Reading thoughts
I spent the past handful of days obsessed with The Mirror Visitor quartet and now that I am finished, I find that I must exhale marshmallows and rainbows before I have to go on to my next book. And in much more words than a social media post so a random blog it is.
Over the last several years, I sidelined reading as a hobby to indulge in the easy and lazy non-activity of watching videos and scrolling through social media. Well, partly true. If I ingested written words for entertainment at all, most of my reading materials were on AO3 and when I did pick up a book, it was a reread. There was comfort in reading a book I knew I would enjoy rather than wading through the sea of so many books knowing most won't interest me. Aside from wanting to sidestep any annoyances, I was just not willing to believe that I will find books that meet not only my palate but exceed them to join in my top, most favorite, series or novels. So why waste my free time? And honestly I'm just not open to many new things.
But picking up Uprooted from my DNF list for another try, and loving it this second time around after setting it aside for so many years, then moving on to read more books on top of catching booktube and renewing my library card finally got me reading frequently again. So this series comes along and blows my mind.
Reasons. The writing. The worldbuilding. The protagonist. The love interest. The slow burn romance. The focus on the characters and the weaving of the story.
This world is so unique and interesting. Arks, family spirits, abilities, societies. I find the first two books, my favorite being the second book in the series The Missing of Clairdelune, to be highly satisfying and the most strongly written. Although the latter two falls shorts, they are still complete.
I do feel that the last book suffers from convoluted ideas and answers that I still find confusing. Inverted, right side wrong side, echoes, Others. I can wrap my mind around some of it but not all. There is a good mix of internal monologue and thoughts, action, and character/world building. I think one frustrating, stressful, but also interesting aspect of this story is that our main characters are fighting against these god-like entities and/or evils that have had many years of planning, and they are always too many steps behind which makes any action they take essentially pointless, but at the same time Dabos set human limitations for our characters and they excel by using and exploring these presets.
At least, for the entire series I enjoyed all of the twists. I'm not much of a mystery reader and I prefer to take the ride without thinking too much, but when the reveal is too obvious that even someone who doesn't care to pick and poke like me can see it from a mile away I do get annoyed (to the point of dropping books even), but most times this series managed to pleasantly surprise me. The ending of The Missing of Clairdelune, chef's kiss. Ophelia meeting Thorn in the next book, whoa! Characters that turn out to be much more, omg! And the identity and appearance of EG, makes so much sense. Best of all though, is that Thorn and Ophelia, the things they do to themselves and for each other still bring me to me knees, astonish me and get my heart beating and screaming for them. And yet, this is not a strictly romance-focused book, and that's the best.
My guilty pleasure reads are historical/regency romances because they are such good junk food. But at the same time that they are entertaining, they are not exciting, and many are forgotten. I need romance in my reading-for-fun books but also I find most romance-driven-focused books often exasperating and annoying. The most frustrating part about romance books are the forced interest and chemistry. Literally before this series I dropped several books because the sudden heats required too much suspension of disbelief. Sure, "love at first" is a thing that I can get onboard, but these weren't it. Ophelia and Thorn, this OTP is EVERYTHING. Slow burn with chemistry, done right. It was so gratifying to fall in love with Ophelia and Thorn separately, individually, as characters, while they are also falling in love with each other so we pick on up on the how and why along with them, as a reader understanding how and why these two fell for each other and knowing belong together. This is not another one of the "I don't understand why he/she even likes him/her" or "This person deserves better."
Show more than tell. Our characters embody qualities and builds depth from their thoughts and actions more than the writer telling us who is what and why and barely correlating their thoughts and actions with those told qualities. Ophelia, I love her so much. A strong heroine that has flaws and a personality, and can even be contradictory without being out of character. And despite my frustrations with her sometimes she keeps to those character traits while also growing, and staying true to her character is what makes this story done so well. Thorn, my love, Thorn, is exactly the same. Love doesn't change him and who he is and his quirks, and yet it also does change him in the most meaningful ways. And his pining in the first two books is. just. so. good. And overall our imperfect couple, it's so gratifying to love characters that recognize their own flaws. They know they are not gods, they are fighting against god-like entities, and that's so refreshing.
I have so much I want to write but so much love in my chest that I can never say enough so I'll end with the controversial ending. I like it. This ending fits the story that Dabos has been telling. Ophelia and Thorn deserve so much and together, and I understand wanting them to find their HEA, but at the same time any ending would never be enough. This open ending leaves the rest to the imagination. And honestly, at this point we had enough build up and know these characters so well that I do believe that they will achieve their HEA, just that it's offscreen, past the the pages that we readers can read. Ophelia has grown up and she will not give up. And neither will Thorn. I do agree with a review I have seen that this series do feel like it deserves a sequel to detail Ophelia's travel but again I do think leaving the rest to imagination is fine. (Except a longer epilogue for the other characters would have been great.) Spoilers: The fact that even physically they are not like any other able bodied couple, Ophelia will never give birth and has no fingers, and Thorn can never walk normally again and will always have his scars, I think already paints a picture of their story. They will find each other again. I believe it. And really, I love Thorn's love for Ophelia and her love for him. And I know Ophelia will heal Thorn when she does find him.
PS. Some loose ends I would have also loved to see tied up (or some points I wanted to see more, or things I wish I could see) was Thorn's watch (how I wished Ophelia had a chance to read it, like I thought would happen), Thorn saving Victoria and a connection between these cousins with him having other family besides his aunt who loves him, and Ophelia being a godmother. Plus although no one else needs to know it would have been nice if Ophelia's lovely (but also overbearing) family realized that Ophelia and Thorn actually loves each other and thei arranged marriage was actually perfect. And I just love when they are referred to as husband and wife in the latter two books but unfortunately we didn't get enough of it. Unfortunately we also didn't get to see enough of the Pole's reform that Thorn had a big hand in changing, but now the two worlds merged again and society has to reset so we'll never get that detail.
A Winter's Promise - 4.5/5
The Missing of Clairedeline - 4.8/5
The Memory of Babel - 4.1/5
The Storm of Echoes - 3.9/5
Overall Series Rating: 4.5/5
Over the last several years, I sidelined reading as a hobby to indulge in the easy and lazy non-activity of watching videos and scrolling through social media. Well, partly true. If I ingested written words for entertainment at all, most of my reading materials were on AO3 and when I did pick up a book, it was a reread. There was comfort in reading a book I knew I would enjoy rather than wading through the sea of so many books knowing most won't interest me. Aside from wanting to sidestep any annoyances, I was just not willing to believe that I will find books that meet not only my palate but exceed them to join in my top, most favorite, series or novels. So why waste my free time? And honestly I'm just not open to many new things.
But picking up Uprooted from my DNF list for another try, and loving it this second time around after setting it aside for so many years, then moving on to read more books on top of catching booktube and renewing my library card finally got me reading frequently again. So this series comes along and blows my mind.
Reasons. The writing. The worldbuilding. The protagonist. The love interest. The slow burn romance. The focus on the characters and the weaving of the story.
This world is so unique and interesting. Arks, family spirits, abilities, societies. I find the first two books, my favorite being the second book in the series The Missing of Clairdelune, to be highly satisfying and the most strongly written. Although the latter two falls shorts, they are still complete.
I do feel that the last book suffers from convoluted ideas and answers that I still find confusing. Inverted, right side wrong side, echoes, Others. I can wrap my mind around some of it but not all. There is a good mix of internal monologue and thoughts, action, and character/world building. I think one frustrating, stressful, but also interesting aspect of this story is that our main characters are fighting against these god-like entities and/or evils that have had many years of planning, and they are always too many steps behind which makes any action they take essentially pointless, but at the same time Dabos set human limitations for our characters and they excel by using and exploring these presets.
At least, for the entire series I enjoyed all of the twists. I'm not much of a mystery reader and I prefer to take the ride without thinking too much, but when the reveal is too obvious that even someone who doesn't care to pick and poke like me can see it from a mile away I do get annoyed (to the point of dropping books even), but most times this series managed to pleasantly surprise me. The ending of The Missing of Clairdelune, chef's kiss. Ophelia meeting Thorn in the next book, whoa! Characters that turn out to be much more, omg! And the identity and appearance of EG, makes so much sense. Best of all though, is that Thorn and Ophelia, the things they do to themselves and for each other still bring me to me knees, astonish me and get my heart beating and screaming for them. And yet, this is not a strictly romance-focused book, and that's the best.
My guilty pleasure reads are historical/regency romances because they are such good junk food. But at the same time that they are entertaining, they are not exciting, and many are forgotten. I need romance in my reading-for-fun books but also I find most romance-driven-focused books often exasperating and annoying. The most frustrating part about romance books are the forced interest and chemistry. Literally before this series I dropped several books because the sudden heats required too much suspension of disbelief. Sure, "love at first" is a thing that I can get onboard, but these weren't it. Ophelia and Thorn, this OTP is EVERYTHING. Slow burn with chemistry, done right. It was so gratifying to fall in love with Ophelia and Thorn separately, individually, as characters, while they are also falling in love with each other so we pick on up on the how and why along with them, as a reader understanding how and why these two fell for each other and knowing belong together. This is not another one of the "I don't understand why he/she even likes him/her" or "This person deserves better."
Show more than tell. Our characters embody qualities and builds depth from their thoughts and actions more than the writer telling us who is what and why and barely correlating their thoughts and actions with those told qualities. Ophelia, I love her so much. A strong heroine that has flaws and a personality, and can even be contradictory without being out of character. And despite my frustrations with her sometimes she keeps to those character traits while also growing, and staying true to her character is what makes this story done so well. Thorn, my love, Thorn, is exactly the same. Love doesn't change him and who he is and his quirks, and yet it also does change him in the most meaningful ways. And his pining in the first two books is. just. so. good. And overall our imperfect couple, it's so gratifying to love characters that recognize their own flaws. They know they are not gods, they are fighting against god-like entities, and that's so refreshing.
I have so much I want to write but so much love in my chest that I can never say enough so I'll end with the controversial ending. I like it. This ending fits the story that Dabos has been telling. Ophelia and Thorn deserve so much and together, and I understand wanting them to find their HEA, but at the same time any ending would never be enough. This open ending leaves the rest to the imagination. And honestly, at this point we had enough build up and know these characters so well that I do believe that they will achieve their HEA, just that it's offscreen, past the the pages that we readers can read. Ophelia has grown up and she will not give up. And neither will Thorn. I do agree with a review I have seen that this series do feel like it deserves a sequel to detail Ophelia's travel but again I do think leaving the rest to imagination is fine. (Except a longer epilogue for the other characters would have been great.) Spoilers: The fact that even physically they are not like any other able bodied couple, Ophelia will never give birth and has no fingers, and Thorn can never walk normally again and will always have his scars, I think already paints a picture of their story. They will find each other again. I believe it. And really, I love Thorn's love for Ophelia and her love for him. And I know Ophelia will heal Thorn when she does find him.
PS. Some loose ends I would have also loved to see tied up (or some points I wanted to see more, or things I wish I could see) was Thorn's watch (how I wished Ophelia had a chance to read it, like I thought would happen), Thorn saving Victoria and a connection between these cousins with him having other family besides his aunt who loves him, and Ophelia being a godmother. Plus although no one else needs to know it would have been nice if Ophelia's lovely (but also overbearing) family realized that Ophelia and Thorn actually loves each other and thei arranged marriage was actually perfect. And I just love when they are referred to as husband and wife in the latter two books but unfortunately we didn't get enough of it. Unfortunately we also didn't get to see enough of the Pole's reform that Thorn had a big hand in changing, but now the two worlds merged again and society has to reset so we'll never get that detail.
A Winter's Promise - 4.5/5
The Missing of Clairedeline - 4.8/5
The Memory of Babel - 4.1/5
The Storm of Echoes - 3.9/5
Overall Series Rating: 4.5/5