catcardoso's reviews
220 reviews

first read 2016: I LOVE THIS BOOK AND THESE CHARACTERS SO MUCH
second read (audiobook) december 2018
third read 2019: I wanted to read this book again to annotate it and gosh there are so many cute moments in this book. Love love love

I honestly don’t know what to think of this book. The story was very original and I was very interested in reading it. The side characters were all so unique and I really wanted to get to know them better. However, the main character was absolutely horrible. And it wasn’t even a “bad guy” character with great development. It was straight up like 280 pages of a straight white teenage boy being an absolute douchebag. And as much as I wanted to sympathize with him at the end of the book and acknowledge that he went through a lot it really wasn’t an excuse. And it made it worse to read from this character’s POV being a terrible human for about 95% of the entire book. I was desperately waiting for character development and for him to realize that he was acting like a complete jerk but it never came and when it did it was just a couple of pages and he was still working hard to be a “good guy”. I appreciated that the side characters called him out for his bullshit and he never really got a chance of redemption which is honestly what he deserves. I really did not like the main character which ruined the book for me since we only got to read from his POV. It’s unfortunate cause I think I would have liked this book a lot more if he wasn’t such a dick or if we read the story from a different POV. Sorry, I just can’t find myself to feel bad for him :/

I really was expecting to love this book but I was honestly quite disappointed.
I want to start by saying that the beginning really had me hooked. I love the magic system and the way this story started was intriguing.

However, over half way through the book I started having some issues with it. One thing that I find super important, especially in fantasy books, is the world building. Unfortunately, this book had very minimum world building and really did not explain things besides mentioning them briefly. There was also not a lot of information about the Kingdom itself even though that's where most of the story took place and it would've been interesting to read about. Besides Jeru, there was no information on the world beyond that. The different magical abilities and creatures were mentioned, but the descriptions were weak and sometimes they weren't described at all. This made it really hard to imagine things and get emerged in the story. :( I felt like the author wanted to talk about so many things that some of it was underdeveloped...

*INHALES* beware: spoilers and annoyed ranting ahead

The aspect that bothered me the most is the romantic relationship which unfortunately is a huge part of the story. I loved the way Lark and Tiras helped each other out and it was nice to read about at first. BUT GOSH... it got to a point where the power dynamic was making me so uncomfortable. The way a man (Tiras) kept telling a woman (Lark) that she was "of use" to him and that he was going to "put a baby in her" and SHE JUST WENT WITH IT?? Gosh, this really didn't sit right with me. Tiras was so dominant and pressuring he annoyed me so much. It wasn't even in question if Lark wanted a baby or not or if she wanted to be with him or not. It just happened. Lark whined about wanting to be wanted, he told her he did, they were in love and that was it? He also kept calling her "you stubborn woman" and commanding her to do things like sleep?? THE WAY I ROLLED MY EYES. He was also super overprotective and wanted to lock her up which just... sigh. I just couldn't look past the toxicity. It made me uncomfortable and annoyed every time the story was about them (which was basically all the time sigh). I suddenly couldn't even ignore that their relationship started with Lark being kidnapped by Tiras and I was really over the whole relationship at this point. I think this trope of the obvious power relation between the man and woman is really overdone and harmful I just could not stand it.

I did like the characters individually though. I liked that despite the fact that Lark couldn't speak it didn't really form a disadvantage for her since she always found another way. I absolutely loved her love for words and reading and her magical abilities were so unique. Tiras' shifting also really intrigued me. All the side characters were really interesting to read about to be honest. Overall, the uniqueness of the characters, the magic system and the writing made this book (somewhat) enjoyable for me.

I didn't think it was possible to still be overwhelmed with emotions whilst reading a book I already read 4 times (first time in 2016) but this book manages to make me feel EVERYTHING all at once all over again. The characters. The story. The writing. Everything. I'm speechless every time.

11/21 another reread: annotated this book as a gift for my friend and it has been such a nice experience to pay attention to every single word once again and attach new meanings to them from a different perspective (I’m much older now than I was when I first read it so I do get different emotions reading it than I did back then)