The witch collector cannot actually do anything

Disclaimer: Some spoilers ahead.

Let's start with the speaker because that's handled quickly: I like her voice but when she was quiet - which was often - she was too quiet. I had to turn up the volume a lot and often to understand everything she said. Especially pronounced when on the drive but even in quiet environments it was noticeable. No complaints otherwise.

Anyway, to the plot: I've thought on this a bunch and I think it's really 2 things:
1. the male main character is presented as a generally very capable person and has had significant influence on the whole country in the past
2. during the course of the books he just doesn't succeed at anything* unless Raina makes it happen

(* strictly speaking there is this one scene where he kills a bunch of mooks off-screen)

I think the second point alone would kill most stories for me but paired with the first it was pretty bizarre. I ended up quitting the story for a couple of weeks, until I completed it out of sheer stubbornness. So forgive me if my memory is a bit spotty about the details, but one good example is right at the start of the book.

The basic situation is that the ice king and the witch collector seem to run the nothern kingdom, having built and protected it for hundreds of years. Apparently they're both hundreds of years old and pretty powerful! But now the prince of the east is starting to make hostile moves and they're afraid there'll be an invasion. So what do they (mostly the witch collector) do:

* The ice king goes hide in his castle as he's the target of the invasion so presumably they have some way to deal with his frost powers
* The witch collectors goes to witch collect Raina Bloodgood, as spies have not been invented yet* and they really need to know if and where this is going to happen
* The invasion is already happening
* The witch collector's way of protecting his people is to warn who he can and then leave them to their devices. I kind of expected better than "Sorry, they'll be here in 2 hours, you'll all die, best of luck, on I go"
* And on he goes because of course he still needs to collect Raina (I forget why)
* Eventually he arrives at her village which is already under attack
* He joins the melee, sees Raina fighting and is so utterly starstruck that he gets severely injured by an eastlander he just didn't pay any attention to because he was too busy simping. This, ladies and gentlemen, is our male lead. What a guy
* Despite that he keeps on fighting a bit but is deadly wounded and goes down shortly after
* Raina drives away the prince of the east because she can do things in this story. Go Raina!
* Thibault is bleeding out and spends his last minutes mostly thinking how great Raina is, but also pleading with her to save his life
* Then he dies
* Then she brings him, back to life

(* we later find out there are in fact spies and they did in fact send warning. What happened? Thibault probably failed at receiving the warning, seeing as Raina wasn't there do it for him)

The entire rest of the story Alex Thibault only knows 2 modes: Simping for Raina in the most embarrassing way and failing, then getting rescued by her. I mean I am exaggerating of course. But just a bit.

I will say below all this there's a pretty decent personality. In fact way better than your run-of-the-mill some-shade-of-asshole obsessive male lead fantasy romance stories sometimes have. He's a decent person, he is caring, he has a moral compass. He just doesn't succeed at anything he does and needs Raina Bloodgood to do everything for him.

And that just doesn't do it for me.

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2 Leute fanden das hilfreich

Amazing!

I loved it and I can't wait for the second book!
The Story is amazing and so are the narrators!

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Unintentionally boring

This book is incredibly drawn-out and sluggish, making it, unfortunately, quite boring. I'm not exactly sure what makes it so tedious: the endless descriptions, the lack of actual plot, too many details (in the descriptions), far too much world-building, too little depth in the characters, or perhaps all of these things together.

The core idea behind the story could have been interesting, but sadly, it’s really poorly executed. It feels as if the author wanted to paint an extremely clear picture so the reader could vividly imagine what everything looks like, what’s happening, how it sounds, etc., but ended up getting hopelessly lost in the process.

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