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A review by torilovesheas
A Soul to Keep by Opal Reyne
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
This pretty much gets 3 stars because Orpheus is baby and I love him and his cinnamon roll core. I wanted to squish him because he was so sweet and caring. Big dude just wanted to be loved. š„¹
Everything else wasā¦.meh? For a book that clocks in at 537 pages, 400 of those pages were just the MCs spending time together in a cabin. No external plot. Minimal contact with anyone else. Just them living together. Normally I love a character driven story but I found myself incredibly bored by the 50% mark. Itās extremely repetitive and the amount of times we have a āReia runs off into the veil amidst demons she has no hope of saving herself from becauseā¦.Orpheus is wonderful and what would the human villagers that tortured her and made her feel like a harbinger of doom think if they know sheās attracted to a monster?ā got very old, very quick. Idk, man, maybe itās just me, but if a demon guy with a heart of gold was giving me the tender care and consideration Orpheus gave to Reia, Iād have given less than a single shit what they thought of me? Especially when they were horrible to me? And wanted to sacrifice me to a demon or lock me in an underground prison forever?? GIRL. Who cares what they think?
The pacing is weird, slow in some parts and speed running into others. Nothing happens for 400-ish pages and then we zoom into a lackluster third act. The big bad at the end for the third act conflict is cartoony and ridiculous with no depth or real motivation for their actions besides some mustache twirling villainy. And the world building is somehow both great and awful at the same time? Weāre giving fascinating and unique lore for demons and Duskwalkers that I loved and wanted more of only to have phrases like āStockholm syndromeā thrown around in what (appears to be because itās never explained) a high fantasy world? IS it post apocalyptic? No clue. But the switch to modern language is jarring in what leads to be a world without technology with medieval-esque setting elements.
Itās wordy. Itās info dumpy. We get pages upon pages of lore and world building (what little there is) that isnāt relevant or necessary to the plot (what little there is). The prose is a slog because of how heavy it is. I do think the audio made it better and a lot more tolerable but I struggled to retain any world information because itās just lobbed at you like word vomit. So much of this could have been edited out and I really have no desire to read any further in the series because I donāt feel super confident that Iāll enjoy them considering one has been released about every 3 months and that does not feel like an adequate amount of time to edit these stories absolute chunks of a story into an enjoyable book series (for me personally). Six 500-650 pages novels in one year feelsā¦like we need to take a step back and spend more time developing the story instead of rushing these out.
3 āļø for Orpheus and Orpheus alone.
Everything else wasā¦.meh? For a book that clocks in at 537 pages, 400 of those pages were just the MCs spending time together in a cabin. No external plot. Minimal contact with anyone else. Just them living together. Normally I love a character driven story but I found myself incredibly bored by the 50% mark. Itās extremely repetitive and the amount of times we have a āReia runs off into the veil amidst demons she has no hope of saving herself from becauseā¦.Orpheus is wonderful and what would the human villagers that tortured her and made her feel like a harbinger of doom think if they know sheās attracted to a monster?ā got very old, very quick. Idk, man, maybe itās just me, but if a demon guy with a heart of gold was giving me the tender care and consideration Orpheus gave to Reia, Iād have given less than a single shit what they thought of me? Especially when they were horrible to me? And wanted to sacrifice me to a demon or lock me in an underground prison forever?? GIRL. Who cares what they think?
The pacing is weird, slow in some parts and speed running into others. Nothing happens for 400-ish pages and then we zoom into a lackluster third act. The big bad at the end for the third act conflict is cartoony and ridiculous with no depth or real motivation for their actions besides some mustache twirling villainy. And the world building is somehow both great and awful at the same time? Weāre giving fascinating and unique lore for demons and Duskwalkers that I loved and wanted more of only to have phrases like āStockholm syndromeā thrown around in what (appears to be because itās never explained) a high fantasy world? IS it post apocalyptic? No clue. But the switch to modern language is jarring in what leads to be a world without technology with medieval-esque setting elements.
Itās wordy. Itās info dumpy. We get pages upon pages of lore and world building (what little there is) that isnāt relevant or necessary to the plot (what little there is). The prose is a slog because of how heavy it is. I do think the audio made it better and a lot more tolerable but I struggled to retain any world information because itās just lobbed at you like word vomit. So much of this could have been edited out and I really have no desire to read any further in the series because I donāt feel super confident that Iāll enjoy them considering one has been released about every 3 months and that does not feel like an adequate amount of time to edit these stories absolute chunks of a story into an enjoyable book series (for me personally). Six 500-650 pages novels in one year feelsā¦like we need to take a step back and spend more time developing the story instead of rushing these out.
3 āļø for Orpheus and Orpheus alone.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Sexual content, Violence, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Grief