Unravel the Dusk

Still not Project Runway, but now it reminds me of Love / Shining Nikki instead. Literally battling in and with fancy dresses.

"If not for Lady Sarnai, I wouldn’t have had to make these damned dresses, the root of everything that had gone wrong."

Still true. The story has taken such a departure from the initial premise though, evolving into something else entirely. There isn't much tailoring or dressing up involved anymore, and the romance is also put on the back burner since Edan is away for the first half of the book. Instead, there's now a lot of politics, war, and demonic business going on. It's not bad. Not at all. It's just not what I expected.

Without Edan's presence to balance her out, Maia's tendency to make stupid decisions really comes out in full force. She's basically doomed and she knows that she badly needs help, but instead of seeking it, she constantly runs off to solve every single problem on her own, lies to everyone who cares about her, and leaves them to panic in isolation since she doesn't actually have any clue on how to fix all these issues. If anyone does catch up to her, she would go back immediately in the hope of finding a solution she doesn't have anyway… so what is even the point of leaving to begin with? This keeps happening repeatedly, and it gets old real fast.

Also, the ending. Not gonna spoil anything, but don't we all love some good ol' deus ex machina. Yay. I do like the conclusion to this story though. It's very wholesome, even if some things are resolved very conveniently.

Complaints aside, this was a quick and easy read. It's been four years since I read the first book, yet I was able to get back into the story immediately. Personally this book makes me less attached to Maia and Edan as a couple since I don't think they have much growth, individually or as a couple, but that's probably just me.

I wanted so much to like this, but it focuses way too hard on a romance between two characters that just felt really forced to me. Might try again sometime, the writing and setting and overall plot are all lovely.

 This was kind of a let down compared to the first book, which I loved with my entire heart. However, it was still a good story and I loved being with the characters again.
 My main concern with this book is that the magical feeling of the first one was not there and it felt like it dragged on a bit too long, even though there is only 350 pages. 

Why does Maia thinks it's ok to lie about anything and about what happened to Lady Sarnai they will find out the truth somehow and I thought this series was about being in competition it wasn't being talking about anymore thru out both of the books in the series. The first part of the book was first book was focus on the competition till the middle of the book and went to totally different direction and it was the same for the second book. Maia seemed to be very annoying in my opinion when it came to eating food always complaining about it or complaining about anything and everything and Master Tsring had every right to refuse to help her I wouldn't want to help her out either. I don't know how this series is about retellings cause I don't know what fairy tale this would be about and why does the narrator need to whisper every single word or sentences it was pretty annoying to me and she couldn't have read the book in a normal talking voice? And another thing that annoyed me about Maia how she would call her father Baba it sounds like a goat or a sheep that makes that sound or a little child asking for Baba which means bottle I am not ever going to pick up this book or series every again. Cause just like the first book I am going to give it another 1 star cause I really wished they focused on the sewing competition and not went on to another direction.

I really loved this duology. The story is based on Chinese mythology and is sort of a play on Mulan except with Tailoring! I loved the main character Maia, and the love interest Edan was so lovable and witty, even though he starts off being the big scary enchanter working for the king. These books were a fun ride!

In theorie had ik hiervan moeten houden, maar niks trok mij echt aan. Het ganse verhaal volgde de standaard formules en stijlfiguren. Mij ontbrak alle emotionele verbintenis, ondanks de schijnbaar hoge inzet. Maya's constante repetitieve innerlijke monologen werkten ook een beetje op mijn zenuwen.
Al met al gewoon oké. Veel meer heb ik hier niet over te zeggen. Ik ben blij dat ik het gelezen heb, maar dat is het.
Ah, maar ik vond de kleine glimp die we kregen van de volgende duologie met “Six Crimson Cranes” wel tof en ik blijf zeker nog geïnteresseerd om die te lezen, ondanks mijn ietwat lauwe gevoelens bij deze.

A very creative and interesting story. I enjoyed the first book in the duology better.

I really enjoyed following Maia's story after the events of “Spin the Dawn”. However, I didn't feel like this book was as good as the first one, I don't know why, but there was something missing.

I did enjoy it a lot and I would recommend it to my friends and followers, it's a great book.

I still loving the writing here and the story is phenomenal. The thing is, it feels so different from the first book because of how the plot progresses. This isn't a bad thing, just unexpected. So much of this book surprised me.
I adore the characters and their plight had me so emotional. It made it difficult how this book ended up feeling more morally grey with no “right” side. These are the kinds of books and problems I do like reading about.

So, really enjoyed this one, even if I didn't like it more than the first, and I plan on reading more by this author in the future.

Excellent follow up to Spin the Dawn! Excitement, beautiful imagery, and demon fighting with a complex and intriguing MC. I'm not disappointed.

The only reason this gets 2 stars and not 1 is because the first book was actually good.
This book barely survived the DNF shelf.

—Spoilers galore with lots of rant—

Pros:
- The cover is pretty?!
- That's it.

Cons:

- Ok so ending was crap. She avoided becoming a full demon because her dead family had pleaded her case with Amana who gave her a choice. WTF?!

- Also I'm pissed with the storytelling level being so low. Book 1 - Edan would forever turn into a hawk problem was there, book 2 - Maia will forever turn into a demon problem.

- Oh my god, so much useless stuff just to fill pages. Sarnai was boring. Never explained why the dresses hurt her.

- The whole concept of ghosts was weird.

- Her dead family came back to help her fight the demon

Maia is back from her journey. The kingdom is close to war. Edan is gone. Maia can feel the changes in her mind and body. She knows that she will eventually become a demon.

I really enjoyed this duology. This ones starts off action packed and stays that way throughout the book. I loved the characters. I also loved the way this one wrapped up.

I received a copy from Net Galley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.