tendaii8's reviews
290 reviews

Recently I've been getting really into retellings with a focus on the villains, and this book was everything I wanted it to be and more. I was already in love with Captain Hook from the show Once Upon a Time and this gave the classic character a really interesting backstory. It was just so good I couldn't put it down. I found myself connecting with Jamie and sympathizing with him in a way I didn't expect. At the end of the book, I honestly felt like crying for Jamie and it's going to take a couple of days for me to get over this.

I wasn't expecting the brutality at first but then quickly realised that it was a necessity not only for the audience to understand Jamie and Peter as characters but also for the audience to understand the environment. I had never thought about exactly just how violent the island must be for children who are just figuring out how to survive in the wilderness with dangers at every turn.

SPOILERS: I mentioned I felt like crying for Jamie at the end and it was mostly from the last chapter when he would talk about Peter and the new boys he would bring. I doubt Peter ever ended up caring about any of them (some things never change) but he treated them completely differently than how he treated the person he proclaimed was the most important one to him. Honestly reading about how he let the new boys fly and learn all the secrets he had hidden from Jamie for so long made me ridiculously mad (I'm a pretty petty person). 

All in all, I loved this book and I am now emotionally scarred .·´¯`(>▂<)´¯`·.

It took me a while to get into, but once I passed a certain threshold I couldn’t put it down. I loved the characters, the mythology, and the romance. The only thing I’m upset about is that I didn’t get more at the end of the book.

This book was first and foremost about family and a person's duty to their family. I’m a huge sucker for a good romantic relationship so while I understand entirely why the romance wasn’t the focus, I still feel the need to mourn the loss of getting to see more of them together.

This book felt so unnecessarily long it was borderline torturous. There would be parts when I would get really invested but then they would drag on and on and it felt like it would never end. It often got to a point where I would just lose interest. 

I found this book by looking up "fantasy romance books" online and I found this suggested in numerous places. Why? I don't know. This is not a romance. There is a sapling of what may be a relationship if there was another book but a couple of kisses and a brief mention of sex is not a romance, especially if the characters spend 70% of the book away from each other. 

I'm not saying that the book was bad or that I hate it but I'm not gonna say I particularly liked it either. 

I enjoyed the explanation of how the magic worked within different people, and I liked the villain and how it was resolved but this is not a book I would recommend. At least to people who aren't avid readers. This is a book that could be absolutely loved or hated depending on who's reading it.

Like the first book in the series I absolutely loved it. The only reason I’m not giving it 5 stars is because in both books I found myself craving more from certain scenes in the book I felt could have been fleshed out more.