Blood Rose Rebellion ~ Rosalyn Eves (Blood Rose Rebellion #1)


★★★★☆

I honestly don't understand why so many people hate this.

The Writing and Worldbuilding

I really liked the writing! It was very well done and worked both as a historical novel and a YA fantasy. I never really felt bored, even when little was happening. There were a few times when I was sort of confused as to what was happening, especially near the very end, but as a whole, I loved it.

I liked the themes, but they didn't really have the emotional impact they were obviously intended to. Same goes for some of the character moments. This was probably the biggest strike against this book: it just didn't give me any feels.

The world was pretty cool! Reminded me of The Infernal Devices quite a lot, but the alternate dimension aspects were definitely my favorite part. Low-key gave me Insidious vibes sometimes, if I'm being honest.

The Characters

Anna: A lot of people really hated the main character, but while I recognize that she's a spoiled brat, I actually liked her a lot. She felt like a real person and her motivations and shortcomings were believable and humanizing. She grows a lot as a person by the end.

Gábor: He was a great character and I liked how he didn't always agree with Anna. I wish I'd had more scenes with them just bonding; as it was, their romance kinda came from nothing.

Mátyás I really liked him! He was funny and a really great guy. (And for all the people flipping out about "cousin kissing", they're not closely related. They aren't direct cousins. And for the time, it wasn't even taboo in the slightest even if they were.)

Noémi: I honestly forgot about her a lot of the time. She held zero to no emotional impact for me, and did little for the plot. I did like her enough though.

Everyone else: This book had a big problem with tossing around names that had been mentioned like once and not reminding me who it was talking about. Sometimes I'd be entirely lost in a scene because I had no idea who anyone was. The characters I did recall, though, were all pretty okay. I didn't feel passionately about any of them, but I did like them well enough.

Conclusion

The epilogue intrigued me, so I might read the sequel, but as a whole, while I really liked the writing and the world, and even the characters to a degree, I'm not too interested in continuing the series, at least not any time soon. If this had been written any worse, it would probably have been a solid meh


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