Ruthless Vows: I Wish This Was a Trilogy

In this video, Charity reviews the book 'Ruthless Vows' by Rebecca Ross, the second book in the 'Theology of Divine Rivals' series. She shares her thoughts on the duology format and expresses her desire for the story to be a trilogy. Charity discusses the continuation of the story from the first book and the challenges faced by the main characters, Roman and Iris. She highlights the focus on the main conflict and the lack of time spent together by the protagonists. Charity also mentions the inauthentic ending and the underdeveloped side characters. She concludes with her overall opinion and encourages viewers to share their thoughts.

Watch me talk on YouTube: HERE

Takeaways

• The duology format may not provide enough time to fully explore the story and characters.
• The second book focuses on the main conflict and spends less time on the romance between the main characters.
• The ending feels inauthentic and out of place with the rest of the story.
• The side characters are underdeveloped and their storylines are not fully resolved.
• The book could have benefited from being a trilogy to allow for more depth and exploration.

Read my review on my Booktrovert Reader Blog:
Ruthless Vows: An Honest Book Review

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Divine Rivals: HERE
Ruthless Vows: HERE

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00:00
Introduction and Book Recommendation

01:03
Opinion on Duologies

03:05
Continuation of Divine Rivals

04:02
Roman's Memory Loss and Reunion

05:18
Focus on the Main Conflict

06:37
Lack of Time Spent Together

07:05
Desire for a Trilogy

08:04
Inauthentic Ending

08:57
Underdeveloped Side Characters

10:41
Unexplored Brigade Group

12:04
Sad Ending with Closure

12:59

Transcript

Charity (00:00.574)
I'm Charity, welcome back to my channel, I'm Booktube for a Reader, and I am excited to talk about Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross, which is the second book of the theology of divine rivals. If you haven't heard about divine rivals or ruthless vows, I highly recommend to pick up Divine Rivals right away. Anyways, so thank you for joining me again. I am happy to see you here. I-

with love for YouTube, like and subscribe to my channel so you can be the first to know when I have a video popping up. I do have a goal of a thousand subscribers, so if you can help me out, shameless plug. Anyways, that said, I do have a lot of things to say about Ruthless Vows, so if you haven't read that book, definitely come back to this video another time, save it to your watch list later because I will go into some spoilers for this book. It's definitely...

I have some thoughts, okay? Okay, so this is your last warning.

Charity (01:03.914)
Anyways, let me get into Rebecca Ross. Rebecca Ross is very known for duologies. I haven't read anything else but other than Divine Rivals and Brutalist Vowels, but I may get into her other stuff.

I just realized through this experience, I just sometimes feel like duologies are just too short in my opinion. Now my first opinion about this is that I felt like this should have been a trilogy. My opinion. Just because I felt like the second book had so much potential to get more into the story, more into the gods, more into Roman and Iris' love story, that it could have been a well crafted third book.

That said, it felt short and I felt like it wasn't long enough in my opinion. Now, I can honestly say that I wasn't disappointed into the second book of Ruthless Vows, but I can say that I didn't have my expectations met going into the second book.

reason being is because I felt like the second book kind of focused on a lot of the story that I wasn't looking for when it came to what I loved about the first book. So with going into the second one, it just felt like it kind of felt flat in that area personally. I really struggled with rating my review for it because I didn't want to rate it based off of expectations that it didn't meet for me, but at the same time it didn't

I feel like it deserved the rating that I gave it, but I gave it a four star anyways, just because I did theoretically enjoy it. Well, I won a rush to read it again. I'm still debating on that fact. I just struggled reading this a little bit because it just wasn't what I was hoping it to be. So getting into Divine Rivals where it left off, Robin and I just got separated.

Charity (03:05.854)
Roman was kind of in a very critical situation and Dacar find him. That's where we left off and you know, they were married and they got separated. Iris went with Forrest, which she found her brother and they, she went back to oath. So with that being said, we are left off with here where the story starts off where Iris is going out and trying to find what happened to Roman and.

haven't heard from Roman at all and Forrest is like, you know, if you just realize that if you do find him and Dacra found him, he's not going to have any memories of you whatsoever. So she still decides to like, I'm going to keep finding him. So she eventually kind of volunteers herself back to the war front. You know, we go into Roman's point of view eventually and he doesn't remember anything, but he slowly is getting his memory back.

He's kind of like being told that the reason why he doesn't have his memories is because Dakra healed him and then it turns out over time that he gets healed just enough to be dependent on Dakra. They eventually meet up in these strange circumstances and Roman kind of starts trying to remember but also too I forgot which is the they somehow get back in touch as well through the typewriter.

of course, and through a magical wardrobe. And even though he doesn't remember anything about Iris, he's still very drawn to her and things like that. So they start communicating secretly and because he knows that if Dacra finds out that Roman has his memories back, he probably will get rid of the typewriter, which is his connection to this mysterious person, which is Iris. Over time, things, he starts getting his memory back and...

Things are starting to happen in Oath where Dacra does come back, starts revealing himself. There's even like this secret, secret group that is neither on Enva's or Dacra's side and they're patrolling the streets and they're dangerous.

Charity (05:18.622)
it's a lot. now, and then they eventually do get together eventually, and they still end up together. but i guess my thing is that this book does focus a lot on the main conflict of the first book, which is the inva and the darker war. it just really focused on that because roman and ira's

really spent a lot of time apart in this book. in divine rivals they spent a lot more even if they were like enemies to lovers whatever but they spent a lot of time apart from each other and it was just not satisfying to me. i just wish there was more time. i kind of noticed that even in curse for true love this kind of happened with the whole memory thing where the main character spent a lot of time not remembering the main love interest.

and it just was to me, it was just not satisfying to me. it just felt like dead in the water to me and i didn't really enjoy that aspect of the book. they didn't really truly get together to the last like 15 pages of the book. like there were moments where they were able to spend a stolen moment together because dakar let roman leave but it wasn't really like what i was looking for. it was a lot of time spent in

just the storytelling of Dacra and then Inva pops up out of nowhere in a way and I just felt like that was a part of the story that I just like... when were you important in this? You know, I guess because in Divine Rivals you don't really get to know any of these gods that these people go to war for. And I like the explanation of it but I just wish there was more time spent on it and in like three books instead of just two.

just because I factored, because I just like, well, more of that tension of Iris and Roman getting together and maybe fighting to stay together once they are together. And then maybe a conclusion of the third book, and they're fighting for this freedom in the third book. Instead, it was like they spent time apart, and Iris was the one that kind of fought for the freedom of the country and eventually saves Roman's butt at the very end through a random letter that she just so happens to keep.

Charity (07:34.666)
I just wasn't really like... okay. I think I kind of don't understand because there was like, there was a particular weapon that was very shown, you know, through the whole thing. If you think about it, where this book is kind of set, it's like a World War I, World War II kind of setting, like that feel to it. And then all of a sudden at the very end, what defeats Dacra is a sword. I, this sword, magical sword that can, is the only piece of weapon that can kill a god and...

Iris suddenly somehow, through Enva, gets access to it and defeats Dacra. I just don't feel like it fits the story and the vibe that it was going for. It felt like it was just thrust into this medieval thing that you just didn't care for. Just felt like it wasn't authentic to the storyline. I mean, did I have a true problem with it? No, it's whatever. But I just felt like with how this-

story was going, it just to me, it just the sword was just kind of an oddball thing in the book. One thing that bothered me and I wish there was more time spent on was the side characters of the story. A lot of side characters get introduced and given a personality and I think that's where Rebecca Ross really shines with those characters, but then all of a sudden they just disappear.

and we don't know anything really about them anymore, like as if they just fall flat in the in the place like Roman's dad, for example Pretty pretty butthole in the very first book and you kind of see that in the second book But then you kind of see this character development of where he's kind of like regretting choosing docker's side but He it just suddenly falls flat and we don't get into like

why was he regretting it, if he was regretting it at all. And even Roman didn't have any interactions with this man, his father. I felt like Iris had more interactions with Roman's dad than Roman had with his own father. And it would have been kind of cool to see that development in character of like...

Charity (09:45.15)
why he started doing the, you know, being choosing sides. Cause you also saw him kind of like, don't touch my son. Don't, you know, this and that, and kind of sound like he regretted choosing Dacra. And then at the end, he gets this tiny little epilogue of what happened to him. And that was it. There was another character called like Captain Shane, and he was very pivotal in getting Roman out of the dungeons of Dacra. He was a big part in a rebellion and everything. And he got...

Roman out of there and then all of a sudden he just disappears. We don't really truly know what happened to his character. We have an idea of what happened because they were kind of like basically getting rid of all the soldiers that were on Dacra's side. You don't see what happened to that captain and I kind of with him being so pivotal to the story I kind of wish we had more of a...

satisfying ending to his side character. One thing also too that I just came to mind was the fact that there is this big group of brigade people that was like saying they they're neither for Enva or for Dacra. Either or. They don't they don't they don't want either god running the show. So apparently they were these big things and all of a sudden they show up and

they had a part in the ending of the war by getting rid of all the traitors. Even though they're in the middle, they get rid of Dacra people, but they don't really get rid of the people that were fighting for Enva. So I kind of felt like that was an interesting aspect of the storyline that wasn't really diged into, I think, personally, because it would have been interesting for maybe more conflict with that side for because they're like, they don't want either or, but they were just like,

causing more danger for Iris to find a sword and get to safety and things like that. It was an interesting aspect of the story that I wish was delved into a little bit more. I did have a hard time at the very end. Forrest did pass away, you know, protecting the one he loves, so we say. And it was really tough for me because I...

Charity (12:04.554)
You know, the reason why Iris went into the war in the first place was to save Forest and he died in the war regardless. And that was really hard for me. I really... UGH. I like a melancholy happy ending, you know? Like it's a happy ending at the end, but it's just a little sad with a touch of sadness. I love those kind of endings just because, you know, sometimes not everything is like, oh...

this great thing happened, this great thing happened, and happy ending, and you know, it's just to me it was great. the reason why this book didn't really totally like, bomb for me was because the epilogue, we got a good epilogue of Iris' roman story. you do see that they have a happy ending, and i was glad for that, it gave me the closure for me on the series that i really loved, but i wish we could have like, gotten more throughout the book.

per se. Now that's just like some of the things that I wish there was a little bit more on. I love the side characters, I just wish there was more of it because they really, really played a part in the story and I love this magical, it's like a magical realism kind of in this, in a historical fantasy setting. So it's definitely a different vibe than the fantasies that have been coming out lately. I just wish there was more time delve into the story.

and the characters. So that's my opinion. Definitely let me know below what your thoughts about Ruthless Vowels. Tell me that you love it or tell me what you don't love about it. I love reading those and I love hearing what you think. Definitely join me, subscribe, like and I'll catch you later readers. Bye.