onejadyn's reviews
63 reviews

This is a kinda re-read for me. I read the story back on Wattpad a long time ago and was curious about the edited version. It's simpler than I remember, but pleasant and a fast read. I read it all in one sitting, so it couldn't have been that bad!

Honestly, I wish this book worked for me. I don't believe it's entirely the book's fault that it didn't — I was in a bit of a reading slump to be sure. 

Still, I kept waiting for something. While I found the biologist interesting in a character study way, I wasn't always invested in her current motivations. She was honestly more interesting to me in flashbacks than in her actions. 

I was waiting for more with the surveyor and was disappointed there wasn't more there. Though her end was fitting, I can't help but wonder just how much more psychological unease we could've experienced between the two characters. 

At the end of the day, I just never fully bought in. I didn't feel the unsettling setting, I didn't feel the

allure and fear of the Crawler

. Unfortunately, without those thing, I just didn't feel much about the story. It was interesting, and feels like something I should've enjoyed, but I just never felt it, and as such, I can't rate it too highly. 

I liked it overall. Reading it at night, especially the beginning, was incredibly creepy, though maybe not scary. I liked the setting a lot — cleaning up after her grandmother's hoarding in a town she'd only been to as a child. 

Honestly, the part where it lost me was when they were captured and went into the city of the effigies. Though I appreciate the revelations and i actually think the explanation is just fantastic—a weakened magic, dark kingdom that is now just rebuilding itself by copies, slaving endlessly to make more with no more of the original masters—I have to admit, seeing behind the scenes in that city took away a lot of the mystery and tension. The effigies "tumbling" and deliberating, essentially having discussions—I feel it ruined the tension somewhat. That said, the ending was also very good. Anna likely being killed after her betrayal, saving her from suffering, the reveal that the deer effigy was Colgrave, the building of the second effigy—honestly I really liked it. It was a good book that lost me a little near the end but brought me back. It's bizarre because while I hated the mystery being dropped, I also really liked the explanation, and it's really cool looking back.

I liked it! Unfortunately, there isn't altogether too much that I can say. I really enjoyed watching all the characters interact in this one, and watching them grow together or just exist. I was happy to get to see larger glimpses, though the format is still reminiscent of the short story collections, where there are gaps in time and place between chapters. 

Overall, I liked it. I loved Ciri and everyone she interested with, and I loved Geralt and his interactions with the outside world. I was glad to see

Yennifer and watch her and Ciri bond as well

.

I'll definitely be reading on and I look forward to seeing more of this world.

I know I wrote a review for this but it seems it didn't save, and it's now been over half a year since I've read it. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book though. I was intrigued by all three PoVs and was just sucked into the deep grief of the early chapters. The story felt real, perhaps to a fault, with no storybook happy endings and romances. It all felt raw to the point where it was almost boring, with none of the perfect suspense of friendship and romance that you come to expect in a novel. But that's what I liked about it — it was refreshing. 

Overall a great read with a writing style I remember enjoying as well. Definitely one of the better reads of the year!

I want to give this a much higher rating. I'm really enjoying this book and all the major characters in it. Unfortunately I picked it up during a reading slump and so read through it rather slowly. 

This immediately lands on my re-read list for when I can fully fully enjoy it, but even as it is, I did enjoy my first read through. I was surprisingly engaged with Logen, with his old crew, and even Jezal, the prick. Glokta is a love it or hate it guy—I like reading about him but I was less intrigued about reading about his plot, so it balanced out to average there. I haven't bonded with Ferro yet, as she's more revenge than person, but I look forward to seeing where that goes. 

I really enjoyed West's PoV when we got it too, rare as it is. The last 80% of the book is great though, with so much happening and so much excitement, especially compared to the slower start. I don't mind slow though, and getting to these characters has been a pleasure. 

This book was fantastic in the first half. Truly. I was excited to see how these characters that I loved would meet with a fantasy world. Turns out, the fantasy world is filled with other characters, that I didn't particularly love, and the story, while definitively fairytale-esque, was unsatisfying and felt prophecy driven and predictable rather than as a result of meaningful and interesting character growth and decision making. It felt a lot like Charlie was dragged through the second half of the story, and while I liked the characters he was with, I never grew to love them. 

The thing is, I think the first half was pretty good. And I think the second half was pretty good. But when you put them together, they give you false expectations of each other. If the beginning of the story has set me up for a Trees of the Emerald Sea-like adventure, with brevity and a fairytale life to it, I may have fallen into the story of the second half with love. Or if the second half had followed the real life tone of the first half, I may have bought the fantasy world. The mix of the two left both halves feeling unsatisfying to me though.

Ultimately, the beginning gave me a lot of hope as to the kind of story this would be and the way I'd love the chatacters—but I feel my expectations fell short when we hit the fantasy, as it was overall unsatisfying from a story and character perspective. And that's a shame, because as a fantasy reader, I was looking forward to the second half with bated breath. By the time I got there though, I was unfortunately looking forward to the book being over with bated breath instead. 

Honestly, I read this book because I had a bingo square for magical realism or literary fantasy. Having finished it, I do not think this book would qualify for that purpose. However, it was a charming enough read. I liked the beginning and found the middle alright, and the ending fairly unsatisfying. Unfortunately it just wasn't the book for me, but there was a fun exploration of technology and books and the premise, at first, was fun and interesting