dragoninwinterfell's reviews
98 reviews

This sapphic, dark academia vampire romance has an excellent premise and first half. The slow burn, rivals to lovers dynamic between Laura, a southern Catholic young woman, and the aloof and arrogant Austrian student, Carmilla, began so well. I loved their interactions with each other and the steady build of their rivalry in class and their romantic fixation on each other, alongside the mystery of their professor's true motives. But once the story took an abrupt turn, it all fell apart for me. The slow burn flipped like a switch and became insta-love while their professor's secret and the fallout of it was lackluster. It was difficult for me to continue to slog through to the ending, which didn't feel earned.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

After the first chapter, Black Sun felt a bit slow for me until about the midpoint. But once I got there, I was completely invested in the unique magical world, the characters, and the complicated politics. I love how the four POV characters had voices, personalities, values, and backgrounds that made them feel like THE protagonist while we were in their perspective. In that way, this novel came the closest to feeling like ASOIAF for me. I've already checked out the sequel.

Somehow, Lone Women is a novel that fits in both the gritty realism and cozy fantasy categories. It starts out all grit as the heroine, Adelaide Henry, escapes her home with a trunk holding mysterious contents after setting fire to her family farm that holds the corpses of her parents. We go with her, step by step as she travels to set up a new life for herself in rural Montana. As a single black woman in 1915 USA trying to establish a new farm in winter, this is already a dangerous prospect, and that is a significant thread through this novel. But Adelaide has the added burden of the secrets she's carrying. At the same time, she's forming relationships with other members of the community she's joining, some of which become strong friendships as the overall goal for many is unity in survival. But that's not the goal of everyone.

I love how well Victor LaValle balances complicated values and morals with most people not being fully good or bad. The heroines and villains are given layered motivations that can make sense whether they're right or wrong. Adelaide has both heroic and dark moments. Some of those instances that might seem like an overreaction on her part -- such as being ready to kill a man for nearly damaging her trunk near the beginning -- make sense when further context is given, even if she isn't fully justified. 

While we see how dangerous and brutal it can be for women living alone in the lightly populated and harsh land, LaValle never goes as dark as he realistically could. The overarching message of the novel is a wholesome one. While truly terrible people deserve death, not everyone in the same group can be lumped together and those who may be considered monsters might actually be the true victims. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel. I will say that the pacing is slow and not every magical element is given an explanation. That may be off-putting to some.

It was pretty slow and difficult to care about the characters.

Defiant is the best novel in the series right next to Skyward. I thought the books took a bit of a dip during the middle two, but Brandon Sanderson brought it all together very neatly. Defiant not only serves as a solid conclusion for the series, but as an excellent jumping off point for the sequel series.

My one critique is that the twist with the villains isn't well set up. But since the main focus is the complexity of the characters going through their well plotted arcs, that didn't hurt the book too much for me. 

I don't think I was the right reader for this. It was very heavy on the empty tropes. The romance dominated the story to the point where everything else felt like filler. What was worse was that the romance was cliche and formulaic.