aemryreads's reviews
29 reviews

Overall, a great start to the story. So much to look forward to in terms of complications and character development, which is so exciting for me. Ordering the box set next month to binge read at the start of summer :)

I liked this book moderately and then hated it and then at the end liked it again.

Basically its this slow burn romance but Sarah wants you to believe there is more to the story and that its bigger than just romance, so she introduces this war (can't have a fantasy novel without war, am I right, ladies?) and then nothing regarding the war happens until like 500 pages in.

It's a bunch of flirting and introducing other characters so that they can flirt and have their own romance stuff later broken up with plotting for war stuff and info-dumping. GOD WAS THERE SO MUCH INFO DUMPING. That was the thing that made me want to DNF even though I was literally a hundred pages away from finishing the book. When I tell you I made a DENT in this book and it was so bad that I genuinely considered putting it down forever, I mean it.

There's also no stakes considering the danger that the world is in, or at least that is what it feels like. They'll be like "guys we gotta reach out to these people because we need to get that thing asap or else that evil man is going to ruin the world as we know it!" and then they sit around and do nothing for weeks. And yeah they "do stuff" but nothing that pertains to the actual war. It's all just filler and what you could argue is "character development". And I guess it works, but man is it boring to read.

Still not sure if there are any main characters of color because I can't tell what Sarah means by tan? I rewired my brain while reading to picture certain characters a certain way because I refuse to be reading a book where all the characters are canonically white. And I know that Tarquin was probably black but he was there for like twenty pages out of this 600-page book so.

What really pisses me off about this book is that I feel gaslit by the last 50 pages. Those were hands-down the best pages of the entire goddamn book: action-packed, actual stakes, emotion, blah blah lots of other good stuff. So now I finish this book thinking WOW THIS WAS REALLY GOOD but really it's just the last group of pages. And it's a shame too because the gaslighting worked and I'm going to probably get the next book in hopes I will actually enjoy the whole thing this time.

As a whole I think this book was better than ACOTAR, but still not my favorite. I know a lot of people say this is their favorite book in this series and of Sarah's in general, but I don't feel the same and that's okay.

Here's what I think.

ACOTAR lacked a good plot and good romance.

ACOMAF had good romance and a decent plot with poor execution.

I hope that whatever the next book is called ACO-URMOM sorry that was immature of me let me start over

I hope that whatever the next book is called will have romance as more of a subplot and a more action-driven plot with better execution. I think the book should call for it given the fact that

Spoiler

Feyre and Rhys are separated, Feyre is stuck with Tamlin in the spring court, the sisters are in the night court against their will in a sense, Lucien knows Feyre is lying, and Lucien also has a mate in the night court, and also all that stupid ass war stuff

I'm taking a break from Sarah for my own sanity but I'll be back before the year is up. Wish me luck.

LET THE RECORD SHOW THAT I DNF'D THIS - Chapter 38, page 366.

holy fuck.

I genuinely don't know where to start my review.

I went into ACOWAR thinking that it would be the best of the series, that the plot would really kick off, there would be more action than romance, the character relationships would be super entertaining. And there was potential for that! Did it happen? No!

There were a LOT of things that contributed to me not finishing this book, and for the sake of clarity, I am going to be using sections for each of my complaints and I will go in order from most to least infuriating. I will also say that each of these complaints has been something I have been annoyed with throughout each of these books, but got so bad this book that I didn't finish it. Okay.

1. Writing Style: Time and time again we are told what has happened in the past, what is going to happen in the future, what is happening right now, who some random person is, etc. We are told instead of shown for the majority of these books and I am so over it. I don't want to read pages of exposition. And she doesn't make info dumps interesting either. They'll literally be sitting at a table just fucking yapping about what happened thousands of years ago during the last war.

2. Single POV: FUCK THE SINGLE POV OH MY GOD. FEYRE IS PROBABLY THE WORST CHARACTER IN THIS ENTIRE GODDAMN SERIES, EVEN TAMLIN IS MORE INTERESTING THAN HER I DON'T GIVE A FUCK. okay, I'm sorry. let me start over.

2.5 Single POV: This entire series would have benefitted an insane amount by simply being told from multiple POVs. It would help get rid of the "show not tell" issue that Sarah has for some reason in this book since we would get to see other characters doing whatever they are doing instead of hearing Feyre hear it from Rhysand because let's be honest, Feyre isn't doing anything, she gets all her information from Rhys because he's actually active. I digress. Not to mention that it would just be way more interesting in general to follow and get to know the other characters, rather than just Feyre, who again, doesn't do anything but train sometimes, worry about Rhys, bother Rhys, and have sex with Rhys. I do understand that writing multiple POVs is easier said than done, and she was probably trying to make it distinguishable from Throne of Glass since TOG is told from multiple POVs, but I think at a certain point, an author has to think about what is best for the story and in this case, I think Sarah chose wrong by choosing to write from only Feyre's POV. NOT TO MENTION!!!!! Sarah does this thing in this book in particular where she CHEATS and writes from someone else's point of view without technically changing perspectives. And this isn't really a spoiler, so I'm not labeling it, but if you're scared, fucking don't read it. She uses Feyre's powers or abilities or whatever you wanna call them to read minds and therefore, parts of chapters can be told from a third-person perspective with a main character who is different than Feyre as the subject. SO, Sarah is aware that some scenes and aspects of the book would be better and CAN ONLY BE TOLD WELL from someone else's perspective, and yet, she still chooses to write from a single POV. whatever, man, I hate this book.

3. Too Much Time on Feyre: As you might have noticed, I don't like Feyre, which makes it even more infuriating that we get very little time with other FAR MORE INTERESTING characters like hmmm I don't know let me think... Cassian, Nesta, Lucien, Elaine, Azriel, Amren. There are obvious setups and plot lines for several, if not all, of those characters listed, but every scene that works to develop those subplots is cut short by fucking Feyre for some dumb ass reason. I'm sure they got their time later in the book, but I honestly don't see how they would be developed in an engaging, interesting way if we're only observing the plotlines playing out from Feyre's point of view. It's like riding a roller coaster vs watching the roller coaster from the ground - yeah you're watching the same action play out, but it's so fucking different.

4. What the fuck is actually going on: A major complaint I had while reading this book was that basically nothing happens. And I know that stuff happens, okay, stuff DOES happen. But, HALF OF THAT STUFF is people just fucking talking with other people. Meetings after meetings after meetings after meeting and then you'll think they're gonna go somewhere and do something cool, but really they're just having a meeting away. And that's not even an exaggeration, that shit happened twice with the Bone Carver and then at the Court of Nightmares. Again, I do understand that sometimes, meetings are necessary to provide information or move the plot along, but when it happens so often and is the majority of the book, I lose interest. And before someone says "well theres a lot of action at the second half/end of the book" - if I have to force myself to read through the bullshit that is the first half of this book to get to the good stuff at the end, it's not worth it.

5. Feyre: I hate Feyre for several reasons. I don't like her personality. I know she was depressed for a while and that sucks, but I was depressed for a while and I was still likeable. That was a joke. Anyway, I think Feyre has her head up her own ass and I mean like deep. Two books ago Feyre knew how to hunt and paint and that was it. She was actually illiterate. And NOW, you're telling me she knows how to fight with weapons, control water, read people's minds, change people's memories, strategically manipulate strangers, and kind of shapeshift? Bullshit. Hey, I call bullshit. That wouldn't even be an issue (because I know she has been training for like a book and a half in several of these areas), if she weren't the most cocky bitch I have ever read. My girl has no manners. She may know how to read, but she doesn't know how the meaning of the word "humble" I guess. She's insufferable. It's not that I think her character development doesn't make sense. It's more that her character development wasn't deserved.

6. TOG with smut: ACOTAR is "We have Throne of Glass at home" + smut. There are so many parallels, some of which I think I mentioned in my review of ACOMAF, but it's just gotten out of hand. It's super disappointing because I think I would have really enjoyed ACOTAR if there wasn't a war plotline. It literally could have just been a fantasy romance and I think I would've enjoyed it ten times more, especially if it was written with multiple POVs. But I think Sarah was like "oh people really liked TOG, let me do that again, but this time I'll write a lot of sex too" Not enjoyable.

I know I had some other complaints, but I've complained for long enough. It really is a shame that my time with Sarah is ending like this. I wish I would've liked ACOTAR the way other people do, but it's just not working for me. Can't say I didn't try.

I will say one positive thing since this review shat on the series. The characters were great (except Feyre). I genuinely loved watching the characters interact with each other. Some of my favorite scenes were when people met each other at dinner for the first time and that was literally all that happened: dinner and chit-chat. It was so fun and I loved the relationships that were set up. It's just how the character subplots were executed that ruined things for me.

I also like the book colors and covers, so there's that. Alright, I'm all done.

I probably won’t continue reviewing Tokyo Ghoul volumes since there are so many and I tend to read several at a time, but I will try my best to have something to say as I continue reading volume 4. Enjoying the series still!!

I’m enjoying Ken’s character development

I would have liked to rate this 2.5 stars but there are no half stars as we all are aware, I'm sure.

I would like to start off by saying that while nothing is INCREDIBLY wrong with this book, it just was completely unnecessary in my opinion of course.

I do have a personal gripe with the writing and the characters, which I will talk about below.

THE WRITING:

Lauren is a very dialogue-heavy person and whenever she utilizes actions, she accompanies those actions with internal dialogue, explaining to the reader exactly how a character is feeling. It's pretty annoying and doesn't make this book enjoyable. That's honestly my only complaint about the writing. Actually, nevermind I have another one. She is falling victim to what I will now refer to as "SJM-VGS" which translates to "Sarah J. Maas - Vulgar Gesture Syndrome" where an author uses a term more than they need to, ultimately eliminating the power of said word. In this case, Lauren reuses the term "hun" and "honey" when referring to Adena. It happened so much that it stopped becoming endearing and was a word I was just skipping over. It had literally no meaning after the sixth time.

CHARACTERS:

I don't think its a stretch to say that Adena and Mak are fairly one-dimensional characters. I'll start with Adena.

Adena falls into her sunshine trope of a role too well. It's annoying. I've never been one for the sunshine x grumpy trope, but I could find myself enjoying it if the characters were more than their tropes. However, as this novella proves, Adena is nothing more than a cheery seamstress who is "a lover not a fighter" as she reminds us several times throughout this two-hundred-page book. It just fell flat and I didn't find myself super invested in her story.

Now, Mak. Mak, like Adena, falls into his role very well. I feel that he was a bit more well-rounded than Adena, but I honestly think that is only because of his powers. If not for his ability to wield, he would fall just as flat as Adena did.

PLOT:

For a fantasy, this is majority romance-based. When things were supposed to happen, like them breaking into the palace, they simply didn't happen. We get a lot of moments between the two characters, but not a lot of plot. You could argue that "well, it's just a novella, its supposed to focus on Adena and Mak's character, not be super plot heavy" and while I do understand your point, I would also argue that if there isn't really a plot other than romance between these two people, why write this novella in the first place, which brings me to my next point...

What the fuck was the point of this novella:

Novellas are often used as a way to develop characters in a scenario outside of the main plot, right. I believe that this is exactly what this was... in the worst way possible.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!

Once it was revealed that Mak was a Wielder, I thought to myself "ahhhh, I see how this will play into things." They mention several times that Mak being a Wielder is a threat, as the only Wielder known is Kai, since other Wielders are killed by the king or whatever. So now, I'm thinking, "oh my gosh, is Mak going to be part of this revolution that happens at the end of the last trial and be wielding other people's powers and then ultimately follow Paedyn at what would be the very end of Powerless and then they'll work together to some extent in Reckless???" Keep in mind, I haven't read Powerless since the beginning of the year, so I couldn't remember whether or not it was mentioned if a random Wielder showed up at the riot at the last trial or not.

All of that is to say that this novella ends without any hints toward a bigger point to the book. It would have been so much better if she hinted at Mak wanting to go find Paedyn and help her or something, but that would have only made sense if she had him stay for the revolution, which by the way - why the fuck did he leave so fast?? The ending of this novella was bullshit.

There was a clear opportunity to take and while I do believe that Mak will show up in Reckless (otherwise there was really no point to this novella), his setup would have made this novella worth it. I would've rated it an entire star higher if she would've done any of the stuff I said up there^. But she didn't, so now I've read a whole book that seemingly means nothing to me.


OVERALL:

I have complaints about how fast they began liking each other and how I think it should've been slower, but I don't have the energy.

Lauren do not let me down in Reckless.

Also - this is making me scared because I feel like I need to go back and reread Powerless since I didn't like this novella, but I rated Powerless like a 4 I think. But, what if I go back and I really don't like it. Alright, I think I'm done. I'm tired.

3.5 stars, let the record show

this book took me a while to read and I have a lot to say and also nothing really to say at all.

Overall, I would say I enjoyed this book. I have my issues with it, but I do think the good outweighs the bad in this case.

In no particular order...

Plot: There is a strong, heavy plot here, which was enjoyable to an extent. The worldbuilding in this book is massive, which I'm not used to. At the beginning (first hundred pages) of this book, I found myself getting confused between characters, specifically Anton and August and their roles, as well as the plethora of other information that seems irrelevant but is also extremely important, such as information about the gods' pasts and certain people's backstories like Gabe's. It was a lot thrown at once and it just expected me to keep up, which brings me to my next complaint.

Payoff: There is a lot of setup throughout this book and only some of it is done just right. Here are three examples of different ways setup went wrong or right.

Spoiler

- How does everyone know each other?? This plot line intrigued me consistently throughout the book and had me thinking of ways that their knowing each other would be possible. I did suspect that they were the gods reincarnate, which is basically right, so when the time came near the end of the book where that information was basically revealed, I found myself pretty pleased. I didn't think the question was brought up too much and felt the information that led me to my conclusion and the real conclusion was given at the right time, not too early or too late. Good set up and payoff.

- Bastian's ability to channel spiritum: this one pissed me off because how did he do all that shit and not realize he had the ability to do all that junk? I don't know if he was just lying that he didn't think it was him, but there was no way he didn't know. Whitten make a point to emphasize these details regarding Bastian's general presence (the sun on his palm, the glitter in the air around him, his effect on mortem) and then makes Bastian not realize he is the chosen one? he's not that stupid. This pay off just seemed stupid and out of character because as soon as he started glittering and junk, I was like "ok this guy controls life" just for them to confront him about it and him go "nuh uh!" whatever. too obvious of a pay off and was out of character so

- they are the gods sort of: this pay off didn't piss me off, but it did underwhelm me in the sense that the plot point was good, just not fleshed out enough for me to be super invested. WHICH IS CRAZY because we spend some good amount of time talking about gods and junk, so how do we get to the point where its revealed "hey you guys are gonna morph into the gods if time allows" and I don't know what Lore thinks about this, what Bastian thinks about this, if they want to become gods or if thats what they were trying to stop the entire time (it wasn't but what if they didn't want to become gods, you know what I mean??) Somehow I reach this climax of the book and am not stimulated at all because this entire book, we've been focusing on a different plot point entirely and now you want just dump on us this major thing and we have no idea how to feel about it. maybe it's just me, but I sure hope it isn't.

romance: this book is categorized as partially a romance fantasy, and there was hardly any romance in my eyes. Don't get me wrong, it was there, but everything else took front and center and was so heavy on my brain that when I got to the short romance parts I don't think I even cared. Granted, this book wasn't supposed to be romance heavy, so I'm not complaining, I'm just saying.

other general stuff, characters and junk: the characters were good, I hope to see them fleshed out even more in the next book, particularly Bastian and what's his face, Gabe. The necromancy stuff... that was scary as fuck. I would read this at night and tell myself "ok don't visualize it too hard cuz this writing is like fucked up" so creepy. that's all I had to say about this.

Overall (again), I enjoyed this. I do think I will read the next book which is out already, but I will probably take a break. I would be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued to see how this all plays out.

Also, Bastian was pretty funny, I liked him. Team Bastian fr.

i forgot half the plot points by the time I finished this which is pretty embarrassing, but I'm going to try to read through the rest of the series now that I have finished that one fantasy novel. hopefully, with my focus centered now on tokyo ghoul, I won't forget half the characters that show up

new detective guy is interesting

what's up guys, how is everyone doing? Me too, I'm also feeling that way.

Five Broken Blades was an okay book. Was it the worst thing I've read in the entire world? No. Was it the best? No. Did I have fun? Yes, I did have fun, thank you for asking.

Normally I start reviews like this off by saying "I don't think I have much to say about this book" and then I write thousands of words, so let me just say how I feel. As usual, I will break this into parts.

PLOT:

The plot of this book is nothing complex. A group of people come together for a common goal: killing the king. I found the simplicity enjoyable. Plots like this tend to focus more on character than the plot itself and I love me a good character-focused book (more on this later). That being said, it felt like very little happened plot-wise. Almost everything goes to plan it seems except for one little hiccup. Corland seems to think that the distrust between characters is enough of a plot point that actual physical complications aren't necessary, which just isn't true. I can recall about three physical complications which is insane considering this book is almost 500 pages long. This assassination also follows the formula of a heist movie in the sense that the entire plot revolves around watching the heist and the things that lead up to it are only there so the movie meets its runtime (not how movies work but you get the point). We're here for the heist. We know that. The movie knows that. And this book knows that. Therefore, not a lot happens up until then. Not necessarily an issue, but it is something worth noting.

PLOT PART TWO: THE FINAL TWIST

Be real. This twist isn't even a twist. If anything it's just more information given very late in the story, which 1: isn't a twist and 2: is poor storytelling. I understand a story like this begs for a twist at the end, but this one had such little development that I did not care for it at all. When I say I was shocked I don't mean it in a good way. I mean it in an "I'm shocked because out of all the routes she could've chosen, she went with this one and thought it was a good idea" kind of way. I don't think it makes any sense. Logically it's completely fine. But just story-wise, I don't understand the reasoning at all. Maybe that will come into play later but as things sit right now, I'm not quite a fan of this plot point. It definitely feels like something that needed to be resolved and so she just wrote the first thing that came to mind, regardless of how it made sense in the narrative.

PLOT PART THREE: THE ENDING

So sorry for my friends who did not read this book because I have to get into some spoiler territory. WHAT DO YOU MEAN

Spoiler

We worked together so everything is going to be totally okay

??????? Look me in my eyes right now. Did you think that was really good, Mai? Did you? Okay, I'm sorry Mai, I shouldn't come at you like that. But come onnnn.

Spoiler

"We did the unimaginable... we worked together."

Be so for real. That made me cringe so hard. And I do understand this is pretty YA, but there's still such a thing as good writing. A younger audience isn't an excuse for shitty dialogue like this, especially given that the audience shouldn't be that young considering the frequent mentions of murder and rape.

That being said, the set up for the rest of the series is alright, I guess. I think my biggest complaint is that it felt like

Spoiler

we went through all of that for nothing

which I guess is the point, but still. It feels a bit anticlimactic to me.

CHARACTERS:

We're given an ensemble of characters: Royo, Euyn, Sora, Mikail, Aeri, and Tiyung. All of whom are interesting in their own respect. All of whom I have an issue with.

ROYO - He's fine. I like him in general as a character. I feel he had a lot of potential to be one of the only members who wasn't working for someone of nobility and truly knew the grits of the more underdeveloped parts of the city, but other than his frequent confusion, he didn't live up to this potential. On a technical note, Corland decided that Royo should have a more casual dialect BUT ONLY SOMETIMES. This resulted in Royo having some chapters where he would drop grammatically wrong phrases using words like, "ain't" and "don't" and some chapters where he talks perfectly fine without those key words at all! What the fuck! Anyway, I would like him more if he would stop pining after Aeri.

Euyn - Euyn feels the most undeveloped out of all these characters. He probably has the most character traits and yet, he is so all over the place, I don't really care for him. He was a certain way in his past. But now he's not like that so don't worry. And he is still haunted by that one thing he did. But he is focused on this now, so it doesn't matter. He is super paranoid. But he doesn't really act paranoid at this part. But he does act paranoid at this part, so it's on brand. And this is one thing about him that the entire character is based on, but also nevermind just kidding fucking got you, he's not that thing his entire character is based on at all, sucker. Anyway, I would like him more if he would stop pining after Mikail.

Sora - Sora was probably the strongest character in my opinion. That is until she flips a switch and

Spoiler

even considers Ty as an eligible bachelor. You would think she would have built up so much resentment toward him that even learning it wasn't true or was for her benefit would make it extremely difficult if not impossible to unlearn that resentment.

That's just me though. I would like her more if she didn't do that.

Mikail - One of the better characters. I always liked reading from his pov. He has such a strong voice. He did make things confusing though because there were some plot points brought up that I didn't have any payoff at all, which was annoying. I would like him more if he would stop pining after Euyn.

Aeri - Had potential to be the best character. Didn't reach it. Would like more if she stopped pining after Royo.

Tiyung - Entire purpose is to pine over Sora. He has like three chapters in the entire fucking book from his pov. Can you guess what I'm gonna say? Yeah, I would like it if he stopped pining over Sora.

Do you smell that?? I think it's *sniff sniff*... a pattern. *cue collective gasps*

yeah, everyone is horny for each other. Nothing wrong with being horny. But is it convenient that there are six people, all of whom are paired with another who reciprocates their feelings? Yeah I do think so. Fantasy is no stranger to unrealistic love stories but did you really have to shove it down our throats, Mai? get a grip.

I thought I had more to say, but I think I forgot and also I'm really hungry and still need to do my hair, so I should probably log off.

Overall, Five Broken Blades didn't try to be anything it wasn't. It didn't take itself too seriously, so while I know there are better books out there, I can say I enjoyed this one and I will likely indulge in the next one.