Glass and Bone
[a:Celaena Cuico|40883040|Celaena Cuico|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1692623823p2/40883040.jpg]
Dark Romance | Dark Fantasy | Romantasy

⚔️ Lovers to Enemies

**DISCLAIMER: I will be frank, take my review with a grain of salt. I am not a survivor of abuse and therefore I will say that I cannot give a full review about some of the topics that this book goes over as I have never been in a situation where I was the subject of mental or physical abuse.**

**at the time of this review, I still have ~100 pages left. 12/12/23

With that being said, I think this was a good book! Not the best, but better than some of the things I have read in my time. At the beginning, it felt slow. The entire first chapter it felt like there wasn't a single line of dialogue, but I kept reading just to see. It was good enough to keep me entertained, and then all of a sudden I was over halfway through and in the castle with Tobias. Just as Elanor had become enthralled with Tobias, I had become invested in their relationship, albeit a very toxic and abusive one.

There were parts of this book that I found cringy or unable to relate to, but again, I am not a survivor of abuse. We are seeing Tobias's abuse from a third-party perspective and it's easy to see that he was abusive. Some of the writing is a tad on the nose with being self-aware, but we are also given a plethora of reasons why Elanor has to stay, reasons that make sense in the time being presented.

I do not care for Theo, at all. The relationship seems like it was just thrown in there to cause a riff between Tobias and Elanor. I didn't mind the infatuation at the beginning, because it seemed very real as a childhood crush turned into an adult fascination. The I love yous and such kinda just ruined it for me. My very first relationship was with my childhood best friend after we had lost contact for roughly 8 years, so I get it. I do, I understand the infatuation, but I feel like Elanor was painted as smarter than that. There was no chemistry between the two, so every romantic look they shared just felt forced.

I also couldn't help but laugh at the fact nothing happened between Tobias and Elanor until her 18th birthday. I found it funny but in a cringy way.

A lot of the dialogue felt so "matter-of-factly" to me as well. Everyone seemed to have perfect memories and there was no emotion when talking about Elanor's trauma, especially coming from Elanor herself. Perhaps that was intended, but I couldn't even say it felt like dissociating, it felt like D&D from Game of Thrones adding in Sansa's rape scene just because they could, you know?

Overall, I think this a good book. There is room for improvement, but as a first book, I will say I am mighty impressed.