Beth

As someone raised in the Mormon religion and who studied the BoM religiously (heh heh), I can attest that this book is a complete work of fiction. The great battles mentioned have zero historical proof anywhere, the author was a known con who also loved to marry multiple young girls. As for the book itself, it's comical to think that people rode tapirs into battle. If you're into mind numbing nonsense, this is the book for you.

There are over 350 pages in this book and it still makes no sense. The mythology sounded intriguing, but by the end of the book it seemed like they were used in name and location only. In what world does the Daughter of Death call someone "girlie"? Why on earth were these fantastical characters saying "yeet"?! No, really. The word 'yeet' is used at least 3 times. THREE.

If you put together every time the words "yeet", "cardamom", "jet lag" (though sometimes written as jet-lag because formatting I guess doesn't really matter), "blow job" (again, sometimes written as blow-job or even just blowjob), "father/dad/Papa", "Tolkein", and "fuck" into a paragraph, it would account for about 20% of the book.

Dialogue? Almost none, except when it's the characters refusing to answer any questions that the FMC, Hanna, asks. Then they treat her like she's stupid because she has no idea what anyone else is referring to because, well, she didn't know anything about the Finnish underworld. Or when there's a sex scene, though they're written almost the same way, down to what Death and Hanna say.

Character building? Laughable. I understand that there are more books in this series, but c'mon. You shouldn't have to read more than one to know anything about the characters. More time is spent talking to the Barbie sized mermaid in a fish thank (who only wants to escape and tell Hanna how great Death is in bed), the murderous deadmaiden, and Death's daughter who went from "oops, you tried to kill me" to "wow you can lift my sword, let's be friends" in the space of the first and second times they ever interact with each other. Death spends his time doing whatever he does (because, really, I have no clue) until he sneaks into Hanna's room to bang, but then he's all quiet and vague any other time. Seriously, there's almost nothing to know about Death other than that he's a divorced, misunderstood, super tall deity who has a large dick and wears masks. Death's son is mentioned several times, but never makes an appearance. The god of Death apparently is a monotheist and answers to the Creator. There are vague mentions of Old Gods uprising and threats called Stragglers, but you don't find out what those are until like the last 25 pages of the book. Hanna's entire quest is to save her Dad, but she sees him for a few sentences and then he's off to the land of the living again. The villains in the beginning? Disappeared as if they didn't matter to the story line anymore. The redheaded shaman dude who was raised closer by Hanna's dad than Hanna was? Disappeared pretty quick then suddenly re-appears on the last page and a half as a cliffhanger.

Storyline? Predictable and had me rolling my eyes so far back in my head, I swore I saw my spine. It's a poorly written Beauty and the Beast meets gothic smut.

I tried to read the sneak peek for book 2 in the back, got 2 paragraphs in, then shut the book. I'd like to think that it gets better, but considering nothing really even happened in book 1, I won't be reading any more to find out.

I dove in head-first into the dark "romance" category, it would seem. I had no clue what kind of story I was getting myself into, but this one was... certainly something. The author seems to prefer shock value to an actual story line. The characters are insufferable and have a very toxic relationship that doesn't make any sense. The filler in between SA scenes is an odd, poorly written ghost story. I ended up not finishing this one after the post glow worm cave shower scene. Would not recommend.

I figured this novel would be similar to the ACOTAR series, but I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't that close at all. It reminded me more of Harry Potter meets The Hunger Games plus dragons. It reads quick and definitely keeps you entertained. There are a few small shocks here and there, but I feel like it was pretty easy to guess what was going to happen. I wish Rebecca Yarros was a bit more descriptive when it comes to the characters because I couldn't really tell you what anyone looked like, besides Xaden being handsome with dark hair and a scar (not exactly unique when it comes to romantasy) and Violet having silver hair and being frail. It also felt like some of the characters were thrown in haphazardly, like Professor Carr (who has almost no real involvement minus a couple paragraphs at best) and basically all of the staff. As entertaining as it was, a lot of it felt redundant--Dain trying to get Violet to quit for safety, the descriptions for the rebel branding, how everyone is trying to kill the same person the entire novel, how hot Violet thinks Xaden is, how Violet's mom is a cold/heartless mother, etc.

Bonus points for having more inclusive characters (using sign language, being non-binary, LGBTQ friendly).

Ultimately I am excited to start book two, Iron Flame.

Iron Flame is definitely written better than Fourth Wing, but it's still not saying much. The storyline of the trilogy (I've finished it all) COULD BE amazing... if it was written by someone else. I've never wanted to mail an author a thesaurus as bad in my life as I do with Rebecca Yaros. Like, c'mon. There are hundreds of thousands of ways to describe someone smiling or frowning other than their lips curving up or down.

I did like the twist at the end, ultimately.

All in all, I love that Violet doesn't let her EDS/brittleness get her down and fights so hard to prove herself. She is a very respectable character, easily one of my favorites. But the rest of it... blah.