Jennifer Black > Recent Status Updates

It's not looking too promising... Why spend so long on her pointlessly meandering through the tunnels? More importantly, how exactly does she overcome the door locks...? A simple showing of the action would go a long way. As of now, we have learned nothing about the protag.

Mistimed humour drained tension.

70%. Artificial thought processes from MC staying oblivious for the sake of drama. Bad characterization. Compared to the prequel, MC feels like an empty shell in this book, devoid of proper emotions. Aside from that time she stabbed herself, but even that was shallow.

49%. Weak emotional payoff. What a letdown. Not even a slap or something?

28% in and I'm still waiting to see any sign of her holding a grudge, per her personality from the prequel. Kinda immersion-breaking how easy-going she is acting around Wist.

That flash into the future broke the flow of immersion. Ehh.

Not sure about those glimpses into the future scenes with Thorn.

“Nona walked a wandering path back to the dormitories. Her choices seemed to have dwindled to none. They would have to deal with the thief themselves.”

Oh I don’t knoooow, maybe like, sister Kettle!

The lack of vigilance about that ice chunk falling where she’d been moments after Ara pushed her away… well, I hadn’t realized this was Skyrim where an NPC with an arrow jutting out of his head would say, “Oh, must’ve been the wind/my imagination!” Especially since it’s been established that they’ve had assassins coming after them? Pfft…

These reasons to keep secrets are starting to wear thin. It’s all so the kids handle everything themselves, isn’t it? Would be way too easy and sensical for proper, well-trained sisters to meddle and solve everything, after all!

Not sure how suddenly everyone got on board with the idea of sneaking around for that antidote. Doesnt quite make sense. Rather, it feels kinda forced, actually.

“A momentary frown crossed the Poisoner’s brow. She held her hand up. “I have a more interesting question: Who have you had a crush on, Nona?” “Arabella, and you, and Regol—” Nona started running for the doorway, both hands over her mouth, cheeks burning, pursued by Sister Apple’s laughter,”

Hahaha!

Arabella didn’t speak up, and wasn’t even shown to react about those lashes on Nona? Tunnel vision writing? Must really have wanted to just insert that scene at that point…

Tourmaline seemed so important but now they’ve found it they barely remember it, and can’t even care to look shocked or delighted or ANYTHING. NO REACTIONS AT ALL. Wow.

So Rosi can teleport or what? How does a mindless monster manage to make its way to a location that specifically requires a special tool to point the way? How thoughtless.

For someone with supernatural senses, Crier must be rolling consecutive Nat 1’s on her perception checks. Zzzzzzzzzz

Also: the characters don’t portray themselves correctly when they’re talking about feelings. The scene with Storme telling Ayla how he made it out really felt like an info dump rather than an emotional confession/recollection.

The snappy prose construction is really weird too; the sound of which grates on my ears now. I vaguely recall the style had been present in the first book too. How was I so lenient then? Or was it less annoying? Hm.

“Our mission that night failed because of me. I ruined everything.” Zzzzzzz
Doesn’t make sense she would still say that. The mission was about theft and didn’t care whether murder was involved.
Also, I’m not liking the character interactions; so inorganic! One time Ayla said something she hadn’t been shown to discuss with Crier. How did she know? Off-page talks? But there were no idle moments for such!

Aw little Nabiii

You know you haven’t properly read the synopsis when you go in expecting a sweet romance set in the world of classical music, but instead end up Googling a tree that turns out to be the most poisonous in the world, and your protagonist has a pet killer snail (also venomous) whom she feeds GOLDFISH to!! LOL!

Chancing upon some Mendelssohn on Youtube (thanks algorithms; it had been too long!) has put me back in the mood for some classical music stuff! Here we gooo~

What an annoying protagonist WOW

When you want to make your character respond to another’s inquiries with “Nothing.” over and over and over again, please do use dialogue tags or descriptions to convey SOMETHING about her demeanour, rather than instantly jotting down that automatic, reactionary one-word reply as soon as the interlocutor finishes speaking. So clumsy!

Whenever they walk and one of them stops, the author sure loves making the other either ram, barrel, or slam into the other’s back.

LOL! “It’s the fire or your father. Take your pick.”

That, right after we are told in Wren’s perspective: “The road was empty, the field abandoned—the farmer and his family perhaps still sleeping soundly in their beds.”

And then, the possibility of at least alerting the house’s inhabitants doesn’t even cross Wren’s mind? Hahaha! How thoughtless of the author. I’m for sure about to drop this.

Frog: what convenient and narratively inconsistent timing that Tamsin intervenes!

How does summoning specific, EXISTING items from a nearby farmhouse work, exactly? Especially since the witch doesn’t even seem to know the place personally? How can you call for something when you don’t have either visuals or knowledge of?

Getting real tired of this writing style.

“The Wood kept them from traveling to the world Within. Within was for witches. Witches who weren’t Tamsin.”

STOP HAMMERING US WITH THOSE BITS AT THE ENDS OF SENTENCES GOSH!

MC is depicted as being a nice person, but when she directly witnesses a murder in front of her there’s not even any mention of her caring at all, and instead when the two cops arrive she is more concerned with picking a fight with the succubus officer and complaining “oh noes, it was my dad!” And she even had it in her to be able to find the teasing fun? There’s a corpse right there, stupid. Show respect.