Reading With Tyler

Name: Fall of Ruin and Wrath
Series: Awakening #1
Author: Jennifer L Armentrout
Publisher: Tor Books
Format: Audiobook / Kindle
Genres: New Adult, Fantasy, Romance, Paranormal
Noted Tropes: Found Family, “Who did this to you?”, Fated Mates
Steam or Spice: Spice!!

Rating:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Review:

Some how this Jennifer Armentrout release got right passed me. It slipped right through the cracks! And after reading it, I am devestated that we don’t have more information on when we’ll get a sequel. I am gutted it took me so long to get to reading Fall of Ruin and Wrath because it is just that good!

I was doing a re-read of White Hot Kiss in September also (not on the blog as it was reviewed on The Reading Pile) and Thorne (our MMC in Fall of Ruin and Wrath) reminded me a lot of Roth… only in the New Adult world. I think the White Hot Kiss series was already much more of a NA book rather than a YA one, but Thorne was how I’d imagine Roth was if he’d been written in a totally New Adult series.

I’ll get back into Thorne in a moment, but first Lis our FMC. She has the ability to glimpse futures in addition to her heightened intuition. That’s a long way to describe her abilities, but honestly I don’t even think that describes it all that fully. Lis is a brilliant FMC – I love her. She is unapologetically who she is. She’ll be the first to tell you that ultimately she is making decisions – whether they’re ones you agree with or not is not her problem. And I love that about her.

Alongside Lis, is her best friend Grady. He (frustratingly) often acts more like her father rahter than her best friend, with his opinions on her decisions – which I suppose makes sense given that she sees him as a brother / best friend. But I’ll admit I am not Grady’s #1 fan. I get his reasoning, but honestly he just annoyed me. The cast of secondary characters were a little bit more forgetable for me, than is usually the case for JLA’s books… Which was the reasoning behind me changing my earlier rating of 5 stars to 4.5 stars. They weren’t totally forgetable, and they weren’t all bad either, but I just can’t say I care for them in the same way I care for Kieran or Sam, Jadis or Dee!

Thorne, our MMC, is deliciously morally grey. And not just a little morally grey, from what I can tell he is super grey. And at least at the moment, he’s unapologetic about it. He is the way he is. I love Thorne and Lis together, there is a weird authority thing going on between them, and yet Lis can’t hold her tongue and reguarly speaks her mind – something he surprisingly enjoys and seems to value. And this is all whilst believing Thorne has no idea about Lis’ abilities!

Then the plot thickens – it’s drip fed throughout, but it really starts coming on thick in the second half of the book. It didn’t feel like it was boring or nothing was happening before this point, but once things start clicking together, shit hits the fan fast, and the action is pouring in. This was a well written rollercoaster for me. I do love JLA’s books, and aside from the secondary characters, I loved Fall of Ruin and Wrath. I cannot wait for a sequel, though as I write this I have no idea what the plans are in terms of releasing a sequel which is mighty upsetting!

“No being is so powerful that they cannot become weak. Not even a lord, a prince, or a king.”