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A review by saylaurmoon
Rise of the Cinder Fae by Whitney Dean
2.5
↠ 2.5 stars ⭐️
I want to start by thanking Whitney Dean for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
I’ve been stalling on writing this review. I was excited for this one and was happy to have been selected to receive an ARC. But I’m incredibly sad to report: I didn’t love it. Honestly, I really should’ve DNF’d this one, but I continued to push through hoping I would become more invested in the story. Sadly, I never did. It ending up taking me 15 days to read this because I just didn’t care about anything at all.
Given the title, one would think the Cinder Fae would be central to the plot.. but they weren’t. At all. They felt like an afterthought for most of the story. Within 700 pages, they appear maybe 5 times. The characters were shallow and underdeveloped, and it really felt like they were included solely to be able to call this a fantasy novel. I’m sure there will be more emphasis on them in future installments, but I don’t think they received the proper focus they should have here, and they could have been explored more deeply.
I also didn’t vibe with the writing style. The story didn’t flow well, and the writing felt clunky. There was frequent switching of verb tense within sentences and paragraphs, which was rather confusing at times. There was also a lot of info-dumping, especially within the first 15% of the book. Which I would have been okay with if it was easy to follow and provided decent world-building. But it didn’t. I still don’t think I fully understand the world, the magic system, or the relevance of the pumpkins.
Lastly, I never really cared about the romance between Elora and Finnian. While this was marketed as a enemies-to-lovers, it felt much more like an angsty instalove, which was disappointing because I’m not a huge fan of this trope. I also thought they had minimal chemistry, and I didn’t care for the spicy scenes (which also happened at weird times, imo). Plus the extreme possessiveness was icky. I will say their banter was enjoyable at least.
The best character was Irina, hands down. I think she was the only reason I went on to finish this, tbh. She’s feisty and independent and I liked her and her relationship with Elora. But otherwise, I didn’t care about anyone else.
Ultimately, there was a lot of potential here, but it fell flat for me. The story felt clunky, confusing, and underdeveloped. I’m glad that so many others have enjoyed it, but it just wasn’t for me and I don’t think I’ll be continuing this series.
₊‧.°.⋆˚₊‧⋆. ₊‧.°.⋆˚₊‧⋆.₊‧.°.⋆˚₊‧⋆. ₊‧.°.⋆˚₊‧⋆.
Check out my reviews on bookstagram
I want to start by thanking Whitney Dean for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
I’ve been stalling on writing this review. I was excited for this one and was happy to have been selected to receive an ARC. But I’m incredibly sad to report: I didn’t love it. Honestly, I really should’ve DNF’d this one, but I continued to push through hoping I would become more invested in the story. Sadly, I never did. It ending up taking me 15 days to read this because I just didn’t care about anything at all.
Given the title, one would think the Cinder Fae would be central to the plot.. but they weren’t. At all. They felt like an afterthought for most of the story. Within 700 pages, they appear maybe 5 times. The characters were shallow and underdeveloped, and it really felt like they were included solely to be able to call this a fantasy novel. I’m sure there will be more emphasis on them in future installments, but I don’t think they received the proper focus they should have here, and they could have been explored more deeply.
I also didn’t vibe with the writing style. The story didn’t flow well, and the writing felt clunky. There was frequent switching of verb tense within sentences and paragraphs, which was rather confusing at times. There was also a lot of info-dumping, especially within the first 15% of the book. Which I would have been okay with if it was easy to follow and provided decent world-building. But it didn’t. I still don’t think I fully understand the world, the magic system, or the relevance of the pumpkins.
Lastly, I never really cared about the romance between Elora and Finnian. While this was marketed as a enemies-to-lovers, it felt much more like an angsty instalove, which was disappointing because I’m not a huge fan of this trope. I also thought they had minimal chemistry, and I didn’t care for the spicy scenes (which also happened at weird times, imo). Plus the extreme possessiveness was icky. I will say their banter was enjoyable at least.
The best character was Irina, hands down. I think she was the only reason I went on to finish this, tbh. She’s feisty and independent and I liked her and her relationship with Elora. But otherwise, I didn’t care about anyone else.
Ultimately, there was a lot of potential here, but it fell flat for me. The story felt clunky, confusing, and underdeveloped. I’m glad that so many others have enjoyed it, but it just wasn’t for me and I don’t think I’ll be continuing this series.
₊‧.°.⋆˚₊‧⋆. ₊‧.°.⋆˚₊‧⋆.₊‧.°.⋆˚₊‧⋆. ₊‧.°.⋆˚₊‧⋆.
Check out my reviews on bookstagram