The entire time I was reading this book I couldn't stop thinking about how this reads like it was written by a man, I knew it deep in my bones... and The entire time I was reading this book I couldn't stop thinking about how this reads like it was written by a man, I knew it deep in my bones... and I was correct....more
This is your not so friendly reminder to not take book recommendations from those transition or slideshow BookTok videos that show an out of context sThis is your not so friendly reminder to not take book recommendations from those transition or slideshow BookTok videos that show an out of context snippet from a book, making it seem like the best thing since sliced bread. Do not fall for their lies....more
This book was boring and unimaginative. Every cute or happy moment filled me with unexplainable rage. And I refuse to be gaslighted into believing thaThis book was boring and unimaginative. Every cute or happy moment filled me with unexplainable rage. And I refuse to be gaslighted into believing that Lina, a 5'4 female, is like the epitome of being short and tiny, when she's literally average height....more
This book was actually ✨horrendous✨. I feel duped. I feel cheated. I did not get what I was promised. And quite frankly, I am frankly in ~ 0.5 stars ~
This book was actually ✨horrendous✨. I feel duped. I feel cheated. I did not get what I was promised. And quite frankly, I am frankly in anger. I am frankly in disgust. I am frankly in disappoinment. I am anything but frankly in love.
This book, on the surface seems amazing. Fake dating trope? Yes please. Own voices Korean-American book? Amazing. Discussions on interracial and intercultural relationships? Sign me up!
But it fell flat on absolutely everything. It didn't deliver at all. I was simultaneously fuming from anger and cringing from second hand embarrassment through the entirety of this.
*** This is a rant, so beware of unmarked spoilers ***
When I started this book, I was confused. Frank Li, who is Korean American and in his senior year of high school, is torn between his identities. His parents, are racist and if he were to ever date or be with someone who isn't Korean, they would disown him like they did for his older sister Hannah, who married a Black man.
When Frank falls in love with Brittney (I think that's her name?) who is White, he obviously faces complications. In order to minimize them, him and his friend, Joy, who is also in a forbidden relationship with her Chinese boyfriend, decide to fake date. Their parents want them together, and because they are fulfilling that wish, they have been given more freedom.
Now see, here is the problem. Typically with the fake dating trope, the fake daters end up together. But this book is meant to discuss interracial relationships? Which I was so excited for. It is not often that this is discussed, even though there is a problem and stigma around being with someone outside of your own culture, ethnicity, race, etc. that is prevalent in our society. Especially since it was talking about it from the perspective of a non-white immigrant family. That adds some extra depth to it.
I thought Brittany was going to have an important role in this book. That Frank would stand up to his parents and have that difficult discussion. That after a lot of chaos, love would prevail. But her and Frank broke up less than halfway through the book. And then after that, she just faded to the back and was forgotten. His parents never found out and he went on with life. He cheated on her with Joy and they got together officially. The slow burn was non-existent in both relationships. Now don't get me wrong, Joy and Frank had much better chemistry, but why was that plotline abandoned so easily? That was what the synopsis promised, yet for the majority of the book, it disregarded that aspect. It put minimal effort into fully presenting that important discussion.
And even then, the fake daters don't actually end up together. They part on mutual terms in the end?? I did not sign up for this bs. I want a HEA. Not a kinda happy maybe not ever after. This book tried to take on so many things at the same time, and failed miserably at it all. It was one big mess.
Now as far as the characters go, I hated them all. So much. Frank was selfish and irritating as hell. He kept on saying the most out of pocket stuff. Brit was annoying and it kept on praising her for doing the bare minimum as an ally. Joy, while my favorite in this book, was underdeveloped and I didn't really care for her. Q was just kind of there. He's Frank's best friend, but also in love with him, BECAUSE OF COURSE EVERYONE HAS TO BE IN LOVE WITH FRANK.
And don't even get me started on the writing. I did not like it. It was mediocre and on top of everything, it felt so forced. It was so out of touch with how younger people talk and behave. It was painful. I was cringing inside out. And to make matters worse, I listened to the audiobook.
More out of pocket stuff in this book:
• Frank sucking on Brit's hair. • "but Brit's not like other kids" • Q squeezing Frank's toes • We finish each other's sandwiches joke. • Brit's dad calling Frank "All-American" • A coffee shop names Mocha Dick as a play on Moby Dick. • "THIS IS FOR JOY" • "I stole her, she stole me, we stole each other." as a response to being confronted about cheating. • Formal Shakespearen-esque dialogue being constantly used to the point that it is no longer funny or ironic. • Frank doing an "air shake" instead of actually shaking hands with, his name twin. Goes on to describe it as him vigorously masturbating the gap between them. • Joy growling at the sky. • idk, everything else I guess. Front to back, there was nothing that didn't pain me.
Final thoughts: So overall, this book was bad. The idea was there, but the execution was not great. The plot sucked. The characters sucked. I will not say that the writing sucked, because I don't want to be rude, but it certainly wasn't great. So I do not recommend. PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS DISASTER OF A BOOK.
Buddy read with lovely human! Thank you for suffering with me. <3...more
The fact that the word "Laa" was repeated about 84 times is enough reason to dislike this book alone.
I thought that the first book was o~ 1.5 stars ~
The fact that the word "Laa" was repeated about 84 times is enough reason to dislike this book alone.
I thought that the first book was okay for the most part. Like it was a solid 3 stars, which I just judged on potential, but A LOT annoyed me. This book unfortunately annoyed me even more.
Not only was there an unfathomable amount of repetition, but the sense of humor was absolutely painful. It was very immature if you ask me. There were constant sexual jokes and innuendo, and it wasn't funny, whity, or refreshing. It was annoying. This is a YA book, and regardless of that fact, even if it were an adult book, having that much of something becomes tiresome. It's lazy and effortless humor and the constancy made me so disconnected from the book. And besides, the only people who would laugh at those jokes over and over and over and over again, are middle school boys, therefore, it is invalid in my eyes.
The characters all felt like wasted potential. No real character development. The angsty became more angsty and the annoying became more annoying. The ending also felt unsatisfactory. Very anticlimactic. A lot of subplots were not dealt with well and what was promised or heavily hinted at, was not gone through with and left unresolved. And there were worthless deaths, which is a no for me.
The romance made me miserable. Genuinely. There was no actual bonding and relationship development between Nasir and Zafira. The foundation of their relationship is non-existent. Just a lot of miscommunication, weird tension that doesn't even feel romantic, just uncomfortable, and also a few make out seshes sprinkled in to legitimize that they are in fact in love even though they barely know each other. Their whole relationship was cringe to be honest.
It also seemed to be hinting at a possible future romance between one of the characters, and the character who AcCiDeNtALlY murdered their brother… Anyways… I didn't like that. The whole subplot of that one person being murdered in the first book and how that was dealt with was super weird to begin with anyways, so why was it all complicated even further?
Overall I did not like this book. I was bored and irritated and I am still confused about how the crown Prince and rightful Sultan can only be worth 1000 breads. I'm still open to reading more of this author's works, and despite having a not so great experience with duology, I am still willing to give Faizal another try....more
Was this book better than the one previous? Was it worse? Have I lost my sense of judgment? We will never know. But because of that train~ 1.5 stars ~
Was this book better than the one previous? Was it worse? Have I lost my sense of judgment? We will never know. But because of that train wreck of an ending, I’m going to dock points off and move on. I thought that first off, the plot was more put together in this one, and stuff actually happened, not that I actually liked what happened, but unlike the last book, at least not everything was a never ending rising action.
I have also gained some appreciation for Billy and Arisone, because the standards to what makes a good character is annoyingly low. I mean compared to Jos*ph, Blond Boy #1, Blond Boy #2, Katharine, and Human Garbage Sr., those two are saints.
Now onto all the things I despised. If this turns into an incoherent I sincerely apologize, I didn’t get to rant about One Dark Crown, because it drained too much of my mental energy to do so, and it’s time to release all the buried anger.
Buddy reading this series with human because I suppose we have nothing better to do? Big thanks to her for spamming me with memes and gifs which kept me going. Here is her REVIEW.
This review will contain spoilers and will also be structured differently than usual to accommodate for the rambaling. It's also really long, so sorry for that too.
Katherine and her team of blond lackies
Katherine becomes some possessed sinister queen after being y e e t e d into the Breccia Domain, which is the dead queen's grave, by her supposed love interest, and is now out for revenge. But her turning to the dark side after being some pathetic weak loser queen is not as satisfactory as you would think. Yes, finally, we have some bloodshed, that’s what I’ve been waiting for. But we don’t even know the specifics of what truly happened, and in what way that affected Katharine, and why that is so. There are so many plot holes and things I simply do not understand, and that would be totally okay considering this is only book 2/4 in the series, except it just keeps on adding on to it. More things that go unexplained.
She gets crowned, after Arisone and Mirabella and revealed to be in cahoots and both openly announce that they will not kill each other, so the priestesses sell Mirabella out, and they are both scheduled for execution, making Katharine the queen. She chooses Nicolas as her king consort, and when she sleeps with him, it kills him, and he dies of poisoning. And everyone has come to the conclusion that she is “poison”, which I don’t understand why that is the only explanation and how they came to that conclusion. Once again the plot holes keep on adding up. What this thing entails is that no non-poisoner can “lay with her” or touch her in general, which also means she will never be able to have the next generation of queens. Which I guess solves Love Triangle #1.
Yup, I suppose the easiest (and stupidest) way to solve one is just kill off one of the love interests, and make it so the second one is part of the select few which can touch her. How painfully convenient. It’s not like that same love interest tried to kill her.
Which brings me to that love interest, Pietyr. First off, the way his name is spelled annoys me, but that’s besides the point. He threw Katharine in the Breccia Domain, because he didn’t want the priestesses to kill her. So to solve that problem. . . he attempted to kill her. Don’t you love the logic? And once she kills Nicolas with her touch, he says that she is now more precious to him than ever before. And throughout this all, we are supposed to believe that he is in love with her.
Not that Nicolas is any better. Him and Pietyr and too similar to be distinguishable. They both are possessive, power hungry, and love Katharine for questionable reasons. The only difference is that one of them has blond hair in a lighter shade than the other.
And that choosing of Nicolas also leads to another unfortunate death. Notice how they will just continue to add up. Human Garbage Sr., aka William Chatworth Sr., as in Billy’s abusive father, gets mad at Natalie, Katharine’s foster mother, because they had a deal that she would choose Billy to be her king consort. She doesn’t, so he gets drunk, goes to Natalie’s room, loses his temper, and chokes her to death. One of the head priestesses (Ro?) find him after he has killed her, and then kills him by stabbing him with a knife. They wrap him in a carpet and toss him out.
So now the leader of the Arrons is dead, leaving her. . .also abusive sister Genevieve in charge. But they all have no idea how to hide the fact that the king consort is dead, and that Katharine is cursed, kinda like this book, so that will probably serve as one of our problems in the next book.
Arisone’s Speshul Squad
Where do I start with this one? Arisone is not actually a naturalist, she’s a poisoner, which I think also makes you an absolute idiot, because for some reason it took them an entire book to make the connection that Katharine might be a naturalist. So she’s obviously stoked, because she’s not a complete failure. No offense, but isn’t like being a poisoner littelry the lamest power ever. All they can do is eat poison. And poisoning other people isn’t special, because anyone can do that. So how it is that this specific gift has ruled for generations is beyond me. But that serves as a protection and advantage as only a handful of people know. So when Katharine shoots her in the back with an poisoned arrow (shame it wasn’t a knife, because than she could have responded with “Et tu, Brute?”) she doesn’t die. When Katharine comes back to kill her a second time by making her swallow poison, she doesn’t die.
When Katharine tried to kill her her first time, Jules ends up swooping in, saving the day once again, and taking her presumably dead body to The Black Cottage, where the queens are raised, and where her aunt, Caragh now resides due a banishment. We find out the switching of the queens is purposeful. We also get an awkward reunion with Caragh and Jules' mom Madrigal. Because Madrigal is now with Caragh’s husband/finance/lover (I have no idea what they are, but before her banishment they were together and everyone considers them endgame or something). She is also pregnant with his child, and may or may not be keeping him around with low magic, which is like magic for pathetic people who can’t do real magic, but in this case, Madrigal, uses it to control things and extra power. So yay, another love triangle, except for it’s with old people. That same low magic has tied Arisone, to a bear, as a fake familiar. So she Arisone alos has that to her advantage.
But here is where the real specialness comes into play, Jules’ who we didn’t think could get anymore so, does. Because of the circumstances she was born in, she was born legion cursed. Meaning she has two gifts, one of them, along with her super powerful naturalist abilities, is that she is war gifted. Legion Borns must be drowned at birth because they are too unstable, but Jules’ family decided to bound her gift, so that no one would know, including herslef. But that spell has become weakened. So now Jules, being a runaway and criminal, her existence breaking the law, decides she might as well use this to her advantage. There is a final duel between Katharine and Mirabella (the challenger) to determine the true queen. This duel is to the death, and has been made into a big event. They decide to sneak in, and use her gift to help Mirabella win, and to guide all of Katharine’s knife throws away.
Honestly, I just think everything is just so painfully convenient it hurts. And as much as I hate Jules speshul, at least she isn’t useless *glares at Joseph*. First off, I absolutely hate him for obvious reasons. But he literally does nothing the entire book other than being a tag along. He is a naturalist, yet for some reason doesn’t have a gift, and why that is so is never mentioned. And we get a lackluster redemption for him, where we are led to believe that he cheated on Jules because of some spell gone wrong. But then he confesses that he cheated because he wanted to, and by his own free will, which yeah, we already knew, but which one is it? And is him confessing to being the equivalent to gum being stuck on the bottom of your shoe, is supposed to make us like him? Were we supposed to like him to start with? Was he written to be likable? Or was he just a throw away? Regardless, Jose*ph can die for all i ca- wait a minute, HE DOES DIE! More on that later.
Now onto Billy. When he thought that Arisone was dead, he teamed up with Mirabella and became her king consort in hopes of taking down Katharine, so at least he tried you know. Not that he accomplished anything by doing so, other than defiance to his father.
Mirabella and her unimportant and useless allies
Mirabella has to be the most disappointing character in this entire series. I mean, she has the coolest gift, she controls all the elements, yet acts like a whimpering useless child. There is no way Katharine could have stood in her way. She was raised to kill her sisters, but can’t follow through because she’s sentimental or whatever. Wouldn’t it be so cool, if she wasn’t so pathetic? And imagine falling for Joseph. Pathetic. So much could have been done with her character, instead we got whatever this is.
And we have like a bunch of people who are supporting her throughout this, but literally serve no purpose. Elizabeth and Bree, and all the Westwoods. And of course there are the priestesses, who think the sun rises and sets on her. But when the time comes to step up, and she doesn’t, they give her up for execution, for a few seats on the council. So much for loyalty. Mirabella is serving us nothing, and therefore she has become sort of like a side character in this book.
A catastrophic ending
Mirabella, Arisone, Billy, Jules, and Joseph, with the help of the war gifted group, are able to escape prison and their executions, and run off to the mainland. The only time Mirabella is useful, as she is able to guide them through.
But, solution to Love Triangle #3, is that Joseph is injured. The entire time we are told that he is okay, and that the wound is minor, but the second they arrive at the mainland, after some throwup worthy exchanges between Jules and Joseph, he dies. He just dies. And everyone is so weirdly chill about it. Like “crap, he’s dead, guess we got to throw him a funeral now?” type chill. No grieving. He wasn’t worth the tears anyways, but that’s besides the point. WHY DID SO MANY PEOPLE JUST DIE? Repeat after me: “Killing a bunch of people for shock value doesn’t make up for the lackluster plot”. So the solution to the Mirabella, Jospeph, Jules loves triangle is killing the common denominator. Also two suitors died, and so did a priestess, for no reason at all, just to add on to the death count I guess.
And then Jules gets sudden dementia and forgets that she left the islands to protect Arisone, and decides that she wants to go back. She ditches them without warning, and goes back to live with the other war gifted people as they will take her in, with a lame “protect her for me” sendoff. And then the story ends. Three days of my life wasted only for an unsatisfactory ending. Love that.
Final Thoughts: This book is just one plot hole but I don't know why I expected things to make sense to begin with. The next two books have some serious explaining to do. I’ve also heard “Legion Queen” be said, when I spoiled stuff for myself, and I’m going to pretend like I don’t see it. This whole book was lackluster and did a lot of annoying things, but onto the next book!
This book was pure trash. It's just. . . NO. I don't know who thought some of the stuff in this book was a good idea. It's arguably just as ~ 1 star ~
This book was pure trash. It's just. . . NO. I don't know who thought some of the stuff in this book was a good idea. It's arguably just as bad as The Elite, maybe even worse depending on what angle you look at it from. I was going to read the novellas for the sake of it and maybe even the two other books following their demon spawn child, but I'm done with this series. It was an experience, and I don't regret it, but I have so many books I want to read, and I would rather spend it on books I think are good.
This book did that one thing where it just kills everyone for no reason in the finale, which I hated. It didn't properly talk about or address the fact that the King pysically abuses and harms Maxon just as I predicted. It was just used as a plot device, which is not great.
America was annoying as ever, same with Aspen. The drama was pitiful and tiering. The writing and dialogue was cheesy and cringey. The plot and world-building is yet again not satisfying, and close to non-existent.
The way it dealt with the rebels was unsatisfactory and abrupt, and way too easy. Maybe this books should have just stuck to the romance and "The Bachelor" aspect of this instead of trying to do something it couldn't achieve.
I was promised character development for Celeste, but that is not what development entails. It was so lame, she's still shallow and her motives do not make her any more lovable or better. It just confirms what America has been complaining about the past 2 books.
The love triangle will be the death of me, but I guess I have that in common with the all the characters that simply died for no reason. This book basically says that cheating on your significant other is fine, because love can overcome even that. And then the book ended, everyone is happy, Maxon and America are married, yay, end of story. Thanks for the torture.
I want to pay homage to the best part of this experience, which is all the nicknames for Aspen:
Honestly, I'm just done with these wannabe-dystopian books. I've even made a shelf dedicated to just that. This series wasn't my taste, and I think it just made me dumber than I already am.
Audiobook Review:
I chose this mindlessly because I needed an audiobook for the ride to the beach. It wasn't my favorite. Everything was said seductively and with a bit of a sigh, plus it made the cheesy writing shine. Turns out having it read to me, gives me more second hand embarrassment than reading with my eyes. But otherwise I think it is okay. Not much to say here....more
This book was really, very, absolutely, immensely, excruciatingly, annoyingly, excessively bad. But it was short enough, and uncomplicated e~ 1 star ~
This book was really, very, absolutely, immensely, excruciatingly, annoyingly, excessively bad. But it was short enough, and uncomplicated enough, for me to keep it at a solid 1 star rating. Congrats.
~ What I hated ~
• Girl on Girl Hate: Just no. I don't understand this. The only girl that really had a personality besides America in the Selection was Celeste. But she had such a villanized and stereotypical role to make America look better. America may be dumb and terrible bUt aT lEaSt She'S nOt As bAd As CeLeStE. Which was literally said in the book.
• The Love Triangle: Terrible per usual. Aspirin is only there to further complicate things, but He'S hEr FiRsT LoVe, so America, being the idiot she is, after seeing the punishment Marlee got for being involved with someone else, is still persistent on sneaking around with him and continuing their relations. The entire time, Maxon is reassuring her that he wants to be with her. But at any minor inconvenience, she runs into Asparagus' arms, the two of them talk about how terrible Maxon is, and then the next day everything is back to normal. It was just a headache, and America needs to stop being so indisisive and annoying.
• Writing: Repetitive.
• Plot: What? Is? Going? On?
• World-Building: Boring and weak. We got some, but it was confusing. I still have no idea what the whole thing with the rebels is. What they want, what they are there for, why they let America go? They are just there to make it seem like there is something important going on.
• Characters: I don't care for most of them. Nay, I don't care for any of them.
Aspen Tree is toxic and manipulative. Imagine being so deranged that when someone rejects you, you take that as a challenge? Like no.
Let's not romanticize that stuff, when in reality, that type of behavior can be actually dangerous. People do this not because their confident or determined, but because they are entitled to something that isn't theirs and that's DANGEROUS BEHAVIOR. The demographic is young teen girls from what I gather, but just in general, no matter what the gender or age of the reader is, this still isn't something that you should portray in such a light.
America is annoying, indisisive, judge-y and hypocritical. She will run around with Asteroid,!but if Maxon even shows any interest in the other girls, which is the whole point of the competition, and she knows that, she throws a fit and lectures him about trust. Just shut up please. Your the one that's cheating.
Maxon, who is my favorite character in this book, but the bar is so low. It's in the gutters really. The fact that instead of sending Celeste home, he is "using her" just as she is using him, is so immature and messed up. Definitely not someone you don't want to run the country.
The other characters and the side characters aren't even important at this point. There is like one POC character, and I thought the way she was portrayed terribly. I have a feeling that Celeste is going to have a bigger role later, but I guess I just have to wait. Still don't like her.
• ***TW/CW***: physical abuse by parent
Oh my God, did I hate this. Using abuse as a plot device to push two character together is terrible. Okay we get it, the King sucks, but to further prove your point you had to add this?
It's a serious and sensitive topic that is just brushed to the side. And how much do you want to bet that the next book isn't going to address it? (Edit: I was right. It doesn't). It's not something you should just add in the further complicate the "conflict". Either deal with it in a sensitive way, or don't add it in. I would rather this book just stuck with the lackey rebel plotline.
I don't have the authority to determine if this topic was handled right or wrong, but it just rubbed me the wrong way.
~ Final thoughts: This book was terrible. I've heard and seen that a lot of people think The One is the best in the series, so I'm looking forward to that. And to be done with this series. I couldn't care less about their demon kids, so I don't think I will be reading the second part of the series. Just please, less of Asphalt (Credit) would be great. Stop the girl on girl hate, and give Celeste some layers instead of keeping her shallow as she is now....more
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