(^^,)

I aspire to be as witty and straightforward as that gargoyle.

I liked the book. It was a nice read and wasn't something I would have typically looked for, so forming the ideas and settings in my head was refreshing.

However, The book has me of two minds.

I found the start of the book to be a little slow - a gentle introduction on the current state of affairs, the mystery of the dreaming, the six Diviners. If you approach it from the view that the Cathedral and each other is all that they knew about since the start (and that this is a two-book series), then the world-building is easier to digest.

As soon as the characters leave the Cathedral and everything unravels, the book picks up in pace and they're jumping from area to area in order to complete their objectives. That speed unfortunately came with a slight lack of depth, though; I would have liked to know more about each area: how they came to be, why something is where it was. Naturally, once they were done with their objective in one area (and also because of time) they immediately moved on, which is fair, but they left me behind as well.

I'll admit - I wasn't expecting the ending. I should have, but I didn't.

All things aside, I have no complaints - only wishes. I'll have to see how the second book goes.

bam-ba-ba-dam, shinee's back

I really liked this book. I really, really liked this book.

I'm so used to both the villainess and transmigration tropes being solely manhwa/webnovel only things (and yes, I had to figure out the difference between reincarnation, regression and transmigration), so finding out there was a western romantasy-villainess-transmigration book was exciting! (Also, yes, I know, the Venn diagram between villainess stories and transmigration stories is basically a circle.)

Anyone familiar with those tropes knows that there is a kind of formula that they all follow.

• "Where the hell am I?"
• "Hang on a minute, this wasn't in the source material!"
• "Argh, fine, I'll deviate (as if I wasn't complaining about it a few scenes ago)."

I can't lie, this book does follow the formula, but it didn't bore me at all. There were some twists and turns that I really didn't expect, but they didn't feel shoved in for sake of deviation.

I found the pacing of the flow of the book quite good, at least compared to other romantasy books; it's unfortunately too common for a roman tasty book nowadays to be like a sports car in the winter: you spend 50 chapters trying to start the car, then suddenly it goes from 0-60 in 2 chapters. This book goes about balancing trying not

If you want to continue reading something like this and want a western source, try the "Oh God Not Again!" fanfic, by Sarah1281. It's on the red website.

For an eastern source, try "The Villainess Turns the Hourglass", or "Beware the Villainess!".

I'm glad they weren't bad.

It's a feel good, coming-of-age-but-already-of-age book that you would enjoy in a week - I certainly did. It has a nice mix of humour, British sarcasm, mysticism and growth.

It does have the usual tropes associated with placing fantasy in an unexpecting world: the friend who doesn't know, the hastily forged band of characters, the plot twist that completely wrecks the status quo. Tropes as they may be, I think they were portrayed and handled well.

There's a healthy balance of switching between the normal and the abnormal, with a dash of realism. It must have been exhausting to be unable to put your all into both your day and night jobs, in general - let alone while being tired.

The ending felt a little sped up compared to the rest of the book; I don't know if it's fantasy books in general but what I've been reading recently starts off quite slow and foundational, then events quickly become flash cards by the end. In this case, once I got to the last chapter, it became very "but then everything was okay in the end" and I think there may have been room to flesh out what happened in more detail. I was in no rush.

Overall, I liked it and I look forward to the second in the series.

hiss

I unfortunately have no idea where I was while reading this, and I don’t think the book did either. Like a certain snake, I started hibernating by the end of it.

The ending felt like one of those special deleted scenes you get in DVDs of films; roughly inserted as a “oh, we forgot to add this” entry.

The pacing… should have been better.

I do appreciate the snark of the main character - it strikes a balance between damsel in distress and damsel causing havoc.

That’s it, though, really.

You’re probably wondering why my thoughts are all over the place. That’s because that’s how the book is too.

Where did he go?

What great writing. I wasn't sure where this book would take me, but I'm glad it did when it did. I gasped with each revealed plot point, slowly understanding what everything meant and where the pieces of the puzzle fit.

The images which bound the spine of the story were fun and surprisingly intriguing to think about. I really couldn't figure out what they meant before the book explained their meanings, but I think that added to the shock. They reminded me a little bit of dingbats (or rebuses for some) in how one had to view (or rather, solve) them. I won't spoil.

I also have to mention the troubled cast of characters, beautifully carrying out their roles in the story. The world is small, but in this case, perhaps a little too small for comfort.

Overally, a spooky book that I liked reading. My only wish is that I hadn't finished it before it was time for bed. I think I'll stay up a little.