Realm Breaker

Very fun read! I loved the plot and the world and I cannot wait to read the rest of the series.

This is a GREAT fantasy adventure, the king that you'd imagine seeing on the big screen. I haven't read Aveyard before, but considering that this is a series, I know I'll be reading her again. She's able to write fantasy in a way that, for the most part, maintains the thrills and keeps the reader (especially if they're a fantasy-lover) highly, highly engaged.

This book was literally such a slog to get through sorry. I had to power through because I did not care about like anything about it. The plot? Basically YA LOTR. Evil dude called “Who Waits” I think idek if that was his name because it was as bland as the rest of the book but ya know is basically Walmart Sauron is probably trying to destroy the world but our merry band of heroes including the chosen one who wields the All Powerful Blade are the only ones that can stop him. The characters? I did not care about any of these characters at all as one dimensional as it gets. Like Corayne is special and and feels quirky 24/7 we get it. Dom is immortal woahh that's cool bro. Andry is a nice boi. Saransa (was that her name idk) is an edgy assassin with a #mysterious past. That completely sums up their personalities. Erida aka the royal one was the only character remotely interesting for spoilery reasons. Def an Erida stan may she get everything that is rightfully hers!! The setting? There were a lot of names said and places spoken but that is all I could tell you about them. Anyways this book was just boring and uninspired but I guess it wasn't the worst thing ever and someone out there might like it.

The premise of this books sounded so good. Victoria Aveyard sold this to me from her Instagram stories and highly inspired by LOTR? COUNT ME IN!

HOWEVER

It failed.

The characters were bland, too similar and boring.

Coraynne was a daughter of a pirate and yet she was boring, wanted adventure but also Is destined to save the world? But shes useless apart from being smart

Dom — useless elder (who is meant to be super impossible to kill) was a pointless POV and a worse fighter.

The assassin was better but a bad version of celena from Throne of Glass.

A squire who's POV was slightly better but also pointless. (Also he's in the prologue that is pointless to have as we get all information in the first chapter repeated basically)

Like what's with the multiple POV?! DO WE NEED THEM? NO

The only interesting character was the antagonist.

It's a quest fantasy. Fine. But the characters fell so flat. And the plot was too plain to stand for such a long book.

Oh and DID I MENTION theres a chosen one trope?

Yup. The bland and boring chosen one trope.

where are the morally gray characters that will save their world for their own gain and not because of decency?!


The plot was overlong for a book. It felt like backstory instead of a plot, as if the book should have started where it ended.

Overall predictable.

And the POV shifts within another characters POV was jarring

The world was large but it lacked foundation. I found some of it confusing.

I wished it's DNFed this.

It's a shame as I want to like Victoria Aveyard's writing but, while her ideas are solid her execution fails

Heard so many great reviews from tik tok... and was greatly disappointed. I just ended up bored, really bored. Very slow paced and extra information that was not needed. The characters fell flat and the plot was predictable. Overall felt average. All the characters were one demensional and were so predictable and boring. Chosen one was brave and pure despite having a pirate mother, Squire was noble and boring, kind of irritated me. The assassin was annoying and acted like she hated everyone all the time. The immortal was grumpy and thats about it. Somehow ended up confused even though the plot was clear and average. And it was just so looooong, just unnecessarily so, so much information that was just unnecessary to the book.
Was heavy on the world building which normally I love, but not this time. There was just too much. Wasn't envested with it at all, somehow i pulled through and finished it for some reason. At least it had a good ending.
Overall this book just felt average, immensely average, average and boring. Wasn't planning on getting it in the first place because that was my orriginal feel for it but after seeing so many glowing reviews I did. Money wasted in my opinion, should of just checked it out from the library.

As a big fan of the Red Queen series, I was very excited to read this new start to a series by Victoria Aveyard. I went into the novel having no idea what the premise was. Overall, I think this was a good start to the series, even though it had a slow start.

This book follows a whole cast of characters. There are a lot of POVs. Essentially, there are these rips in the world called Spindles that allow access to different realms. There is a man and a wizard that are going around trying to open a lot of these and bring over monsters to destroy and/or control this realm. A merry band of misfits joins together to try to stop them.

The biggest downfall to this book is how long it took to get going. There is so much lore that had to be told, that the first 250 pages or so felt like one massive info dump. Not much happened. However, the lore was interesting enough to keep me reading. The second half of the book was action packed, and I found myself really enjoying it. Still, half a book of boring info dumping is not the greatest, hence my 3 star rating.

This book had one of my favorite tropes of a found family, and I really enjoyed this one. I think the characters were well thought out and their inter-relationships within the group were unique and fun to read. The plot, once it got going, was swift and exciting. I think that the lore of this world has set up for a great series. I'm very excited to read the second one. Now that the reader knows the whole backstory to this world, I'm hoping the pace will be accelerated for the rest of the series.

All in all, I would recommend this book. I completely understand if reading 250 pages of not much action isn't your jam, but I will say that I think the pay off is worth it. Excited for the next one!

TW: alcohol, animal abuse, animal death, blood, death, demons, gore murder, poisoning, violence, war

thank you, victoria, for a romance-free fantasy

When it comes to fantasy I would rank the factors that are most important to my enjoyment in order of importance as characters, plot, and then world building. There is a significant gap between 1 and 2, and 2 and 3 though.

This book hits solidly on 2 and 3. The plot is interesting and I wanted to keep reading to see how things would inevitably end up. It's also chalk full of world building. There are different cultures, biomes, races, languages etc. It is epic in scope in every sense of the word. 

But, the characters don't really resonate with me, falling flat more often than not. The group dynamics here and there are interesting and/or amusing, but largely fall they missed as well. The most intriguing character I find is Queen Erida, but by the end of the book it started to feel like certain elements were/are going to be shoehorned into her plot line that I wasn't a big fan of so even that ended on a somewhat sour note.  

I will read the next one though as the plot is interesting enough for that on it's own.

i'm going to give victoria aveyard the benefit of the doubt that red queen was just a cliche first book series with a chosen one mary sue main character and she can write better things. please be able to write better than red queen.

update: “So when a mysterious immortal and deadly assassin appear on Corayne's doorstep telling her she is the last member of a dying bloodline, and the only one who can save the world, Corayne seizes the chance to have her own adventure.”

victoria no please don't do this to me i can't take it anymore-

Corayne an-Amarat adalah satu-satunya harapan untuk menyelamatkan dunia dari malapetaka. Namun, dia tidak akan sendirian. Sekelompok orang yang mustahil disatukan, anehnya memutuskan bekerja sama:

Squire yang dipaksa memilih antara rumah atau kehormatan.

Insan kekal yang hendak menuntut balas atas janji yang diingkari.

Pembunuh bayaran yang diasingkan dan haus darah.

Penyihir wanita kuno yang teka-tekinya menyembunyikan ramalan masa depan yang mengerikan.

Pemalsu dengan masa lalu yang dirahasiakan.

Pemburu hadiah dengan target yang harus dicapai.

Bersama, mereka melawan musuh yang kejam, tak terkalahkan, dan bertekad untuk membakar seluruh kerajaan menjadi abu—barisan tentara yang tidak pernah disaksikan siapa pun di seluruh semesta.