Furyborn by Claire Legrand
Star rating: ★★★☆ ☆ 3/5 stars
Format: paperback ARC
Summary: Told in two perspectives of two women a thousand years apart, Furyborn tells the story of two queens. One Queen will save the world and the other will doom it.
Summary: I received an ARC from BookishFirst for an honest review.
How could the same author who penned Sawkill Girls and Winterspell (aka the best Nutcracker retelling ever) bring this out to the world? It's... It's long, too long and doesn't resolve much especially for its length. The characters are not very likable and I couldn't connect with them.
There are several romances of sorts within the book and... I'm just not impressed with any of them. One comes out of nowhere at the end of the book and had me rolling my eyes more than just a little. One romance you know from the beginning of the novel is going to end in tragedy and that makes the slow slog through the book even less appealing.
I couldn't connect to any of the characters. The two main characters are either completely unlikable or just kind of boring. Outside the main characters everyone else is fairly one dimensional. I honestly couldn't tell you a characteristic of any of the secondary characters.
There are elements to this novel that could make a good series but I feel like it isn't executed well. I feel like Legrand tried to make something too big of a scope and wasn't able to bring it together. Like if she had just focused more on either the world building or the characters she could have made something I'd be interested to continue but I really feel she was too ambitious and spread herself too thin.
Recommendation: I would read Legrand's other novels and skip this one. Maybe the rest of the series will solve my issues but I won't be reading them to see.
Star rating: ★★★☆ ☆ 3/5 stars
Format: paperback ARC
Summary: Told in two perspectives of two women a thousand years apart, Furyborn tells the story of two queens. One Queen will save the world and the other will doom it.
Summary: I received an ARC from BookishFirst for an honest review.
How could the same author who penned Sawkill Girls and Winterspell (aka the best Nutcracker retelling ever) bring this out to the world? It's... It's long, too long and doesn't resolve much especially for its length. The characters are not very likable and I couldn't connect with them.
There are several romances of sorts within the book and... I'm just not impressed with any of them. One comes out of nowhere at the end of the book and had me rolling my eyes more than just a little. One romance you know from the beginning of the novel is going to end in tragedy and that makes the slow slog through the book even less appealing.
I couldn't connect to any of the characters. The two main characters are either completely unlikable or just kind of boring. Outside the main characters everyone else is fairly one dimensional. I honestly couldn't tell you a characteristic of any of the secondary characters.
There are elements to this novel that could make a good series but I feel like it isn't executed well. I feel like Legrand tried to make something too big of a scope and wasn't able to bring it together. Like if she had just focused more on either the world building or the characters she could have made something I'd be interested to continue but I really feel she was too ambitious and spread herself too thin.
Recommendation: I would read Legrand's other novels and skip this one. Maybe the rest of the series will solve my issues but I won't be reading them to see.