There were parts of the story and the world building that I enjoyed. The main character is compelling to me. Her motivations make sense and using her strengths to overcome her limitations is really interesting. It certainly borrows a lot from the tropes of romance, fantasy, and ya dystopian books that came before. Like a lot of romance novels in particular, the predictability of this book is what satisfies many readers. All that said, I walked away from the book not really wanting to read any more in the series. One piece of that was the writing style of the romance scenes. I am a romance novel reader and have read some very spicy books in my day, but in this book it seemed like these two genres were glued together rather than part of the same story. The writing completely switches. Like we have Hunger Games with dragons and then suddenly it’s a 99 cent kindle bodice-ripper. Very strange. Also, I’m not a fan of introducing underdeveloped characters just to kill them off for a cheap emotional stab. Hopefully not a spoiler, but if you’ve finished the book you know what I mean.
There were parts of the story and the world building that I enjoyed. The main character is compelling to me. Her motivations make sense and using her strengths to overcome her limitations is really interesting. It certainly borrows a lot from the tropes of romance, fantasy, and ya dystopian books that came before. Like a lot of romance novels in particular, the predictability of this book is what satisfies many readers. All that said, I walked away from the book not really wanting to read any more in the series. One piece of that was the writing style of the romance scenes. I am a romance novel reader and have read some very spicy books in my day, but in this book it seemed like these two genres were glued together rather than part of the same story. The writing completely switches. Like we have Hunger Games with dragons and then suddenly it’s a 99 cent kindle bodice-ripper. Very strange. Also, I’m not a fan of introducing underdeveloped characters just to kill them off for a cheap emotional stab. Hopefully not a spoiler, but if you’ve finished the book you know what I mean.