rozarka's reviews
832 reviews

It starts as a whimsy fairytale but quickly turns into something darker. Don't be fooled, the author knows his tropes, the book knows its tropes, the characters know their tropes, and play with them so that you have no idea what to expect next. There were scenes that left me speechless. Good job for such a short book.

Also, the kissing scene at the end was 👀 (I had to read it three times to make sure I understood correctly who was kissing whom, wow).

It's even better than the first time I read it.

Bored to tears. If I didn't want to finish all cosmere books (this was the last), I'd have dropped it after 50 pages. And I wouldn't miss anything.

This is how you do cute and cosy! The Czech rep was a pleasant surprise.

Also, shout out to the audiobook narrator, he did an excellent job. I'll be getting the next installment in the series as an audio just because of him.

I get what the book tried to be. And apparently, what it was for many people. Sadly, not for me. I need even the cosiest book to be somewhat interesting; this had no plot (I knew that! but still...), no themes, the barest attemp at worldbuilding that falls apart when you look too closely, and most importantly, no interesting characters. Everyone was bland (Tandri a bit annoying - yay, at least some emotion from me!), there was no character development, no stakes in relationship development, nothing. Tbh I should have dnf-ed it.

It was worth it reading almost 600 pages of TOGAI to get to this. And it's not even a romance.

I don't know how to rate this book. It was OK as a romance, even though it took me a while to understand charaters' personalities and motivations (and I still find it funny that the proclaimed bodyguard/protector lost almost all his fights). The main problem of the book is that there are so many plot holes it resembles a swiss cheese. I'd actually prefer if there was less plot, less action, less conspiracies if what was left made more sense. You can't have characters fleeing a mission they fucked up and then discussing their sex lives instead of, you know, informing people in charge about what they discovered. Or saying "the villain knows where we hide, it could be a problem" and not addressing it ever again (and not moving locations, wtf). I don't need a complicated plot in my romance, but it has to make sense.

I'm still going to read the sequel. Tadek was a gem and he made the latter half of the book much more enjoyable.