#inbox is open temporary for discussions of the series id love to hear your guys opinions on it!

[adonis-koo]

Book Review: Folk of Air

I cannot believe it’s taken me this long to write this but I felt like I’m order to review the books, I wanted to read all of them before I gave a review! (Mind you I’ve read the main trilogy but I’m aware there are two complimentary novella books that I’ve yet to read, so I will not be touching on them.)

There was definitely aspects to this book that I absolutely adored, one of those things are surprisingly the first person POV, I feel like anyone who’s been on my blog for awhile probably knows by now that I’m not a fan of first person stories (particularly in the YA genre for many reasons) but I adored Jude’s narration.

Her grapple with feeling powerless and wanting power had me right there with her, on the edge of my seat rooting for her even in her worst moments, her powerful declaration of becoming worse then her enemies if she couldn’t be better. Willingly positioning herself to make herself stronger. But more then anything, I personally enjoyed the fact that Jude doesn’t try to justify her actions.

She’s very aware of what she’s doing, she knows her actions are heinous from the very moment she joins the Court of Shadows. It was such a slow trickling water fall of disaster honestly, I loved the slow build up in the series of Jude’s lust for power, first starting with the gias to not be charmed, twisting into grappling for the crown and eventually taking Cardan under her control.

Not only this but her sheer determination to do something was thoroughly enjoyable to read and watch unfold, even when she lost the battles or took the hits, watching her grit her teeth and her back up was easily one of my favorite aspects of her character (also her pure spiteful nature deeply resonates with me so maybe I’m biased)

I was also highly enjoyed her complex relationship with Madoc which was tainted from the very moment the book started. Him murdering her parents and fostering her and her sisters. The constant push and pull of their relationship and going from family to enemies.

Cardan was also a very fun character to read! While he was indeed cruel in the first book. There was just something so charming about his delivery, the longing stares that are filled with both yearning and anger. Not only that but the way he transitioned into enjoying his position as the king in the second book.

‘kiss me again, kiss me until I’m sick of it’ 😵‍💫

There’s so many things I enjoyed about this series, but out of all of them, I somehow really enjoyed the first book the best, watching Cardan and Jude continuously attempt to one up each other on pranks, and it eventually leading to her killing his best friend was just…🤣 horrendous but somehow amusing (granted she didn’t kill him to spite Cardan but you get my point)

But while I enjoyed this book, now that I’ve read the main trilogy I can’t help but wish there was more too it. Holly did an amazing job on some aspects of this book, but there were others I felt that severely lacked.

(I would also just like to state that these are my feelings and opinions and that while I feel it’s shame, I still believe it’s a great series to read!)

A lot of the characters felt very one demisonal to me, and maybe it’s because I’m a writer and reader who enjoys character relationships, I feel like they really make the story great, a great plot helps, I feel like strong we’ll rounded characters count the most. There’s more then plenty of examples.

The first being Jude’s sisters, Taryn and Vivi. We know them but at the same time we really don’t. Vivi was the one who swore to never forgive Madoc and so I assumed she would play a much bigger role in the series then she did, she’s a typical eldest rebel child who is, at most, a minor annoyance to the dad. I was really hoping we would see more of her pain and anguish against Madoc for murdering their parents (as she was the oldest and probably remembers it the best). But the most we see is a lack luster character who kinda remains me of a sassy Y/n from a draco x reader fanfic on wattpad.

(I’m writing this at 2 in the morning with only four hours of sleep so please bare with me)

We do get to see more of Taryn’s side of things during the first book, but once Jude decided to join the court of shadows, all bets are off, and so I felt like that would’ve been a good jumping off point to dive into the riff and feelings of alienation from her sister. But alas, that wasn’t really there either.

We also have Orianna, she first read as “the ugly step mother” trope but turns out she is just a very mild version of it and only to Jude due to how rebellious she is, and I once again would have loved to have seen their relationship played out in more detail.

The last character is unfortunately Cardan, and listen I LOVE him, I truly do, but I feel like we as the reader, don’t know much about him. I find it a bit odd that despite having two books titled after him, there really isn’t many scenes in the story with him in it, not only this but at the end of book one, he becomes the pentacle of the whole plot.

So I feel as though he should’ve been more included in scenes or had more then he did, and furthermore, their relationship. I went into the book knowing the romance was a subplot, but when the feelings are that conflicted by book two…😭 I’m sorry but it felt like it really should have been more at the forefront of the plot.

My policy with writing is “show don’t tell” so while I know Jude was conflicted with her feelings for Cardan is was shown so little that it felt only a little forced, especially given their lack of scenes together. And listen I’m not advocating for more romance. But moreso advocating for better tension, it the conflict is brought up during narration a lot but we don’t see it in action during the scenes except for a few times throughout the whole series. I feel like telling that side of the plot rather then showing it really didn’t help it’s case.

Cardan has some very memorable lines he says to her but it was difficult to really feel into it because they really only have about four scenes in the whole trilogy where there is tension of feelings involved. And if Cardan was a side character this would have gotten a pass, but he isn’t, he’s the main supporting male in the series that is at the center of the plot. Objectively, it all would’ve felt a lot more seamless to me if the conflict was more present in the plot then it was. This wouldn’t have required a lot of changes imo, just more dialogue between them with the right wording in any scenes and it wouldn’t just have to be them.

My point being it could have been worked better into the main plot that takes center stage.

I don’t want to be too harsh on the series of course! I still enjoyed reading it! But there was definitely some unmistakable flaws in the story that are difficult to forget. Publishing houses can be picky with word count so maybe a lot of things had to be edited out to fit a word count. It really seems that way because there’s so many characters and so little time to go into depth about all of them.

That isn’t to say it’s neccasary to go into depths with all of the characters but a heart to heart conversation between some and Jude would’ve done them a lot of favor in making them more fleshed out. That’s really my biggest let down with the story, so many characters have potential but a lot of them fell very flat. Another example being the gang at the Court of Shadows. We were introduced to Roach, Ghost and Bomb but hardly got any screen time with any of them during book 1.

But I wanted to wait for judgment on that because I thought we’ll maybe this is just setting the stage for book 2, and while in a way it very much was. We still didn’t get to see much of their side of things or really see them build any relationship with Jude.

In closing I definitely see the appeal of the Folk of Air series, it was very captivating and I thoroughly enjoyed the plot of Jude’s rise to power, the grapple to control it and her fall from grace. The ending was very nice! I was really curious to see how Madoc’s ending would play out as he is an integral character to the series but up until the moment I couldn’t see any other ending for him aside from dying by Jude in someway. I really enjoyed the plot twist of exiling him to the mortal world!

Even more so I loved that the series started in the mortal world and it ended in the mortal world with the final toast to scheming good schemes. All in total I’d rate the series a

⭐️ 3 out of 5 ⭐️

If you have any book recommendations you’d like to give or her my thoughts on please let me know down below! 👇