elsecallerreads's reviews
592 reviews

I always know when I pick up a Grady Hendrix book I'm going to get a fun campy horror story and this is no different. Honestly might be one of my favorites of his, I just thought the first third was a little slow for my liking. 

For 75% of this book i thought it was going to be my favorite Realm of the Elderlings book. After loving Fitz's story so much I was curious to see how Robin Hobb handled a full cast if characters and it was absolutely masterful. After all the characters essentially being sent off in different directions last book I loved watching the chess game come together in this book. 
I thought Malta had a fantastic character arc. I didn't expect to like her by the end but she was great and her growth was such a joy to watch. Paragon was my favorite character in this book though and I loved finding out more of the mystery of him. Also the set up for dragons in later books was so good. 
All of these things led me to believe this was an almost perfect book. Even most of the endings were satisfactory. Except Althea's. 
SPOILERS START HERE
Though I'm not normally a proponent for on screen rape I actually thought it truly solidified Kinnit as a villain because up until then you could argue that he's an anti hero. My issue is how Althea was treated afterwards. 
1. Vivacia remaining loyal to Kinnit after. Althea spends 3 books doing whatever she can to get to her. It is because of Althea's assault that she is able to help Vivacia combine with Bolt. Vivacia is in Althea'a mind with her and still when Althea begs for anyone to believe her, she acts like she doesn't. 
I don't even mind that Althea doesn't end up with Vivacia in the end. I feel that is part of both of their ARCs that they have grown apart. But we get no resolution between the two and I don't even think Vivacia's treatment of Althea makes sense. 
2. Althea's family holds up her rapists' legacy. Kinnet gets to be remembered as this gracious king and that is largely upheld by Wintrow who acknowledges that his aunt was raped but chooses loyalty to Kinnet anyway. 
3. The way for Althea to get to spend her life on a liveship with the man she loves is to spend it with the liveship that one loves her rapist unconditionally and two has now absorbed her rapist. That is just horribly unfair to Althea who has loved both of those liveships with her whole being and yet they both choose her rapist over her. 
4. Paragon just taking her pain away and her being able to have sex with Bashem again was frankly just bullshit and once again felt invalidating to Althea. 
So while I loved this book up until how the assault was handled I cannot get past the horrendous treatment of Althea who was raped and then gave up her dreams for a man.

This book has only become more relevant, having picked this up the day after watching our president and vice president bully the Ukranian president. 
This book may be fictional but it's predicting exactly what is happening. 
On top of all this is, it is concise and to the point. Just overall well done. 

This was an interesting take on a hades/Persephone retelling and I have very mixed feelings. On one hand it was a nice mix up to have it be modern but on the other hand I didn't really see the point in naming the characters after the Greek gods when they're human. It feels like the author was leaning a little on having the pre-made mythology set everyones expectations so there was less work to establish characters and relationships. Also I guess it was to really drive home that it was a hades/Persephone retelling. 
There were also weird dialogue choices occasionally where the characters would suddenly speak with a more southern vernacular but it was inconsistent and just seemed out of place. Perhaps the author was trying to depict code switching but I don't think it was particularly successful. 
All that being said there was a lot of things I did enjoy. I thought the sex scenes were very well written and I enjoyed the characters themselves. The representation was also well done. 

This was simply adorable. I loved every bit of it. 

Just wow. This book was fantastic and I can't think of any complaints. 

The pros: the world building was great, fantastic representation, interesting story. 
The cons: i just wanted more from this. I wish it had been longer so the characters would have been able to go a little deeper. 

The cursed ones is probably my favorite series Tiffany Robert's has written. Excellent story and even better spice. 

This was cute but I wish it had been a full length book so it could have been more fleshed out. 

Once again this felt like reading folklore. Though i do think the dragged out love triangle did the story a disservice.