Venom & Vow

2.5 rounded up. Nothing wrong at all with this book, I just was not attached to ANY character. At all. The entire time!

this is possibly the most true 3 star book i've read. i kinda loved it but was also equally disappointed. so far Anna-Marie McLemore's books have been Hit or Miss for me and Venom & Vow was both a Hit and a Miss, so let's get into it!

What I loved:

• The main characters 
  •  Cade and Val were great characters in my opinion. they were fun and i love them individually and think that they both had good individual growth.
• The trans storyline
  • absolutely phenomenal. I loved that we got Cade who was confident in himself and his identity and had known he was trans from a young age. Then we had Val who was still figuring out their identity and come to terms with what that would mean for them moving forward. 
• The disability rep
  • The dopamine hit of having not one but TWO disabled MCs was magical. 

What I didn't love:

• The writing was very much tell and no show. for me this really hindered the emotional moments that i wanted to connect to. 
• The fantasy plotline was..... not there? It was felt like it wanted to be a political fantasy plot but it was riddled with plot holes and consostency issues and overall i'm still confused about what it actually was lol
• The romance. HEAR ME OUT okay! so did i like the romance? yes. but i also feel like it was rushed. The tension was trying but it just didn't hit and then they all of a sudden just start being friends? the transition from enemies to friends to lovers was not smooth in my opinion. I do think that i can see Cade and Val falling in love but the big I Love You moment just didn't feel genuine to me. 

is anna-marie mclemore overrated or do I just not get them?

Venom & Vow is about two warring countries that are dealing with a big loss. They try to put a stop to the warring but inner power struggles and a still unknown enemy cause a lot of court intrigue.

The best part of this book was the representation. I loved the community the authors built into the world for trans people, and I loved how much a part of the story this community was, not just the background. I appreciated that the two main characters were in different places in figuring out their gender identities, it allowed one to really help the other out. Both of the characters also have disabilities, and one of them is from a Latin-American inspired country.

The biggest problem for me was that I was just so confused most of the time. Not about the world building, which was minimal but cool (I especially loved all the animals). But about why the characters were doing any of the things they were doing. There's one scene where two characters I could have sworn were really close get into a fight to the death and I still couldn't tell you why. This made it really difficult to follow what was happening, and to connect to the characters and their motivations.

I also really struggled with grasping the pacing. In one instance it takes them days to get to a place, in another they go there and back seemingly the same day? But again, I was really confused, so I may have misunderstood?

Most of the book was driven by misunderstandings between the characters with murderous stakes. The major assumptions they kept making was starting to get a little too much, but it did get much better in the second half of the book.

There's also an enemies-to-lovers romance. Their romance could have been developed a bit better but I loved that they were both badasses; Highly skilled at fighting and their specific skills.

Overall rating: 2.8⭐

Thank you to Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, Feiwel & Friends and NetGalley for the eARC!