Quicksilver (Standard Edition)

After heavy consideration (mainly because of the cover) I finally decided to give this book a try. It blew me away! I never expected to like this so much, especially because the plot kind of sounds like every other fae romantasy story out there. But what really drew me in from the beginning were the characterizations of the main cast. Even though some of them fell a bit flat, they still each felt alive and unique. Through that this book managed to create one of my favorite found families in this genre. Because of that I really enjoyed myself while reading and I can't wait for the second book to come out.

Tropes: enemies to lovers, slow-burn, grumpy x grumpy, found family, big cliffhanger, shadow daddy, humans/faes/vampires/gods, single POV, fated mates -- I want to start my review with a little side note that may save you some time, so here we go. If you expect a review that praises the hell out of this book like every other review, then you should get the hell outta here because that’s not what’s gonna happen today. What you get today is me passionately ranting about this obsessively hyped book, which I gracefully managed to finish without throwing it out of the window or drowning it in my tears of disappointment. So let’s start with one of the most problematic things about this book. Kingfisher. (Maybe this one’s on me because I read a book where the MMC’s name is Kingfisher.) Anyways. I think that CH really wanted to create THE ultimate dark and brutally good-looking Shadow Daddy, aka Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court (THE AUDACITY is UNBELIEVABLE), whose name and title ALONE send heavenly shivers down my spine. But I have zero regrets by telling you that, in my opinion, he isn’t ANY of that and just mentioned writer for sure did not succeed with her bland and boring, one-dimensional Rhysand copy. Tbh, I don’t even have much to say about him at this point. He’s getting on my nerves and doesn’t deserve the hype he’s getting, and not a single soul walking the surface of mother earth can convince me otherwise. The other not so problematic but still problematic thing is Saeris. I really tried to like Saeris, but I just couldn’t. She’s probably the most insufferable FMC that I have ever read about. The author wants you to believe that she’s a sassy, badass, sarcastic, strong, independent FMC, and I guess my thoughts on that are different from the mass populace. In reality, she was an unbearable, dumb, rude, whiny brat with a superiority complex. The only time I was able to connect with her was after her complete makeover, when she turned into a fae-vampire and wasn’t herself anymore. I hope she loses her mind (no big loss), forgets about Fisher (wholeheartedly denying his entire existence anyways) and falls in love with Tal (hot as hell). Honestly, that was when her character REALLY started getting interesting. AFTER 600 PAGES. You can’t even imagine what I went through to get there. And NOT EVEN THAT was her accomplishment. What made this book somehow readable for me were definitely the side characters like Carrion, HEIR to the Yvellian Throne- like what is happening (the timing and plotting were really bad and made no sense, *bigsurprise* but my man deserves it all no matter what), ARCHER, Ren, Lorreth and TALADAIUS (please do yourself a favor and check the fanart). Whenever this whole mess made me start questioning my obviously questionable tbr choices, these characters kept me going because the plot was LITERALLY all over the place. There were a lot of unexplainable plot holes and logical mistakes, and by a lot, I mean A LOT. Half of the plot didn’t make any sense, and the other half felt totally rushed and unfinished, just like the characters. Like, first going into this book, I thought that the FMC’s brother, Hayden, would be a bigger part of the plot seeing how the beginning went. However, this man was basically forgotten about 40% through the book, lmao. Saeris would go on and on and on about needing him, just to forget about him and completely change the motive. I hope this man is living his best life cause no one is thinking about him anyways. And I also think that writers should stop promoting everything as enemies-to-lovers and slow-burn because these two tropes lasted about 20 pages after the characters met, and that simply doesn’t fulfill the requirements for any of these elements. I feel like CH first desperately tried to make them enemies, like there was absolutely NO REASON for Saeris to hate Fisher with all her being (and you need more than a couple insults and lame **** jokes to be enemies if you ask me), and then again desperately tried to make them lovers, but the connection was just not there, and it all felt like a bunch of words without any meaning. And let’s be honest, smashing the best of other popular books together and turning it into a story won’t make it a good book. And it was even branded as the new ACOTAR and Fourth Wing like, are you kidding me? It’s hands down the worst book I’ve read this year. A trite nonsense trying to emulate better writers as a response to the growing popularity of romantasy. There is not a single original thought in this half-hearted attempt at riding the coattails of ACOTARs success. And yet, I will read the sequel, cause the ending was just interesting enough to give it another try and also my curiosity has a life of its own and I have zero self-control.