thattheatrekid's reviews
121 reviews

I love this book! The writing, the characters, the world building, the message, the details are all so good as always. 

Awesome book! It was SO. LONG. And so much happened that I can hardly remember what the beginning looked like. Overall amazing and the characters are really growing on me, especially Ridoc. Some things were unnecessary and there were times the geography and names confused me but I will definitely be reading the next one. 

Good book!! I loved the author’s vulnerability, understanding and wisdom in sharing about what role sex should play in the Christian life. It wasn’t a condescending feel, just an emotionally honest view of how we should view sex. Good information taken in alongside the anti human trafficking training I’m doing. I do wish this went more in depth though as it did not address purity culture or suggest solutions for how churches, society, other Christians and parents should go about teaching about sex. It actually pushes purity culture to the point where it still seems to put shame on you if you have sexually sinned. There’s “redemption” (which is not well explained) but still the idea that you are a terrible person and the sin you committed was the worst of the worst. 

Interesting premise! I was really interested in the idea of this project but I wish more time in the book was spent on the project itself and not just background and aftermath. I realize this author is young so I won’t be too harsh on the writing, but the trains of thought would definitely wander. I also felt preached at and like the information was dragging at times. Still, I loved the first half and it’s really cool that someone revealed so many societal biases through that project. 

Great read and one of my favorites from when I was a preteen! Now that I’m much older it’s less engaging but still a great story with all the good story elements. Love watching Andi grow up!

Don’t remember too much of this book but it was good!! Really helped to strengthen my faith as well

Read this book for my DTS! Loved it and it really strengthened my faith through testimony and showed me what hearing God can look like, and how he speaks and it’s REAL, not some coincidental fantasy.

Honestly I don’t see the hype of this book. Maybe it’s just because romance isn’t typically my thing, but I found this boring and the characters one dimensional. They also had to spell out every character trait for you rather than just acting out said trait. The ending wasn’t that satisfying and I found it easy to zone out and lose track because the dialogue didn’t have quotation marks. I liked the character development and how realistic the situations were but I think I’m just not the right audience. 

I read this book on a whim after seeing it on someone’s instagram story. I had the day and read it nonstop 3-11pm. I really enjoyed it and there were parts I was invested and parts that had me rolling my eyes. 

Things I Liked 👍:

- The character development. Wow was the character development good over the entire course of the book, and it’s smooth. I just got to point B and looked back at point A trying to figure out exactly where the change happened but it was so smoothly done. 
- The family relationships between the siblings. I loved Mira and Violet’s relationship and how much they care for each other especially in the midst of an unemotionally available mother.
- Ardana. Good lord I love her, she’s so cute and her power is unique. 
- The world building. I like how immersive everything is.
- The dialogue. Aside from the sappy/spicy scenes where the couple regresses to teenage speak, the dialogue is very well done and realistic. It really pulled me into the story. 
- The plot twist at the end. Was it somewhat predictable? Yes. Was it still epic and made me gasp? Also yes. 

Things I Didn’t Like 👎:

- Xaden. Not that he was unlikeable in the story (though he was at points); he just filled way too many tropes for me to not roll my eyes. Dark emotionally repressed mysterious shadow boy, basically. 
- Violet’s entitlement. I didn’t like her “f off” attitude towards everyone who was kind to her. She was also incredibly rude to the dragon that was supposedly one of the deadliest and could incinerate her at the smallest sign of disrespect. Some of the people she was rude to just didn’t deserve it. It’s also kind of annoying how every single man in her life wants to protect her because she’s so weak and fragile; it’s unrealistic to such a dog-eat-dog environment.
- The author was clearly reaching for some clever hot nickname for Xaden to call Violet…but let me tell you, Violence wasn’t it. That’s all I have to say on that but just…no.
- Maybe this is more of a me imagination problem than anything, but it was sometimes hard to visualize the proportions described. For example it was said that Violet was the size of a dragon’s tooth and the dragons were around 25 feet tall…that’s freaking massive. And then later it talked about having to climb the dragons foreleg to mount. It’s just weird to keep those proportions in mind through the whole book. 

Overall a great surprise read and I’m excited for the next. I really hope it doesn’t do what most series do and go downhill with every sequel though. 

I wanted to give this book at least 4 stars; I really did. But the writing was just terrible. The events cut to my soul and reminded me again how heartbreaking the Holocaust is and how important it is to never forget it, but it wasn’t because of the author. I wish the dialogue was better because it felt like a middle school easy reader book if not for the content. It is nice to see at least one story with a happy ending from the Holocaust, but that ending was only as happy as you could get after being traumatized to an unimaginable degree. For me it only highlighted the vast amount of people who didn’t get that. Good story and I see God’s hand in it, but also I wish the writing was better and that it was 100% fact since I want to know what parts were made up.