ageless's Updates en-US Thu, 10 Apr 2025 17:58:52 -0700 60 ageless's Updates 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Friend1420190161 Thu, 10 Apr 2025 17:58:52 -0700 <![CDATA[<Friend user_id=121878826 friend_user_id=76867441 top_friend=false>]]> Rating843073161 Wed, 02 Apr 2025 12:14:50 -0700 <![CDATA[ageless liked a review]]> /
ageless liked Allison E's review of Firebird (The Fire That Binds, #1):
Firebird by Juliette Cross
"I know 2 things:

1. This Romantasy is going to blow up when it comes out
2. I did not like it one bit

Now that we both know these two things, let’s proceed with caution shall we? This is a story about a witch blessed with emphatic magic to feel and control the emotions of others. She is captured by an infamous Roman general who is immediately captivated by her and makes her his body slave. In this world the Roman Empire is obviously corrupt and lots of people are actually dragons. The general (love interest) is keeping secrets and is probably not as evil as his reputation would have you believe.

Before I unleash my inner rath let me say 2 nice things. Firstly I appreciated that the Malina wasn’t just a snarky stabby rinse and repeat FMC. She’s definitely snippy but I wouldn’t quite put her into the 100% insufferable category. Secondly I liked that the author picked Ancient Rome as her setting inspiration because finallyyyy the girlies get to have their romance empire moment. Nice!

Now for� everything else.

At the end of the day I don’t think I was ever going to jive with a colonizer/slave master x slave romance. For this story to even remotely work it would have to be handled with such nuance. Firebird doesn’t have that. The power imbalance between them was so icky that I found myself closing my eyes in dread at scenes leading up to intimacy because I was like “no pleaseee don’t do anything until you both are actual equals.� That’s just not a pleasant way to experience romantic progression.

This issue was also exacerbated by the fact that the love interest Julianus is a dragon. The dragon within him (and also just straight up the man) often says things like “you are mine� “tell me you’re giving yourself to me� “my treasure� “say you are mine� etc. I understand these are romantasy cash lines and while I’m not even a big fan of them in the base case, given the context, they were so uncomfortable to read. I’ll also say that since this is a romance you know the love interest is going to be redeemed and has his reasons etc etc. but I just didn’t buy it? I don’t care why he conquered and murdered all her people, I care that he did it in the first place.

Let’s move on from the romance. Let’s talk about world building/ setting. This is a Romantasy pitched as From Blood & Ash meets House of the Dragon. Unfortunately the only similarity between Cross’s Roman inspired setting to George R.R. Martin’s Westeros (besides the existence of dragons) was gratuitous violence towards woman. If you are hoping this story will have complex political maneuvering and characters with depth, look elsewhere. The politics is so surface level I couldn’t even submerge my pinky in it. Plus the presence of dragons just felt like an excuse for insta love, mating bonds, and “inexplicable connections� between two people to exist.

Humor me, let’s come back to the romance itself for a second. APART from the ickiness in the context between them, the actual interactions between Malina and Julianus made me feel nothing. Their dynamic was just canned romantasy lines, attraction without substance, and cringe spicy scenes. I know that’s pretty subjective but words like nub, quim, and cunny were present. No thank uuu

Alright wrapping up this rant. I’ll admit I read this book up until the 60-70% mark before I truly started skimming it. That is LATE in the game for a dnf and skim. I stuck with it for that long only because I was genuinely curious how the author was going to navigate the power imbalance between them romantically, not because I cared about the characters, the romance, or the world stakes.

I leave you with a quote from early on, when our guy Julianus turns into a dragon on site when he sees his girl being attacked:

“Treasure. Slicing into the world, I roar. The gray half-man shakes with fear. As he should. He is no dragon. Nor man. He is a vile creature who planned to defile my treasure. He must bleed. He must die.�

Literally: rawr XD
"
]]> UserStatus1030073366 Wed, 19 Mar 2025 17:38:19 -0700 <![CDATA[ ageless is 23% done with Sunrise on the Reaping ]]> Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins ageless is 23% done with <a href="/book/show/214331246-sunrise-on-the-reaping">Sunrise on the Reaping</a>.
ageless wrote: Chat why do I kind of not like this book😀🧍🏻‍♀� ]]> ReadStatus9207696214 Wed, 19 Mar 2025 17:37:12 -0700 <![CDATA[ageless started reading 'Sunrise on the Reaping']]> /review/show/6566409586 Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins ageless started reading Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
]]> Review7387918842 Tue, 11 Mar 2025 03:47:37 -0700 <![CDATA[ageless added 'Assassin's Quest']]> /review/show/7387918842 Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb ageless gave 5 stars to Assassin's Quest (The Farseer Trilogy #3) by Robin Hobb
Nobody ever talk to me again I’m so sick _(:‚‹」∠)_ ]]> ReadStatus9164445720 Sat, 08 Mar 2025 23:01:59 -0800 <![CDATA[ageless is currently reading 'Assassin's Quest']]> /review/show/7387918842 Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb ageless is currently reading Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb
]]> Review7127740195 Sun, 02 Mar 2025 20:43:48 -0800 <![CDATA[ageless added 'Royal Assassin']]> /review/show/7127740195 Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb ageless gave 5 stars to Royal Assassin (Farseer Trilogy, #2) by Robin Hobb
]]> Review7243053093 Tue, 11 Feb 2025 11:47:31 -0800 <![CDATA[ageless added 'Onyx Storm']]> /review/show/7243053093 Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros ageless gave 1 star to Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3) by Rebecca Yarros
1/5 ⭐️ stars ☺️� an unfortunate (though not unexpected) affront to the craft of writing

Call me naïve, but I honestly hoped after the train wreck that was Iron Flame, Yarros would take her year and work out the kinks in her storytelling and world building and at least deliver something on par with Fourth Wing. At my most optimistic, I hoped she might work a miracle and make something decent enough for me to give her two or even three stars, but in a concerning continuation of her downward trend, Onyx Storm is somehow worse than both Fourth Wing and Iron Flame.

I thought Fourth Wing was a one star book that had potential, though perhaps in the hands of a different writer that actually had a decent understanding of fantasy and an ounce of writerly ability.

Iron Flame nearly redefined my criteria for one star books with its nonsensical plot lines, abysmal writing, and nonexistent editing; and with no spark of the potential Fourth Wing had once possessed.

Onyx Storm, frankly, was embarrassing. I find it to be insulting to the craft of writing, dismissive to art of storytelling, a crime to the profession of editing, and even embarrassing as the shitty military romance wearing a fantasy trench coat that it is. And worst of all, it has committed one of the most heinous crimes any “just for fun� book is capable of: Onyx Storm was incredibly boring.

This “book� would have been more engaging as an email. It wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on—it wasn’t even worth the time Yarros spent thinking up the plot (which mind you, certainly wasn’t long).








⚠️⚠️Spoilers for the first three books of the Empyrean series is you care about this dogshit for some reason. (My personal advice? Don’t read it.) ⚠️⚠️









I’d give you a recap of everything that occurs in this plot, but it’s quite clear to me that Yarros was just throwing shit at the wall in hopes something would stick. A lot of things technically “happened� but nearly nothing really matters to the plot.

The book begins a week or two after Iron Flame ended, with our beloved Xaden (🤢) freshly turned Venin and Violet’s mother dead. The Wards are up and working in the Murder Dragon College, but they’re only partially working in Xaden’s super special province (which is the only one we actually care about of course because it’s ✨Xaden’s�).

I’ll continue with the plot in a moment, but first I want to talk about an issue in this book that has reached a breaking point for me. This book is bloated with “characters�.
Now let me preface, I’m no stranger to incredibly large, sprawling, and complex fantasy books. I’ve read everything from ASOIAF, the Stormlight Archive (and most of the Cosmere), LOTR, Temeraire, the Realm of the Elderlings, and I’ve even picked up the Wheel of Time. Point is, I’m accustomed to a long series with a lot of characters.
But this book?
It has so many unmemorable, uninteresting “characters� that don’t have any semblance of a character trait between them. And not only that but Yarros expects you to remember their first names, their last names, their dragon/gryphon’s names, their military rank or school year, and their magical abilities (many of which have multiple), and don’t forget the random locations, provinces, islands, countries, cities, outposts, etc. that you have to know.
Not to mention she refers to the Dukes or ruling body of a province just as the name of the province. Llewelyn is both a person and a place and you really just have to hope and pray you can figure out which one Yarros is trying to refer to. It’s confusing. But more importantly it’s insulting to call this “accessible fantasy�. This issue alone (and it is far from the only issue) would (understandably) turn so many people off of a really wonderful genre.
AND on top of this the rabid part of the fandom has been running around on BookTok telling anyone that has expressed confusion over this, that they lack reading comprehension or aren’t Real Fantasy Fans. Now if I’ve ever seen a pot calling the kettle black…�

Anyway, Venin boy Xaden proceeds to be exceedingly annoying and broody because he’s tortured⛓️ and edgy🥀 and he’s always two seconds away from giving into the temptation of ultimate Venin power (and does SEVERAL times). And Violet doesn’t ever really think about her dead mother, save for when she wants to be angsty and pretend Yarros� farce of a war has cost her something.

Yarros isn’t interested in exploring grief, oh no, we, the stupid idiot audience, couldn’t handle something actually meaningful.🥰
Instead, Violet’s goals for this book are 1. Find a cure for her dumb boyfriend and 2. Find the Seventh breed of dragon (Andarna’s kind) because last book it was revealed that Violet’s super special gold dragon was actually a super special iridescent camouflage dragon.

Violet’s first goal, predictably, doesn’t happen. She doesn’t even make the slightest bit of headway in finding a cure for being Venin. That’s something that will likely be resolved in the coming books. Which would be fine if her second goal didn’t have the lamest resolution of all time.

Violet’s second goal is locked behind, I kid you not, FIVE different island hopping adventures (and btw Violet decides to skip 2 islands so it was nearly 7). 22 out of the 66 chapters in this book are devoted to visiting these islands.
Okay. Sure. Whatever. 🧍🏻‍♀�
Surely, these land masses which consume such a large portion of our time will be on the map so we can easily visualize their journey and remember the names of the “world� Yarros built, right?
⚠️🚨LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER🚨⚠️
Of course not, stupid! Yarros is on record saying she and Red Tower decided not to include these islands on the map because that would be a spoiler, obviously! 🗺�
Sorry? How is a MAP a spoiler?? Damn guys, I accidentally opened google maps and realized that Antarctica, does in fact, exist.😓 I can’t believe I’ve been spoiled.

I’d tell you the name of these islands but oh! Wait! I don’t have a map to look at, and there’s too many damn names in this book so I don’t remember them. They’re named after the forgettable pantheon of gods and that’s about as much as I can tell you. Sorry! 🥳

Oh, but guess what?
Remember the huge mass of land that Violet’s from, that for two and a half books has just been referred to as “the Continent�? Well, actually it has a name! It’s called Amaralys, apparently, but nobody on the Continent knows that for some reason.
I’m not even being facetious. Yarros simply didn’t deign to tell us plebeians why tf the people that live on the Continent don’t know its name nor why all these random island dwellers do.
Granted this is portrayed as some kind of revelation so I understand why the name of the Continent might be a spoiler and might not be on the map, but that doesn’t make any of this less stupid. 😐

The islands are supposed to be unique and showcase Yarros� immaculate world building skills. ☺️�
But a couple problems arise: 🤯
1. The gods that the islands� whole cultures are based off of are ill-defined and bland.
2. The islands and their interpretation of the gods is as uncreative as you can make it.
For Example:
🍀The Luck Island = their culture is based on luck
📕Knowledge Island = they collect knowledge
💰Economy Island = they love valuable things
🗡️War Island = they love and train for war
And listen I’m not looking for much from a contemporary romance author’s poor attempt at fantasy world building, but would an OUNCE of creativity kill us? Sources are telling me yes.

3. Yarros seems to think world building is slapping names on things and sometimes describing them. Violet points out random animals such as the Dolphinum or Errisbird then doesn’t describe whatever those are, but takes up valuable time to give an in depth description of a palm tree. It’s baffling.

I’m going to mostly skip the islands because they’re so boring but here’s the 😱important 🤯 moments:

On the Knowledge Isle (aka Mommy Issues Isle) we meet Xaden’s mother. She’s alive and married to one of the leaders to the island, and Xaden has two half-brothers that he doesn’t acknowledge. Violet feels sad about her own mom for two seconds and then teams up with Ridoc to beat the shit out of the kitchen staff because the island leader attempted to poison (mostly unsuccessfully) Violet and friends. Nobody dies and they leave.

On Luck Isle they have the lamest white elephant gift exchange ever and some rando on Violet’s team picks the wrong gift then he gets shot, and he and his gryphon dies.
Violet demands that they send troops to Navarre and the Luck Isle agrees. For some reason?
Violet keeps requesting aid for the war from these islands but offers nothing in return, and the Luck Isle is the only island that offers any aid.
Why do they do that? Mostly so Violet doesn’t fail her mission entirely. That’s it. God forbid Violet fail at anything ever.

Violet and company then fly to a random island to burn their dead friend. They do this and then the rest of the squad leaves to fly around and look for the magical camouflage dragons.

By the way, I just want to point out that so far Violet’s method for looking for dragons that can completely blend into their surroundings with magic is to just fly around and look for them with their eyes, and ask the human island dwellers if they’ve seen any dragons. That’s it, that’s their whole strategy. I wish I was joking. 😐

Anyway. While Violet is watching the rest of her “friend’s� body burn, the magical iridescent dragons just show up on the beach. Again, I wish I was joking.

The magical dragons are pacifists and Violet calls them cowards (weird coming from the military wife author but whatever🤪). They tell Andarna that she’s too violent and not enough like them so they reject her. They also tell Violet’s friends that Xaden is Venin and then they leave (and they definitely won’t show up later when the plot needs them).

Violet’s friends don’t care that Xaden is Venin because they trust their best friend Violet, she’s our super special main character, after all, she’s never been wrong🥺

With Violet’s island adventure done, and 22 chapters wasted, it’s time to go back to school. Yep, 70% of the way through the third book in this series and in the midst of a war, and we’re STILL having Violet attend classes.

While Violet and Company were gone, the Venin killed a city of 25,000 people and killed the Gryphon Queen. Violet is horrified for like a paragraph and then all of these casualties are never mentioned again, and she doesn’t even think about killing Xaden despite telling us how catastrophic it would be if he turned Venin.

You see, a problem with this book is that despite Xaden literally becoming a member of the big irredeemable evil cult of this series, it’s never treated with any real seriousness or concern from Violet.
She’s too man obsessed and convinced that Xaden would never hurt her because he loves her so much🥺�
Never mind the weird possessiveness Xaden has over Violet and the aggression that Xaden displays toward anyone else? Nor the many times that Xaden keeps telling Violet that he would kill everyone else just to save her?

This book (and seemingly Yarros) are too obsessed with this idea of a man caring only about their love interest that they ignore all of the disgusting implications, stakes or consequences this adds to the story.
And Violet is too fucking hypnotized by the dick that she brushes away the MANY red flags that flare all around Xaden.🚩🚩🚩
The book tries to convince you that it’s because they love each other so much but that’s so laughably unbelievable, I’m convinced Yarros thinks her audience is stupid. Xaden and Violet constantly want to fuck each other sure, but romantasy needs to learn that weird horny lust is not love.
And having Violet’s whole motivation revolve around Xaden is disgusting.
It’s embarrassing.
It’s repulsive.
It’s not feminism.
It centers men and men only, while trying to convince its audience it’s feminist because it’s written by a woman and has “girlboss� moments.

The only province that matters is Xaden’s province, the only person that matters to Violet is Xaden with only an occasional exception for her siblings or friends, every chapter mentions Xaden over and over, Violet is sad when Xaden is sad, she’s mad when Xaden is mad, she’s constantly monitoring Xaden’s emotions and making sure he’s comfortable and happy.
It’s a ceaseless refrain of Xaden, Xaden, Xaden, Xaden, Xaden, Xaden.

And if the characters aren’t yapping about Xaden they’re dick riding Violet. Everyone defends her and coddles her, and anyone that doesn’t is literally just a villain.
“Violet’s our strongest weapon, she’s so good at everything! She’s so smart even when she blatantly ignores things that are obviously important. Of course We blindly trust her and her evil boyfriend!� 🥺🥺�

Oh and everyone cares about Violet and Xaden’s relationship and comment on their cringey sex life! And can we talk about the sex scenes in this book? Not to be the smut critic but they’re boring, grossly and viscerally described, and WAY TOO LONG. 🤢

Do romantasy writers not see how this obsession with their main characters completely defangs their entire story, message, and world?? Please stop coddling your main characters and please stop dick riding them! It’s so weird. 🙏😭

Even the politics of this world bend to Violet and Xaden. Xaden, after committing blatant and open treason last book, gets awarded the title of duke. And he’s such a good leader even though he spends the whole book telling Violet that she’s his top priority. Sorry, but I don’t want a ruler who wants to fuck his girlfriend more than he wants to keep his people safe?? That’s such an ick. Someone usurp this bastard immediately please!☝️☺️
Violet and Xaden spend half the book disrespecting orders and royalty, and ignore the basic rules of diplomacy, and when everything goes to shit they just threaten and blunder their way through everything without a single consequence or roadblock.

When Violet might lose to the evil Venin miniboss, a random iridescent dragon from earlier shows up and lights the ward stone for Xaden’s province. And even when the plot-convenient dragon takes Andarna with her to “teach her the Irid’s ways� Andarna shows up again just FOUR chapters later. We don’t even sit with her (not very sad) loss for a second.

Violet’s sister gets kidnapped and her throat gets slit and she just gets immediately healed and Violet kills the big bad evil Venin miniboss with a plot convenient stone dagger.

A turtle has more teeth than this story.
A vegan’s fridge has more stakes.

(I know steaks/stakes are different shut up let me have a stupid pun as a treat for surviving this book)

The book ends on yet another big battle with a cliffhanger ending because why would we deserve anything more than formulaic slop?☺️�
TLDR: Violet and Xaden get married 👰‍♀️🤵‍♂️but Violet’s memory gets erased so she doesn’t remember it, and also Xaden went full Venin so now Violet has to look over Xaden’s province. Womp womp.

And another more thing!!🗣�
The main centerpiece of this idiotic plot is the “war� between the Venin and the humans. But do you know what this war amounts to on page? A handle of nameless civilians dying, boring dragon fights on occasion when Violet gets attacked, random cities getting attacked so Violet can defend them, and dull final battles where a location gets attacked and Violet has to defend it.

Notice how the humans are always getting attacked?
The humans just patrol their borders and wait to get attacked. Never once do the humans go on the offensive or even try to figure out what the Venin even want? Do the Venin truly just want to suck all the power out of the land? I guess. That’s all Yarros has deigned to tell us. The stakes are so low, and the main conflict is so bland.
The humans just sit around until they’re attacked and then are surprised that the evil enemy is attacking them. And the dragons do even less.

Oh yes, once more the dragons are nothing more than glorified Uber rides. They have no character growth or personalities and really only chime in to insert stupid quips. That’s all. Andarna almost has a plot line but it’s entirely unexplored because Violet is self-absorbed and man-obsessed.🐲🐉

And remember how Violet has magical fantasy EDS? Well Violet doesn’t. It never comes up when it would actually adversely impact the plot. Violet routinely takes 24 hour high impact dragon flights and is just a little sore after it, that’s all. Occasionally she dislocates something but that gets mended up instantly. What’s the point of Violet even having this disability if the book is just going to ignore it so Violet can have rough sex and treat her body like shit? She doesn’t get anymore accommodations or have any real struggles. We just get heaps more internalized ableism and not much else. Yay!!🥳

I’m sorry if you like this book but I just don’t understand how. It’s altogether a generic, uncreative, unimaginative, and poorly put together book.

The modern slang is egregious. The writing is abysmal. The editor was certainly sleeping on the job. The plot is boring, formulaic, and has no substance whatsoever.

It’s not even funny bad anymore, it’s just depressing. Yarros is not a good writer and Red Tower is certainly not an ethical publishing house.

They treat their diehard supporters like trash and get away with it because their audience is primarily women that are used to being treated poorly by big corporations and it’s really, really sad.

Please demand better. And please stop giving Yarros and Red Tower money. There are a million fantasy books that are better written, with far more care put into them.

Plus there are good books that are actually accessible for new readers.


Well. I hope that was helpful or entertaining or something because this book certainly wasn’t.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading my review!! If you want more of my thoughts on and reactions to this book I’ve made my kindle notes and highlights public (there are a LOT of them).

Also if you like this book or Yarros, that’s cool. We can agree to disagree. Please don’t comment dumb shit, and keep it mostly respectful! Thanks! ☺️🙏� ]]> Review7243053093 Mon, 10 Feb 2025 23:22:58 -0800 <![CDATA[ageless added 'Onyx Storm']]> /review/show/7243053093 Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros ageless gave 1 star to Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3) by Rebecca Yarros
1/5 ⭐️ stars ☺️� an unfortunate (though not unexpected) affront to the craft of writing

Call me naïve, but I honestly hoped after the train wreck that was Iron Flame, Yarros would take her year and work out the kinks in her storytelling and world building and at least deliver something on par with Fourth Wing. At my most optimistic, I hoped she might work a miracle and make something decent enough for me to give her two or even three stars, but in a concerning continuation of her downward trend, Onyx Storm is somehow worse than both Fourth Wing and Iron Flame.

I thought Fourth Wing was a one star book that had potential, though perhaps in the hands of a different writer that actually had a decent understanding of fantasy and an ounce of writerly ability.

Iron Flame nearly redefined my criteria for one star books with its nonsensical plot lines, abysmal writing, and nonexistent editing; and with no spark of the potential Fourth Wing had once possessed.

Onyx Storm, frankly, was embarrassing. I find it to be insulting to the craft of writing, dismissive to art of storytelling, a crime to the profession of editing, and even embarrassing as the shitty military romance wearing a fantasy trench coat that it is. And worst of all, it has committed one of the most heinous crimes any “just for fun� book is capable of: Onyx Storm was incredibly boring.

This “book� would have been more engaging as an email. It wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on—it wasn’t even worth the time Yarros spent thinking up the plot (which mind you, certainly wasn’t long).








⚠️⚠️Spoilers for the first three books of the Empyrean series is you care about this dogshit for some reason. (My personal advice? Don’t read it.) ⚠️⚠️









I’d give you a recap of everything that occurs in this plot, but it’s quite clear to me that Yarros was just throwing shit at the wall in hopes something would stick. A lot of things technically “happened� but nearly nothing really matters to the plot.

The book begins a week or two after Iron Flame ended, with our beloved Xaden (🤢) freshly turned Venin and Violet’s mother dead. The Wards are up and working in the Murder Dragon College, but they’re only partially working in Xaden’s super special province (which is the only one we actually care about of course because it’s ✨Xaden’s�).

I’ll continue with the plot in a moment, but first I want to talk about an issue in this book that has reached a breaking point for me. This book is bloated with “characters�.
Now let me preface, I’m no stranger to incredibly large, sprawling, and complex fantasy books. I’ve read everything from ASOIAF, the Stormlight Archive (and most of the Cosmere), LOTR, Temeraire, the Realm of the Elderlings, and I’ve even picked up the Wheel of Time. Point is, I’m accustomed to a long series with a lot of characters.
But this book?
It has so many unmemorable, uninteresting “characters� that don’t have any semblance of a character trait between them. And not only that but Yarros expects you to remember their first names, their last names, their dragon/gryphon’s names, their military rank or school year, and their magical abilities (many of which have multiple), and don’t forget the random locations, provinces, islands, countries, cities, outposts, etc. that you have to know.
Not to mention she refers to the Dukes or ruling body of a province just as the name of the province. Llewelyn is both a person and a place and you really just have to hope and pray you can figure out which one Yarros is trying to refer to. It’s confusing. But more importantly it’s insulting to call this “accessible fantasy�. This issue alone (and it is far from the only issue) would (understandably) turn so many people off of a really wonderful genre.
AND on top of this the rabid part of the fandom has been running around on BookTok telling anyone that has expressed confusion over this, that they lack reading comprehension or aren’t Real Fantasy Fans. Now if I’ve ever seen a pot calling the kettle black…�

Anyway, Venin boy Xaden proceeds to be exceedingly annoying and broody because he’s tortured⛓️ and edgy🥀 and he’s always two seconds away from giving into the temptation of ultimate Venin power (and does SEVERAL times). And Violet doesn’t ever really think about her dead mother, save for when she wants to be angsty and pretend Yarros� farce of a war has cost her something.

Yarros isn’t interested in exploring grief, oh no, we, the stupid idiot audience, couldn’t handle something actually meaningful.🥰
Instead, Violet’s goals for this book are 1. Find a cure for her dumb boyfriend and 2. Find the Seventh breed of dragon (Andarna’s kind) because last book it was revealed that Violet’s super special gold dragon was actually a super special iridescent camouflage dragon.

Violet’s first goal, predictably, doesn’t happen. She doesn’t even make the slightest bit of headway in finding a cure for being Venin. That’s something that will likely be resolved in the coming books. Which would be fine if her second goal didn’t have the lamest resolution of all time.

Violet’s second goal is locked behind, I kid you not, FIVE different island hopping adventures (and btw Violet decides to skip 2 islands so it was nearly 7). 22 out of the 66 chapters in this book are devoted to visiting these islands.
Okay. Sure. Whatever. 🧍🏻‍♀�
Surely, these land masses which consume such a large portion of our time will be on the map so we can easily visualize their journey and remember the names of the “world� Yarros built, right?
⚠️🚨LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER🚨⚠️
Of course not, stupid! Yarros is on record saying she and Red Tower decided not to include these islands on the map because that would be a spoiler, obviously! 🗺�
Sorry? How is a MAP a spoiler?? Damn guys, I accidentally opened google maps and realized that Antarctica, does in fact, exist.😓 I can’t believe I’ve been spoiled.

I’d tell you the name of these islands but oh! Wait! I don’t have a map to look at, and there’s too many damn names in this book so I don’t remember them. They’re named after the forgettable pantheon of gods and that’s about as much as I can tell you. Sorry! 🥳

Oh, but guess what?
Remember the huge mass of land that Violet’s from, that for two and a half books has just been referred to as “the Continent�? Well, actually it has a name! It’s called Amaralys, apparently, but nobody on the Continent knows that for some reason.
I’m not even being facetious. Yarros simply didn’t deign to tell us plebeians why tf the people that live on the Continent don’t know its name nor why all these random island dwellers do.
Granted this is portrayed as some kind of revelation so I understand why the name of the Continent might be a spoiler and might not be on the map, but that doesn’t make any of this less stupid. 😐

The islands are supposed to be unique and showcase Yarros� immaculate world building skills. ☺️�
But a couple problems arise: 🤯
1. The gods that the islands� whole cultures are based off of are ill-defined and bland.
2. The islands and their interpretation of the gods is as uncreative as you can make it.
For Example:
🍀The Luck Island = their culture is based on luck
📕Knowledge Island = they collect knowledge
💰Economy Island = they love valuable things
🗡️War Island = they love and train for war
And listen I’m not looking for much from a contemporary romance author’s poor attempt at fantasy world building, but would an OUNCE of creativity kill us? Sources are telling me yes.

3. Yarros seems to think world building is slapping names on things and sometimes describing them. Violet points out random animals such as the Dolphinum or Errisbird then doesn’t describe whatever those are, but takes up valuable time to give an in depth description of a palm tree. It’s baffling.

I’m going to mostly skip the islands because they’re so boring but here’s the 😱important 🤯 moments:

On the Knowledge Isle (aka Mommy Issues Isle) we meet Xaden’s mother. She’s alive and married to one of the leaders to the island, and Xaden has two half-brothers that he doesn’t acknowledge. Violet feels sad about her own mom for two seconds and then teams up with Ridoc to beat the shit out of the kitchen staff because the island leader attempted to poison (mostly unsuccessfully) Violet and friends. Nobody dies and they leave.

On Luck Isle they have the lamest white elephant gift exchange ever and some rando on Violet’s team picks the wrong gift then he gets shot, and he and his gryphon dies.
Violet demands that they send troops to Navarre and the Luck Isle agrees. For some reason?
Violet keeps requesting aid for the war from these islands but offers nothing in return, and the Luck Isle is the only island that offers any aid.
Why do they do that? Mostly so Violet doesn’t fail her mission entirely. That’s it. God forbid Violet fail at anything ever.

Violet and company then fly to a random island to burn their dead friend. They do this and then the rest of the squad leaves to fly around and look for the magical camouflage dragons.

By the way, I just want to point out that so far Violet’s method for looking for dragons that can completely blend into their surroundings with magic is to just fly around and look for them with their eyes, and ask the human island dwellers if they’ve seen any dragons. That’s it, that’s their whole strategy. I wish I was joking. 😐

Anyway. While Violet is watching the rest of her “friend’s� body burn, the magical iridescent dragons just show up on the beach. Again, I wish I was joking.

The magical dragons are pacifists and Violet calls them cowards (weird coming from the military wife author but whatever🤪). They tell Andarna that she’s too violent and not enough like them so they reject her. They also tell Violet’s friends that Xaden is Venin and then they leave (and they definitely won’t show up later when the plot needs them).

Violet’s friends don’t care that Xaden is Venin because they trust their best friend Violet, she’s our super special main character, after all, she’s never been wrong🥺

With Violet’s island adventure done, and 22 chapters wasted, it’s time to go back to school. Yep, 70% of the way through the third book in this series and in the midst of a war, and we’re STILL having Violet attend classes.

While Violet and Company were gone, the Venin killed a city of 25,000 people and killed the Gryphon Queen. Violet is horrified for like a paragraph and then all of these casualties are never mentioned again, and she doesn’t even think about killing Xaden despite telling us how catastrophic it would be if he turned Venin.

You see, a problem with this book is that despite Xaden literally becoming a member of the big irredeemable evil cult of this series, it’s never treated with any real seriousness or concern from Violet.
She’s too man obsessed and convinced that Xaden would never hurt her because he loves her so much🥺�
Never mind the weird possessiveness Xaden has over Violet and the aggression that Xaden displays toward anyone else? Nor the many times that Xaden keeps telling Violet that he would kill everyone else just to save her?

This book (and seemingly Yarros) are too obsessed with this idea of a man caring only about their love interest that they ignore all of the disgusting implications, stakes or consequences this adds to the story.
And Violet is too fucking hypnotized by the dick that she brushes away the MANY red flags that flare all around Xaden.🚩🚩🚩
The book tries to convince you that it’s because they love each other so much but that’s so laughably unbelievable, I’m convinced Yarros thinks her audience is stupid. Xaden and Violet constantly want to fuck each other sure, but romantasy needs to learn that weird horny lust is not love.
And having Violet’s whole motivation revolve around Xaden is disgusting.
It’s embarrassing.
It’s repulsive.
It’s not feminism.
It centers men and men only, while trying to convince its audience it’s feminist because it’s written by a woman and has “girlboss� moments.

The only province that matters is Xaden’s province, the only person that matters to Violet is Xaden with only an occasional exception for her siblings or friends, every chapter mentions Xaden over and over, Violet is sad when Xaden is sad, she’s mad when Xaden is mad, she’s constantly monitoring Xaden’s emotions and making sure he’s comfortable and happy.
It’s a ceaseless refrain of Xaden, Xaden, Xaden, Xaden, Xaden, Xaden.

And if the characters aren’t yapping about Xaden they’re dick riding Violet. Everyone defends her and coddles her, and anyone that doesn’t is literally just a villain.
“Violet’s our strongest weapon, she’s so good at everything! She’s so smart even when she blatantly ignores things that are obviously important. Of course We blindly trust her and her evil boyfriend!� 🥺🥺�

Oh and everyone cares about Violet and Xaden’s relationship and comment on their cringey sex life! And can we talk about the sex scenes in this book? Not to be the smut critic but they’re boring, grossly and viscerally described, and WAY TOO LONG. 🤢

Do romantasy writers not see how this obsession with their main characters completely defangs their entire story, message, and world?? Please stop coddling your main characters and please stop dick riding them! It’s so weird. 🙏😭

Even the politics of this world bend to Violet and Xaden. Xaden, after committing blatant and open treason last book, gets awarded the title of duke. And he’s such a good leader even though he spends the whole book telling Violet that she’s his top priority. Sorry, but I don’t want a ruler who wants to fuck his girlfriend more than he wants to keep his people safe?? That’s such an ick. Someone usurp this bastard immediately please!☝️☺️
Violet and Xaden spend half the book disrespecting orders and royalty, and ignore the basic rules of diplomacy, and when everything goes to shit they just threaten and blunder their way through everything without a single consequence or roadblock.

When Violet might lose to the evil Venin miniboss, a random iridescent dragon from earlier shows up and lights the ward stone for Xaden’s province. And even when the plot-convenient dragon takes Andarna with her to “teach her the Irid’s ways� Andarna shows up again just FOUR chapters later. We don’t even sit with her (not very sad) loss for a second.

Violet’s sister gets kidnapped and her throat gets slit and she just gets immediately healed and Violet kills the big bad evil Venin miniboss with a plot convenient stone dagger.

A turtle has more teeth than this story.
A vegan’s fridge has more stakes.

(I know steaks/stakes are different shut up let me have a stupid pun as a treat for surviving this book)

The book ends on yet another big battle with a cliffhanger ending because why would we deserve anything more than formulaic slop?☺️�
TLDR: Violet and Xaden get married 👰‍♀️🤵‍♂️but Violet’s memory gets erased so she doesn’t remember it, and also Xaden went full Venin so now Violet has to look over Xaden’s province. Womp womp.

And another more thing!!🗣�
The main centerpiece of this idiotic plot is the “war� between the Venin and the humans. But do you know what this war amounts to on page? A handle of nameless civilians dying, boring dragon fights on occasion when Violet gets attacked, random cities getting attacked so Violet can defend them, and dull final battles where a location gets attacked and Violet has to defend it.

Notice how the humans are always getting attacked?
The humans just patrol their borders and wait to get attacked. Never once do the humans go on the offensive or even try to figure out what the Venin even want? Do the Venin truly just want to suck all the power out of the land? I guess. That’s all Yarros has deigned to tell us. The stakes are so low, and the main conflict is so bland.
The humans just sit around until they’re attacked and then are surprised that the evil enemy is attacking them. And the dragons do even less.

Oh yes, once more the dragons are nothing more than glorified Uber rides. They have no character growth or personalities and really only chime in to insert stupid quips. That’s all. Andarna almost has a plot line but it’s entirely unexplored because Violet is self-absorbed and man-obsessed.🐲🐉

And remember how Violet has magical fantasy EDS? Well Violet doesn’t. It never comes up when it would actually adversely impact the plot. Violet routinely takes 24 hour high impact dragon flights and is just a little sore after it, that’s all. Occasionally she dislocates something but that gets mended up instantly. What’s the point of Violet even having this disability if the book is just going to ignore it so Violet can have rough sex and treat her body like shit? She doesn’t get anymore accommodations or have any real struggles. We just get heaps more internalized ableism and not much else. Yay!!🥳

I’m sorry if you like this book but I just don’t understand how. It’s altogether a generic, uncreative, unimaginative, and poorly put together book.

The modern slang is egregious. The writing is abysmal. The editor was certainly sleeping on the job. The plot is boring, formulaic, and has no substance whatsoever.

It’s not even funny bad anymore, it’s just depressing. Yarros is not a good writer and Red Tower is certainly not an ethical publishing house.

They treat their diehard supporters like trash and get away with it because their audience is primarily women that are used to being treated poorly by big corporations and it’s really, really sad.

Please demand better. And please stop giving Yarros and Red Tower money. There are a million fantasy books that are better written, with far more care put into them.

Plus there are good books that are actually accessible for new readers.


Well. I hope that was helpful or entertaining or something because this book certainly wasn’t.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading my review!! If you want more of my thoughts on and reactions to this book I’ve made my kindle notes and highlights public (there are a LOT of them).

Also if you like this book or Yarros, that’s cool. We can agree to disagree. Please don’t comment dumb shit, and keep it mostly respectful! Thanks! ☺️🙏� ]]> LikeOnExternalResourcePlaceholder1905087 Fri, 24 Jan 2025 10:28:14 -0800 <![CDATA[#<LikeOnExternalResourcePlaceholder:0x0000555586deb5a8>]]>