80th book of 2021
Release date: October 19th 2021
Thanks to NetGalley, Hodder & Stoughton to send me a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own
Reading period: September 27th 2021
Summary
Once upon a time, there was a horrible girl…
Vanja Schmidt knows that no gift is freely given, not even a mother’s love?and she’s on the hook for one hell of a debt. Vanja, the adopted goddaughter of Death and Fortune, was Princess Gisele’s dutiful servant up until a year ago. That was when Vanja’s otherworldly mothers demanded a terrible price for their care, and Vanja decided to steal her future back… by stealing Gisele’s life for herself.
The real Gisele is left a penniless nobody while Vanja uses an enchanted string of pearls to take her place. Now, Vanja leads a lonely but lucrative double life as princess and jewel thief, charming nobility while emptying their coffers to fund her great escape. Then, one heist away from freedom, Vanja crosses the wrong god and is cursed to an untimely end: turning into jewels, stone by stone, for her greed.
Vanja has just two weeks to figure out how to break her curse and make her getaway. And with a feral guardian half-god, Gisele’s sinister fiancé, and an overeager junior detective on Vanja’s tail, she’ll have to pull the biggest grift yet to save her own life.
Trigger Warning
Discussions of child abuse, abusive environments, and trauma from a past attempted assault
Rating
DNF @21%
Review
Sadly, this book is a DNF for me.
The main issue I have isn’t the story in itself but the writing. This is a very YA writing which I’m not into it anymore. Also, I’m not a fan of when the main character is talking directly to the reader using parenthesis or “let me tell you…” I was always put off by the story when I could concentrate on it as sometimes it was slow and heavy in descriptions, and then the pace was faster for no reason.
Add to that that the beginning of the book is kind of info-dumpy. So you have a ton of information with the explanation but all at the same time, which make it difficult to absorb the information, and you finish by mix everything. The problem is that it’s a complex world, so you need to understand everything. Also, be prepared as some of the words are in German, and they appear a lot.
To finish, I wasn’t fond of the main character, Vanja. Even if she is meant to be a morally grey character, I was easily fed up with her. I know that she will evolve at some point in the book, but I didn’t want to roll my eyes at each page (and there are 512 pages.)
I’m sad as the cover is beautiful, the summary looks exciting, but the execution isn’t for me. This book is the first ARC I’m DNFing, and I hope the only one.
Liz.
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