This book felt like an endless cycle of every keystone of a poorly-written romantasy. The main character, Aris, makes an irrational decision and stumbles upon a new misfortune that she escapes by the skin of her teeth—all while reminding us of how very smol and petite and malnourished and sleep-deprived she is. The male lead, Raker, threatens to kill her, then saves her life, then broodily ignores her while they trudge on in their quest. Rinse, wash, repeat. And don’t forget the “Dragon Ex Machina” that spends .2 seconds on the page saving Aris and then being sent away immediately after and countless flat side characters that seemingly only exist to torture Aris with their untimely deaths.

The most egregious sin of this book, though, is how jarringly brief and anticlimactic the conclusion is in the face of the sheer repetitiveness it took to get there. Aris spends her entire life dreaming of killing the goddess that burned down and killed her whole family. She trains for years and spends the whole book on a quest to obtain a cup of magic and bring herself closer to said goddess. But it only takes her two seconds to get said magic cup, and her confrontation with the goddess??? I am LITERALLY not even exaggerating when I tell you Aris’s sex scene with Raker is easily triple the length of the entire scene with the goddess she’s spent her entire life training to kill. This was her entire driving motivation the entire book, and they exchanged a few words before Aris ordered her dragon to eat the goddess. If dragons can just SWALLOW GODS ON COMMAND, WHY IS EVERYONE SO AFRAID OF THEM?

And before I close out this review, I need to let it be known that the virginal main character simply gives Raker the ol’ “we should bang because we’re gonna die tomorrow”, they smolder at each other, and then he’s like, “bend over.” Aris was shocked at the brevity, I was shocked at the brevity, we were both shocked at the brevity. And then without any further deliberation OR FOREPLAY, HE IMMEDIATELY STARTS GOING TO TOWN ON HER AND I’M SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE HE’S GREAT AT SEX.

Anyways, my dedication to being a hater is the one reason I didn’t DNF, and the very final plot twist is the only reason this isn’t one star. Readers beware.

This book felt like an endless cycle of every keystone of a poorly-written romantasy. The main character, Aris, makes an irrational decision and stumbles upon a new misfortune that she escapes by the skin of her teeth—all while reminding us of how very smol and petite and malnourished and sleep-deprived she is. The male lead, Raker, threatens to kill her, then saves her life, then broodily ignores her while they trudge on in their quest. Rinse, wash, repeat. And don’t forget the “Dragon Ex Machina” that spends .2 seconds on the page saving Aris and then being sent away immediately after and countless flat side characters that seemingly only exist to torture Aris with their untimely deaths.

The most egregious sin of this book, though, is how jarringly brief and anticlimactic the conclusion is in the face of the sheer repetitiveness it took to get there. Aris spends her entire life dreaming of killing the goddess that burned down and killed her whole family. She trains for years and spends the whole book on a quest to obtain a cup of magic and bring herself closer to said goddess. But it only takes her two seconds to get said magic cup, and her confrontation with the goddess??? I am LITERALLY not even exaggerating when I tell you Aris’s sex scene with Raker is easily triple the length of the entire scene with the goddess she’s spent her entire life training to kill. This was her entire driving motivation the entire book, and they exchanged a few words before Aris ordered her dragon to eat the goddess. If dragons can just SWALLOW GODS ON COMMAND, WHY IS EVERYONE SO AFRAID OF THEM?

And before I close out this review, I need to let it be known that the virginal main character simply gives Raker the ol’ “we should bang because we’re gonna die tomorrow”, they smolder at each other, and then he’s like, “bend over.” Aris was shocked at the brevity, I was shocked at the brevity, we were both shocked at the brevity. And then without any further deliberation OR FOREPLAY, HE IMMEDIATELY STARTS GOING TO TOWN ON HER AND I’M SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE HE’S GREAT AT SEX.

Anyways, my dedication to being a hater is the one reason I didn’t DNF, and the very final plot twist is the only reason this isn’t one star. Readers beware.