livvy_alipat's reviews
56 reviews

The writing is so juvenile. Not even remotely far in the book and I can already tell I'm going to be incredibly annoyed with the main character. Dislike the way all of the characters we've been introduced to are written.

I want to start out with- I REALLY enjoyed this book! It was fun to get through and I wanted to keep reading the whole time.

I would say that while there are common elements in When the Moon Hatched to many other fantasy/ romantasy books that we've seen come out in the last 5 years, a LOT of the plot of this one is new and different. The world building is one of my favorite parts of this story and it is really fresh to the genre. I will say it reminds me a bit of GoT in the sense that the names of the characters and the Gods and the places around their world are complicated and uncommon, not to name the twisted family tree that's not easy to get your head around at first.

This is not a 5 star book for me for these reasons;

One, I'm kind of over the, "hyper- sassy and always has the last word and slings insults all day every day because she's actually hiding being a vulnerable and hurt little girl inside" female main character. And Raeve is that through and through. She responds to everyone with a smart ass quip, and it loses its punch after awhile when it's just the way she responds to EVERYONE. ALL of the time. I know this female was abused and went through incredible tragedy, but the, "I just can't let anyone get close to me and I can't face the idea of caring for someone because it sucks to be hurt" is exhausting in this book. It's the entirety of her inner monologue outside of revenge and lusting after the MMC. She didn't have any character development from the very beginning to throughout the book. Also hate the, "rush into a situation blind with anger and assuming I'm going to win" as a plot device for the FMC to just wind up captured or hurt.

Second, all of the characters are big badass warriors that excel in sarcasm. It's like.... Really? All of you? There just isn't a whole lot of diversity. And I'm not talking about race or sexuality or gender, I just mean in their personalities. Maybe just enough to distinguish that they're different, but not enough to make the cast harmonize together. I feel like everyone tries to copy SJM with Aelin's cadre where every character is sarcastic and emotionally guarded and fantastic at battle. 

Also, it was a huge info dump at first. The glossary of intricate and difficult names and creatures and roles and the world creation and the world locations are thrown at your right in the beginning and it's not easy to digest all of it and takes a minute.

I will say, the world is totally unique. The creation reminds me a little bit of Tolkien and Lewis with the gods singing it into existence, but different enough that it's new and not a copy. The monsters so far are fantastic and one of my favorite parts. I want more dragons! And to hear more about the gods and how they interfere and their role in more of the happenings of the world.

This was a fantastic first novel in the series and I can't wait for the sequel!

The world of this book is fun and new. Though for some reason, the world seems extremely small. It takes place in two cities- a small human town on one side of a bridge spanning a body of water, and an immortal city on the other side. The entire book takes place in these two spots, minus one scene of the book where the main characters spend a month in a snowy castle on an island.

The author did a great job creating the MMC. He is pretty developed and we get to see his good side and his flaws. We also get to see a good amount of his magic. The FMC is lacking, though. She's literally just an asshole to everyone and her personality really doesn't have any redeeming qualities. I see this a lot in first person POV female lead fantasy books now. The FMC is snarky and speaks out at the most idiotic times and has the rudest mouth, but it's never timed right. It's just ALL of the time.

70% of the book is listening to FMC's inner dialogue of how badly she wants the MMC but she shouldn't, so that means she can't. She just bitches about it and thinks about it constantly. I mean CONSTANTLY. I wish I were exaggerating, but 70% is truly close to accuracy. 

The instigating events that lead to the climax really don't make sense- the MMC is royalty and makes major decisions throughout like the law doesn't apply to him, which, okay, that makes sense for royalty, and he doesn't get in trouble for any of it in the middle of the story. But then come the end of the book, he's saying now the rules apply and that means bad news for him and FMC, so he has to make "really tough decisions." 

The FMC has magic that she has a tumultuous relationship with, but we honestly never get to see her use it but twice. I feel like the entire reason it was created for her to have it in the first place is just so she has a reason to be moody and lash out all of the time as an excuse for decision making based off of fear and anger. And for being raised from birth by her warrior/ chieftess mother and her warrior father who have trained her in the art of defending herself and combat, we never get to see that either. It's just a talking point.

I'm going to read the second book because I want to see how the MMC goes about remedying the situation he made a mess of in the end of this one. But I honestly don't have high hopes.

Alright, I read the first two and even though they were bad, like 2 something stars, I still read the third. The way the FMC developed in book two, I had high hopes for a maturing author and storyline. It was so, so bad.

Nina is supposed to be a BROWN GRADUATE who grew up in the royal court. So you'd think she'd be intelligent and/ or recognize manipulation. Especially when it was written unbelievably obviously, like so obvious it only could have had "this is me manipulating you" written on a sign for MC to read for it to be more clear. 

This book is entirely dialogue, or the author telling you what the characters are doing. Every once in awhile there's a, "I have to hide my true feelings so I can look strong, even though I actually know all of my friends and my husband supports me and wants to help me, so really I'm doing this for no good reason because I just explained how I know better" inner dialogue/ feelings description, but that's as close to showing and not telling as we get.

Her three best friends are SIRENS. They haven't done a SINGLE magical or powerful thing even through book 3.

Her husband and his whole family are dragon shifters (the males actually shift) and we see it happen ONCE at the end. There is zero magic in the entire book except at the very end.

I'm convinced this plot and the setting was put together so the author had an excuse for writing out sex scenes and alutty looking outfit descriptions for her make believe Barbie and Ken. Which is fine, but why is it published. 

In case you can't tell from the review, I won't be wasting my time on book 4. Honestly, the ridiculousness of book 3 is on me, I should have known better.

MMC really made me upset. To be so completely oblivious to another woman's intentions when it's clear to anyone else around you, and to dismiss your partners concerns and not believe her to create r sponsible boundaries, is so unattractive. He definitely lost points with me here.

On the other hand, loved how Seraphina started standing up for herself and making (slightly) less emotional decisions than book one. Seems like she grew up a bit. 

Still not fantastically written, and the world has way more potential for development 

The world bu lding for this story is really unique and fun. Shifters, Fae, Vampires, etc., are out to human kind. There are different dimensions/ planes for all sorts of different homelands for the supernatural and fantasy-like creatures. Earth is it's own world, and many of the supernatural creatures are actually leaders and rulers of different territories there, as well as having homelands in their own realms. It's modern day. So as cool as this is, the author does barely anything with it. Just states that that's how it is. This book could have been twice as good if it was twice as long, but the author doesn't take time to put any descriptive information into the story, nor develop the characters. The world, plot, and characters had so much potential.

The female main character is ridiculously unlikeable. She's just a straight up spoiled brat who has her queen mother domineering a lot of her life, but that's not unlike what to expect from royal families in any book, any where? But that's literally what we feel sorry for her about, and "why" we're meant to root for her. And that domineering mother has set up an arranged marriage for her. Which is not unique to her, but is common for a lot of the royal families in the story. Otherwise, she's petulant, always makes the WRONG strong headed, emotional decision without thinking them through, is rude to everyone, but she loves her monster dogs and is a horse girl and is nice to them. She doesn't behave at all in anyway deserving of her best siren friends, knows nothing about ruling or her kingdom/ land. And doesn't deserve her betrothed in any way.

The MMC is a giant hot dragon shifter, whose dragon has chosen the FMC. That's literally it, and why he falls in love with her. He's funny and kind and protective and seductive and I totally see why we are meant to root for him, but not root for her. Whatsoever.

For some reason it was still compelling enough for me to purchase book 2 😆 her flaws develop and get better in that one at least. So it was minutely worth tolerating her in this story.

The author wrote this book from so many POVs that you lost a lot of the story from Lydia, the FMC (or even was she in this book?... That's how broken the POV was). Honestly, all you felt was sadness and tragedy from.her the entire time. We wait the whole book for one of the characters to be administered the hyped up drug and nothing at all happens with it. 

I'm not sure if in the further books it ties in more of the vampire culture and characters to the wolven side of it, but everything that happened with Xhex's mate was so disconnected from this story. I can glean a bit that the author is trying to set up a connected world, but I don't think it's being done too well. 

I wanted something fun and easy sexy, which is why I read book one. There was so much mystery there that I moved onto book two- and it fell incredibly short. It was so many moving pieces, but none of them actually moving along that much on their own, and a big nothing at the end. Not reading book 3.