megan’s Reviews > The Songbird & the Heart of Stone > Status Update

holy. jesus. fuck.
vampires getting off while drinking each other's blood >>>

i hope im not jinxing myself but im actually enjoying this so far? the thing is, broadbent has really beautiful prose and it's easy to follow. the main complaint i have rn is that the "challenges" in the underworld are contrived and boring and there's no ACTUAL stakes being presented. the action is nonexistent but i do like the character development

it’s a pretty easy read, but i'm a bit annoyed by how ... simplistic the descent into hell is. i mean, they have to hit 5 different levels of hell to find ancient artifacts, but there's hardly any challenges. just ghosts and creatures. there's nothing that makes it feel like they're in the underworld, no magic, no real fighting scenes. it's so underwhelming

okay i have some thoughts. first, i don't like how every female protagonist needs to be labeled as being "not special, plain, uninteresting". that archetype is tired.

second, the author takes a lot more from greek mythology than i thought. there is a god whose 6 kids chopped him to tiny pieces and banished him to the underworld? kronos, anyone?

finally, in comments bc im out of space --