Giorgia Reads's Reviews > Written in Red

3.5 stars

I’m gonna start by saying that despite my middle of the road rating, I did enjoy this a lot and I’m gonna continue the series.

I think the world-building is interesting and definitely a different take on supernaturals. (for whom, humans are literally prey - as in they eat human meat - apparently its quite tasty *shudders*)

That being said, I also think that there was plenty of place for improvement. I got the impression that some things were written in for no other logical reason than to move things along for a certain plot point.
An example for that complaint is the fact that the Human Liaison’s job seemed at least 80% ridiculous and a convenient way for our heroine, Meg, to have an way into The Others’s Courtyard - which then starts the whole chain of events in the book.

I mean, anyone could have done that job and it was ridiculous how much importance was placed on needing her to _______ wait for it ______ sort mail.

I mean, all the other species living there were business owners and generally smart, educated creatures, but we draw the line at_____you guessed it: sorting mail. That task apparently comes with a need for special skills.

Okay, so to make this a little less ridiculous, the writer did include her duties as being a sort of middle man for human delivery drivers because most of them would refuse to deliver to the Courtyard because they were afraid of The Others.

From that perspective alone, yes, that would make sense. (Although we were endlessly told how valuable she was because she sorted through mail backlogs - which anyone could have done in the months when they were missing a human liaison)

But her having an apartment provided as a perk of the job? Odd. Not even the human working at the Consulate/Council (whatever it was - more prestigious anyways) gets that. But mail sorting gets you an apartment, free meals, and other odd perks. Everyone caters to you and treats you like a china doll. Okaaaaaay.

Also, everyone loved her!? All of the other species who detest outsiders (humans), loved Meg. One of the oldest, most dangerous sanguinati (vampire - like creatures) gives her access to his house to deliver mail (not even his species gets that honour). But in comes Meg, and all she does is deliver his mail personally - which was held up for months- and he declares he likes her and she has his protection.

Some things (too many) were too conveniently written in and didn’t make much sense in the larger scheme of things pertaining to the world order in the book.


Now that I got that out of the way, I can also declare (lol) that I read this in one sitting and I plan to pick up the next book asap. The things I mentioned above did bother me (a lot) but they didn’t really make me less invested. So take what you will from that 🤷‍♀️

One odd thing I also liked were the very mundane descriptions. Like we would get pages of inconsequential stuff characters did but it somehow worked with the narrative, so I quite enjoyed reading about that, as well as the descriptions of the Courtyard (where The Others live) and how things worked in the day to day of that place.

PS: NOT a romance - apparently there’s a kiss in book 5 and that’s it. So consider this the slowest slow burn possible. (There are cute moments from Simon and Meg though)