⭐⭐

Reviews from 2018 & 2020

UPDATED REVIEW:

Please someone remind me not to do this to myself again. I did not enjoy it the first time and I still didn't enjoy it the second time.

I decided to reread Furyborn because I bought Kingsbane when it came out and still haven't read it. I don't care if I don't remember Furyborn or Kingsbane when the last book comes out. I am not doing this again.

I don't like Rielle or Eliana. Or Audric who did not feel like he had much personally to me. See my old review for my thoughts on the characters. That hasn't really changed.

I'm hoping that I can have some questions answered when I read the second one: like why is everyone obsessed with the two main characters? Yeah they have powers. Yeah they're women. But what makes Rielle so great to Audric? What makes Eliana so great to Simon (this is what I got the most problem with by the way. Audric has known Rielle since they were children. That's mostly fine, but I would like some more connection between the two of them).

And boy! Let me just say the romance in this book got to me. I will admit something before I finish this though: I consider myself asexual. Sex scenes make me uncomfortable and make me roll my eyes and this one did just that. I felt like I was reading a Maas sex scene again and I was not happy with it.

Furyborn, overall, could be a novel that someone other than me might like. The idea is interesting, but there's a lot I still didn't like about it. Oh well. At least I gave it another try.

2018 REVIEW:

I've waited four days or so to write this, kinda debating about even writing a review. I normally don't even write reviews unless I really enjoy something. But this doesn't even fall into that.

I picked up Furyborn while at Wal-Mart earlier that week. The cover is really pretty and I loved the idea. Two characters years apart connected somehow? It sounded wonderful. It was kinda neat that it was 1,020 years later, but after a while I didn't understand. How the heck can these two characters be in the same prophecy if they lived so long after each other?

My favorite character ended up being Simon. I love characters with that name like Simon Lewis from City of Bones and Simon Snow from Carry On. So I expected Simon to be my favorite the whole book. I loved him during the Prologue. And I got so excited when he met Rielle later on in her story. But I didn't get him during Eliana's part. He hated Rielle during the Prologue. What happened during the years Eliana grew up that made him change his whole perspective on the world? What made him so obsessed with Eliana? From the first time they met he basically worshiped her. Which made no sense to me and totally made me dislike his character after a while. He felt like he was mostly just there for another future love interest. At least there was some reason as to why both Rielle and Eliana were 1,020 years apart from each other. I also don't get Eliana and Simon's age difference. It didn't seem like there was one from how they interacted, but I thought he was like ten when she was born. Wouldn't that mean he's like ten years older than her? But he seemed like a teen the whole time.

And then I got issues with our other love interest: Audric. What is his deal? What does he like about Rielle? I don't like much of anything if anything about her. She's overpowered and thinks too highly of herself. The way Audric acts around Rielle kinda reminds me of the relationship that developed in The Silver Mask. Callum Hunt shows several times that he likes Tamara Rajavi, but there is no proof she likes him up to the Silver Mask. All of a sudden she makes Call feel dumb because she seems to think her feelings were easy to see. And that's the same thing as Audric. I had no idea that he liked Rielle until he was making out with her. And I love Tamara a lot more than I love Audric. I don't see much character development from him. He just kinda reminds me of just a love interest.

So what did I like about the book? Not sure. I finished the book pretty quickly for not liking the characters very much. It took me less time to finish Furyborn than A Court of Frost and Starlight which was a lot shorter. So I guess I liked it better than ACOTAR, which I'm not a huge fan of. I liked the time jump and the idea of two characters connected across time. But other than that there's not much I liked. Simon accidentally sending them forward in time made sense. He was super young at the time, so it made sense.

But the book could have been so much better. And it was kinda disappointing.

⭐

Review from when I read this in 2022

Not done as of October 4, 2022 at 10am

Finished October 4, 2022 at 8PM

I. hate. this. book.

Oh my gosh.

Earlier today, I wrote a smallish review cause I needed to get my thoughts out. Now that I'm finally finished (8PM October 4th), I'm gonna write this out better.

This is still one of my least favorite books I've read this year and let me tell you why.

Firstly, Aurora didn't get any better than when I originally wrote some of my thoughts out. She's still whiny and full of herself. There are times when the author tries to show she has grown as a person and tries to majorly show that at the end of the novel, but it doesn't honestly feel right at all. The character development in the novel is like a rollercoaster: up and down (mostly downs though) throughout the whole novel. We're supposed to want to root for Aurora, but instead having her as the main character drags the novel even further on. And I know that she is supposed to be sixteen and gets older in her dreams as the novel goes on, but she does not mature until she wakes up, which makes her character seem completely different.

Additionally, Aurora discovers that she can wish for things to appear pretty early on in the novel. The concept of dream worlds and dreamers is a neat concept, but Aurora does not develop this skill until almost the very end of the novel (if you like the dreamer concept, please try The Raven Boys instead). And the use of time is not used well either as it only seems to change when the story needs it to. (to be honest, that happens with other things too. Super annoying) I should be able to tell you how the dreamworld works, but I barely can tell you anything about it, other than it's Aurora's and time runs slower somehow) Powers could be a good aspect of Aurora's dreamworld, but she does not develop them in a timely matter. That is one of the main issues of this novel: certain things drag on when they shouldn't while other ideas seem to be cut short.

Her relationship with Philip isn't good either. And while I'm on the subject, his character sucks as well. Once again, no character development. He's just a character who is there to tell Aurora that she is loved and worth something. Braswell tries to give him character development through flaws and through a scene where there are two of him, but because there is no romantic (or even platonic) development between the two characters, the relationship seems flat and boring. There is no proof that Philip loves her or that Aurora loves/comes to love him back. Which I understand was some of the point of the novel (love at first sight isn't a great thing and you need to get to know someone instead of just deciding you love them), the way this novel went about it wasn't great. They had random arguments about them being in love with each other before the story begins. And the arguments seem out of nowhere; they are also almost all from Aurora's side as well. Philip is not a part of her imagination either, which kinda sucks due to his lack of character traits. Neither character learns much of anything about themselves and each other.

Okay I'm gonna get a little more annoyed here:

The main reason I read this book was to figure out if it should be middle grade or young adult in my school's library. There is no reason for novels that are in the middle to use certain terms like rapist, especially since they're tossed randomly in the novel. Like really dude? Why did you think that was necessary, even if you were writing for the novel to be directed at young adults?? I mean, I'm glad it was easy to tell which category it should be in, but still there was no need for that. Especially when there are not even any romantic scenes in the book (other than cheek kisses and one mouth kiss at the end) and nothing like that happened to Aurora throughout the novel. Young adult novels do not need to be vulgar to be good. Especially when they are about a topic that interests younger audiences.

So to conclude, the characters suck and it took me way to long to finish.

I need to nap forever after reading this.

(Small thoughts from earlier)

I needed to get some of my thoughts out.

This is currently one of my least favorite books I have read this year.

Firstly, I hate Aurora. She's whiny and full of herself, even though the author tries to persuade you that she is not. Philip even directly mentions that she is not in one quote, even though some of her most inner thoughts are the worst.

I know that Aurora is supposed to be younger, but I think she comes off as way to young. And when she finally realizes she can manipulate her surroundings because they are in her dream, she does nothing to practice this ability or discover what she can do. It would be nice if her abilities actually were throughout her journey, especially since it's neat that she can manipulate everything around her.

Additionally, all he seems to be there for is to tell her she is loved and try to put different characteristics on Aurora that he wouldn't even truly know she has.

⭐⭐ & 1/2

The anime is so much better. I feel like a lot of character introductions happened much faster than in the anime. Additionally, we get more information as to what is truly going on in the anime than in the manga. I also wonder why they changed Miss Edel's design so drastically.

⭐⭐

I'm done making myself suffer. Why the heck is Yuki's child in love with Zero?? Like I know kids have crushes on adults sometimes, but this felt like it was pushing toward the two of them being together eventually. Glad that it seemed to change though. This series just keeps getting crazier.

⭐⭐ & 1/2

I hate that vampires can be pregnant for 4-5 years. That's insane.