Concluding The War of Lost Hearts - Rant Review of Mother of Death & Dawn | #FantasySeries Book Chat - Shelf Addiction Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, book lovers, Welcome back to shelf Addiction, the podcast
where we dive deep into the pages of thriller and
fantasy reads. I'm your host, Tamara, and today we are
discussing the third and final book in the War of
Lost Hearts trilogy. If you crave the full visual experience
and want to ditch the ads, head on over to
our Patreon. You'll unlock ad free video episodes, exclusive after shows,

(00:25):
and other bonus content. If you prefer audio only, spreak
your listeners, you're in luck. After shows and exclusives are
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If you're listening on Spotify and you are a supporter,
you two have access to the videos on Spotify. So

(00:45):
head on over to Spotify and do all the things
you want more Bookish Banter, join our community over on
the book Clubs app and don't forget to subscribe and
leave us a review wherever you are listening. Speaking of community,
I'm thrilled to welcome back my fantasy series Bessie and
co host Casey from Heart full of Ink. Welcome back,

(01:05):
Casey Yah. I'm so excited to be here. Yes, I'm
glad you're here to back me up on this one.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
We're on the same page today, out me about that.
This is good. This is gonna be a good, good conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, okay, but before we do that, you can find
the links for both Casey and myself, as well as
the podcast in general in the show notes, So click
around you all the things. We appreciate you for doing that.
Of course, as always, we discuss full spoilers here on
the book chat, so spoiler alert you've been warned. So Casey,
before I give the stats, would you dare say this

(01:43):
might be a rant review?

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Oh? Definitely, yeah, Oh definitely.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
This is Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
If you've been with us on this podcast for a while,
you know what's coming. You've seen us do this style before.
But if you're new here, buckle up. That's all I
can say.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
If you're a die hard fan, hardcore fan of this trilogy,
while I'd love you to listen to our brand, I
don't want you to be mad. So if you think
you might get mad, bow out now, because yes, if you.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Have very happy feelings about this book, please just walk away,
go find.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
You don't want them to be torn down. Yeah, you
appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
We're gonna save your years. Go listen to a different
series that we've talked about.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yeah, there's lots of episodes available for you to check out,
but just want to give you that little four warning
because you know we are discussing Mother of Death and Dawn.
Written by Churisa Broadbent, the audiobook is narrated by Esther
Wayne and Dan Kelly. First published February tenth, twenty twenty two,
by CHRISA. Broadbent and later released on audiobook by tand

(02:54):
Or Audio. The ebook is seven hundred and twenty two pages.
The underbridged audio is twenty one hours in twenty nine minutes. Casey,
would you kindly read the synapsis?

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Tell me, little Butterfly, what would you do for love?
In the wake of a crushing defeat, Tasana Amextarius have
been ripped apart. Tasaana is desperate to rescue Max from
his imprisonment, even as her people's fight for freedom grows
more treacherous. But within the walls of Iziath, Max's mind
is a shadow of what it once was, leaving his

(03:28):
past a mystery and his future at the mercy of
Ara's new ruthless queen. Meanwhile, in the faylands. Afa has
been dragged back into the world by a king who
vows to destroy civilizations in her name, But even as
her past returns to claim her, her former self is
a stranger. Tasaana, Max, and Afa are thrust into the

(03:50):
center of a cataclysm between the human and fay worlds.
The unique magic they share is key to either winning
the war or ending it, but that power demands sacrifice.
Tsana may be forced to choose between love and duty.
Max cannot forge his future without confronting his past, and
Afa must decide between reclaiming who she was or embracing

(04:12):
who she has become. The choices they make will either
reshape this world forever or end it.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Okay, all right, high level, when you finished the book?

Speaker 2 (04:26):
So I finished this book at five am, standable night
to finish it for the podcast because I was running behind,
and I just thought, thank god, it's over. Whoo And
then I just left for two hours and had to
get okay.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
But okay, so you got some sleep, that's good. I
finished at eight am.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Love that for you.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
And just so you guys know, so you have some
point of reference. It's now ten am.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
I finished this five hours ago. Guys.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yeah, I actually woke up at six am to bang
out the last couple of hours.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yes, and that's your turn to finish.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, I was trying to finish last night, but I
was I kept falling asleep. I'm like, Okay, fuck it,
I'll just go to sleep. Oh my god, to finish,
Oh my gosh. And that was supposed to be the
climax of the book. I'm supposed to be all into
the end of it, and I just could not stay
awake to save my life.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
So literally, say, like, it was three am, and I
was like, maybe I should drink some caffeine or something.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Oh, so that's a clue of what's to come. So
at the end I also kind of was like, oh,
I'm glad that's done. But I also was like big
eye roll, because.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, later, but let's ignore that for right now.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Just do all the things I hate if you Hey, Yes,
seven and twenty two pages of what what was that?

Speaker 2 (06:08):
What was that?

Speaker 1 (06:09):
It was slow? Too many things going on, too many
characters were switching heads too many times, I think.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Except we didn't get NeuRA.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, we wanted her.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
That was the one point of view. I was so excited.
If you listened to the last podcast, I was so
excited for her. I went on my huge rant about
how I love villains who have depth and backstory, and
there was so much depth to NeuRA. We were seeing
the start of her descent, and I was so excited

(06:42):
to see that descent in this book.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
And we got nothing. She was just evil for evil's
sake here. Yeah, I was disappointed in that too. I
kept waiting this entire book. I was like, especially when
I knew her death was coming, I said, it's coming,
it's coming, it's coming. She's got a The author has
got to give us a one chapter at least.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
I wanted at least three chapters, especially like one in
the beginning Act one part when she was bringing Max
to the tower. I wanted something from her point of
view there. She kind of told him what was going on,
but I really wanted to see her madness from her
point of view there. That would have been chef's kiss excellent.

(07:27):
And then again yeah, in the middle of the book,
when she was captured by the phase, when she was
about to die, any of those points would have been
fabulous to see in her point of view, But we
got nothing.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
That was the biggest disappointment because you know, like you said,
you know, now she's just a villain for the sake
of being a villain. And we had got that in depth,
like kind of visual about her in the last book,
which made it so interesting.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
So interesting, but here she so flat.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah, she's just doing shit like and I'm like, why
is she torturing Max like that? What is going on exactly?
We don't know.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
It's just because she hates him.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
That's supposed to be your fucking best friend, ex boyfriend,
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
And he would talk in his point of view about
how much she knew her and loved her and cared
about her, and you could see all like the emotions
on her face and how she was changing, and I
was like, I just want to get inside her head,
give me her head. And nothing, yeah, nothing, nothing.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
That I think. So that was the biggest no no
of this book, Like she dropped the ball. So that
character that.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Was, Yeah, that is my biggest disappointment in this book.
And I have a lot of disappointments, but that is
the one where I was like, if you had given
me chapters from nerves point of view, I would have
given this an extra star in my rating. I would
have loved this book even more. I would have not
fallen asleep while reading it. I wouldn't have zoned out

(09:06):
while reading it. I would have paid more attention. She
was my favorite character, and yes she was the evil
villain who deserved to die, but I just wanted to
see from her point of view, her descent into this madness.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
You know. So this is kind of a side Nope,
but people had this same issue with the Game of
Thrones ending that, like when people hated that because the
author did exactly what those writers did. We went from
someone who we knew kind of wasn't the best already,

(09:43):
but they had extenuating circumstances coming up, you know what
I mean, Like so they had a lot of trauma
and stuff. But then we went from zero to one
hundred on the bad with no context. No, And like,
how am I supposed to belie she is going around
acting like this. When she her start, she wanted to

(10:05):
just be in charge for the good of the country, right,
she wanted to help. And she went from losing the
plot completely she lost the plot. Yeah, and we missed
how she got there. Yeah, And that's the point I
need to believe the villain, like how get here exactly?

Speaker 2 (10:23):
And there was one conversation she had with Max where
she was talking about how she was like seeing her
people dying and it was frustrating her. But like that
conversation wasn't enough. And also Max is insane and not
really retaining words, so I don't trust him to be
a good narrator for what she's saying. Yeah, but yeah, No,

(10:47):
that was the biggest fucking disappointment. I was so excited
at the end of book two. This like she made
me give book two four stars. It was all Nora
and Afah and story like that.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
I didn't give it.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
And then book three just spit in my face and
now I'm mad.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
She said, oh you like that that, well.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
I'm taking it away from you, and I'm like, yeah,
that's all they've wanted in this book.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Yeah it's true, and you didn't get it, and.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
I didn't get it, and I'm very sad and very upset.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
So I kind of want to talk about the next thing.
I think that kind of was and I understand why
she did it, and it worked out in the end,
and an overall to the story, I guess it was fine,
but instantly when it first came up. I hated this.
I hate using memory loss as applot device. I don't
like it, and so Asia amnesia like we cannot remember shit,

(11:49):
And I was very pissed off. I'm like, no, Max,
why what is happening? What the fuck? Now? She He
did correct it pretty you know. It wasn't what i'd
say is early, but it didn't drag on and on
and on like.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Thirty forty of the way in the book. It was
less than halfway through the book, which was good. If
she out any longer, I would have thrown the book.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Yeah, but I almost would have preferred him like being
sad about not being with Tasana, you know, or hoping
that she's in a better situation than he was, than
to just be totally missing that whole part of him
is very strange. I didn't really, I mean, this is
a powerful magic wielder, Like you take his memory.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
Can we talk about how he was like literally drawing
her face. You didn't realize it was her face. He's
just thought it was weird shapes.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah, Like, what the fuck was that? You can't recognize
a face?

Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, as you're drawing that bad that you can't recognize.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
A face apparently apparently because apparently he had no clue.
He's like, oh my gosh, So that scene and he's
like thinking about drawing the face, you know as hee. Okay,
So Tassana tells him to leave. She's like, go on,
live your best life. It's fine, you know, this is
what's good for you.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Go.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
You know, he goes off and he's with his brother
and he's thinking about drawing that face, or he is
drawing the face.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
He's drawing as he always does.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah, and then he's like, I gotta go back.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
It's amazing these symbols for so long, but it's a face.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yeah, yeah, like romantic because yeah it's supposed to be.
I'm like, boy, okay, no, thank you. Next yeah, and
then they have this whole reunion, you know, after he
breaks through his memories makes he punches a hole through
the blocks and he remembers everything, and they, you know,

(13:57):
go on a sex bender for a couple of days.
I'm like, okay, I guess sure, why not. It's like
it's wartime, but we got time to sit up somewhere.
It was so bad that the author had to like
have this character know he had to figure out what
day it was because they've been in a sex age

(14:18):
for almost a week.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Like, thank god we didn't get the room next to your.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah, yeah, like what random? But yeah, I didn't love that,
But I think that ultimately it was fine. It worked
out because it didn't go the whole book. That would
have been really really bad. Yeah, the memory loss, But
I don't love that. I feel like it's an easy out,
an easy way to just make conflict too easy. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yeah, it's annoying.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeah, we need it else. I know you got a list.
I know you did.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
I do. Okay, So first of all, let me just
say that I could not pay attention to this book,
Like I could not get my brain to focus while
I was reading. So most of the time while I
was reading, I would read a page, turn the page,

(15:20):
and go, wait, what the hell did I just read?
I don't remember. I have to go back and reread
the last page and be like, Okay, I think I
know what's happening.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
M hm.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
So given that state of mind, I think I missed
a lot because.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
That's not good now, especially for over seven hundred pages, seven.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Hundred PAGs I was skimming. I was trying to read
I was trying to pay attention, So here is a
potential plot hole. Somebody please tell me if I just
missed this or if this is an actual plot hole.
When Max broke free of the Magical pre is An Island,

(16:01):
the island spoke to him and was like, we'll let
you go, but you have to take a part of
me with you. He still didn't have his memories at
the time, so he was like, yeah, sure, whatever, and
then nothing ever happened. I remember he talked to his
brother and he told his brother and his brother was like,
that's fucking weird. Yeah, and then I nothing happened. I

(16:24):
don't think, so I asted the epilogue and then they're like,
happily ever after, everything's perfect, And I was like, wait
a second, didn't he have this like demon thing in
his brain? Was that expelled at some point and I
missed it? I skipped a page.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
Girl, Look, unless I missed the same exact passage, I
don't remember that ever coming up again. Okay, because and
while yes, I was not paying attention one hundred percent
the whole way either, but I feel like I got
most of it, and.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
It was like I feel like I know mostly what's
going on? But also we've never talked about this or
was this part of the door thing that he had
to break down to get his memories or was that
something else, because I thought to son, I was like,
I broke him when I ripped his memories and did
stuff with in the last book, and it's my fault.
He doesn't have memories because she has to be a

(17:20):
martyr and everything is her fault, always and forever, which
is the most annoying personality trait anybody could have.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, I don't know, it's weird. It's so weird, Like
that was like a big deal, like that was a
part of the Yeah, I'm the last book, right, and
now it's like what.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
And yeah, no, I was in the epilogue and I
was like, wait a second, everything's happy, go lucky, perfect
and what about this prison time thing?

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Okay, like what was that that?

Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, that was like the whole first act where he
was in prison and she was to save him and
couldn't save him. And then oh, okay, so that leads
me to the next thing.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
Yeah, yeah, I go his brother. Oh.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
First of all, when his brother appeared on the page,
I screamed, what the fuck?

Speaker 1 (18:16):
Look because I said, Buck, I said, did I know
he had a brother?

Speaker 2 (18:20):
I vaguely remember him mentioning that when he killed everybody
else in his family, his older brother wasn't there. Okay,
so I remember that. But for the last two books,
one thousand plus pages, Max has been so woe is me,
I'm all alone, I have no family. I killed my
whole family.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Whate was me? What was me?

Speaker 2 (18:43):
What was me? M h? And then his brother just
appears and he's like, I've been looking for you for
a decade.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
Yeah, and he's like, here's the fuck. And when Max
tries to get away, he just happens to have a
boat standing there waiting to go.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
Well, he was there every night, is what he said.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yeah, But the timing of that and where he was
at that point it just seemed odd, Like I figured
it was.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
The magical island doing magical things to be like, let's
make the timing work. Your brother's here, you can get free.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
Now. The whole thing was dumb.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
It was weird as fuck.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
And then because of the memory loss, the author, you know,
created some conflict between him and his brother because his
brother didn't really know what happened to their family, So
that was a whole subplot when Max did remember everything,
he kept kind of lies of omission lying to his brother.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Which I don't really blame him for that. Yeah, I
wouldn't want to tell my sibling that I killed the
rest of our family.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
But you didn't really do it. Your body did it,
but you didn't do it. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
So why is Max always, always, always always putting the
blame on other people? Right, he blamed NeuRA for putting
a fe in his brain. Well, he said he agreed
to it, but then like she triggered it in that
battle and then if through Max killed that entire city. Yeah,

(20:17):
and he made the choice right then to go home.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
Yeah, he could have.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Gone anywhere anywhere. Yeah, but he made the choice to
go home. But he still faith for killing his family
even though he himself locked in his front door.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
Yeah, he had some responsibility there, and he's not really
taking his part of the responsible He's not.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
He annoys me so much.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
I don't like or dislike Max. He's just kind of
he's in that void, that that zone of eh, you know,
he's just doing some weird things and not really being responsible.
Like hell, he didn't even want to take over the
army life he needed too. He didn't really want you.
I wouldn't want to.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Gi over the army. He didn't want to be king
whatever bullshit he I don't know. He was just a
whiny bitch.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
He was kind of he kind of was. He did
a lot of that, a lot of woe is me,
a lot of complaining a lot of everything. Yeah, he's
not the book boyfriend. He is not the book boyfriend. No.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
I would chew him up and spit him out like
he no.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
But yet to sign on one of him so bad.
I can't figure out, like why.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
I think because he was the first genuinely nice person
to her, except her best friend was also genuinely nice
to her, but he was gay, So like Max is
the first straight guy who's like, I don't want you
for just your body, I want your brain. And then
she's like, oh my god, god, eft Man's.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Guy who did not own her or something. Yeah, now
you complain about something I did. Okay, Well, let me
scroll through my little list of characters here. Honestly, I
didn't like all the characters. No. Same so all the

(22:23):
Fay people I kind of just did not love. I
didn't love that half of things. Either, I couldn't really
figure out what's like an Ika he doing exactly like
he kept going back and forth. He'd come and go
like a fucking stray cat. I couldn't figure out exactly
what he was doing.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
He was being very weird and suspicious, and supposedly he
felt very guilty for what he did to Apha, and
he was trying to make amends with the world and
keep it so that like the humans and the fag
could coexist happily. And so all of a sudden, randomly

(23:03):
that king from five hundred years ago who watched his
whole family get slaughtered is somehow still alive but insane,
Like he's so completely mentally emotionally broken that he is insane.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
And which is wished to found him.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
And it was like, you need to be king again,
to like do what you were doing with your human
family before, even though you watched all of them, including
your children and your wife get murdered in front of
you because of me.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
He was trying to like talk him into rising up
and being the king again. And it was weird because
I'm like, why would you do that? Because, like you say,
he is crazy, he is insane literally and when the
other Fae approached him about it, he's talking and yeah
ming and he told me to do this.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
I don't want to do this. My family, my family,
he told me. King still alive? Yeah, why didn't he
just lay down and die? Like if he if he's
this broken?

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Well, why did Ishka think he was the answer? Exacn't know,
how can you get that done with someone who's like that?
Or I don't know.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
My theory was that Ishka was actually like the super
villain all along who was going to try and take
over everything and be the new Fay King, and he
was lying to everybody because that's what he does, is
he lies. Yeah, so yeah, even somebody even asked Tsana
like why do you trust Isca and she was like,

(24:40):
I don't really, but I need him for right now.
But he has all the answers. I'm going to ask
him everything and I'm always going to burn his feather
and I'm always going to rely on him like he's
my best friend.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
And I was like, girl, I don't really get that
exactly what about him? And you know, I guess the
character did say to it did say, as long as
our interest aligned, he's good.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
But actually done, and then he got murdered, and I
was like, Okay, I'm glad he's dead and he's like
a player off the game board or whatever. But I
did not trust him one bit, especially when he brought
up the Crazy King. I was like, okay, you have
your own alternative plan. I don't trust a single word

(25:26):
you've said. I don't trust any of your actions.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, I don't know. He was just another what is
the word I'm looking for? He was almost like, look
over here, pay attention to me and what I'm doing
for no reason, just to burn time because ultimately everything
he did resulted in nothing. And then how quickly he
just got extinguished. It was so fast. He run in

(25:53):
his mouth and then it was like you're dead, you know?
And then he got used to deliver a message so
fun he was dead, wasn't his eyes out?

Speaker 2 (26:07):
And he was zombiefied.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, he was zombiefied. So yeah, I don't know. I
didn't like Ishka. I wasn't really sure what the role
was there. He was just more space, taking up more pages,
more work out, but no real point. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
No, I had theories about him, like wanting to rule himself,
wanting to do this that and the other because he
was Cotton's right hand man for five hundred years before
he finally decided to say, Hey, by the way, that
woman you've been mourning for the last five hundred years

(26:43):
and thought was dead, I lied to you. She's been
alive and tortured this whole time. Yeah, Like, why would
he say that after five hundred years? What prompted him
to admit the truth and do this?

Speaker 1 (27:00):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
Good question all the wise that these characters been telling
on the face side, like what's his face? The king?
What's his ni? So he had one of these three
magical things this whole time, and can I just say
the whole time, I'm like, what's wrong with him? He's dying.

(27:25):
Clearly he's dying.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
He's dying the.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
Whole time, and FA could not see it. Nobody else
could like see it. I'm like, look at his ass.
He can't wake his ass up. Like all these other
things were happening the whole time, and it did not dawn.
I'll give off of that. It didn't dawn on me
that he used that specific power to bring her back,

(27:49):
But I knew he'd done something. I'm like, what did
he do Yes.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
I didn't put it together either, but I was like, okay,
yeah he did something. But I will say I knew
from the start that she was going to die because
they kept having people go oh this isn't natural, Oh
this is wrong, Oh this can't last. And I was like, okay,
so you're you're very clearly like painting in red letters,
she's gonna die. I was like, this is so annoying.

(28:14):
I just want her and Condon to be happily ever after.
And if he has to destroy all the humans, that's
I'm fine with that.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
They lay down and die together.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
I don't really like humans right now. Now.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
They lay down and died together.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
Which was really sad.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
Well, I don't know if she actually died per se,
or did she just fade away because she wasn't ever
really supposed to be there. I guess that's technically the
same thing.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, I don't know. They were together and how they're gone.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
Yeah, it was strange. I don't know. And they had
all this time they professed their love for each other.
Basically they had their own little sex shenanigans for a
couple of days. I don't know. I kind of feel
like ultimately, though, I'm not mad at the fact that

(29:06):
they had that ending, because she did a lot of
bad stuff, and it's like she couldn't even really take
ownership of the stuff she did. She just blamed everybody else,
and she too had some say in what she was doing,
you know. So I don't know, she's just like Max

(29:27):
in that way. Oh, you know, she blames everybody else
but won't take the responsibility of her part in that.
I don't know. Yeah, and then she got no satisfaction
because her mom was still alive after all that time.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Jesus Christ, how is everybody else still alive? Like, yeah,
the crazy king, then the crazy mom, and the Mom's like, yes,
I went back to your real dad and he loved you.
And now I'm just wandering around because I can't do
anything else. Like it was.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
She's like, weird, you don't If you need me, I'm here.
She like, bet you get out.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
It was weird.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
It was a whole lot. It was a whole lot
of characters, a whole lot of things going on, a
whole lot of random shit that ultimately means nothing to
the main plot of the story. So I think it
was just a lot of filler, and I think that's
part of the reason why I was so bored with it.
And I mean, you guys, so for real, I had

(30:30):
to like listen to this shit while I was on vacation.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
Yeah, I'm so sorry.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
I didn't get it done in time, and I kind
of just assumed it would And this was my fault
because after our last review, I said, oh, I'm sure
it'd be good. I'm sure it will be so I
kind of put it off, put it off. I should
have started three weeks ago, same, but I kind of waited,

(30:55):
and I'm like, okay. So once I started, it was
a rough start. It was it's taken a while for
me to get into it, but I'm like, okay, I
can just listen to two hours in the morning, two
hours in the evening. I could just knock this out.
Listen at two x speed. I can get it done.
It was horrible. It was like doing homework for an

(31:16):
English class that you just didn't want to do.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
For me, that's math class, Like I hated math, and
this felt like having to do math homework because I
was just like, I don't care about these people. I
don't want to pay attention to them. Every on the page.
I'm like, what the fuck is this? Why is this happening?
Where's Nura? I just want Nura. I love Afe, I
want more of her. I love her relationship with Coddon.

(31:43):
I wish it was a little bit different, but like, ultimately, yes,
but I also really hated the fact that the author
was like she's going to die from the very start,
as soon as she appeared on page. Yeah, it was frustrating.
I was like, just let me live in this little
d Lulu fantasyland where they can live happily ever after. Please.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
They didn't deserve one, though.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
I thought they did.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Really I don't, and I feel like, you know that
it's true. What happened to her was dreadful. It was
there's no excuse for it. It was just bad what happened.
She was betrayed by Ishka, she was tortured, and that
was like, you know, yeah, that's a result of what
happens when you torture someone for so long, you know,

(32:32):
but ultimately you did do the bad things. Even in
her own body, she's like reflecting on like the feelings
she had for both to Sana and Max, you know.
So I don't know, she like if.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
We had from the start. Book one, Page one was
their story, you know, the background story that we got
in book two, and then we just saw it from
their point of view and didn't have Max and to Sauna.
Everybody would be on their side. Everybody would be like, yes,
obliterate humanity. You know, he's the perfect book boyfriend who's

(33:13):
all about revenge.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
Yeah, I agree, because it's all about perspective. Whose perspective
did we meet first? Exactly whose perspective did we get
attached to first? That's the one that's going to rule
everything else.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yes, And that's why the author had book one being
only Max and to Sauna and then ray Shay as
the evil voice. So you hated her for that whole
book and then most of book two as well until
the giant plot twist.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yeah, and I didn't, Like I said in the last
podcast about you Know this series, I felt horrible for her.
I feel like she was initially justified, right and wanting
that kind of revenge, and I think she still kind
of was. But that doesn't make you deserving of a
happy ending, I guess. So it's hard to explain.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
I understand what you're saying. And yeah, yeah, I mean
did she deserve to die, Yes, But I wanted her
story to have that happy ending. I wanted her and
Cotton to like go off and like I wanted him
to be like, Okay, let's not kill all of humanity.
You and I will just go off to this other
magical island, just the two of us.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
But she wanted to die. She was tired, she wanted
to be in this and you know, her man refused
to let it happen. So ultimately she got what she
originally wanted after a long haul of all this other bullshit.
But oh yeah, so I guess technically she's at peace,

(34:52):
you know, because that's really what she wanted the whole time.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yeah, and at least she has some happy new home
memories of love and acceptance. And yeah, it wasn't a
testered thing like that was a cute moment.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
Yes, I think ultimately it wasn't all bad for her,
even though she died at the end. And I guess
the king needed to die as well, because he was
breaking the rules of the magic, Like he was doing
too much and he could not control it. He couldn't
because for you know, Tsana and Max to do it,

(35:30):
they had to work together to control that. He was
doing it on his own. But again, they are human
with magic and he is fae, so he was stronger
than the two of them. But he still could not
do it fully right without some huge consequence. Yea, so
he needed some help to wrangle that, and he kept
it a secret. He didn't get any help. Had he

(35:52):
confided in somebody, he might still be a lot, right.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
But who could he confide in when everybody around him
is a lying liar?

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Yeah, that's true. It's a mess. Like all these characters
are kind of a mess. All their situations are kind
of messy.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
So messy the messiest.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
So I think this is a great time to take
a break by listening to these commercials. You are supporting
the podcast while you're here, don't forget to pick up
a copy of the book Rejournal. The link is in
the show notes. We'll be right back. Okay, welcome back.
What else do we want to say about this lovely book?

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Do we want to complain about the efalogue?

Speaker 1 (36:35):
Now? Oh my god? So, if you guys have been
around even a short amount of time and you've listened
to the end of some podcasts, you know that we
fucking hate that bullshit. We have to have a family
and babies, the baby efalogue to be happy. Ough, we

(36:59):
got these kids. It's great. Ugh we're an old born
couple now with two kids. But we run of school
and our kids are just the joys of our lives.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
That's what I'm to say about that.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
I don't know. Again, Like I feel like this was
to me. This whole series was fantasy first, rome a
second to me. So we didn't need that quote unquote
trope to happen in this book.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
Absolutely not. I was honestly surprised when it said epilogue.
I was like, Okay, we're gonna get I don't know,
the relationship prepared with his brother. We're gonna maybe see
a magical afterlife where If and Cotton are together. Is
just like spiritual beings of souls and not bodies or whatever. Yeah,

(38:00):
but no, we got babies popping out left and right,
and school children here and there, and we're drinking tea
and we're old people and we're happy.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
We're talking about the garden. That's about our garden. It's
overcrown like this. They just turned into the most two
mundane people live in a boring ass life to be fair.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
This is what they wanted, and this is what they've
talked about since book one when he was like, run
away with me and let's go live in the which I.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
Also thought was bullshit. I'm like, what your magical people
and stuff is going on? And this is what you
want to do. You're weakest fuck for trying to run away.
So this is what yeah, true, is what Max wanted
from the beginning, and you know she wants what Max wants,

(38:48):
including have his little rug rats with her eyes.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
That line of her going like, and there's still so
many slaves around and I need to save them, but
also I need to be happy with my baby. I'm like,
I'm glad you're happy, but why aren't What about are
you playing murder again by saying you can't go save everybody?

Speaker 1 (39:10):
Like?

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Is that what you're doing here?

Speaker 1 (39:13):
She needed to be like off doing say they could
be together, saving the world, changing town by town, country
by country, region by region, living their happy lives together.
That's what I mean. If they have kids in the future,
that's fine, but I don't need to see it. Yeah,
I just want to see I don't know what I

(39:34):
wanted to see, but not that. I just didn't. I
thought it was so flat and generic.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
Generic.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yeah, like, come on, because these two people are extremely
powerful still.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
And this is what we're a out of influence. Yeah,
she was invited to rule and she's like, no, I
can't because you've turned me into a myth. I'm like,
you're not a myth, Like.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
Like, what are you talking about?

Speaker 2 (40:02):
Yeah, what are you talking about? You're not You're not
all powerful, which was another plot hole we pointed out
in the last book when she lost a fan. She's like,
I have no powers, and I was like, there was
months of you building your own power before you got her,
like super booster. Yeah, and now apparently you have nothing

(40:22):
without her. That makes no sense. No, you were supposed
to have your own magic, be able to do your
own things unless she ripped all of the magic out
of you when she left. But that's not how it
was described. So plot hole.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
And then when okay, so talking about what you're picking
back off of what you're saying, when did they become
their magic become tied at the hip?

Speaker 2 (40:48):
You know?

Speaker 1 (40:49):
I mean like when did they need to have to
start playing off of each other to do magic? Like
I don't know, and they did it? Together because there
was a purpose. But when did they get to this
point where they needed each other to do it?

Speaker 2 (41:00):
I don't know. Genuinely, I cannot tell you.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
Because I'm like, that was kind of weird too. I'm like,
wait a minute, he fully had his own magic, You
had your own magic, and you didn't have to rely
off of each other like some kind of super team
up or something, just because like.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
It was the super duper magic and they had to
be together to be strong enough. Or was it something
else or did I just sleep through a couple chapters
of world building?

Speaker 1 (41:32):
Well, like I'm thinking about to that scene where they
want to get help with the magic and the guy
puts them in a closet scene. So I'm like, but.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
That was annoying. Yeah, I mostly skimmed that. I was like,
I don't care.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
Yeah, that hole. Their whole magic and the togetherness of
it is kind of odd. It's not really, it doesn't.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
I mean, she says it was just part of her
building her magic in Book one, Act one, for the
however many months they were at his cottage alone practicing
in the garden. Remember they were separate then, but now
they have to be together.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
Yeah, it's weird.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
It's so weird.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure it's so weird.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
All of it is weird.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
Yeah, so it turned from honestly, from the beginning of
this series to the end of it, it's really changed
a lot, and it's not really clear why the changes happened,
as far as like the magic, how the magic works
for them as a couple and individually at the whole
three part piece to that puzzle wasn't really clear to

(42:47):
me as well. I'm like, where did the third one
come from? I don't know. It was a lot.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
It was weird, it was confusing.

Speaker 1 (42:56):
And y'all like, I'm not trying to be funny. If
someone else understood this so much easier, let us know,
I mean, tell me, because we read a lot of
this and we're not easily confused.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
I do this for a living. This is my literal job,
and no I don't sleep while I'm working, but this
book was putting me to sleep, and my brain is
just like I don't want to pay attention to this.

Speaker 1 (43:22):
Yeah, there's I don't know. I feel like the author
was just writing shit like, oh, this might be nice,
let's just do it. Throw it in there. Oh, this
might be fun. I need more words, let's throw that
in there. I don't know it was that.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
But also she would just like time jump, like this
book picked up like six months after he'd been imprisoned,
which was, you know, several months after this, and she'd
be like, all right, now we're eight months later and
we're deep in this battle and we have to hide
and steal from this lord and do this and that
and whatever. And it was like, I don't know, there

(43:55):
was time shops are weird. It was like they were
discovering stuff without the reader and then trying to like
explain to the reader. Oh yeah, at the three month
mark of him disappearing, we discovered this thing too. You know,
like there was weird stuff.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
Like that in the timeline. Did it kind of get
lost or confusing me? Toward the end, I'm like how
much time has passed? I'm not really sure. Or we'll
be having one scene and then, like you, the very
next scene they're like fighting.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
I'm like what, I just oh yeah, no, there were
so many of that, or like all of a sudden,
she's with her old master again. He's beating her, and
I was like, wait, weren't they running somewhere and oh,
three pages later, this is just a nightmare, but she
has to work through.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
And I was like, I actually rewound that part because
I'm like, wait a minute, what the fuck happened. I'm like,
wait a minute, is this a dream or is she
back where the magic is or something like what's happening?

Speaker 2 (44:50):
I'm like, Oh, it was confusing.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
It was weird. It's like I thought maybe she was
like in a magic place or something, because you know,
she at first was gonna go along with you know,
this was a dream. That whole other life was a dream,
and then it was like, oh I remembered something. Yeah,
it was real. Wake up. I'm like, wake up. I'm like,

(45:14):
what the hell?

Speaker 2 (45:15):
Yeah, no, it was.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
It was weird.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
It was weird.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
Yeah, I didn't I didn't love it. I didn't like
the memory slash, identity los slash, dreaming slash, the magic
messing with your head slash. I mean, all of that
was just kind of.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
It was so convoluted and so confusing.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
Mm hmm, Like what was the main theme of that story, Like,
what was the main driver and did we get to that?
So I guess it started with her trying to break
up free the slaves. Originally her task was to free
the slaves. What she didn't what she did? And then
when the war, which they did.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
Yeah, but then there was magic stuff along the way
and Nura going crazy trying to protect her people, but
we didn't see her full descent into madness. And I
will die mad about that. Like that was the one
thing I wanted out of this book. Yeah, I wanted
Nora and I didn't get her, And I'm going to

(46:25):
be mad about that forever.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
And you can That's that's fair, because wanted I didn't
get it. Yeah, Like I mean, that's fair. I wanted
that as well. Yeah, I feel like we really missed
out on that. I don't know. So at the end,
ultimately the fae and the humans decided to work together,
which is just so weird mm hmm, like a fragile

(46:51):
piece between them. They don't really trust each other, but
they're going to try, I guess. And then of course
the little queen that we thought Princess Queen that they
we thought that they killed, he actually hidden away that
little girl still alive, which girl the original princess queen
that they killed remember at the beginning.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Oh shit, I forgot about that.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
Yeah, she wasn't dead after all, he just resuced somebody
and they just assumed it was her.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
Oops. I was like a five am when I was
just glarious.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
She's not done, and you know, Max was like, oh,
this could be good. We just have to help her
and have you know, all this stuff as she grows up,
to help protect her or whatever. So Max was so
happy to give up that mantle. He didn't want it.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
It is such a fucking cop out.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
Yeah, oh guess what, we handily have a rail in hiding.
Don't worry. No, it's such a cop out.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Oh I'm mad about that now.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
I missed that. Yeah, I'm like what it was just
like a couple. It felt like a short little segment like, oh,
just to throw this in here, to get Max off
the hook from trying to lead this. You know, I
don't know, weird. No, I'm annoying now the whole thing.

(48:18):
I'm just so glad this is fucking over. I cannot
same express that any stronger say. And I hate that,
like it's I And I liked the other stuff I
read by this author, like I read the Crown of
Niaxia books and I liked them. I liked them but

(48:41):
it was very different than this, very different vibe, very different,
also fantasy, right, but also very different that had vampires
and stuff in it. So yeah, so I was surprised
that I didn't like this more. I expected to like

(49:04):
it more based on my previous experience with the Crowns
of Niaxia. But just because an author does one thing
great doesn't mean they can do another thing great.

Speaker 2 (49:13):
Unfortunately, that's very true.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Yeah, so I don't know, and I hate that, Like,
I really wanted to like this. You know, every time
we pick something, we set out to like it. We
want to like it.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
Yes, we want to like all of these series. But
we're giving you our honest opinions. We're not just going
to hype a book because we want to hype a book.
We're going to tell you when it flops.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
Which is why when we speak highly of something, you
know it's really good. Yes, you know it's really good.
It's a business. But yeah, so I know, I think,
I don't know. I'm done. I feel like we should
just rate it.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
Let's just rate it.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
Yeah, okay, do you want to go first?

Speaker 2 (49:55):
All right? So, if I had my neuro chapter, I
would have given this a three star. But because I
didn't get neuro I'm giving it two stars.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
Okay, I'm also giving it two star. It wasn't the
worst thing I ever read, yeah, but it definitely wasn't
what I would consider good. There were just too many issues,
yeah no, And it was just too long.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
There was too much.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
It was painful. Oh god, it was so painful. Yeah,
that's the only painful that is it. I could not
believe this book was so long. I could not believe.
The audiobook narrators did good. They did a good job.
But let me tell you so. I started at one
point seven X. I went to two X. In the

(50:44):
last two hours, I'm like, for the love of god,
two point five X. Oh my god, I was I
wanted it to end. I wanted it to end.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
Somebody in the Last Book Club, I'm forgetting her name
right now. She was listening to Book two at three
X because she just wanted to get done. And I
was like, that's insane. I don't understand how anybody could
listen that fast. But she's like two X is her
normal speed, and she just bumped it up in three
X just to get it done.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
It was just so slow. I'm like, hurry up, speed up,
speed up. I just want to get it over. I'm like,
I need it done. And had I had any more,
if I would have gotten any closer to the nine
o'clock mark, I probably would have jumped to three X.
Just did not g it out, I probably would have it.
It still didn't sound like chipmunks to me. Oh that's good,

(51:39):
because I feel like in one X they are they
are talking very very slowly. So I think one point
seven X to me was just normal average cadence. It
wasn't even fast to me at once. It wasn't even
speedy at one point seven.

Speaker 2 (51:54):
One point seven is like a one for you, so
two point five would be like a one point I guess.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Yeah or yeah, yeah, because it did you could tell
it was sped up at two point five, but it wasn't.
It wasn't. It was not that I can still understand everything.
He you know, they were saying, yeah, that's fine, but yeah,
oh my god, that was And to all of you

(52:22):
that have read along and you feel how we feel. Sorry, Sorry,
we try. Sometimes we hit it out the park. Sometimes
it fails. Yeah, I don't know. Okay, Well, I think
we probably can share what we're reading next yeah, Lord,

(52:45):
have mercy. Let me pull up the artwork because you
know I can't remember right now. Oh, here we go.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
It's the the Witch Book.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
Yeah it is. I don't know the name of the
series high level. I don't know what the duology is
entire old. It's on the tip of my tongue, but
I don't know. But the first book is Heartless Hunter
by Kristin Ciccarelli.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
So I have read the first book. Yeah, and it's good.
It's good.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
I like, I'm holding you to it. It's a duology artist.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
I haven't read book two yet. It's been on my TBR.
I've just been busy, but I want to read it.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
And how long ago did you read book one?

Speaker 2 (53:27):
Back in January?

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Okay, it was still kind of new. Okay, so I'm like,
oh my gosh, so is it y a? Is it
y ish?

Speaker 2 (53:35):
Like they're okay, nineteen twenty so they're a little teenagerie,
but they're also a little adulty. Do you remember that
which trilogy we read a couple of years ago, The
Serpentine Honey Dug something. It's like that everything we hated

(53:58):
about that they did write in this one.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
Oh okay, so.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Yeah, no, I'm not comparing it in my brain, but
I was like, this is doing it right. Oh, we
hated in that book, but this one's getting it right.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
Yeah. Yeah, I remember I bought those books and I
was so angry. They're actually sitting on the floor over there,
and I giveaway pile. I can't believe I bought those
books and I did not even love the trilogy. So
if you're saying that this author corrected, you know, did
did correctly what we did not like. And now I
feel a little better about it because I need a win.

(54:35):
We're coming into the end of the year here. We
need to finished strong. So our year wrap up isn't
as bitching about every single book we read this year.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
Let's hope not. I don't ye bitch about everything.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
We need a win.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
We need a win.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
Yeah, Okay, I think we're done. What do you think?

Speaker 2 (54:54):
I think we're done. I think we recovered everything.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
So this has been fun. I I love a good
rant review. Sometimes hopefully you guys enjoyed it, and even
if you loved the book, hopefully you saw some of
our points or if you could explain.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
Some of these things to us, because we slept through
a chapter.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Yeah, had to rewind it four or five times and
so didn't get it. So we just moved on. You know,
we're open to comments, all kinds of comments, you know,
as love that. Yeah, and we'll see you in the
next one. Take care of yourselfs Bye guys.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
Bye everybody.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
Did you enjoy today's episode? If so, please head over
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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Concluding The War of Lost Hearts - Rant Review of Mother of Death & Dawn | #FantasySeries Book Chat