The End

[DauntlessGG]

Final Discussions!

[Noom_tv]

Chapter 54 is the precise moment I stopped reading today, and I'm not sure I will be able to continue. This is the perfect example of how to ruin a good book with flowery romance. I'm legitimately mad. There must be about 3 pages here describing a kiss.

I can't buy it, I can't make myself feel warm for the characters, their relationship is just not believable and the writing for their romance is just bouncing right off me. It feels childish and too fantastic, like a $2 romance novel you find in a petrol station.

[Lucsly]

I had the exact same feeling: there were moments I loved about the book, great ideas about the death of gods, characters dealing with traumas in different ways (and, depending on how you look at it, victims on two sides who find it difficult to empathise with the other side)... all great material for a good novel. And then came the perfect dreams, the wish fulfilment, the endless descriptions of a perfect romance... I literally yawned, skipped a few pages and then still found myself bored.

The massive cliffhanger and a shameless "to be continued" left me very frustrated (this could easily have been a single volume book) so I googled what happened in the second volume - as I definitely won't be reading that. Such a disappointment, given the potential of the book...

[Tugboet]

There is a common conversation in baking where you are all using the same ingredients but the end result is so vastly different. I feel like if this world and story were told by a different author, it would have been significantly more compelling and have more lasting impact.

It feels like the author wrote the romance section first then had to justify the story, and added a world and build up to it. There was so much character development and world building left on the table. In the end it was fairly apparent it was all a rush to get to the a romance that feels like it was written by a teenager who never actually experienced love.

[Digital Neet]

I can't help but feel anything other than disappointment, 550 pages long only to have nothing resolved and so many questions remaining. There was so much potential half way through the book, and then the blinding romance happened, and it sucked all life from the book. I actually stopped reading and laughed when I got to the point where there was literally 2 pages devoted to describing kissing. I agree that it felt like the book was written around the love story and then rushed to a finish.

I also feel like a good author could have conveyed the same book with much less words. I felt there was way too much description but also at the same time I was having a hard time imagining the world being built.

[Kimosabe]

So I just finished this book and didn't realise there were different threads to discuss different parts of the book, and I don't totally know where everything was so I'll just dump everything here.

The book started out allright; they set up a nice idea, a forgotten, mythical city and a quest for knowledge, which is always a plus for me.

The initial characters were boring though. Very one dimensional, Lazlo clearly the good guy in literally everything and Thyon the perfect example of royalty, zero thought needed.

This changed a bit later into the book, but it was clearly just about Lazlo and Sarai. The other godspawn, Eril Fane and Azareen got a bit of context but not much and the rest could have just as well been unnamed even though there was real potential for some characters
Maybe that happens in the second book but given the cliffhanger it seems unlikely

They had a great chance to introduce the new characters in an interesting way, and have some character development, in the time from Lazlo's recruitment to the arrival at the City. They could show off the world, tell stories (which is a big part of the book after all) and have character development. Instead this all happens off screen and all we get is one single flashback involving Calixte (who's entire character revolved around NOT being Lazlo's love interest because she homosexual, instead of... you know.. just being a friend)

Then at the actual city there were some good parts of the book for sure. I like a lot of the things around the godspawn kids, they were interesting and the intial discussions/events trying to solve the Cities problem were as well.


But, as I see other people also agree with me, they went way overboard with the romance plot.
The very first Sarai pov chapter it was blindingly obvious that Sarai and Lazlo were written to be together. The opposites in how they looked at dreams, how they used them were not exactly subtle, which isn't a bad thing per sé but the pacing was way off, everything between them happend way to fast while everything around them came pretty much to a stand still.
I liked a couple of the dream scenes, it had some good ideas and some good conversations but the actual romance plot went from 0-100 and was made all the more unbelievable by it.
And the kissing scene was way over the top

There were a couple good things happening in the meantime. Thyon might have actually gotten some character development. They seem to move the story along with his 'discoveries'. Eril Fane and Azareen looked to be getting some interest with Sarai spying on them. Lazlo found the white feather, something to advance his story

Aaaaand then they forgot that they only had 5 pages left and everything needed to be resolved in that, using a no name to do so.


Overal it was a very average book for me.
There were some great ideas, some good stories; good writing at times but during the entire book the pacing was off and there were a lot of missed opportunities.
The romance was clearly the main plot, which I'm not a fan of and a lot of things were way to forced.

[DauntlessGG]

Ok i finished this today...... i felt very little for any of the characters. I didnt have the same reaction towards the romance scene but tbh i was on audio book and it went by faster than physically reading so i think i was spared a bit lol it reminded me of the star wars movie - was it revenge of the sith or attack of the clones that had that ridiculous romance scene in the fields? anyway i gave it 3/5, it was fine. just fine tbh the story didnt captivate me and i didnt really feel invested in any of the characters

[Orcanaught]

Managed to just finish the book just there and I am just as disappointed as everyone else.

Some of the characters I felt fine enough with. The conflict between Minya and Sarai was interesting enough. Learning about the God spawn children and their parents was quite a good bit of lore in the book. Hell there was a period of time I was invested in Sarai and Lazlo's relationship though it got a bit excessive.

This book did actually feel like partly a romance novel as previous people have said tbh but just under the guise of a fantasy setting. It did get to the point of absurdity as well. When even 2 of the God spawn in the citadel were at it.

One thing kept nagging at me was her over-use of ending alot of chapters with "... and he would find out that wasnt the case" or "he wouldnt find her there" or something along those lines. It felt like the author kept using foreboding as a narrative tool and it really stood out for me.

I genuinely felt a jolt of anger when Sarai died, it almost made the tonnes of romance pages we pored through just not even worth it.

The ending was also rushed as I agree with Kimo, it kind of just left a bad taste in my mouth after I read the final sentence. The final few chapters could be summarized to "Lazlo's a god and can save the city, Sarai dies, and is pressed in undead servitude by Minya." Just seemed all too much crammed into 2-3 chapters worth.

I'd say it is always a bad sign when you get to the end of a book and let out an audible "aw, **** off!"