Ruined
Amy Tintera
Em’s family has been either captured or killed because of their powers. Em has been in training since it was found she was useless – no powers to speak of. While her heart is filled with fury and a desire to free her sister, that slowly leaks out in favour of a hint of love and a lot of confusion. Why can’t people get along without killing each other?
Em had to kill to get her new position in the court. I wonder whether some people are looking down on her as having ‘cheated’, and in fact, some of the dialogue is about revenge and trying to hold down sensible ideas after killing people. It’s something I’ve been contemplating lately, with all the fiction I have been reading. It does sound like sometimes the easiest solution is to kill the figurehead!
This was a throbbing fantasy novel that pulled me in, turned me around, and then spat me out the other end. This had the suspense that I needed, and just a hint of romance but mostly revenge. Yes, the storyline has probably been done lots of times, with falling in love with your assassin etc, but I didn’t mind.
Cliffhangers! Arg! It’s killing me at the moment. Almost all of the novels I review at the moment I receive directly from the publisher, and I’ve been able to tighten up my budget by taking out the buying books part. If the publisher doesn’t send me the next novel, there’s a good chance I will never read it, and that’s just sad.
Is this high fantasy? Mm, depends how you define high fantasy. For me, this is ‘just’ regular fantasy. No extreme worldbuilding or explanations of magic systems that I would associate with epic fantasy. But you know what? I didn’t go into this expecting that (it’s not a Brandon Sanderson after all), and I really enjoyed it. I’m giving it 4 stars, and I can’t wait for the next novel.
This should have been called The Slow News Sisters instead of Keep Me Posted. What’s wrong with using a catchy term, even if it is later used in the novel? Not to mention it would have been a heads up for the progress being glacial.
What I loved was that the blending of fact and fiction made me feel at home in the novel. I didn’t object that I never really understood everything behind Lord’s motives. I didn’t mind that there was no happy ending.
When will I get tired of extreme-situation teenage novels? Maybe some time soon. I’m feeling an end of my sympathy for idiots that let love get in the way of all things! But real life problems? Yes, I’ll take those. This novel isn’t too far off course for things that could happen. Who knows how many people are having this problem, and it’s just not picked up?
You’d think that since I was up until 1am finishing this book (and doing some other writing) than means I enjoyed it. Honestly, I’m not sure that I did. There were huge time gaps and gaps in Jinhau’s memory that made me fall out of the novel time and time again.
As always, I preferred the personal stories rather than the advice given in this novel. I think if you are going for a more ‘traditional’ career (not a university and teaching focussed career like mine) this novel is going to be perfect for you. I’d choose it as a gift for someone just starting out at their first job.
I put off reading this novel for a very long time, because I knew it was the second in the series. Finally, in a bid to cull down the number of older novels I had sitting on my shelf, I decided to pick it up. A quick google of the first novel in the series seemed to suggest that I didn’t need to read the first one – this was definitely the case.
This was such a slow novel. I was halfway through and saying to my partner that I wasn’t sure I could face keeping on reading it. I started out being a bit wary of it, because of the changing perspectives.
I wasn’t won over by the way there were ‘bytes’ of information from the way that Scarlett and Lucas thought. I didn’t like the consciousnesses changing, and I thought Avery was an idiot. A rich, spoilt idiot.
Oh yeah, who’s going to cheer for that entirely surprising ending? Uh, that would be me. I didn’t see that coming at all. Should I have? Were the signs there? I can’t remember.