Book Blog #410: Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover

 

Title: Ugly Love

Author: Colleen Hoover

# of Pages: 323 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Romance, Contemporary

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: When Tate Collins meets airline pilot Miles Archer, she knows it isn’t love at first sight. They wouldn’t even go so far as to consider themselves friends. The only thing Tate and Miles have in common is an undeniable mutual attraction. Once their desires are out in the open, they realize they have the perfect set-up. He doesn’t want love, she doesn’t have time for love, so that just leaves the sex. Their arrangement could be surprisingly seamless, as long as Tate can stick to the only two rules Miles has for her. Never ask about the past. Don’t expect a future. They think they can handle it, but realize almost immediately they can’t handle it at all.

Review: An easy read for people who enjoy their romance with tension, bad communication, and baggage!

Ugly Love follows a similar story arch as Maybe Someday (just replace the song writing sessions with sex, and take out the cheating). I definitely could enjoy the main characters in this one more despite their flaws (Tate being so submissive she's a pushover, Miles needing therapy and being overbearing).

There's first person POV switching, but it didn't really bother me this time because the chapters for both Miles and Tate were pretty engaging. The downside of Tate's chapters were that they mostly focused on repetitive sex scenes vs Mile's POV was written like Milk and Honey style poetry but dumbed down to a wispy child's mentality. 

Hoover also does a great job at writing male main characters who give me the ick for one reason or another (makes me wonder what men in her life inspire such problematic male characters). Miles is better than Ridge, but I had a hard time cheering for his relationship with Tate because of his unresolved baggage he displaced on her. 

Overall a decent read for an accessible romance book. Scratched my itch for romance read!

Book Blog #409: The Burning God by R.F. Kuang

 

Title: The Burning God

Author: R.F. Kuang

# of Pages: 619 (ebook)

Genre: YA, Fantasy, Historical Fiction

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Synopsis: After saving her nation of Nikan from foreign invaders and battling the evil Empress Su Daji in a brutal civil war, Fang Runin was betrayed by allies and left for dead. Despite her losses, Rin hasn’t given up on those for whom she has sacrificed so much—the people of the southern provinces and especially Tikany, the village that is her home. Returning to her roots, Rin meets difficult challenges—and unexpected opportunities. While her new allies in the Southern Coalition leadership are sly and untrustworthy, Rin quickly realizes that the real power in Nikan lies with the millions of common people who thirst for vengeance and revere her as a goddess of salvation. Backed by the masses and her Southern Army, Rin will use every weapon to defeat the Dragon Republic, the colonizing Hesperians, and all who threaten the shamanic arts and their practitioners. As her power and influence grows, though, will she be strong enough to resist the Phoenix’s intoxicating voice urging her to burn the world and everything in it?

Review: This one is about as good as the previous book; high two stars to low three stars.

I was definitely more hooked at the end of The Dragon Republic compared to the ending of this book. However, I was more consistently engaged with The Burning God's story.

It's obvious Kuang has gotten better at story building throughout this series. She started narrowing the focus on the main trio in The Dragon Republic: Rin, Nezha, and Kitay. She continues this focus in The Burning God which makes it a lot easier to be invested in these characters. 

There's still plenty of flaw though. Some historical events dragged the plot (e.g. long army marches in dire conditions with no obvious contribution to driving the story forward), and some fantasy aspects weren't fully fleshed out (e.g. how do hamanistic power and Hesperian technological innovation measure up to each other, and how do you explain when someone overpowered is defeated by the other?). Characters are introduced only to live long enough to be a plot device and are killed off just as the readers is about ready to be invested in them.

Rin developed a bit more into be more power hungry and bloodthirsty....but also continues to be frustratingly immature and horny. She's not someone who I can love to hate nor is she some who I can respect for being logical or having a strong set of morals (she has always been wishy washy with what she cares about and believes in).

This is actually one of the few books/series that I've read where I've considered that it might have been better told from alternating perspectives: from Kitay's or Nezha's POV. I'm not sure where that would place Rin though since then she'd just be an extremely annoying character who rises to power from a lot of luck. 

Overall this series isn't worth the effort it takes to get through this triology (since these three books are also each on the longer side). The second and third books were definitely better than the first, but none of them were page turners. It felt like this was a series that needed to be reworked with a storyboard for all three books and more focus on fully developing the fantasy elements and important characters.