#ahsfab

[massiveladycat]

2/? rant of how much i absolutely hated AHSFAB by brigid kemmerer - grey is dumb. no other explanation. so, if you know that there’s a bounty for your head, would you use a magic bracelet to disappear and reappear while someone is sleeping in the same room as you? WELL OBVIOUSLY NO!! DUMBASS!! - suddenly the author decided that rhen should become a full on villain just for the sake of making grey look like a hero? it’s 100% wrong. - wait a minute. we are just gonna take a world tour? even if Lia Mara is kind and well known, we are literally forgetting ALL ABOUT how shyl shallow absolutely slaughtered emberfall's people. hellooooo?!? you have been killing their people and burning their cities, the last book ended with an INVASION, and you want me to believe that people would just trust her just because she looks nice and is kind? LMFAO WHAT THE FUCK - the characters are a mess. rhen now goes against everything he did in the previous novel. grey wants to reclaim the kingdom, despite having no clue of politics or any of the things you must know to be a king. harper is apparently now not even a side character in her own story; she got a chapter and a few scenes she popped up in, and even those scenes were just her whining that rhen wasn't cruel. jake suddenly wants to fight against his sister and not return to earth. - why didn't grey just.. say he was the heir?? i get that rhen was traumatized by magic and he seems very skittish and afraid and desperate to find the magesmith/heir, but that's because he thinks that they'll put him in the absolute hell he was trapped in again, that they'll ruin the kingdom. if grey had just told him, and insisted that he genuinely did not want the throne and he didn't want to cause any harm, the chances are that rhen would've accepted. well, ACSDAL rhen anyway. all rhen fans are invited to his funeral. cause of death; character assassination. - the people should not have started rallying behind grey if only for the fact that (a) it was established that these people fear magic, and for good reason because they've been killed by the dozens by some random monster and the kingdom wasn't doing ANYTHING and (b) HE HAD NO TRAINING TO BE A KING WHERE RHEN HAS BEEN A ROYAL HIS ENTIRE LIFE!!

[neverlearnedtoread]

A Heart So Fierce And Broken

⭐⭐; there are certain angles grey can work and 'person in a position of power making a tricky decision' is NOT one of them 😭😭

Oh?? 👌😉😏

the way the world was expanded and the isekai aspect of the story was well-handled. it was realistic and also (more importantly) brought tension to the story in a way that i didn't feel derailed the main conflict

in particular the 'women warrior' culture of Karis Luran wasn't overplayed - there wasn't a sense that their culture was any less myopic than any other about gender roles, which was very refreshing to read after Strong Feminist Harper in book 1

No.. ❌🤢🤮

the protagonists of the previous book take a sudden turn for the worse. i don't think its a character assassination per se, but i do find it jarring how the main characters in bk1 became antagonists in this (the actual concept of them becoming the antagonists, i have nothing against, but the execution fell flat for me). i just wasn't finding the situation believable enough for that kind of sudden 180

it wasn't that there wasn't anything happening, but nothing that was happening was something i felt emotionally invested in

POV characters that don't do nothing in the latter half of the book (when they should, absolutely, be DOING SOMETHING, OR AT LEAST FEEL LIKE THEY ARE)

Some spoilers under the cut - this is the second book in the series!

Summary: I've read cliffhanger endings before, but talk about stepping off the rollercoaster of the first book into the Tower of Terror of this one! Let's look at the pros first: the curse that held Prince Rhen and his guard Grey has been broken, and Lillith left dying on the streets of Washington, DC. Harper's still alive, as well as her brother and his boyfriend. As for the cons, well: remember how in the first book they told a bunch of lies about Harper being a princess and constructing an elaborate ruse to rally Emberfall together in the face of ruin? All that's about to bite us in the ass, because not only is the ruler of Karis Luran threatening to invade them after three long years of skulking around their borders, but the rumours that Prince Rhen is not actually the firstborn prince are true, and the real heir to the throne is Grey, who, upon finding this out, has cut and run with his deadly secret like a wolf afraid of his own shadow. It's not the best start for a would-be-king, and it honestly doesn't get better.

Concept: 💭💭💭 The last part of the first book really clawed its way up to four stars (Harper guiding monster!Rhen - on a murder spree no less - was so fun!!) and set the scene for an interesting bk2. I was so excited! I liked the idea of having Grey as a more pragmatic, even-keeled POV to contrast Rhen and Harper's strong-minded narrative voices in bk1. I also love 'stoic bodyguard' / 'guard dog' tropes and was stoked to see Grey as a main character.

Execution: 💥💥 Grey, darling....what happened?? i mean i know the author was trying to write you as a character floundering in situations you were ill-suited to, but did you have to become that annoying in the process?? dont even get me started on rhen. and the thing is, kemmerer's justifications for what happens in this book make sense; on paper, it does work! but all the interesting parts of the story were sacrificed in the process, and that's not an acceptable outcome for me. i was told why the characters were doing what they were doing (ie torture), but i didn't actually believe it. it would have really helped if the sense of urgency and desperation kemmerer wanted us to feel was made more concrete - like, maybe there were hordes of people literally making their way to the castle to demand prince rhen reveal the heir and/or step down, or evidence of karis luran's troops (not just the princess) on the wrong side of the border. and have our POV characters run into these groups, instead of vaguely saying 'they're around!'

Personal Enjoyment: ❤❤ I didn't enjoy this book, but I was also invested enough in the drama to skim-read at a speed that would make it seem like i was really into it. it took me less than a day! more than halfway through i had to admit to myself that anything i would have wanted to happen wasn't going to pan out, including cute rhenxharper scenes, lia mara being kind and whipsmart (or balancing both depending on the situation), and grey making any attempt to rise to the damn occasion. by the end, i was just trying to be done with the book 😕

Favourite Moment: this was a bummer of a book for me but the mental image of grey launching himself out of the window after sneaking into lia mara's room, I WAS LOSING IT 🤣 man said BYE! 💨🤸‍♂️🧗‍♂️

Favourite Character: lia mara? harper? its actually hard for me to pick any character, that's how difficult this book was for me to enjoy. i liked what i THOUGHT i was going to get but it became too clear about halfway through kemmerer was trying to write characters into certain positions / state of mind for bk3 for me to fully invest in what was happening. i will say lia mara SHOULD have been my favourite (i wanted her to be so badddd) except that my vision of a politically savvy and whipsmart heroine that didn't have to resort to violence or threats to garner power (while grappling with her innate sense of justice and kindness) crumbled into her just being 'girl stuck in tower' for like. the last third of the book. like baby! stand up!!

[lily4731]

I covered one of my dorm's wall with sticky notes with my favorite book quotes and I LOVE IT

Obviously there are a few Jem Carstairs and Stellan Gios quotes because they are my most beloved.

[princessofdisi]

i’d never run for a man but if grey called me “my lady” i might sprint a little

[peevishpants]

AHSFAB (assigned Homestuck fan after birth)

if ye could chaenge ye faete.... woodja

[booksandbumblebees]

"the most dangerous person at the party is always the girl sitting alone with a book "

- Brigid Kemmerer

[atlasxavery]

Books I’ve read in 2021:

→ A Vow So Bold and Deadly by Brigid Kemmerer

[reverie-quotes]

"Ah yes, the most dangerous person at the party is always the girl sitting alone with a book."

— Brigid Kemmerer, A Heart so Fierce and Broken

[jessread-s]

✩📃🌷 Series Review: * Enemies-to-lovers * Slow Burn * YA Fantasy * “Beauty and the Beast” Retelling With “Forging Silver into Stars’” release date on the horizon, I finally got around to reading the Cursebreaker trilogy! I am so glad that I did because “A Curse So Dark and Lonely” is one of my favorite reads of 2022 and the absolute best fairytale retelling! Kemmerer’s writing is fantastic. She created characters that I have grown dangerously attached to and sucked me into the world of Emberfall with her beautiful descriptions. I cannot wait to see what she does with Tycho’s story! If you have not yet preordered “Forging Silver into Stars,” be sure to do so! You are not going to want to miss out. ➤ A Curse So Dark and Lonely: 4.5 stars ➤ A Heart So Fierce and Broken: 4.25 stars ➤ A Vow So Bold and Deadly: 4.0 stars ➤ Overall Series Rating: 4.25 stars

Cross-posted to: Instagram | Amazon | Goodreads | StoryGraph

@brigidkemmererwrites​

[stanthebeardeddragon]

Honestly, A Curse So Dark and Lonely instantly became one of my favourite books. It was an absolute delight to read (and I was going through a book slump at the time but was so captivated by this story) but then. Came A Heart So Fierce and Broken. I started really disliking Grey, the reasons to which I will write in another post someday. But then. I read A Vow So Bold and Deadly. Absolute let down. The end was SO unsatisfactory I can’t even begin to describe. The book itself was unsatisfactory. Rhen and Harper’s apparently had a glow down instead of a glow up. Like???? Bridget Kimmerer please write a new 3rd book and cancel AVSBAD.

Anyone relate? hmu I really need someone to talk to about this... 

[minjuiced]

In my opinion:

Rhen and Harper deserved better than what they got in canon. Their characters in A Curse So Dark And Lonely were rewritten in the subsequent books to the point I could not recognise them - to top that off we had a rushed finale of a "redemption arc".

It seems to me the author wanted to focus on the two other haracters more and did exactly that in AHSFAB, but realised how much backlash she got because of it. And in the end they got the shorter end of the stick.

There is so much more I'd like to add on my disappointed and dissatisfaction over AVSBAD, but I'll just end it here.

[massiveladycat]

rating: A HEART SO FIERCE AND BROKEN BY BRIGID KEMMERER ooohh. oooohh. i have never hated a book so much. i should not have gone in with such high expectations. mm. two stars. the character assassination and the villainization of ptsd with rhen is absolutely insane. character development?? i dont know her RHEN'S THE VILLAIN? the boy who fought his monstrosity and suffered every moment when hurting his subjects? the man who tried to die rather than keep the whole affair going? he turned into a vicious, cruel man, on the account of his literal trauma with being tortured for YEARS by MAGIC and now his people doubting him? and now, his ptsd is being villainized? i call bullshit, kemmerer. this “series” should have been a standalone. let’s not even try to talk about how much of a hypocrite AHSFAB grey is. if he had been honest from the very beginning, everything could have been avoided. also, we literally spent this WHOLE book watching Mara Lia and grey fight for peace, but once she gets the crown from her mother, grey decides to take a tour with her spreading propaganda against rhen. and theeeen Grey decides that Rhen is not a good ruler, so he actually decides to declare war on Rhen and *his* people? his home country? ooh. this book makes me so angry i am making so many parts ranting about it. 1/?

[caitsbooks]

JOMP BPC | Day 5: Different POVs

“I am always surprised to discover that when the world seems darkest, there exists the greatest opportunity for light.” (Brigid Kemmerer, A Curse So Dark and Lonely)

(review, instagram)

[immortal-enemies]

I'm glad to inform you all the the only reason I got through this week is because of A Vow So Bold and Deadly coming out next week.

😎

[princessofdisi]

Lia Mara: What's the first thing you notice when a guy approaches you?

Nolla Verin: The audacity.

[inlovewithfictionalcharacters2]

I NEED CARDAN, RHEN, REID, MAXON, MAVEN AND CAL IN MY LIFE

okay maybe Maven if he didn't have Elara in his life