An Honest Review of Awakening by J. Ross
Thank you to the author for providing this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
Book Recap: Adanya wakes up from a magical sleep 70 years in the future. The world she discovers is far worse than the one she left behind. In order to save her kingdom and those she loves, she will have to face the internal struggles that have been holding her and her magic back.
Top Tropes:
🔮Hidden Powers
👎Unexpected Betrayal
👪 Found Family
Spice Rating: 🫑🫑🫑 (A few closed door scenes throughout)
Overall Rating: ⭐⭐
Let’s Talk About It…
I was excited to get my hands on a copy of Awakening, but found the story to fall flat for me. This book is marketed as an adult book, but contained many concepts that felt immature such as "Aqua powers". The dialogue was also difficult to read. There were moments where it was mature and there was strong language, but that was quickly followed up with phrases and actions that felt very modern and did not match the world. Additionally, the book had a lot of repetitive dialogue and actions taken by the FMC. There is a stretch of 3-4 chapters where she cries. For a "strong female lead", I find that Adanya doesn't handle her emotions well. I also found the book to be very predictable which made the ending seem anticlimactic.
If you are someone who isn't a fan of flashbacks, this may not be the book for you. Every other chapter bounces back from the present to the past. I personally found it difficult to follow at times, especially when the scene from the past was at a different point in the timeline than the last scene. Some of the scenes were from Adanya's childhood, others were from right before she went to sleep, and then some fell somewhere in between. It would often times take me several pages to figure out when the scene occurred.
Overall, I think this book had a good concept, but it wasn't the book for me.
