definitely fun. There were moments where I enjoyed myself, almost enough to start thinking that 2 stars is too harsh. The problem is, at the end of the day, I have issues with basically every single facet of this book. The pacing is terrible - it skips somewhat randomly over really important parts with just, like, a brief sentence or paragraph summary, then draaags through some excruciatingly drawn out sequences that I did not care about at all, which means it manages to FEEL long in spite of the fact that it is very short. The 鈥減lot鈥� is very thin and predictable and wraps up way too easily, which - fine. It鈥檚 a cozy-ish fantasy romance. That鈥檚 to be expected. The writing is also鈥� maybe not terrible, but not good. I almost think this book would have been better off keeping to plain, contemporary prose rather than trying to sound high-fantasy.
Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review!...more
Loading...
