The Shadows Between Us

I was all set for this to be a deliciously wicked 5-star read with some wickedly clever characters, but just a few chapters in and I was already disappointed. The characters were not clever but contrived and cliche and just so boringly common ... and the worst part is that they believe they are the smartest people in the room. You know who's simultaneously the smartest and so-naive-as-to-get-tricked people in the room are? Us readers, who figured out exactly who was behind the assassination plot as soon as those characters were introduced – and who got this book in the first place thinking we were going to get something so much better. I cry for us all.

Honestly, I'm only giving this book 4 stars because I put it doen for like 3 weeks because I wasn't engaged into the story anymore.
It was such a good book, honestly one of the best books I've read in a while. Loved the characters, the plot was cool but I wasn't overly excited because of it. The first sentence gave a fun start but it really didn't sum up the entire book. Still really loved it

First let me tell you something: I have an exam in 2 days. And guess what I did? I stayed up late reading this book, then I woke up and instead of studying I KEPT READING. This book was amazing, I just couldn't put it down and that's a really good sign. I just wanted to see what was going to happen. I regret NOTHING.

“I want a life with you, Alessandra, one without the shadows between us.”

Spoiler I fell in love with Kallias and Alessandra. Oh my god, they make such a good pair! They're made for each other and I love that they overcame their insecurities (mostly Kallias) and they took the chance to be together.
The whole story is so well written, I loved the pace and I just felt like I was part of their world. And that final plot twist about Leandros... oh well. I kinda never liked him for Alessandra, he was a little bit annoying and it was shady that he kept approaching her when he knew that she was promised to the king. Anyway, I liked him that one night when he gave Alessandra the fun she deserved and that punch she also deserved (sorry, but at the beginning I thought her plan was really stupid and the fact that she wanted to kill the king and get the kingdom for herself... nope).
I loved the ending of the book and I'm so happy they stayed together, even if at some point I was pretty sure that she was going to follow her plan and kill him in the end, even if she started to fall in love with him. That would have been really nasty though and I would have been REALLY, REALLY mad. But fortunately that didn't happen.

All in all, this story was so beautiful and magical and this book definitely deserves 5 stars!

This book is deliciously grey. Grey as in morality. This book is for people who are tired of saccharine characters or romances and crave a more complex set of characters. Alternatively, this is for people like me who just like grey. If that is what you are looking for, before you start, know this is a fantasy romance. If still intrigued, this is for you! Enjoy ;)

I'm sorry to say this wasn't it for me. Thought about DNFing this book several times to be honest. I just didn't like the main character at all (and it's not because she's morally grey, i just could not sympathise with her at all). I liked the idea but not the execution of this book, it felt a bit like a (not so well written) fanfiction. I will say that I liked the last 100 pages a lot betterbecause it picked up a little speed then.

Allesandra knows what she wants and will not let anything stand in her way. She wants the Shadow King. Actually she just wants his kingdom.

I had a lot of trouble coming up with a rating for this one. I still have a lot of mixed feelings about it. The writing is very simplistic, so it was a quick read. There's really no world building. It was very predictable. Even with the many flaws, I still had fun reading it.

I absolutely adored this book!
Alessandra really is one of the funniest and most entertaining characters ever and not only she but everyone we meet throughout this book feels so alive.

This book managed to do something which I haven't had in a long time: it made me laugh so hard that I cried tears, shocked me and also made me smile. Oh and it even kept me awake way past my bed time because I found the story way too captivating and entertaining to stop.

I've been wanting to read this book since a year and I finally came around to do so. I found this right after reading Shadow and Bone and the idea of reading about another shadow king who is morally gray in character. However, Kallias wasn't as brutal or tough as my dearest Darkling was. He was rather sweet, adorable like a puppy and this is actually a love story rather than rivalry.

Fantasy grasps my attention very rarely but this one was very soft and easy to read. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Alessandra carried this book.

It is my opinion that she is single-handedly the best fl I have ever crossed paths with. Reading her POV was a genuine delight and I, thankfully, did not want to end my mental suffering after reading an entire book in her perspective, as I do with most other female leads.

This book is a guilty pleasure read though because everything else was mid. But her? She is my queen (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ).

Do yourself a favour and read this book just to see the funny shit she pulls. The way she treats her father & that opening with her POV of her little affair with Helikopter is absolutely hilarious.

lovely use of my time :DD

Actual rating: 3.5 ★

It could've been a 5 ★ read if only it had better pacing, and if only the female empowerment messages weren't so blatantly inserted it felt like an attempt to win brownie points.

The book starts off strong with Alessandra showing the full extent of how shady she is, so in addition to it being marketed as a “Slytherin romance”, I expected her to be super questionable in terms of action and morality. Since the story opens with her murdering her first love, of course I loved her instantly. Unfortunately, this only lasts for like the first few chapters. Once she enters the palace, her shadiness considerably starts to fade. She grows tamer and tamer as she interacts with the Shadow King too, but I thought maybe she just needs to adjust before she can carry out this plan of hers.

So I waited and waited as the story drags on, veeery slowly going through Alessandra's life in the palace, hoping that she'll go back to how she was in the beginning eventually. That did not happen. What happens is she turns into a blushing maiden, and the Shadow King himself isn't any better. Save for their occasional cunning and stomach for murder, nothing else is shady about them. This is not what I signed up for, so I can't help but feel disappointed. I wanted grey characters, not sometimes grey but most of the time white characters. It doesn't help that once Alessandra falls in love, her plan just goes out the window... though she gets what she wants anyway due to a very convenient proposal from the Shadow King.

To be fair, the writing is very easy to digest. The world is interesting, but lacks proper world-building to fully bring it to life. We only learn a little about the empire and the conquest, and even less about everything else. We don't even learn much about the land outside of the palace. Due to the lack of information, the climax and especially the ending feel terribly rushed. I feel like some parts in the middle could've been cut shorter to allow room for better build-up.

I wanted to love this. I didn't, but it was a fairly entertaining read.