Tag: Fantasy Book Reviews

Persephone is the Goddess of Spring by title only. The truth is, since she was a little girl, flowers have shriveled at her touch. After moving to New Athens, she hopes to lead an unassuming life disguised as a mortal journalist. Hades, God of the Dead, has built a gambling empire in the mortal world and his favorite bets are rumored to be impossible. After a chance encounter with Hades, Persephone finds herself in a contract with the God of the Dead and the terms are impossible: Persephone must create life in the Underworld or lose her freedom forever.

I need to start this review by saying that I was never into greek mythology, so looking at this book (and this series) which is about greek mythology I had very little hope for it before actually getting into it. But now that I have read this book I gotta admit that this book has easily been one of the better books I have read so far this year. But as always I will explain everything in this review, so if you are interested in hearing my thoughts about this book then by all means keep reading this review my dear reader.

The plot in this book is amazing, because it got everything I love in a book which of course is magic, romance, rich mythology and we get to see the world in this book through the eyes of the main character who is also a newcomer to the world of this book. 

The beginning of this book is more on the slower side, which at the beginning gave me mixed feelings about this book because I wasn’t that into this book at the beginning. But the deeper I got this book the more I started liking this book. And I’m very glad that I decided to keep reading this book even though I had a few thoughts of DNF-ing this book early on because of how slow it was at the beginning.

However the plot of this book is very addictive, by chapter 5 I was fully addicted to this book and the characters we get in this book. Which made me want to grab the second book in this series immediately after I have finished this book. But this book is so addictive that I have read it in one day and I was beating myself over the fact that I only bought this first book and not the whole series straight away, because now I have to wait for the rest of the books in this series which I have ordered from amazon. So it will be some very long few days as I wait for the books I have ordered.

The characters we get in this book are amazing. I completely fall in love with Persephone who is an amazing character because of how relatable and likable she is. She got a lot of personality to her, and she has her unique quirks which makes her stand out from the rest of the characters in this book. In a way she feels like a real life person which I would have no problems being best friends with. 

When it comes to Hades, I need to admit that I had fallen in love with him from the moment he entered the plot in this book. Because he has a lot of personality to him but also he is mysterious, dark and broody. And even thou he is the god of the underworld he has a lot of relatable aspects to him and he paints a very good picture that characters and people aren’t solely just bad or just good. 

However the character development in this book leans very heavily on the generic romance fantasy book tropes. But at the same time the author of this book is able to put a unique twist to those generic troops which I have come across a lot since I started this website in 2020.

The writing we get in this book is very good, because it has this easy going vibe to it. But also it is very immersive and cozy, which makes this book a perfect read for when you want to spend the entire day in your bad or couch and just read a very good book which was written very well. At the same time the writing in this book fits with the plot of this book very well, which made me give this book extra points for it.

I Give This Book 4 / 5

ASSISTANT WANTED: Notorious, high-ranking villain seeks loyal, levelheaded assistant for unspecified office duties, supporting staff for random mayhem and terror, and other Dark Things In General. Discretion a must. Excellent benefits. With ailing family to support, Evie Sage’s employment status isn’t just important, it’s vital. So when a mishap with Rennedawn’s most infamous Villain results in a job offer―naturally, she says yes. No job is perfect, of course, but even less so when you develop a teeny crush on your terrifying, temperamental, and undeniably hot boss. Don’t find evil so attractive, Evie.

I had a lot of expectations for this book since I have heard a lot of good about this book. And now that I have finally read this book I gotta admit that this book is way better than I have expected it to be.

The plot in this book is very engaging, interesting and intriguing. In a way the plot in this book is a regular fairy tale retelling but from the “villain’s” perspective and apparently thats how to make me personally love fairy tales just give them to me from the villain’s perceptive.  At the same time the plot in this book is very fun to get into for me personally because it has magic, dragons and other fantasy book animals which I tend to love the most about fantasy books.

The plot in this book is very cozy read, but it also introduces us to a new fantasy series which doesn’t bomb drop a ton of information which I have experienced in other fantasy books I have reviewed on this website throughout the years. This book is more of the light fantasy type which is focuses more on the atmosphere and making the plot pretty cozy type rather than giving us a lot of action and dropping a truck load of information on us.

This book also gives us two perspectives from both Evie and The Villain. Which in my opinion made this book so much better. Because we got to spend a fair share of time with both of them and actually get to know both of them throughout this book. 

The characters in this book are very good characters. Because each of the characters in this book have their distinct personalities and their own quirks which makes to very easy to like every character in this book even thou some characters are more of a asshole than others. 

I personally found Evie as an amazing main character in this book. Because she is very relatable and likable. And I feel in love with her a lot from the very first chapter in this book. As of The Villain in this book, he is such an amazing character, even thou he is supposed to be the bad guy, he is very likable and I personally were rotting for him personally when this book tells us his backstory which was very bad. 

There are 2 huge plot twists at the very end of this book, which I didn’t see coming, so those 2 plot twists shocked me a lot. Not because there were bad, but because they were so good of an ending to this book that made me want to immediately grab the second book in this series which I of course did.

However there are some issues this book has, one of the main issues this book faces is that one of the characters in this book is named “Arthur” but then later on the author refers to the same character as “Albert”. Which made me pretty confused at the time and made me go back a few chapters to see how the character introduces himself to the main character and see that his name was in fact “Arthur” not “Albert.

One other issue this book faces is that this book doesn’t mention a few important things which clearly the characters were planning. So when that something happens and they start talking about how the characters talked about it and planned it made me pretty confused and considering if I had early signs of dementia because I could absolutely not recall the characters talking or planning that event. Which of course we didn’t see the characters talking or planning that event.

But overall, I loved this book a lot and I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to get into the Fantasy genre because this book is a very good and easy fantasy book which is very likable and fun to read.

I Give This Book 5 / 5

In this riveting dark fantasy debut, a woman with missing memories fights to survive a war-torn world of necromancy and alchemy—and the man tasked with unearthing the deepest secrets of her past.

I need to admit here that this book is the most overhyped book of 2025 and probably the most overhyped book of the 2020s. Now that I have read this book I need to be honest and say that this book is very very bad and it doesn’t deserve the hype and praises it gets because there is nothing good about this book.

The plot in this book started off very well because it was intriguing and interesting. But the deeper I got into this book the plot started getting more and more boring. This book tries way too hard to be a mix of fantasy and romance, which had really put me off because it was trying too hard to be something it wasn’t. I have also noticed that the plot was trying to be very similar and take a lot of hints from the A Court of Thorns and Roses Series which I personally loved a lot. But this book is trying to copy A Court of Thorns and Roses Series a lot which has really put the author of this book in a very bad light for me personally.

Reading this book was like reading a very gruesome history book, because the whole plot of this book was apparently all about the bad stuff that has happened to the main character and which kept happening to her. 

The plot in this book is also very repetitive which in my opinion makes it very annoying and boring. I lost count of how many times I read in this book about the main character walking down to the courtyard or touring around the house. Every time I read either of those things this book made me want to throw this book into the fireplace I don’t have.

The plot in this book also dumps too much information on us as readers which really made me very confused and annoyed. Because the majority of the information which is dumped onto us at any given time isn’t relevant to what is happening currently in the book. 

The characters in this book were trying very hard to be relatable and to me very much like the characters from A Court of Thorns and Roses Series. All the characters we got in this book had some form of personalities, but other than that I had very hard time trying to tell the characters apart from each other. Because all of the characters in this book seemed like the same person to me because their personalities were pretty much the same.

This book is also extremely long (over 1000 pages) which makes everything in this book drag on and on without an end. I personally think that this book would have done so much better if this book were 300 pages long. Because my main issue with this book is that it drags out everything that happens in this book, this book would have done so much better without the dragging out everything.

The writing itself in this book is very torturous in my opinion. Because it tries very hard to please both fantasy readers and the young adult readers, which gave me personally mixed signals about who exactly this book was for because it tried to please too many people to actually have a clear audience in my opinion. The writing style also reads like the a history book, which didn’t help me liking this book any more than I already did.

I Give This Book 1 / 5

Time has been altered, and Sir Richard Francis Burton, the king’s agent, is one of the few people who know that the world is now careening along a very different course from that which Destiny intended. When a clockwork-powered man of brass is found abandoned in Trafalgar Square, Burton and his assistant, the wayward poet Algernon Swinburne, find themselves on the trail of the stolen Garnier Collection—black diamonds rumored to be fragments of the Lemurian Eye of Naga, a meteorite that fell to Earth in prehistoric times. His investigation leads to involvement with the media sensation of the age: the Tichborne Claimant, a man who insists that he’s the long lost heir to the cursed Tichborne estate. Monstrous, bloated, and monosyllabic, he’s not the aristocratic Sir Roger Tichborne known to everyone, yet the working classes come out in force to support him. They are soon rioting through the streets of London, as mysterious steam wraiths incite all-out class warfare.

I need to admit here that I had some expectations for this book which it didnt live up to. Ive heard pretty decent things about this book which made me give this book a chance and read it. But now that I am read this book I gotta admit that this book has to be the worst book I have read so far this year.

The main problem I had with this book was the fact that the universe this book takes place in seems to have no rules or boundaries and the characters could just do whatever they wanted without any consequences. Which made me personally think that the author of this book just didn’t care to give us a good book with actual consequences for the characters which of course didn’t happen in this book.

At the same time the plot in this book was very confusing, and I personally had a very hard time trying to understand what was happening in this book because I was constantly confused about what was happening in this book. 

The beginning of this book was pretty interesting, but the further I got in this book the more boring and torturous this book got. Because it just became slower and slower and the plot just kept adding things without going anywhere. Which I personally hate when it happens, I prefer for the plots to straightforward and not get sidetracked every second page as this book kept doing.

The writing style has the whole old English from the early 1800s in it. Which I always find to be hard to understand and confusing. Which is the main reason why I hate this book so much as I do and why DNF-ed this book. 

The characters in this book were very bad and shallow. All of the characters in this book had no personalities or something that would make them unique or standout from the rest of the characters in this book.

The were plenty of stereotypes in this book, like the “bad guy” in this book, the main reason why he was the “bad guy” was because he was fat and thats that, we didn’t get any other reason why the “bad guy” was the “bad guy”.

This book has also very graphic violence scenes for absolutely no reason. 99% of this book tries very hard to be very appropriate for anyone to read but there is this 1% of this book where the violence scenes turn into something which Art the Clown would do in the Terrifier movies. 

I Give This Book 1 / 5

When Princess Reiyana unexpectedly presents as an Omega at age twenty, her future is no longer her own. Once a Beta with dreams of love and adventure, she is now a political prize—coveted by Alphas across the Nine Kingdoms.

I gotta admit that this book has taken me a while to finish because this book is entirely too long and has way too many descriptions in my opinion. 80% of this book is just descriptions of what is happening which had really made me uninterested, annoyed and bored of this book. 

The only reason why I have given this book a 2 star rating instead of a 1 star rating is because I really enjoyed the plot, and I think the plot had a lot of potential to be very good only if the descriptions were so long and huge as they were in this book. I found myself skipping paragraphs even pages because the descriptions were so long and boring in this book which is something I never do while reading a book.

The biggest issue I had with this book is the fact that the love triangle in this book is between the princess and two brothers, which made me pretty uncomfortable when during the spicy scenes in this book where the two brothers were sleeping with the princess at the same time. Which means that the romance theme of this book didn’t work for me at all, it only made it very uncomfortable for me personally because the 2 main guys in the love triangle in this book were brothers which I already mentioned.

But at the same time the romance aspect of this book felt very flat and lacked tension or chemistry between Princess Reiyana, Kaelin and Alarik. Which really made me question why I kept reading this book.

The characters in this book are a very mixed bag here. Because I found Princess Reiyana to be very annoying and frustrated. Because the entire book she was acting like a 10 year old throwing a tantrum just because her parents said “no” to her which didn’t make sense to me because Princess Reiyana is supposed to be 20 years old in this book so I was expecting her to be more mature than a 10 year old throwing a tantrum.

However I did like Kaelin and Alarik who are the two brothers which I mentioned above. There were times where Kaelin was annoying me a fair share during this book, because there were times where he acted like the consequences of this actions didn’t apply to him just because his father is the king and he is the heir to the throne. When it comes to Alarik was easily the best character in this book, I wish this book would spend more time on him because he was the best character in this book in m y opinion. 

The writing in this book was pretty simple and easygoing, which reminded me a lot of YA themed book rather than a fantasy book which this book claims to be on Goodreads. (Or at least it claims to be a “fantasy book” on Goodreads at the time of writing this review) 

The pacing in this book is very very slow, which makes this book very torturous to me personally because this book is over 600 pages long and at times it feels like this book would never end because the pacing of this book was so painfully slow. I personally think that this book would have been so much better if the pacing was faster which would make this book way shorter than 600 pages that it has. 

I Give This Book 2 / 5

There are only three things that matter to twelve-year-old Alice Alexis Queensmeadow: Mother, who wouldn’t miss her; magic and color, which seem to elude her; and Father, who always loved her. The day Father disappears from Ferenwood he takes nothing but a ruler with him. But it’s been almost three years since then, and Alice is determined to find him. She loves her father even more than she loves adventure, and she’s about to embark on one to find the other.

I gotta admit here that the only reason why I have read this book is because the bookstore worker I usually buy books at have recommended the book to me and I trusted her and its completely my fault for buying and trying to read this book even thou I didn’t knew anything about this book. And here we are with me about to give this book a very bad review which this book deserves fully. 

I had no expectations for this book because I didn’t knew anything about this book. But still I wasn’t prepared on how bad this book actually is. Because this book is ridiculously bad like very very bad. This book is so bad that it is easily the worst book I’ve read this year even thou we are in October and we still have over 2 months left of 2025.

This book is meant to be a fantasy book for middle schoolers and reading book as an adult wasn’t the best choice I could make. But I only found about this fact after I have bought this book. So if I already spent money on it, I would for sure read it. 

The plot of this book is the worst plot in a book I’ve seen all year and that says something looking at the fact of how many books and comic books I have read this year.

The plot of this book is about a little girl who wants to go on an adventure and her home life isn’t the best. But the way the plot is presented to us gave me the feeling like the plot was indeed created by a little girl who had no idea about how to make a coherent story.

The entire plot of this book is told in such a way like a 6-7 year old girl would tell a story. And by this I mean that the entire book goes something like this “the girl was walking home, she met on some stranger, she got scared and ran home sobbing” and thats pretty much how the entire book is narrated like. This narrative style never works for me personally it might work on middle schoolers or some other readers but every time I came over a narrative style like this one, it makes me immediately DNF the book and have nothing to do it after the review. 

The characters in this book are very very poorly made. From the first page of this book I hated the main character because she had no personality to her. Her entire personality was how different she looked from everyone else in the village. And I completely hate real life people and fictional character who make their entire personality based on their looks.

The main character in this book is so frustrating and annoying. Because her entire personality is about how different she is (based on her looks) from the other people in the village. Like she had absolutely no personality to her, she was just this shallow void of a character.

The rest of the characters in this book aren’t much better than the main character in this book. The side characters in this book are just as shallow and have none-existent personalities as the main character of this book.

I had a very hard time with the characters in this book because I couldn’t even hide my hate for them so much that I didn’t give a shit about them or their journeys throughout this book.

The writing style of this book is very clearly made for middle schoolers looking at the fact at how easy and simple the writing style is and how easy to understand the words used in this book are. Which again doesn’t make me be a fan of this book. Because the writing style is way too simple for my liking. 

I Give This Book 1 / 5

King Shrewd is dead at the hands of his son Regal. As is Fitz–or so his enemies and friends believe. But with the help of his allies and his beast magic, he emerges from the grave, deeply scarred in body and soul. The kingdom also teeters toward ruin: Regal has plundered and abandoned the capital, while the rightful heir, Prince Verity, is lost to his mad quest–perhaps to death. Only Verity’s return–or the heir his princess carries–can save the Six Duchies.

I need to admit here that I was never a big fan of this trilogy and after trying to read this book I needed to DNF it after reading 400 pages or so because I just couldn’t take it anymore. Im fully aware that this review might be very controversial because of how many people love this book and this trilogy and sadly am not one of those people. So if you are ready to get pretty controversial with me in this review then keep reading this review my dear reader.

I gotta admit that this book had the same problem which the previous 2 books had in this series. The problem that Im talking about here is that this book drags on and on without an end. At the same time the main character in this book goes on and on with complaining and whining about anything possible he could complain and whine about. Which really frustrated and annoyed me a lot because at times it seemed that all he could do is whine like a toddler throwing a tantrum. 

The plot itself in this book felt like the biggest melodrama I have every seen. Because the majority of the plot of this book is Fitz whining about everything that happens to him throughout this entire book. And in the end of this book I just couldn’t keep reading because of how bored and frustrated I was over this book.

The majority which happens in this book is Fitz going around and whining to everyone that would listen about how sad, depressing and annoying Fitz’s life is and what fucked up things have happened to him or is happening to him currently.

This book feels like it uses nearly 1000-pages to undo what have happened during the ending of book 2 in this series. Instead of this book moving forward from what have happened in the second book this book keeps going back to what happened in book 2 and trying to undo the entire second book of this series. 

The writing style in this book felt like the author herself wasn’t interested in giving us a good book with this book but instead she was more interested in the paycheck she would get from publishing and selling this book.

The writing style in this book felt a lot like the author telling us “this happened and then that happened and later this happened” which I found to be very boring and uninteresting. Because it was like the author of this book couldn’t bring herself to actually care about this third book at all.

I Give This Book 1 / 5

The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success — not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is. If Viv wants to put the blade behind her and make her plans a reality, she won’t be able to go it alone.

I gotta admit that the only reason why I have read this book is because this book has been showing a lot on my booktok feed and feel where saying how good and amazing this book is. So I decided to give this book a shot and I gotta admit that I really should stop reading those way overhyped book Tok books because they never work for me personally. 

The only thing which I liked about this book is the fact that it has the DnD-style fantasy vibe to it which I am a huge fan of. But the way the story is presented to us as readers I gotta admit that the author of this book didn’t use the potential which this book had.

The whole plot of this book is it is about Viv an orc which moves to a new city and decided to open a very early version of first ever coffee shop. I personally was very intrigued by this plot which made me read this book and after reading it I gotta admit that it wasn’t as good as I expected it to be.

The overall plot of this book aims to be a cozy and stress-free read. But even thou I tend to like cozy books I gotta admit that I didn’t like this book as much as I wanted to. The reason behind this is that the author of this book was trying almost too hard to make this book be cozy.

The action int this book is almost none-existed. Because this whole book is mostly about Viv opening a coffee shop even thou she has no idea how to run a business and she learned about it as she goes with the coffee shop. 

I personally found myself a lot of times to be very bored of this book or just skimming this book because the plot build the plot in such a way that any minute something might happen. But nothing ever happens in this book so basically I was waiting for something to happen for the entire book and nothing have happened which would make me like this book.

The writing style of this book is very simple and easy going. Which played very well with the cozy ish plot of this book. But other than that I gotta admit that at times I felt like the writing style in this book is too generic in a way. 

I personally feel that this book could have easily be a short story rather than 300 pages of just Viv making coffee and talking to be people about nothing. I feel like this book was entirely too long and that it could have been at maximum 100 pages long and it would only make this book better than it is now with 300 pages in which nothing really happens for the entire book other than making coffee and pastries.

The characters in this book are okay for the most part. I wasn’t a fan of the characters in this book. Because they felt like very generic fantasy characters. We didn’t learn much about the characters other than some glimpse into their backstories here and there throughout this book. 

There were times where the characters started to talk about their backstories but those times were quickly shut down by the character saying “oh well its not important anymore lets move on”. Which made me really annoyed because whats the point of bringing out the character’s backstory if you gonna shut it down after one paragraph or so? 

I Give This Book 2 / 5

Gwen has spent the past several years manning the blacksmith’s in place of her father, an open secret in the village in which she lives. A much more covert secret, however, is that she knows not only how to craft but also how to wield a sword, and an incognito stunt at the local jousting tournament manages to catch the eye of the wily Lady Isobelle. Isobelle has secret dreams too, but she’s been promised in marriage to the winner of the whole stupid tournament, which means an end to any freedom or choices for her. Desperate to avoid this fate, when she connects the newcomer knight to the female smithy she saw earlier that day, she begins to hatch a scheme.

I gotta admit here that I was very skeptical about this book before reading it because I thought it was one of those overhyped books which I personally would hate. But I gotta admit that I really like this book. So if you are interested in hearing my thoughts about this book then keep reading this review.

The characters in this book were amazing. I personally liked a lot both Isobelle and Gwen because they had a lot of personalities to them which makes them stand out from the rest of the characters in this book. 

Both Isobelle and Gwen had something to them that made them feel like real human beings which I wouldn’t have any problems being friends with in real life. Which always makes me give the book extra points for when it happens.

However we don’t learn much about of Isobelle and Gwen’s backstory other than some key aspects which are relevant for the plot of this book. Which in a way didn’t make this book to this very long list of requirements to keep track of who is who in this book.

The romance aspect of this book was very slow but at the same time it was also pretty sweet and cozy which I liked a lot in this book because it really played very well together with the overall plot of this book. 

The plot in this book was very fun, interesting, enjoyable and cozy. This book is overall a typical fantasy book because it was knights, sword fighting and dragons. And the main character in this book is a female character which in a way made this book more relatable for me personally. 

The plot in this book has also some humor in it, which at times makes the anticipation  and tension in this book less tense at times. Which in a way helps this book to make it a relaxing read.

The writing style in this book is very typical to YA books. Which means that the writing style is very easy going and straightforward. The writing style which this book has goes very well with the plot of this book which in my opinion makes this book more enjoyable and easy to have fun with.

I need to admit that this book doesn’t quite feel like fantasy book until the very end of this book. Because this book has the historical fiction ish vibe to it. Which in my opinion is the only bad thing I can say about this book. I am not a huge fan of historical fiction books which means that I didn’t like the historical fiction ish vibe this book had which made me give this book 4 stars instead of 5.

I personally had a lot of fun reading this book because the plot is very cozy in this book and the characters in this book are very well created which makes them feel more likable and more relatable. At the same time the plot in this book doesn’t require a lot of brain power to it which means this is a perfect read when you just want to enjoy yourself without thinking a lot about what is happening.

I Give This Book 4 / 5