Quite honestly I can’t stand only a few books that I’ve read, recently The Awakening by Nora Roberts.
Holy crap, do I reallllyyyyy want my money back. I was bored. So. Bored. The magic system was subpar, the characters just….ew, everything was so, so boring. The MC is an idiot.
What book is a zero star read for you?
Magic Bites by Illona Andrews
It was highly recommended many times in a Facebook group for the Dresden Files. It was sold as this amazing Urban Fantasy book written by a husband and wife, so you get awesome action scenes from the husband and great characters and story from the wife!
Instead you got this weird world where magic and tech take turns working. Sounds cool, except it doesn’t actually work like that. Magical creatures are still active while tech is in control, and things like cell phones still work, unless plot convenient, during magic phases. Why? When someone asks the MC she says, “We’ll, no one really understands cell phones and they feel like magic, so they still work during magic, but people also know they’re tech so they also work during tech.” What the actual fuck.
The MC seems to have been written by checking off boxes on a list of over used tropes. Bad ass strong independent woman? Check. All the men in the book fall for her? Check. Dark mysterious past? Check. Secret bloodline that makes her super duper special? Check. Somehow tougher than literal supernatural beings like werewolves, vampires, and demons? Check check check.
We even get a scene where she walks into a werebeast den, walks up to the pack leader (a werelion, the strongest of all were creatures), tells him to suck her dick and do what she says. He threatens to kill her if she disrespects him again, she does it 3 more times in the next sentence, and spends the rest of the book telling him to suck her dick every third sentence, with every second sentence being how bad ass she is. Of course by the end of the book they’re dating cause who could resist her charms?
I finished the book, but man it never got better. I thought the world and everything were really cool and a great spin on the Urban Fantasy genre, but even that was ruined by stupid hand wave logic. 0/10, would not recommend.
So the magic/tech thing is totally intriguing and I would totally read something where it was done properly but your synopsis legit made me laugh. It sounds absolutely insufferable.
The Abhorsen series by Garth Nix handles the magic/tech thing really well IMO
So the magic/tech thing is totally intriguing and I would totally read something where it was done properly but your synopsis legit made me laugh. It sounds absolutely insufferable.
I made it to the second one and found it even worse. Kate just gets dumber and more annoying.
The tech/magic shifts are horrible because there is no reason or pattern or whatever to it, just a weird artificial plot device.
I made it to the second one and found it even worse. Kate just gets dumber and more annoying.
The tech/magic shifts are horrible because there is no reason or pattern or whatever to it, just a weird artificial plot device.
Hard disagree. The first book in the series is a bit rough, granted, but I would hardly put it into the same category as the rest of the books on this thread. Also, the points you bring up are valid, but you aren’t accounting for the fact that the protagonist with a mysterious background has a mysterious background that isn’t going to be all revealed in the first book in a 10 book series. Many powerful magical creatures actually can’t manifest during tech waves, just the weak ones. Extremely powerful creatures like dragons or djinn can only manifest ever seven years during flares. Her power words are explained in detail by book three. Her problem with phones makes sense as you read on. They are not by any means dating by the end of book one. It actually takes four books, and no, there is not a love triangle. Etc. etc.
Like, it’s fine that you don’t like the book, no book or series is for everyone. But it’s hardly 50 shades, either.
I wasn’t lamenting the fact that I didn’t know about her dark mysterious past, I was saying it’s an over used trope, one amongst many. And my bad, they were just eye fucking by the end of the book, but of course we needed a couple extra books of “will they, won’t they?”.
If you like the books that’s great. I, and a lot of other people, find them to be poorly written. The world building had a great starting point but falls apart the first time it’s questioned. If they managed to put bandaids on it through the series and come up with a decent explanation for things working then good for them. Everything else could have come from an Urban Fantasy Romance ad-lib. The series was sold as an action packed Urban Fantasy, and instead I got a generic UF romance novel and the biggest change from the formula that has been done over and over was that the love interest is a werelion instead of werewolf.
Hard disagree. The first book in the series is a bit rough, granted, but I would hardly put it into the same category as the rest of the books on this thread. Also, the points you bring up are valid, but you aren’t accounting for the fact that the protagonist with a mysterious background has a mysterious background that isn’t going to be all revealed in the first book in a 10 book series. Many powerful magical creatures actually can’t manifest during tech waves, just the weak ones. Extremely powerful creatures like dragons or djinn can only manifest ever seven years during flares. Her power words are explained in detail by book three. Her problem with phones makes sense as you read on. They are not by any means dating by the end of book one. It actually takes four books, and no, there is not a love triangle. Etc. etc.
Like, it’s fine that you don’t like the book, no book or series is for everyone. But it’s hardly 50 shades, either.
I absolutely love their Innkeeper series, but I can’t read any other Ilona Andrews series.
I absolutely love their Innkeeper series, but I can’t read any other Ilona Andrews series.