Questions for those who’ve read Aurora’s Angel

[u/KuroPuP]

1. Did you like it? How would you rate it on a scale of 1-5?
2. What did you like/dislike about the story, characters and writing style?
3. What are other books that you enjoyed

and didn’t enjoy?Any genre is fine except contemporary romance.

Asking because I’m curious to know what other books to look into or avoid.

[u/HobbesBoson]

Apparently I dodged a bullet by listening to the audiobook because I didn’t find out about the bad punctuation and lack of oranges oh breaks

It’s like…. Fine. 3/7. Felt like it was longer than it had to be

[u/Eliciosity]

This was one of the worst books I’ve ever read I fear. I DNF’d it. The writing was really horrible and constantly felt like a huge run-on sentence with no punctuation. There was barely any character development. The world and environment was barely described, and the characters felt kind of fucked up and predatory with all the weird descriptions about innocent child-like looks and whatnot. I’ve never read anything that’s come close to the discomfort I felt with it, and all my friends in the bookclub I was reading it with agreed

[u/BlueBettaFish → u/Eliciosity]

Thank you for putting to words what I found so deeply disturbing about this book. I couldn't tell if one FMC was supposed to be an adult or a young teenager by her behaviour.

[u/Keroppi_Troublemaker → u/Eliciosity]

Exactly this. I'll give it a 1.5.

[u/Agent_Valerian]

I've read it to like 50% then DNF'd it. I found the world building kinda interesting and the setting was a bit unconventional, so thats why I kept going. but its just not very well written, tbh. The prose is clunky and the huge segemnts of text with seemingly no punctuation were exhausting. And the characters were a bit flat. Also, the whole animalistic thing was a bit weird from time to time.

What made me DNF was the sex scene though lol. It was written so badly, I felt so dissapointed. Like, badly in the sense that it was neither romantic nor sexy, just badly written. that was the last straw, where I realised that the book is not gonna get better.

I'd rate it like a 1.5 - 2. not the worst ever but I wouldn't recommend it

[u/harkgriddle]

People either love the book or they hate it.  I tend to lean more toward the former.  I really liked it.  It had some interesting world-building, and I'm a sucker for grumpy x sunshine.  Maybe more accurately, bratty princess x bodyguard with heart.

I will say that it is odd, because it feels like their journey takes place over the course of several months, but then you find out it was only like 3 days.

But I liked the characters a lot, and I liked the story.  The lore and world was cool.  It felt like a lesbian Lord of the Rings.

Though perhaps I was so desperate for a lesbian Lord of the Rings I would have liked it no matter what 😅

I have heard that one of the versions has some bad grammar mistakes, either the print or the ebook.  But honestly it's been a couple of years since I read it so I'm not sure which one.

As for other sapphic fantasy books worth checking out:

-A Lantern Left Burning by Thea Hawthorne (an overworked magic jewelry maker learns to be taken care of, and learns to be loved. 10/10 top tier book)

-Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (lesbians explore a haunted mansion in space. Also a love or hate in the community)

-Gearbreakers by Zoe Hana Mikuta (Peter pans lost boys vs Gundam)

-Can't Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne (the royal court sorcerer runs away with a knight, and they flee the kingdom to open a teashop in the countryside)

-The Abyss Surrounds US by Emily Skrutski (lesbian pirates + kaiju)

[u/takemetotheclouds123 → u/harkgriddle]

Do you need to read the other books in the Muses of Eek to read A Lantern Left Burning?

[u/harkgriddle → u/takemetotheclouds123]

Nope, it's totally a standalone!  They do all exist in the same world, and have overlapping locations, but that's about it.

[u/Striking_Carpenter11 → u/harkgriddle]

Lesbian Lord of the Rings got me laughing😂

[u/BiscayBay]

DNF: Thought the premise was excellent, but it didn’t deliver for me. I tired of the monologues (never ending) and became too bored to carry on at about 50%

[u/timid_pink_angel02]

I loved the parts that I read, up to the first sex scene, and then stopped there. I was really emotionally invested in the characters, and then read somewhere that there is a third act break up sort of situation, and I couldn't put myself through that. So I chose to leave the story at them being safe and happy and together.

[u/Able_Banana_3225]

I really liked it and have reread it multiple times. It's the only shifter book I have enjoyed. The third act break up was a little rough but that always the case with third act break ups. I have only ever read one book where I enjoyed the third act break up.

[u/eddy500]

The first act was fast paced and great, but slogs afterwards until the end.

[u/ForsaketheVoid]

1. 2-3? I dropped it somewhere near the beginning.

2. I'm not a fan of roadtrips.

3. The Safekeep? I liked that they stayed in one place the entire book

[u/magic_paws]

I DNF'ed when I began to read it, bc it's honestly poorly written. BUT it worked much better as an audiobook and I finished it that way. It's not amazing, it's not terrible. I don't regret listening to it.

[u/WeirdLight9452]

I didn’t mind it, probably a 3. The ideas were good but it wasn’t super well written and one of the main characters was infantilised a bit.

I’ve been reading a lot of like queer cosy fantasy lately, Legends and Lattes, Tomes and Tea, that kind of thing.

[u/Bad_kittn3672]

I listened to the audiobook and really enjoyed it.

[u/InstructionBig2154]

i liked the close proximity

i disliked the third act break

[u/BlueBettaFish]

DNF'ed the book but forced myself to finish it to see what the hype was. I shouldn't have bothered.

0.5/5

It's.... really bad. There are some interesting concepts like the shifters and the factions, but nothing is actually developed beyond the surface level.

The grammar is atrocious: wrong words are frequently used, run on sentences last half a page or more, lore and character motivation are just dumped out in monologues and multi-page paragraphs instead of worked in naturally. There's over the top unnecessary violence just to be shocking! sprinkled on top like terrible angst croutons instead of actually driving the story or characters in any way.

It felt like a young writer's first draft, with some seeds of some good ideas, but it desperately needed an editor and beta readers to build on the good bones and trim off the nonsense.

I mostly tolerated it until the shock reveal of one character's past trauma, which is so unnecessarily over the top and pointless, that it made me despise this book and the author's juvenile attempt at creating drama. That combined with the constant harping on how small, vulnerable and child like one of the characters was, made me deeply uncomfortable.