Review
How does one rate this book? Honestly, I am struggling with it. This book was one of my most anticipated reads of the year. Between the gorgeous cover and the description I thought it was going to be a shoo in for a top five book of the year. I should know better though – and I’m going to write this review a bit differently because I feel that I can’t divide it up into the sections I normally do. Instead I’m going to divide it up by beginning, middle and end for this review. And I had opinions on all three parts. To sum it up: each part had a different rating for me.
The beginning, or I should say, the part I had the issue with.
Yeah, so in short. The beginning. I feel like parts of the beginning were totally unnecessary to the story overall. I don’t mind a slow start, and it wasn’t even that slow. We find Brie in the middle of a heist. All well and good, but then something else happens and I feel the pace got thrown off. I know the beginning is setting up the rest of the book for what happens next, but I felt it should have been much more concise. Her sister, Jas, being stolen. I know Ryan was trying to set up the sister’s relationship and their friendship with Sebastian, but I felt those parts were drawn out. Honestly, the beginning was an unfortunate two stars for me. I almost gave up, but I decided to push through to the middle. I told myself if I didn’t like the middle then I would DNF and just be disappointed. Honestly, I have almost nothing to say about the beginning because it felt…irrelevant to the whole story. So, moving on to the middle part.
the middle part in which it does get better…sort of.
So, yes, it did get better in the middle. We find out who the two love interests are. And me, I always go for the bad boy. So Finn it is. Or…is it Bash? Honestly, I don’t know who the truly bad boy is here. Both? Neither? Well, we get the Seelie and Unseelie courts and how Brie must find three lost artifacts to free her sister from the clutches of the evil Unseelie king. Yep – find the three artifacts and overcome the challenge of learning her new magic. Like I said, my interest and the pace picked up in this part. In a way, parts of the plot were “eh” to me. Again, I felt bored at times. Like, Bash’s parts…I wasn’t interested! I found him boring. Which I know I’m not supposed to, but all I wanted to do were skip those parts.
Also the whole marriage thing…interesting. And the bond…interesting. I kept wondering where that was going.
Suffice to say, it held my interest enough that I wanted to continue the book and find out what happened. A solid three star middle. It redeemed itself!
part, the end of the book
Or, in other words, the last fifty pages is where it got really good. I’m a sucker for Finn. I’m Team Finn. Bash can jump off a cliff.
ANYWAYS, like the end was where I was like OH I see why it was said to be like The Cruel Prince. I get it, I get it. Those last pages were what made me LOVE the book. It was a stunning turn of events and had me with my mouth open. (I will admit, I had sort of guessed it, but still…the run up and reveal of secrets was great).
Thus, the last part got four or five stars. I can’t math, so I just said I’m giving it four stars. Close to 3.5, but four because the ending knocked it out of the park.
In case you were wondering as well, I didn’t realize it was a fairytale retelling, but it had moments of what I felt like were a combination of Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast woven in.
All in all, I am excited for the sequel.