Charity (00:00.046)
So let's talk about this. I pre -ordered books in advance and they all flopped for me. Hi, I'm Charity, Booktrover reader. Thank you for joining my channel, where all the introverts gather together to talk about books. And I'm excited to talk to you about some highly anticipated books that I was so looking forward to talking about. And it just flopped like,
FLOPPED in my world. Okay, so if you're new to my channel definitely like and subscribe this video I would love for you to join the booktrovertcommunity and to also get quick updates about all the videos that I'm gonna be doing in the future I would love to have you so definitely join kind of give you contacts. I Am one of those people that's always late to the game when it comes to books. I just don't
buy books when it first released because a lot of times a they're more expensive when they're first released so i like to kind of wait six months to a year to buy a book because it's a little cheaper and the hype has gone down and everything and it or and that's another point too is that i don't get books because if it's super hyped i just don't like to jump on that train well i decided to jump on that train for four different books.
All four of those books have flopped majorly for me. I'm not saying these books are terrible, they're just not what my expectations was in going into that particular book. And the reason why I pre -ordered these books was because of the fact that all these books were really majorly hyped on Book Talk or Bookstagram.
Or I really enjoyed the second or the first book of the series. And I was like, OK, let me go ahead, preorder this next book because it's very hyped and I don't want to have to look around for this copy or get a spoiler for any of these books when I'm, you know, as I'm waiting to read this book. So I was like, you know what, I want to order these books. It's going to come to me in the mail and I'm going to read within a week or two of buying these books. And I did.
Charity (02:15.438)
do that for every single one of these. But some reason, all the books that I pre -ordered six months in advance just kind of let me down a little bit. I know this is a hate love relationship on this book, but the first one is Iron Flame by Rebecca Yaros. Now I was kind of impartial with Fourth Wing, but I did enjoy it. I did like the story, how unique it was, how it's told about dragons and everything. But when it got to Iron Flame by Rebecca Yaros,
I did not like it that much. I will say that the first 250 pages I seriously thought this book would be better than Fourth Wing because I love how she was telling the story and everything, but then once it got past the 250 page mark, it just went downhill for me. I heard that the word count is a lot higher than this in the House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas. It took me a lot longer to finish this book just because it
I mean, I read a lot more words on a page compared to, you know, other books that I usually read. Some of the points that I didn't like about this book was the the woman on woman hate. First book in fourth wing, I really enjoyed it because there was a lot of women camaraderie. Violet's adversaries weren't another woman or anything like that. So when it got to the second book and they were fighting over a man in the middle of a war, it just seemed petty. And I just.
lost interest is in the characters and Violet. Now, I honestly believe that this book, Rebecca Yarros did rush to publish this book. And if you think about it, the first book was published in May and the second book was published in November and she raced to get that thing published. And I personally feel that the second book suffered a little bit concerning the pacing and the plot of the story in this book.
not saying it's not bad and I feel like there's a lot of little nuggets in there that could be really good, but I just felt like it was rushed and could have been edited down just a little bit more. And I think this would have been a good story. Now I'm looking forward to reading her other books in the series because I know this is a five book series. So I am looking forward to reading the third book and I'm just hoping that this is kind of a fluke in my world and that she's going to continue writing good books.
Charity (04:39.534)
I read one of her romances, I know she can write, so I'm hoping it will reflect in the next one. I would say the next one is my... biggest disappointment. I mean, this is probably like the rest of them. I was like, okay, it's good, but I'm not gonna bend on a shape about it. But the one book that I would say I got really upset with is A Curse for True Love by Stephanie Garber.
I really fell hard for book two, The Ballad of Never After. I loved that book. The ending was finesse and I loved how she ended that one on this cliffhanger and you're kind of wondering what's going to happen and you're just like, oh, I've got to get that third book and the third book came and it was so disappointing to me. First off, Evangeline and Jax were hardly
together in this book. And I think that's what really disappointed me because in the second book they had a lot of time together developing that relationship that that tension between the characters of Jax being the the Jax of horror and being able to kiss anybody only his true love and all this stuff. And when we got to the third book it wasn't really about that anymore. It was about Apollo's point of view and Evangeline getting her memory back. And to me I just didn't care for that.
I just, I wanted more Jax and Eva, Eva Jax. And I didn't get enough of that. And plus two, ending was kind of unsatisfactory because we spent three books not being able to Jax and Eva being together. And then all of a sudden they're just like, there to go, moving on. And I just didn't really think that was a very satisfactory ending and give me the, what I really wanted out of the Once Upon a Broken
I had to second guess myself on that. I keep saying once upon a time the TV show, but no, not that. I didn't really care for Apollo's timeline. Yes, it was unique because he was kind of the bad guy in this book, but with so much of the POV and not enough Jackson -eva, it just didn't feel very good to me. It was an easy read, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the first and second book and I felt like...
Charity (07:05.582)
almost and I hate saying this but I'm gonna say it felt like it discredited the whole series with this book. I just didn't like it. I can't wait for Stephanie Garber's other books. It kind of hinted for a new series. I'm looking forward to reading about it and hopefully we'll get it. I know she's releasing a Christmas novella of the Care of a Hall series. I don't really care for that either but I might read it.
depends. Once Upon a Broken Heart was mine, but this one let me down a little bit. I'll probably just reread first and second book, but never finish the third. So the next one is Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross. I was hoping a little bit more. This one I would say I'm not disappointed, but at the same time my expectations weren't met. It's the same issue as A Curse for True Love. They didn't spend a lot of time together.
The first previous book, Divine Rivals, spent a great time together and building that relationship up. And this one, because of the circumstances of where the first book left off and to this one, it just didn't focus on what we fell in love with the first book. And I really wish that we could have spent more time with Roman and Iris's love story. Now, I would say that we did get an epilogue that kind of wrapped it all up. It was good. I really enjoyed.
the wrap up to that we needed that closure for this duology. I'll link this video below of my full thoughts on Ruthless Val but I do feel like this could have been a trilogy over a duology because Rebecca Ross had such a great way of building a unique fictional world that I felt like we could have dived more into that, dived into the conflict of the war and...
dive into the conflict between Iris and Roman, you know, trying to find their way to each other or then they do eventually, but then they work together to fight the war. I don't know. I felt like there could have been more and I felt like a duology really did a disservice to this. That's my personal opinion. It still was enjoyable. I wouldn't say I would be rushing to reread this, but I think it did end satisfactorily, but it's still kind of disappointed me a little bit. Next one.
Charity (09:26.222)
I, The House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas. So this is another one where I read the second book, The House of Sky and Brass, and I was really pumped for this third book, because it left us in total shock and awe of the second book. And I love the multiple POVs and the moving timelines and the moving story plots that was all within this book. And then we got to the third book.
And it just wasn't the same. I will link my blog article. I did write about my opinions on it because it has spoilers and I don't want to talk too much about the spoilers in this book, but it just the relationships were the same. You are constantly questioning the actions of the characters and wondering why are they making the dumb decisions that they're making. And I didn't really enjoy this. And plus it just felt long. It felt long.
That's more of my personal problem. I know for me I can get easily burned out on really large books. I was getting to the point where I was actually having... I had a dream about wearing wings at one point and then I knew I was in this Crescent City world a little too long. I just didn't enjoy it as the second book and I don't think it was as good as the first and second one to be honest with you.
This is the first time we didn't spend all day figuring out Danica's lies or what she was keeping away from Bryce and the ending was a little too... happy. Happy, yes. I know I heard from somebody, another book talker, that Sarah J Maas is very known for her happy endings and this was like the official...
happy ending of happy endings. Like everything worked out perfectly. No casualties, nothing. Everything worked out well. And I didn't really enjoy it as well. I'm very that person that likes a melancholy ending where it is a happy ending, but there's repercussions to what happened in the plot and we didn't get that. Everything is perfect.
Charity (11:41.294)
Also, the ending was slightly predictable just because Cher J. Maas kind of repeated a scene that happened in the Akatar series. So it just felt like you couldn't like, oh no, what happened? What's going to happen? No, you don't because you're like, oh, we know what's going to happen because this happened before. I wish I could return it. I don't plan ever to reread this again. I mean, maybe the two first... Just realized my book sleeve is...
upside down. But I liked the very beginning of it. You know, call me weird, but when you know the dungeon scene, you know, you know, I think that was just the most character building moment that was humorous, but really serious at the same time. And I think that scene was really great. And Lydia, I know I want to watch one book talker that said that Lydia was the must have back pain because she carried the whole story, which I almost believe.
I do? Yeah, I just... this is kind of okay. So those are the books that I pre -ordered that I was disappointed by. It just shows that I shouldn't be pre -ordering books until the hype is gone and I go into this book a little less expectations. I think that's where it got me is that I had high expectations because I was in the middle of the hype. You know, I...
waited and waited for these books to come in. So which of these books would you say that let you down if you read it? Or what was another highly anticipated book that you got and that let you down? So definitely let me know what your thoughts are and please subscribe and like to my channel and I'll see you next time. Bye, readers!
