Tag: romance

3 star, YA

Review: Evermore by Sara Holland

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Series: Everless #2

evermore -sara hollandThe highly anticipated sequel to New York Times bestseller, Everless!

Jules Ember was raised hearing legends of the ancient magic of the wicked Alchemist and the good Sorceress. But she has just learned the truth: not only are the stories true, but she herself is the Alchemist, and Caro—a woman who single-handedly murdered the Queen and Jules’s first love, Roan, in cold blood—is the Sorceress.

The whole kingdom believes that Jules is responsible for the murders, and a hefty bounty has been placed on her head. And Caro is intent on destroying Jules, who stole her heart twelve lifetimes ago. Jules must delve into the stories that she now recognizes are accounts of her own past. For it is only by piecing together the mysteries of her lives that Jules will be able to save the person who has captured her own heart in this one.

3 Drink Me Potions

**Evermore comes out December 31, 2018**

Thank you Edelweiss and HarperCollins for this copy in exchange for an honest review

Evermore was a quick journey back into a world where blood is bound by time and into a centuries old battle between the Alchemist and Sorceress. While I read through this book in almost one sitting, I’m left with some mixed feelings.

Jules Ember, aka the long-lost Alchemist in her 12th life, is on the run for murder. And what a semi-cliffhanger that was, wasn’t it? The queen and Roan are dead but unfortunately, Jules has been framed.

Her only ally and friend? Liam Gerling, brother of Roan and for the longest time, sworn enemy of Jules.

I feel that every single element of Evermore has both made me happy and slightly dissatisfied at the same time. I will try to break it down.

World building
PRO: I still thoroughly enjoy this kingdom of Sempera who thrives on blood irons as currency. As a quick recap, people’s blood can contain time of varying lengths depending on the volume taken, such as hour coins to year coins. Ingesting blood irons allows others to ‘gain’ the time that was bound to that amount of blood. I still find this element unique among the overly congested world of YA fantasy.
CON: Yet, there’s almost nothing largely new about this world found in Evermore. We hardly even get to spend much time at Everless, the setting that much of Everless took place. New lands are mentioned and some new histories into this kingdom come to light, but if you took away the use of blood irons here, it’s like Sempera could be like ANY other place. There’s nothing special at the end of the day.

Age old battle trope
PRO: Jules gets fragments of her previous lives at a time, kind of like a mystery slowly unfolding piece by piece. We have no idea exactly what happened between her and the Sorceress and just how she may end this battle once and for all. It adds to the mysterious air of the book, driving some urgency towards the conclusion of this duology.
CON: But this is ALL it seems Evermore focuses on. Jules: how to kill Caro. Jules: keep on running from Caro. Jules: keep all loved ones at arm’s length because Caro may try to will kill them. Jules: WHO am I as the Alchemist?
After a while, it just got tiring, you know? Maybe I just needed a little something else to focus on sometimes.

Romance
PRO: I never had any huge love for Roan in book 1 so I was desperately excited at the hints of Liam becoming more in book 2. Yes, he’s your stereotypical brooding male who may not always be so great at showing his feelings. Okay. Maybe that suggest he’s emotionally unavailable but somehow, he did almost a 180 change in Evermore so *shrugs*. I’m good with that.
CON: However….
Somehow in between book 1 and 2, I lost the connection I felt for Liam and Jules together. Although Liam was very much present here (yay!), it just took a long time for me to really be happy about it. To really feel their love and connection. Come on, you’re trying to sell me on the fact that Jules’ heart may break if Caro kills Liam. I NEED to feel it to believe that without just being told so. And sadly, it didn’t really work most of the time.

I think this duology overall was a great debut and the ideas were definitely intriguing. It’s hard to deliver a stunning ending to such a good start to a series, so here I am feeling like I’m left holding the bag waiting for something.

That’s not to say the ending wasn’t great. It was a really good couple of last chapters with many answered questions. The middle just needs some working on, in my opinion.

Overall Recommendation:
Evermore had big shoes to fill after its predecessor and it may not have fully reached its potential. While the action amps with the centuries old war between the Alchemist and Sorceress taking front stage again, everything else seemed to have been pushed aside as less important. The romance with Liam was hard to believe sometimes (and oh, I wanted to believe) while the world building felt lacking after what was already learned in book 1. With a heartfelt ending, I do believe Evermore still has something to offer but just may not have met my high expectations.

4 star, YA

Review: Heart of Thorns by Bree Barton

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Series: Heart of Thorns #1

heart of thorns -bree bartonIn the ancient river kingdom, touch is a battlefield, bodies the instruments of war. Seventeen-year-old Mia Rose has pledged her life to hunting Gwyrach: women who can manipulate flesh, bones, breath, and blood.

Not women. Demons. The same demons who killed her mother without a single scratch.

But when Mia’s father suddenly announces her marriage to the prince, she is forced to trade in her knives and trousers for a sumptuous silk gown. Only after the wedding goes disastrously wrong does she discover she has dark, forbidden magic—the very magic she has sworn to destroy.

4 Drink Me Potions

**Heart of Thorns comes out July 31, 2018**

Thank you Edelweiss and HarperCollins for this copy in exchange for an honest review

Hatred will only lead you astray. Sometimes love is the stronger choice.

Heart of Thorns took me by surprise. While it was predictable in some sense of where the plot was going, the overall story just worked for me.

Let me explain what I mean by that.

Mia, our lovely protagonist, thinks of herself as a rational, logical scientist. She experiments and studies anatomy, a collector of knowledge, priding herself on not just knowing the subjects she chooses to understand but also mastering them. Have you read of protagonists such as these before? I mean, I sure have. Some worked (see Long May She Reign) whereas others feel like talking boxes of facts with no emotional depth.

I was very conflicted as to which side Mia landed for me initially. Especially when there are passages such as the following littered throughout the book.

Eight carpal bones in the wrist: the hamate, capitate, scaphoid, pisiform, lunate, triquetral, trapezoid, and trapezium.

OR

He brushed a curl from her cheek and her zygomatic bones thrummed in their sockets.


Like, what?? I’m the kinda girl who appreciates anatomical terms better than the average person, but even I couldn’t help but laugh a little reading these sentences. Especially the latter.

Then how could I possibly connect with a protagonist like Mia? And that was something I struggled with in the first say 30% of the book. But there was something that kept drawing me in and kept me entertained.

The plot wasn’t the fastest you’ve ever seen, but an adventure following a map to some unknown destination has always been a formula that I can’t help but continue down. After a disastrous wedding ceremony, Mia and her betrothed/fiance/technically husband Quin escape the kingdom with a map that unravels towards their destination as they move along.

The world building in this sense was better formed than other fantasies I’ve read recently. It felt more organic than just a load of information dumping upon our shoulders at the beginning of the book. As they travelled and the 4 kingdoms of this world came closer to Mia, things were explained in a relevant manner.

One thing that some people may not love is the little “screen time” (page time?) that most secondary characters have in this book. For the most part, this story centres around Mia and Quin as they run away from whatever danger they were exposed to. Other people do appear but I never felt like I really knew them very well just because they weren’t present all that often.

HOWEVER, this still in a way worked for me. With so much time given to these 2 characters, we really get to see how Quin and Mia struggled, changed and grew from their circumstances. Especially Mia. I mean, in a matter of a day, her whole life changed. Her whole perspective on who she was changed permanently.

This is why I found her an amenable protagonist. From this logically-driven girl who thought with her brain, she had to learn – and very much struggled through it at times – to think with her heart as well. Let the emotions and feelings guide her. Even when I didn’t connect with her initially, I understood her in the end. That human nature to subdue the overwhelming emotions we feel at times and just distance ourselves with our brains. But life is rarely ever lived fully without the heart.

So yes, there were things that I thought would totally ruin this book for me. But somehow, all together, it worked for this story. The plot wasn’t all that extensive or had too many developed characters, yet that wasn’t the point. These things were enough to drive home the themes of love, family, heart and mind.

And boy, Bree Barton could sometimes write in such a profound way. Like what was love.

FROM

What was love if not a rippling bunch of nerves and valves misfiring? An equation with no known variables? An incalculable contraction of the heart?

TO

Love was a feeling. Love was an action. Love was a partnership, a fiery union of body, mind, and soul.


And love wasn’t just purely romantic love with Quin. It covered familial love and other really strong emotions. Hate. Fear. Rage/anger.

So what if the other things weren’t amazing on its own? Knit together, Heart of Thorns was a beautiful story of learning to listen to the heart, and to choose love no matter how hard that choice may be at times. I believe that’s something everyone can connect with.

Overall Recommendation:
Heart of Thorns started off on a bit of a rocky note, but it landed in a dear spot in my heart. Following a scientific and logically-driven main character, Mia goes on an unintended adventure with Prince Quin as they escape danger and dive into the unknown world, with uncontrolled magic thrown in the mix. Dealing with themes of what it means to love, the ties of family, and listening to the heart, this novel may SEEM predictable but it packed a more lasting impact after the last pages were turned.

Note: all quotes are subject to change

3 star, YA

Review: The Fates Divide by Veronica Roth

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Series: Carve the Mark #2

the fates divide -veronica rothFate brought them together. Now it will divide them.

The lives of Cyra Noavek and Akos Kereseth are ruled by their fates, spoken by the oracles at their births. The fates, once determined, are inescapable.

Akos is in love with Cyra, in spite of his fate: He will die in service to Cyra’s family. And when Cyra’s father, Lazmet Noavek—a soulless tyrant, thought to be dead—reclaims the Shotet throne, Akos believes his end is closer than ever.

As Lazmet ignites a barbaric war, Cyra and Akos are desperate to stop him at any cost. For Cyra, that could mean taking the life of the man who may—or may not—be her father. For Akos, it could mean giving his own. In a stunning twist, the two will discover how fate defines their lives in ways most unexpected.

With the addition of two powerful new voices, Veronica Roth’s sequel to Carve the Mark is a chorus of hope, humor, faith, and resilience.

3 Drink Me Potions

Fate versus choice. Which is greater than the other? Or is there a better question to be asked? Can our choices determine our fate or no matter what we choose, we may always hurtle towards our predestined path?

These are the questions that plague our protagonists as we find them right where we left off in book 1. Cyra and Akos may have momentarily “won” over their numerous adversaries but their troubles are far from over. Including their individual fates that still hang over their heads.

Brimming with questions about the path they each have to walk while wishing they could choose to be free of the destiny they were born with, the battle between their peoples continue, dragging in the Assembly that governs all these planets within the current that protects these lands. Additional POVs from the other Kereseth children were very insightful, especially from Akos’ oracle brother Eijeh who wasn’t really all quite there in the mind.

Equally balanced with romance and action, The Fates Divide was a good conclusion to the duology. At times, it did feel slow. The switching POVs didn’t always add to the story, and the world building wasn’t very strong in this sequel. It seemed after introducing us to how this world worked, including its current and the currentgifts some individuals possessed, not a whole lot was expanded about this world here. Roth did a good job in reminding us what had happened in book 1 and how everything worked in this world, especially if it’s been a while since you’ve read it, but I was a bit disappointed in only learning more about the planet Olga in this book since there’s so much more out there. With duologies picking up more in popularity, I suppose this just wasn’t enough space for further characterization of this society on top of the story.

What I will say this novel had going for it was a certain unexpected twist or two I hadn’t seen coming. And of course, back to the Fates . Always that question on how Cyra and Akos would each fulfill their destinies. I think just guessing at how it could all turn out to be okay really kept the underlying tone of the novel more urgent while events really took its time to unfold.

As endings go, this one was satisfactory. I loved the POV it was written in and that not everything was made “better” for our protagonists completely. Things aren’t 100% resolved, especially concerning the state of the overall society’s changing attitudes, but I like to think that it leaves room for more stories to be possibly born from here, set in this world. Meanwhile, we get to leave our protagonists with future possibilities that are both hopeful and content.

Overall Recommendation:
The Fates Divide concludes Veronica Roth’s interesting duology set in a world filled with currents and destinies that define the core of our protagonists. While the pacing was slow at times and there was a disappointing lack of further world building, the central theme of our destinies versus the choices we make that define our fates eclipsed everything else. Yes, there was action, romance, and the ties of family they couldn’t choose, but the question of fulfilling their fates was ultimately hanging overhead the whole time. Excellently weaved into this fantasy story, this showcases Roth’s ability to put depth in even a YA novel that could’ve remained superficial. A worthy ending that opens up the possibilities of more in this world (or so I hope).