A review by pixelateddragon
A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows

emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters and the world building were interesting and well-written, and the voice acting in the audio book was absolutely amazing. 
I loved the contrast of the queer-normative country with the more typically "medieval European"-esque one and how this was expressed and talked about in the text. (Loved the nonbinary representation btw!)
I knocked off a few points for how graphic the
sexual assault
was, I won't say it's existence wasn't important to further the conflict of the story but I felt it was in more detail than it needed to be to get the point across. Mind the trigger warnings!!!
And the plot was relatively interesting but a bit predictable, I guessed the twist pretty much as soon as the first attack happened & the MC was introduced to
the ML's sisters & the inheritance situation
but it wasn't disappointing. 
I loved the relationships between characters especially the platonic & familial ones, they were dynamic and felt so real. 
I ended up skipping the sex scenes so I can't really comment on them, because they always ended up playing when I was trying to eat in public (and I didn't bother to go back to them because I'm not terribly fond of having sex narrated to me in general 😅).

But overall the book was pretty enjoyable with a dynamic and rich world and characters with beautiful prose & audio narration but, it was a bit heavy handed and more explicit than needed with a few of the more 'traumatic' parts of the story (& the relationship was a bit rushed, but it's a romance book and that is typical of the genre so I can't complain too much on that), and the mystery was a bit predictable.

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