3.75 stars
While I had trouble connecting to the characters and plot of To Kill A Kingdom by the same author, this book was an entirely different story! Right from the beginning of the book I knew I would love these characters.
Selestra is fighting so many battles silently, trying to meet expectations set for her by a soul-thirsty king and her cold mother. It was immediately apparent how different Selestra was from these two people trying to control her, and that made it very easy to cheer Selestra on in her journey of self-discovery.
Nox has one of my favorite book character personalities: the witty, self-assured, sometimes incorrigible hero. He immediately reminded a lot of Nikolai Lantsov from the Grishaverse who is one of my favorite book characters, and it was a lot of fun to read the banter between Nox and Selestra.
While I am still not entirely sold on the idea that this is a Rapunzel retelling, I did note some themes and scenes that were similar to Disney’s Tangled. Tangled is my favorite movie so I enjoyed those aspects, but there weren’t as many nods to the original fairytale as I was hoping.
The world and plot were well developed with many different elements. The world was developed enough that I felt immersed without getting bored by too many random fantasy world facts. The plots of revenge and freedom for Nox and Selestra were compelling and were the center of the first half of the book, accompanied by enemies-to-lovers banter. I loved this first half, but the second half became more of a “let’s save the world” plot which I enjoyed significantly less and of course the author felt the need to add a miscommunication trope conflict between Nox and Selestra. Additionally, I felt that the final battle was static and unconvincing of the desperation the characters were experiencing to end the reign of the evil king.
For these reasons I took off some stars, but overall I would definitely recommend this book and I truly had a lot of fun reading it! I’m very glad I own this book so that I can reread it in the future!
While I had trouble connecting to the characters and plot of To Kill A Kingdom by the same author, this book was an entirely different story! Right from the beginning of the book I knew I would love these characters.
Selestra is fighting so many battles silently, trying to meet expectations set for her by a soul-thirsty king and her cold mother. It was immediately apparent how different Selestra was from these two people trying to control her, and that made it very easy to cheer Selestra on in her journey of self-discovery.
Nox has one of my favorite book character personalities: the witty, self-assured, sometimes incorrigible hero. He immediately reminded a lot of Nikolai Lantsov from the Grishaverse who is one of my favorite book characters, and it was a lot of fun to read the banter between Nox and Selestra.
While I am still not entirely sold on the idea that this is a Rapunzel retelling, I did note some themes and scenes that were similar to Disney’s Tangled. Tangled is my favorite movie so I enjoyed those aspects, but there weren’t as many nods to the original fairytale as I was hoping.
The world and plot were well developed with many different elements. The world was developed enough that I felt immersed without getting bored by too many random fantasy world facts. The plots of revenge and freedom for Nox and Selestra were compelling and were the center of the first half of the book, accompanied by enemies-to-lovers banter. I loved this first half, but the second half became more of a “let’s save the world” plot which I enjoyed significantly less and of course the author felt the need to add a miscommunication trope conflict between Nox and Selestra. Additionally, I felt that the final battle was static and unconvincing of the desperation the characters were experiencing to end the reign of the evil king.
For these reasons I took off some stars, but overall I would definitely recommend this book and I truly had a lot of fun reading it! I’m very glad I own this book so that I can reread it in the future!