A royal mess.
Samantha Kemi comes from a long line of
old-school alchemists, which has fallen on hard times.
When thoroughly modern Princess Evelyn is
poisoned by a positively ancient love potion, a hunt is called to find an
antidote.
Winning this hunt will revive Sam’s
family’s reputation. And soon Sam is traveling the world for the rarest
ingredients, venturing deep into magical forests and frozen tundras, facing
death at every turn.
Sam’s greatest threat? Zain Aster, her
foremost opponent on the hunt. Rumor has it he was the intended recipient of
the princess’s love potion. With that smile, it’s not hard to see why…
Falling for Zain is a terrible idea. So
why can’t Sam get him out of her mind? Is this magic at work?
This
book was laden with tropes and clichés, and not all of them good. Amy Alward,
because of her job, knows exactly what a proper young adult book needs. She had
an interesting premise, a plot that moves, characters with drive and goals, and
a nicely built world. That being said, the story was in no way riveting. I
enjoyed it, but I enjoy a lot of books that don’t necessarily receive/deserve
high ratings.
The
book started with a great trope: modern fairytale. I don’t think I’ve read any
stories that are clearly a fairytale such as this, but set in a super digital
age. It was an interesting mix that hooked me from the beginning. However, the
story was Ella Enchanted but less riveting and entertaining. The characters had
wants but no real developed pasts. Sam is destined to be a great alchemist (the
only thing I loved from her was reading her alchemical knowledge when she
listed qualities off for different ingredients), and Zain is destined to take
over ZoroCorp. Neither of them thinks that’s what they want, but they know it’s
what they’ll do in the end. Boring. Bad cliché. And don’t get me wrong, I love
when families are happy and whole, but it’s like nothing bad has ever happened
in Nova and everyone has such an easy life. None of the characters had the
depth of a hard life or lost parents. The characters were all flat.
The
plot, in turn, was flat. Even when Kirsty takes someone close to Sam into the
Wilds, I felt nothing. I was just, “thank you, finally we have some tragic
action”. I mean, the plot was good and there. The big plot moments happened,
and the hero fell in love with a boy supposedly in love with another. Such a
bad cliché.
The
whole book just fell short because of rotten clichés, and pacing of all things.
The book wasn’t super short, but everything felt so rushed. It was all the
exciting plot humps you’d expect out of a trilogy, but rolled into one book. It
was such a rushed pace, and nothing bad happened! A few scrapes and bruises,
but nothing dire. Nobody died, and that’s a problem for me, because nothing
heightened the adventure for me. The stakes weren’t raised enough. Emilia ended
up fizzing out as a threat. Evelyn fizzed out too, and she never did any real
harm. Everything was so vanilla and boring. I enjoyed the book, but I don’t
need to read the rest of the series because as far as I can see, the series is
done. She did her thing and got the guy. Hooray, but I don’t feel any need
whatsoever to continue reading. Sure, some books are still missing, but I’m
utterly unconcerned.
Bad
pacing and even worse clichés have turned this play on a modernized fairytale
into a womp-zone. Amy Alward’s Madly is
a cheesy, easy read with zero depth, and that’s disappointing. Also, I still
have no idea how Zain didn’t get the love potion. I read Princess Evelyn’s chapters,
and I don’t understand how she mixed them up. Is she just dumb or what? And
when there’s a fundamental error like that, we’ve got a problem for sure.
XOXO Tia
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