Elle > Recent Status Updates

I wasn't expecting to swap POVs so Llewyn section was unexpected, & I don't see how it connects to the bigger story yet, but I am fascinated by all the magic lore that dropped.

Torin's POV sadly is an absolute bore. I have no issue with villain POVs... but they need to be interesting. Torin is every first thought & trope you think of when someone says "evil Church zealot". No depth, no surprises. Just bad cliches.

Great start. Low-magic fantasy world at a tram tech-level. Protag is a cross between an archivist & an archeologist who wants to prove the legend of a magic queen was real. Her mentor who shares the goal summons her but is then found dead. Murder mystery with a disaster-lesbian archeologist trying to uncover a kingdom's hidden high-level-magic past? I am IN!

I need a guaranteed great read after the last disappointment, so this one jumps to the head of the queue.

It still feels like we're missing a lot of setup. Why is the king so terrible that he needs assassinating, especially when the king's spymaster intends to crown the king's younger brother who is a convicted, self-admitted mass murderer just because it was fun? How is that an improvement?

I expected to like this more. It's not bad, but I expected it to be great... and so far it isn't. I suspect half the problem is the very short chapters: it jumps heads so fast that I don't have time to get a feel for someone before we jump again, and therefore I wind up with no attachment to any of them.

It's soooo goooood...

We get some Kadra POV? Hell yesssss, babyyyyyy~

There's so much crazy and spooky stuff going on rn, what do you mean we're only a few chapters in?

2 chapters with Will is enough to make me ship him hard with Sam, compared to over a quarter of the book trying to push the Ari and Sam agenda and failing. Sigh, I really doubt Will is endgame though, saaaaad.

Wait, now we’re in the prologue to the prologue??? When will the action finally start, it’s eternal setup so far 😭

Act 1 is too long imo--feels like 20% of the book is prologue, & not for good reason. I understand the IDEA is to cement what great friends (& missed lovers) Ari & Sam are, but honestly they were NOT good friends. They wished they were, maybe. But Sam realises early on how superficial their friendship is & that never changes. (Also I expected this to be 2nd-world urban fantasy. The 'mundane our-world' bits bore me.)

My current physical-book read. Jenn Lyons' pacing needs to be studied because it's amazing. Fast without feeling rushed or like we're skipping parts. But I'm barely 6 chapters in and so much has already happened, it's insane. Amazing, unique fantasy lore. Can't wait to see how it develops further.

SO EXCITED!!!!

It has been pure torture waiting to read this arc, due to read-&-reviewing in the order of publishing dates. After several disappointing novels, I am BEGGING this book & author not to disappoint me. Book 1 was one of my favourite reads last year, please please please let this one be at the same quality level!

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Look, it's not a serious or deep book, and it doesn't particularly work as a heist novel either, but it's FUN. I enjoy my found-family of criminal, tea-drinking vampires-&-friends. It's enjoyable, so far it makes sense as a sequel (same issues and themes, and working on threads/plots set up in book one not random new ones), it's doing what I expected it to do. Sometimes that's really all you want or need from a book.

Well-written & cool plot, but the most interesting parts of the story are narrated by an omniscient goddess which feels kind of a copout for having either main character deal with the book's main trauma & turning point. There have been multiple sections I want to highlight or save, though, so there's something special in here. Whether it winds up only a 3 star, or a 4-5, will likely depend how the ending plays out.

Just read the first 8 chapters (free and online) of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me and damn, now I need the rest of the book stat, please and thank you. What a cliffhanger.

Getting a bit worried that we still have not touched on the gods and what's going on with all that mythology, and Vaida's "possession" from the end of book one. There aren't many pages left to deal with that on top of the non-godly political schemes and potential war/s.

There's so much happening, it feels rushed especially from the villains' sides. Vaida's doing what now, since when? Arin's guards doing critical stuff off the page, why can't we see any of that? I suspect this book should have been split in two to make a trilogy. Absolute random Deus Ex Machina in the middle of serious plot so that Sylvia & Arin can bone in the middle of what's meant to be a super dangerous area.

Just got approved for an arc of This Blade of Ours, sequel to This Monster Of Mine which was one of my favourite reads last year. I am so excited for this one! Next arc read for sure, it can jump the queue <3 <3 <3

Not vibing with this. I think it's meant to be funny but the humour doesn't land for me so it just feels awkward. Nothing endears me to the villain protag, Cyrus, or makes him interesting--he's not "Evil", but he's kind of evil, also mean, petty, & pretty stupid. I can't root for him, or understand where he's coming from. Pacing isn't great: 30% & we're only just reaching the main plot point / setup of the novel.

Really loving this, it builds on book 1's strengths in the best ways. 4 POVs so far, giving a great political overview of what's going on in various kingdoms & factions. It's delving deep into the magic, which was fairly glossed-over/YA-light last book. (I can't wait til we get more God content/reveals.) The push-and-pull between Sylvia & Arin is fantastic, enemies-to-lovers-to-enemies is sending me :3c

The romantasy crowd might love it, but I can't stand the romance tropes where he gives her demeaning nicknames & when she protests he claims he can't help himself, it's her fault, & keeps using it. He knows her feelings & intentions better than she does, & smarmily 'corrects' her all the time. U G H. I swear romance novels/tropes didn't used to be like this, why is romantasy all the worst parts of both genres?

Marketed as Adult, but this is so very very YA. Not even the almost-adult YA that some talented authors like L Bardugo can write either, just... YA.

At 33% this is taking a long time to get going. I'm invested, but it's not hitting the points from the blurb yet, & if this is meant to be about the friendship/relationship/alliance between the two girls, right now it really isn't. They've not even spoken to each other.

ARIN POV!!! We start with Arin POV & shift to it regularly. I said this was what book 1 needed & it works so well. I love seeing him struggle with the end of book 1, & to see multiple puzzle pieces moving, not just what Sylvia knows. (We also get Sefa and Marik povs.) Annoyed that Sylvia seems to be repeating book 1, captured & held by another group that wants to use her, not tell her anything, & let a man abuse her.

I feel like I've been overloading myself with serious, tense, depressing media lately: my recent book reads, tv shows, games I'm playing, etc. It might be time to shift my TBR order so I can have a palate cleanser or two before continuing on with my current TBRs which are more of the same. I have a cozy romance ARC, and some physical YA sequels further back in my TBR pile, maybe I'll move them forward...

I feel like the reunion / shown-down at 68% should have happened earlier, it's one of the first scenes with emotional impact for Rue. We spent much longer on flashbacks than we needed to, especially when many of them repeated information and so much of them was just Telling the world/lore via classroom lessons.

Starts in a similar manner to a protag from Blood Of The Old Kings (failing mage ditching lessons, shunned by fellow mages/students due to being a different ethnicity and social class), which is weird considering they were back-to-back Inkstone SE picks. So far this is doing it better, but there's a bunch of other POVs that sometimes don't have clear causation between chapters. Hope it can weave things together soon.

Interesting world, but story is slow & I struggle to engage. Characters have no internal depth, lots of Telling & monologues, no subtext anywhere. There's a lot of violence but not enough to be horror & not in terms of battles or wars, either. Just lots of beating on the elderly in the 'present', & adults torturing kids (& encouraging them to torture each other) in the 'past'. Kinda feels like fantasy torture-pr0n.

Prologue was interesting but incredibly vague to the point of basically being a fancy nothingburger. The interlude with the two gods (?) was cool, but incredibly short. I'm still waiting for something to make me care about any of the actual POV characters rather than the 'brief snippet' characters.

I DESPISE the text formatting. Worst professionally published book I've seen in ages: inconsistent paragraph breaks, most are single like tradpub, but sometimes doubles for no reason like suddenly we're an AO3 fanfic. The dokkaebi ("goblins" UGH) speech is the worst cursive all-caps font I've ever seen, so hard to read. The translation often misses necessary info for convos/scenes to make sense, like "a Sangah life".