Sara C. RoethleCríticas

watch reviews here: https://www.youtube.com/@starkissedstories

2.5

No bro.
So basic and beige.
The woman has a vendetta against the dude who has literally just saved her life (multiple times) and given her superpowers WITHOUT ASKING FOR ANYTHING IN RETURN.
And yet the actual bad guy who is out killing peeps left, right and center, she decides to work with to kill the guy who is just minding his own business when he's not saving her ass.
the dialogue feels stilted and the characters have no substance. the pacing is weird. no desire to continue.

watch reviews here: https://www.youtube.com/@starkissedst...

2.5

No bro.
So basic and beige.
The woman has a vendetta against the dude who has literally just saved her life (multiple times) and given her superpowers WITHOUT ASKING FOR ANYTHING IN RETURN.
And yet the actual bad guy who is out killing peeps left, right and center, she decides to work with to kill the guy who is just minding his own business when he's not saving her ass.
the dialogue feels stilted and the characters have no substance. the pacing is weird. no desire to continue.½

Not the least bit realistic, not that a book about supernatural beings can be incredibly realistic, but three fun novels nonetheless.

Xoe is an ok teen vampire, werewolf, demon story that fell flat at the end. I’m great with the supernatural but please don’t abandon logic. A massive fight takes place in Xoe’s house, windows broken, skulls broken. Her mom comes home, makes her blueberry muffins and never notices the astounding amount of damage to her house? Sadly nope. That’s when the pick became just a so-so book.

This story follows high school student, Xoe Meyers, and her two friends, Lucy and Allison. When she meets Dan, the new “cute” boy in school she's excited to find out he's attracted to Lucy, even though Allison is also interested in him. They all go out to a movie but Dan acts strangely to Xoe and says she's not human. Then he “scratches” Lucy and we discover he's a werewolf. Enter Jason, the vampire who was hired to hunt down Dan and falls for Xoe.

The story was a little slow getting started but it really picked up pace with many twists and turns as well as the appripriate teen angst. It captures the supernatural theme in a much better way than other books of similar style. The supernatural elements were well-paced and intriguing. I thought the book would be a typical teen werewolves versus teen vampires sort of story, but it was different and interesting. I read it for the X title and am not in the target demographic but Xoe was fun, witty, and an enjoyable beginning to this Young Adult series.


TBR 626

Unfortunately it just has too much downtime. It fails to keep the tension up, and I just got bored.

Abducted from her bed, Maddy awakens in a strange land where the only familiar face is that of her former case worker. Turns out she's a Vaettir, as is Maddy, whose special powers make her a prized commodity for the leader of their clan. Maddy doesn't care about the Vaettir and their wars, she just wants to control her powers and go home to the human world. But if she doesn't figure out who to trust, she might not live long enough to see it.

This story is a mix of familiar tropes, and I almost put it down about halfway. But then Maddy stopped being quite so lost, and I got through the rest.

I wish the history around Vaettir and their origins was explained earlier, as they're not a commonly known bit of mythology. This backstory is also the driving motivation for many characters and conflicts, so saving the explanation until 70% through made me feel disconnected with the story. It's hard to root for Maddy or hate the villains without knowing what they stand for, or how strongly they support what they believe.

**Thanks to the author for the free ebook!**

Meh, it was fine. I didn’t love it, didn’t hate it...

Very, very entertaining for a book I chose so I could finish a reading challenge. Will be getting the second one to read.

A new twist to the usual fantasy saga. Very Irish - I didn't check if the author is from there, but the names and backstory about the Fai have that feel, you know? It was refreshing to have a female protagonist for a change. I didn't skim through, which I have to confess I often do, which says a lot for the writing and plot. I actually bought book 2 - can't wait to read it!

This is one of those books that I must have picked up on sale sometime lately. It was on my Kindle, and I started reading. It's sort of an old fashioned fantasy, starting with a tree who wakes up as a young woman then sets out on a quest with a wise old man as her guardian and gets embroiled in fairy wars. I enjoyed it, but I didn't find anything in it that really compelled me -- the language sometimes had me wanting to reach for a red pen (it wasn't terrible, just not as good as it could have been), the characters were good but not great, and the end? The book left off mid-stride, not with a cliff-hanger so much as with a complete lack of resolution. The next book is out now, and I'm considering picking it up but I'm not sure that I will.

An alright book with some great concepts but how the parents were written just blew the whole thing for me. I know they were not whole complete characters in the book but I still felt that they should not have been so contradictory.

Vaettir live in a place outside of our dimension. Once they lived as guardiens of nature, now they have devolved to wanting power over others. Group against group they war, planning to
once again come above ground, but this time to be in control.
Maddie was raised by humans, in foster homes. She always thought she was human, just a little weird and maybe with the power to take life just by wanting to.
Finally, when they need her, they kidnap Maddie and tell her she is their executioner. She is kept a prisoner and used. They all lie to her, torture and betray her when she trusts them.(The speed she forgave them at was unreal.)
It was a short, quick moving story that held my attention. I didn't always like the chararacters but they felt real . It was a 4 star read except it felt like half a book with the last chapters called book 2 as it just left off in the middle. Couldn't even call it a cliffhanger, just unfinished.
This first half was free from Kobo. Thank you.