rozarka's reviews
832 reviews

I was warned to expect a "romcom anime" kind of a book and that's exactly what I got. Too bad it was also a YA, not my favorite age range (in comparison: Tress of the Emerald Sea read more like a middle grade, so it didn't bother me as much there). Main characters were as annoying as was expected from angsty teenagers, but kudos to the author for writing Painter as the biggest loser of all his protagonists across cosmere, that was quite refreshing to read.

All this aside, it would be a five star read if it weren't for two things. Firstly, the pacing. The very beggining was interesting (worldbuilding etc.), but the closer I got to a halfway point, the more boring it got. I wanted to move the plot, not watch the characters going shopping. If the book weren't so short, I would have dnf-ed it. Thankfully, the plot picked up again soon after that.

And secondly, I am not a biggest fan of an omniscient narrator who has to explain things to you. I love Hoid and his comments, but here he had to clarify a lot of worldbuilding at the end, otherwise the reader would not understand what was happening and why. It felt like lazy writing. I want to put pieces of worldbuilding together by watching characters act, not have it infodumped at me.

I love Megan's fairy tales.

Oh no, there was a plot! I was hoping for more coziness tbh. The epilog was cute, though.

I feel like I should complain about the book. It has a weird pacing where absolutely nothing happens for 100 pages and then we have a plot and a cliffhanger, and both characters behave very young, especially the MC who is bored and irritable and doesn't think ahead. But somehow I didn't care about any of that? It was cosy, in some ways it felt more realistic that other books with more competent protagonists, and I just chilled out.

Surprisingly cute and sweet. But with a cliffhanger!

Když člověk otevře antologii povídek od různých autorů, tak nějak očekává, že kvalita bude kolísavá. Že najde pár povídek dobrých, pár špatných, většinu průměrných, a když bude mít štěstí, objeví i nějakou výbornou. Musím říct, že tahle antologie mě překvapila. Našla jsem sice jednu výbornou povídku (Dlouhá noc na Japetu od Julie Novákové) a jednu průměrnou (Čtyři králové od Petry Lukačovičové), ale ten zbytek, to byl odpad. Všudypřítomná misogynie zažraná do podvědomí autorů tak hluboce, že vybublávala všude a pořád; ženy jako oběti nebo jako odměny pro hlavní hrdiny, ženy jako záporačky (ale bohužel bez nějaké zajímavé agendy, vždy jen jako prostředek, jak vyzdvihnout hlavního hrdinu), ženy jako comic relief, ale nikdy ženy jako lidi. Říkám si, že jsem asi už moc stará na to číst podobně klišovité a nudné zápletky, a nechápu, proč jsem to vlastně vůbec dočetla. Mám doma půjčenou ještě jednu antologii z této serie, ale tu vrátím s omluvou, že nervy mám jen jedny. Mrzí mě jen to, že jsem se po dlouhé době odhodlala zkusit českou fantastiku místo zahraniční, a odnáším si z ní pocit, že tuzemští autoři poněkud zaspali dobu. Asi tak o 30 let.

I didn't expect much and was still let down.