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All Of Us Villains December group read
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M
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Dec 05, 2021 10:44AM
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I was counting down the days all year until this was released but I was pretty disappointed. I think I had way too high of expectations going in. I don't know why but I thought the main characters would be adults because having teenagers kill each other hunger games style has kind of been done...in the hunger games. I think this was definitely for a YA audience and I read YA but I am definitely an adult and usually like non-YA books more. So it is definitely possible the real target audience would like this more than I did. I wish that the characters would have been smarter, more powerful, or better developed? I thought the magic system was interesting with rings and crafted spells. The characters just fell so flat for me. Maybe that was the point that they were stuck in these two dimensional roles and now they have to break out of them in order to break the game - but I still didn't like them. It was interesting to see the author repeatedly subvert what you thought was going to happen and have the characters make increasingly bad and unpredictable decisions. I just didn't care by the end though. Also I thought this was going to be queer and they definitely hinted at that with a few characters but come on - it wasn't queer and it bothers me that the marketing for it involved talk of queer representation. I shouldn't have to wait for the second or third book to see the queer characters actually get development, love, or a story. The straight characters got plenty of it in this book - why should we have to wait?
So long story short I will not be continuing with this series. If anyone is looking for the adult magicians kill each other in a tournament and are smart and there is a bigger plot/high stakes I suggest An Unkindness of Magicians - not a 5 stars but a much better book than this one imo.
I've been tempted to grab that book for December's read several times but the mixed reviews had me hesitant. I still want to read I just have to not go with high expectations.
