Reviewed by thepunktheory on
So, I'm not a fan of romance books, but this one has won me over. It's not too sappy (although it gets close sometimes) and there is more going on than just a princess swooning over some cute guy.
I love that Anna Bright drew her inspiration from so many different sources. No spoilers here - you'll see for yourself should you decide to pick up the book. Let me just tell you that it's a lot of fun discovering those little things that obviously influenced her. She doesn't go over the top with this or produce what feels like a cheap copy. Instead Bright creates something that is unique and fun to explore.
According to the reviews on Goodreads, many people dnfed this book. Well, I am not in love with the characters either and, granted, some things are a bit weird. For example the world-building: Bright clearly drew from existing countries but changed stuff up quite a lot. She also took inspiration from other languages like German. Many of her newly created words don't make that much sense, but that'll only be a problem if you actually speak the language, so most people shouldn't be bothered.
The Beholder was a quick read and I'm glad about that. I had a 4-hour train journey to cover and I finished almost the entire book in that sitting. Honestly, had the book been longer, it wouldn't have held my interest. I feel like what went down so far could have been told in an even shorter version but I get that this is setting the table for the second part.
This is exactly what I'm looking forward to. From what we have so far, I'm expecting the second part to be less about love and more about politics, dark stuff and adventures - which seems pretty intriguing to me.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 23 August, 2019: Finished reading
- 23 August, 2019: Reviewed