This is a post series I’ve been thinking about starting for a long time. I used to be the most stubborn person when it came to reading so I’d force myself to finish everything. I don’t do this as often now, but there are definitely quite a few books I feel like I should have DNF’d – hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?
Quick note: There’s no reason for me to include photos of these books in this post as I don’t usually do so in my more ‘negative’ posts, but if I have photos I might as well use them.
A Queen of Ice by Elise Kova
My dislike for this book has created a few new post series, both of which are not very positive. It honestly broke my heart to not like this book. I’ve loved every single book in this series but this one just was not it. Loving the rest of the series is the only reason why I didn’t DNF this in the first place. The previous instalment started out slow but I loved it in the end, so I held out hope for this one. Plus as it was the last in the series I needed to see it through to the end.
The way that Eira’s character changed during the course of this book is one of the biggest reasons why I didn’t like it. I’m all for empowering women and I was even fine with her becoming more morally grey, I actually liked it. But something was very off with her in the final instalment.
The love triangle also didn’t help. It didn’t need to go on for three books just for it to end in the way I expected. It was actually the choice I was hoping for but it didn’t feel satisfying in the slightest. In the end, Eira didn’t deserve him. I also hate what his character (unnamed because of spoilers) became. A complete doormat.
I don’t think I’ll ever be over this book.
Synopsis: A pirate doesn’t ask…they take.
Ravaged by grief and driven to the brink, Eira and her crew are caught at the heart of a … Five kingdoms on the verge of war… An empire poised to crush them all… A pirate queen terrorizing the seas… And a madman, the architect of every shattered dream, broken heart, and spilled blood. He is on the verge of achieving is dream of ushering in a new era—one ruled by his iron fist and fueled by blind, unwavering loyalty. His only mistake? He made it personal for the one woman powerful enough to stop him.
Eira is done playing by the rules. Done holding back her magic, her heart, and her fury. She’s ready to crush her enemies, their vision, and anyone who dares to stand in her way.
With everything on the line, Eira will show the world they were right when they called her “dangerous” all those years ago. She’s going to claim victory for herself, or die trying.
Overemotional by David Fenne
I gave this book a two star rating but I spent the entire time writing my review struggling to decide. I thought the second half was decent, but god did this take a long time to get going. Here’s what I said in my review: “I was thinking about DNF’ing Overemotional at around 50% but then all of a sudden it got quite interesting. I do think over halfway through is too late to introduce the laboratory and Leech creature. Especially as before this, no real plot or tension is really built other than them getting chased by a random woman in the amusements.”
I understand the need to world build but as this is a magical realism book there’s no real world building needed. You just need to introduce Steven’s powers and move on. As far as you know in the beginning he’s the only person with these powers.
Another issue I had with this book was switching character POVs in the middle of chapters. This would happen so often and a lot of the time they just talked about the same thing the previous character did. At one point it goes from Troy observing Marcus being upset about his car, to Marcus saying one sentence about how upset he is about his car then back to Troy again. Personally, I think this is a weird thing to do and it made the chapters feel very disjointed.
I can see why people would enjoy this book but it wasn’t for me. Obviously I pushed through to the end, otherwise it wouldn’t be in this post, but I don’t think the revelations were worth the time – so take from that what you will.
Synopsis: Sometimes, emotions can be a little too powerful…
Seventeen-year-old Steven has a big problem… Whenever he feels intense emotions, weird things happen. Like when he kissed a boy for the first time, and the boy’s head literally exploded.
Fleeing to the miserable town of Grunsby-on-Sea, Steven is determined to not hurt anyone else – but he doesn’t count on his best friend Freya, her boyfriend Marcus and American friend Troy following him. And when agents from the mysterious DEMA organisation show up talking about “neutralisation”, Steven realises that Grunsby-on-Sea might not be the safe haven he’d hoped for…
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