I stopped reading on page 116.
Immediately I was worried I wouldn't like The Black Hawks. The first few chapters are dull. And it's crazy, because objectively quite a lot happens: there are multiple attacks, an invasion by another “country”, etc. But it somehow managed to be shallow, and, well… boring.
But I decided to hang in there because I read another person's review where they said things got better after part 1, because that's when the MC actually falls in with the group of mercenaries. That ended up being around the first 75 pages. And that reviewer was right, things did get better when they met the mercenaries. But it still wasn't quite working for me.
I do like the crass humour of the group of mercenaries, but something about the whole thing just wasn't clicking. I think there were a few problems:
- We're in Chel's head, and Chel isn't a very interesting character.
- The prince was just annoying. And I'm sure he was supposed to be annoying, but he was just whiny in a cringy way.
- Although objectively the stakes should have been high (assassins, invaders, a stranded prince), they somehow didn't feel high. It all felt rather shallow and not very serious.
- I feel like there was some “glue” missing between all the characters. There was something missing that would have brought it all together and made it work. Individually there were some good pieces, but overall it wasn't working.
I didn't hate The Black Hawks, it just didn't intrigue me. I'm sure I could have powered through and probably would have given it three stars based on how things were going, but I'd rather move on to something I love.