Book Review of “Gild” by Raven Kennedy

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This review is a part of a series of book reviews where, instead of providing a star rating review for each book, I provide the top three things I like about each book, and the top three things I dislike about each book. This means that even if I absolutely adore a book, I’m still going to find three dislikes to list and even when I despise a book, I’ll still find the three things that I enjoyed. Then you get to decide if the book sounds right for you.

Because of the nature of this review, there will occasionally be some spoilers, though I do my best to minimize them as to not completely ruin the story for those who haven’t read it. Although, if you’re like me, I personally adore spoilers and they usually just convince me to read the book more. But, in the name of due diligence, read at your own risk.

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**Some spoilers included.**

Check this book out here.

I decided to give this series a try since I’ve seen it all over the place and was able to read it for free with Kindle Unlimited. However, I knew before jumping into this story that it’s gotten some negative reviews. I was warned that this book is a tough one to get through, but that it’s worth getting through because the next two book in the series are amazing. Here are my thoughts:

Top Three Likes:

1. I enjoyed the Midas retelling aspects. It brought back some nostalgia from when I would read the story of Midas over and over again in my youth. It was also nice to read this story since lately I feel like the main things people have been asking me to read have all been fae related.

2. The ribbons are an interesting trait, although hard for me to wrap my mind around initially.

3. The author did a really good job of making every single character unlikable. And I mean it. Every. Single. One. I literally had no idea why I was reading this book sometimes because every character seemed horrible or weak. However, I think that was kind of the point. Maybe?

Yup, that’s pretty much it so far. There really wasn’t a ton to like in this first book.

Top Three Dislikes:

1. I was completely unable to figure out how I was supposed to believe Midas and Auren had any sort of connection. At all. Nope. I was in constant disbelief that she was really dumb enough to love him after every horrible things he did and not sure how I was supposed to get behind her as a main character. It was hard to imagine that a character introduce as this passive and this foolish could ever be someone I could be inspired by. The justifications I was given for her actions didn’t feel like enough.

2. It read like a bad prelude. If I hadn’t been told by several people to not let this first book turn me off of the series, I wouldn’t have made it through. I summarized the beginning of this book for a friend and told her to just read like the first chapter to set the mood and then pick up at the pirate scene so that she could enjoy the next two books faster. I think I could have understood what I was supposed to take away from this first book in a much more condensed version. It felt like there were many themes and similar phrases repeated over and over and over again, and I was like, I get it!

3. Sail. I was so sad that the first character I half liked was created just so he could be a tragic pun later on. Like, she really named him Sail just so she could string him up as a Sail a couple chapters later. It cheapened the moment for me. I would’ve taken a lot more from the scene, if I weren’t scoffing at the super transparent pun choice. Like randomly stringing up some guy named Bob would’ve seemed a lot more cruel and less distracting in my opinion.

Overall Thoughts:

While this book was really hard to get through and I didn’t relate to the main character’s methods of dealing with her trauma and situation, the next two books were exponentially better in my opinion. A lot of people in the booktok and bookstagram communities had warned me of this ahead of time, so I knew what I was getting into a head of time. But it was still hard.

There is absolutely no way I would’ve finished this book it I wasn’t told that the next two book got exponentially better. Which is not really the note you want to start a first book on.

Therefore, I am glad I kept going. However, I have been telling my friends to skim through this book, get a summary from me and start at book two, Glint, or skim the first couple chapters then pick up at the pirate scene. I feel like the pirate scene is when the real story starts to happen.

What were your thoughts on this book? Have you read it?

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