Book Review: Fairy-Struck (The Twilight Court #1) by Amy Sumida

Book Title: Fairy-Struck (The Twilight Court #1)

Author: Amy Sumida

Published Date: July 11th 2015

Number of Pages: 455

Book Rating: 3 stars

Book Description:

I'm trained to kill fairies.

I'm an Extinguisher; a psychic soldier charged with protecting our world from them—the Fey. Long ago, there was a war between humans and fairies, and we nearly destroyed the world with it.

Now, we have a truce in place to prevent that from happening again. Both sides enforce the truce; we have the Extinguishers and they have the Wild Hunt. Humans don't remember the truce anymore; they don't remember the Fey anymore. A fact that the Fey use to their advantage. I hate that. After they killed my mother, I even started to hate them. But that hatred doesn't seem to matter when I look at him. Fairy hunter. Deadly. Beautiful. Intent on sliding himself into my life. We'll just see about that.

Review:

I have mixed feelings about this book. At first I didn't really like it, then I pushed through and I started to really like the love interest, the world and the MC.

Then, I kept reading and some things hit me the wrong way and I was enjoying it less. As you can see there was a pattern throughout reading this book where I disliked it, started liking it, disliked it again, repeat.

The main thing I disliked was the mentions of being with more than one person sexually, mentions of how who cheating was OK, mentions of how having sexual relations with a family member was not really taboo and kind of OK. All of those things I didn't like and some king of disturbed and/or grossed me out.

Even so, I tried to tell myself that:

A) The fact that the characters were talking about it didn't mean it would happen. Maybe they mentioned it as this was something they would fight against?

B) The book is was a fictional world and maybe I could try to put aside my personal thoughts on relationships to a certain extent to account for sake that this was fantasy world and slightly different rules applied.

C) The people in here are immortal fairies beings and as seen in real old texts/stories about the Fae or even the gods, they have a history of having the relationships described in this book. I mean the Greek gobs are all basically related and some very twisted ways. So, I decided, maybe that's what the author was making allusions too and as long as it the subject matter was done properly maybe it would be ok.

Of course, as mentioned I then went back to the pattern where I was liking it and then not so much. The things I was foolishly hoping would not happen, happened and once again really rubbed me the wrong way and decreased my enjoyment of this book. Especially since some of the people involved are kind of forgiven after doing these unspeakable acts? I don't get.

The scene I am talking about made my skin crawl and I was like, OK this is the bad guy.I already hate him. Then something happens (won't say more because of spoilers) and they all sit together and things are pretty much forgiven!? Around this same time the love interest was falling short. I couldn't connect with the character, he wasn't endearing like he was at the start of the book and a part of me kind of disliked him. It felt all physical when they claimed to love each other. There was no connection between them.

Anyways, I kept reading, finished it and was still thinking of picking up the next book (hence the 3 stars). After all this review you might be like "But why??".

In all honestly despite all the things I didn't get or didn't like It wasn't bad. It wasn't great, but the book was intriguing enough I was willing to give it a chance to see where the story went. I thought if certain things took a big enough detour that I would see the book/series as redeemed and might actually end up loving it.

Then I read the description for the next book and the description noted it was Reverse Harem. There's nothing wrong with reverse harem, some people love it, but I am just not into it. I was a bit upset it was not listed with the first book description. I always check when I am about to read and indie book if it's reverse harem (as sooo many in the genres I like in the indie world are reverse harem right now) but it wasn't listed anywhere!

Anyway's the point is that the fact that this series is reverse harem (or at least will turn into reverse harem) told me all I needed to know. It basically confirmed that the aspects I disliked/wasn't sure about would be highlighted and increased and wouldn't take the route I would need them to take to enjoy this series. As such, I won't be continuing with the other books.

Now, can I say I recommend this book? Not exactly. Like I said, it wasn't amazing, wasn't bad, but knowing what has a 99% chance of happening in the next book I can't say I would support that kind of book and recommend people read it. Unless of course you are into that kind of thing.

Saying that the book was overall, not awful. The book has a really cool premise and I think I would love to see more of the world created if it was in a different context and some slight things were changed. There was quite a few moments where I adored the magic system and the magical things that happened. I think if the romance was there (i.e swoon worthy love interest and only one) and the icky sexual relations with your family was taken out this series would quickly go from 3 stars to potential favorite.

So if you like reverse harem, might be a good book to read. If you don't maybe avoid it. It you want something really in depth with very believable and complex characters not the book I would recommend. If you want a cool magic system and a quick read and don't mind the things I mentioned in this review, then yes, pick it up.

That's it for this review! Thanks for reading.