An Enchantment of Ravens

It grieves me that I couldn't give this a higher personal rating. I loved the beginning – it started out so strongly and interestingly, but then devolved into Yet Another Typical Tale where a very talented, very smart young woman becomes achingly boring after falling in love almost instantly with (who else) a prince. The ending was also quite rushed, I feel, and ... well, apart from the first ~20% of the book, the story was sadly disappointing.

Heel mooi geschreven. Vooral de natuurscènes en de weerswisselingen zag ik zo voor mijn geestesoog tot leven komen.
Het verhaal zelf was wel ok, maar een beetje plat en ontwijkend naar mijn goesting. Veel potentieel, dat uiteindelijk verviel in een standaard romance.

Het feit dat the fair folk geen emoties voelen volgens het verhaal deed me op momenten te veel nadenken. Ze voelen geen emoties, maar ze worden wel kwaad, ze zijn rancuneus, ze vinden dingen mooi, etc. Waar ligt de grens voor emotie en geen emotie?

3.5
Romeo & Juliet / Beauty & The Beast mashup.

Started out too obvious, went into a high-paced, fascinating, and frenzied battle, and ended in a disappointingly predictive way.

So! I absolutely loved this book, I finished it within 3 days. It was an easy fast read. Even though it was super easy to predict what will happen in the end, kind of, the path towards that was full of surprises and ups and downs. I really loved this book, I highly recommend it to everyone. It's very light and there's only 2 characters to focus on and yeah, I don't know what else to say, because the rest would be spoilers but yes! it's quite an excellent read.

~ 3.5 stars ~

I don't really know why but there was just something about this book which didn't fully convince me. I liked reading it but it isn't like I absolutely fell in love with it.

I've been meaning to read this one for a few months and finally put a hold on it at my library. It always feels unique to read a standalone fantasy novel, I'm not going to lie.

I love books about fae, there are similarities with all works, but the books which change it up a bit are always a nice find– this is one of those. It still played to the mythology, but put unique twists on things, which felt like a breath of fresh air.

On the topic of romance... I actually think it was done okay. I feel like the actual building of feelings was skipped over some, but these characters have DEPTH. See, the fae are only beautiful under their glamour in this book which made it sooooo interesting because love is about personality and actions, not just looks– flipping the vanity of fae on its head! But as much as I wanted to, I never truly believed in the couple since I didn't read about their feelings developing, and Rook should have been more on guard or unwilling to fall in love, in my opinion. Not my favorite couple ever, but I rooted for them all the same.

Magic here is interesting. Fae cannot do Craft, literally creating anything, even cooking. I felt this was a unique twist that I really liked, although my mind kept wanting to find fault with it. I don't think I did, in the end. Everything worked out. And those who do Craft can trade with the Fae for a...I forget the word, but essentially a wish to be granted– to be skinny, protection, etc. It was interesting.

There is a lot here in this world, I absolutely was hooked throughout the entire book. I don't think I put it down. I look forward to more by this author and will be recommending this book to others :)

This book was entertaining but I had a few issues with it. Rogerson seems to be making up her own rules of Faerie instead of sticking with what's pretty well established. For one, you should never thank fae or apologize as they're empty words and can be twisted - the characters in this book say ‘thank you' or ‘sorry' constantly, even the fae. Also the obligatory curtseying by the faeries and the fact that they couldn't create a single thing, even holding a hunk of meat on a stick over fire, or they would DIE was weird and new. However, the lack of true emotion and glamour was more “accurate”. It's hard to argue about what should and shouldn't be done in an imaginary world but to completely go off the path from what's an established baseline was hard for someone who reads so many books based in or on Faerie. Besides that, the obvious and predictable romance following the fish out of water and forbidden love tropes to a tee are a little old. Overall, it was an easy, diverting read.

Buckle your seatbelts loves, ‘cause this is gonna be a wild ride.When I first started writing this review, I had my rating at two stars. However my anger began to take hold and well... this happened.I am disappointed and betrayed.I expected so much from this novel. So much. The premise seemed so promising. A girl whose paintings can destroy a kingdom? A prince who sweeps her away as punishment (and who will surely sweep her off her feet!)? Couple that with forbidden love and we've got a match made in heaven.If only the novel actually followed that premise. To be frank, I found it boring. It was roughly an eight and a half hour audiobook and really didn't get exciting until the... oh... you know... last 45 minutes.To begin, the pacing in this novel is atrocious. Absolutely atrocious. As the premise suggests, Rook takes Isobel away to be punished, which is all fine and dandy until they're walking in the woods for not one hour, not two hours, but nearly three hours. Roughly a third of this book was spent so that they could walk in the woods! As if that isn't bad enough, they literally never get to Rook's court. No, the bulk of the rest of the novel is spent at the Spring Court as opposed to the Autumn Court.What??? Someone, please explain to me how this makes any sense when Rook is the Autumn prince.The passage of time is also rather, to put it mildly, cringey. At the beginning, I had no idea whether, days, weeks, or months had passed. None. And the rest of the book passed in what I can only assume to be, at most, one month. But I really can't be sure because, like I said, the passage of time was awful. Moving on, the characters could not even save this disaster of a book. Isobel was okay. She could be annoying and stupid at times, but really I didn't hate her. But Rook? My god, he was a sad rip-off of Rhysand from [b:A Court of Thorns and Roses 16096824 A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1) Sarah J. Maas https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1491595796s/16096824.jpg 21905102]. Don't believe me? Allow me to elaborate.Black hair? Check.Unusually beautiful violet-toned eyes? Check.Super powerful? Check.Deep-rooted anguish over a past lover? Check.Wings? Check.Immortal? Check.Sole sovereign of a country? Check.I can't.Some of the things that happen to these characters are unbelievable and never explained. Like Gadfly? What was that ending? I don't understand!!The author left so many things untied at the end. The biggest thing to me, of course, was the fact that Isobel was mortal and Rook was immortal. It was never established- or even brought up/questioned!- what would happen to Rook when she died. I am just soooo irritated.The only good thing I can say is that the writing was beautiful. The description was vivid and lovely. Maybe I'm just tired of reading the same Fae story. Maybe this is just a rough debut novel and Rogerson will write a much better book next time. All I know was that this was not the book for me.

I'm not quite finished this yet, but I feel like I need to get some thoughts down. First off, a large part of me choosing this book was the fact that Charlie Bowater did the cover art, and she is just fantastic. This book is so beautiful, so I automatically give it a star just for that.

The writing is very well done, it's very clean, descriptions are nice, dialogue is clever. I enjoyed many of the technical aspects of this book. I just found that I had a hard time reading it. I can sit down and read a 500+ page book in a night (see Illuminae, though formatting is different). But this mere 297 has been so tough. I find myself slogging through the journey that Rook and Isobel go on, dragging my feet, getting distracted.

These lovebirds went from 0 mph to MADLY IN LOVE BREAKING ALL THE LAWS in like 2 seconds. But that's not even my main issue. It's the fact that Isobel doesn't want to drink from the well and become fae because she will lose her ability to paint. But um...ahem....Isobel darling, won't you lose the ability to paint if you are dead? Which is what you will be if you refuse to drink? I just think this book was too much of a journey story, not enough action, and as clever and funny as Isobel can be at times, first person may not have been the best narration choice because her mind isn't interesting enough to keep me engaged when not much actually happens throughout the story.

Regardless, I definitely didn't hate the book. I just didn't love it as much as I had hoped to, and that's ok. Glad I read it, really appreciated the writing and definitely appreciated the cover art. I'll keep an eye out for more from Margaret Rogerson.