Review #440
Please disregard things spelled wrong since I listened to the audiobook so didn’t see any of the names.
For those of you who follow my reviews you know by now that I have trouble reading third person narrative so I try listening to them on audiobook instead. That was the case for this one. Even though this fantasy duology came highly recommended it really didn’t work for me. I feel super bad writing a bad review so I’ll try to throw in as many positives below in my comments. It had some amazing qualities: a silver witch, found family, slow burn, long journey, shadows, & bad ass heroine. But it could’ve been 150 pages shorter with what happened in the plot.
Overall I give it a 3/5 because it was so slow.
Here are my thoughts while reading:
What a great start with 3 amazing questions:
Why does the Salt-an want to see our heroine?
Who was the creepy old witch in the forest & why does she know things about the FMC?
Why is the prince the assassin?
I’m so glad there are two points of view to hear Nasir’s perspective too.
The politics feel a bit overbearing so early on and I’m not catching all the details to fully understand. There is so much going on in world building I’m unsure what to focus on for what’s important. Also, in chapter 5 I don’t have a clear grasp of any type of goal for both main characters. What do they want?
Her best friend with little sister and best friend are so repetitive. Let’s just move on to her leaving for goodness sakes.
One of my favorite things is learning about a different culture, their terms, food, clothing, weapons, etc. But there are so many foreign words to me that negatively impacts the flow for me at times.
Why would Nasir be desperate for his father’s approval if he’s the one responsible for cutting out his love’s tongue.
At the end of act 1 the two main characters still hardly met. It’s pretty slow paced.
It feels like the writing choice of what happened to Dean was poor timing and now has many missed opportunities.
I really like Zafira’s affinity. Thought I wish we learned about it before the 56% mark.
It doesn’t make sense when they nickname the huntress a gazelle.
At the end of Act 2 I like how the darkness is taking over. Otherwise the pacing is extremely slow and I’m pretty bored.
When Altier (spelling?) confesses and said he’d trade places it doesn’t feel authentic or believable at all.
At the 90% mark I’m so confused when they keep disappearing into the forest and I don’t know who they’re seeing in visions and what’s real.
The male narrator did a great job during the emotional conversations.
When I reached the 75th chapter unfortunately I’m just waiting the book to end. There are so many times where I feel like I’m missing bits and pieces of information. Which is ironic because there are other times when things are repeated way too unnecessarily. It’s frustrating when I switch from confusion and wanting it clarified to bored and not caring.
91 chapter?!? Jeez! The climatic didn’t pay off for me and I’m overall frustrated.
The epilogue is in a different point of view so I’m unsure if the sequel will be in new POC or still follow Zafira & Nasir. I probably won’t read the next one despite owning a physical copy because this was too slow for me.