neixin's reviews
189 reviews

i can’t believe this series has been out for so long and i only found out about it recently when it’s exactly the sort of fantasy i adore!! stories about naive, sheltered characters having to survive after tragedy strikes are like catnip to me, and this first volume set things up so effectively and made me care about the characters from the get-go.

gotta say though, su-won being yona’s cousin makes sense for the political plot but it sure is A Choice for the romantic drama……however, i already know that kusanagi’s building up a romance between yona and hak and their dynamic is already making me want to chew glass (affectionate) (bodyguard romances that feature a mix of undying devotion and silly bickering my BELOVED) so u know what. i’m ignoring the whole yona and su-won crush thing lol

i knew this was going to be a delight bc i already love the drama adaptation so much, and it delivered <3

waaaah i loved this so so so much!! <3 i was invested from beginning to end, despite having to read it much, much slower than i would’ve liked thanks to real-life stuff constantly getting in the way. briar and malric are both such compelling characters, flawed yet so easily lovable, especially briar who i found to be painfully relatable (i don’t really care about relatability but, u know, ouch. also, if u pick this book up on my recommendation—which u should!—please expunge this information from ur mind, thanks), and i loved seeing them slowly grow closer. the blend of a contemporary setting and a fairy-tale-esque plot was also really well done. the only reason i can’t justify giving it a full 5 stars is that there were some writing quirks i wasn’t the biggest fan of. nothing major, especially for a self-published work, and it clearly didn’t impact my overall enjoyment; i’m just stingy.

i might give this a second chance at some point bc i was liking it but it’s been like a month and a half since i last picked it up and i’ve forgotten too much of it to just keep going but i also remember too much to want to restart it right now

i wish it was a bit longer but it’s very sweet and i had a lovely time with it <3

the romance is really, really sweet, and there are many elements of this novel that i appreciate, but the pacing is just so strange; it covers a very short amount of time while simultaneously feeling far too long, and the further in i get, the more it keeps bothering me, so i’m gonna quit while i’m ahead. i also cannot for the life of me fathom why one protagonist’s chapters are written in first person, and the other’s in third…the only explanation i’ve come up with is that that’s how the author chose to portray that the characters are thinking in different languages, which is a neat idea, i just found the execution to be more jarring than anything.

so so so delightful <3 the audiobook is also wonderfully narrated