I liked this book a lot, and it hooked me right from the first chapter. The pacing was good, as well as the character dynamics. The magic system was really cool and was explored really well too.

Okay book which was easy to read and liked the world it's set in. I just didn't really connect with any of the characters and didn't feel anything with their relationships.

Nice quick easy read just was lacking in the writing compared to other ya books which are very similar in concept.

Thank you to the publishers and netgalley for an eARC in exchange of an honest review.

Firstly I am very concerned by any tag line stating it is like mine craft because,well, why?

But actually it makes a lot of sense. This book has no concrete plot.

I really wanted to like it. So much! I’ve seen so many good things said about it, and truthfully the beginning did start out nicely. However, we quickly went down hill.
Unfortunately, the book lacks consistent grammatical structure. It constantly shifts tenses partway through a scene and I find that worrying as it became more and more frequent. The book itself is meant to be third person past tense, but shifts into present tense far too often. We rely heavily on the internal monologue of our main characters, and we get little from them.

I honestly do love the concept and the artwork but this book needs some serious editing before it should have been published. I’d heard good things but I literally cannot ignore this many glaring mistakes in the writing. Perhaps it’s massively improved in the final draft, but uncorrected proofs shouldn’t have me marking down issues 8 times per page.

I was excited for the next books and foolishly requested another in the sequel and now I feel terrible. Unfortunately I’m not sure I can continue the series.

Oh wow, this sci-fi really had me HOOKED. The writing oh the writing- I didn't know I needed this until now! What a fantastic story and the pacing really made this an enjoyable read!

Yes, she cheated her way into the Royal Games, but it was for a very good reason. Her ex-boyfriend thought she couldn't attain glory on her own. Just because she was a girl. And he was the real cheater. So she took his place. The storyline felt fresh and unique to me, which kept me interested throughout the entire story. I enjoyed Zora for being a girl protagonist who starts out wanting revenge for a pretty good reason while still being kind of petty about it - yet, she never becomes an unlikeable character. Thanks to Day Leitao, Sparkly Wave, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read The Cup and the Prince.

All in all, this is a typical YA fantasy novel that is very reminiscent of Holly Black's The Folk of the Air, which means that some people will enjoy it and others will not. Personally, I did actually enjoy it because I thought it was fun and the length also made it easier to get through but the plot and characters did fall flat in some places. Despite that, however, it is still enjoyable, especially for getting out of a reading slump. Zora, the protagonist, is very reminiscent of other YA fantasy protagonists such as Jude Duarte and Celaena Sardothien and if you loved those characters just as I did, you're going to love Zora as well. She's wickedly clever and funny and probably my favourite part of the book! I look forward to reading the next one.

I wanted to love this book because the description sounded good, but it was not for me at all.

It was way too slow in the beginning and I almost DNF'd it. I had to set it aside for a while (okay...months) before being able to finish.

After picking it up again a few months later, I found that the pace did pick up some but the characters still fell flat. The cup and the prince was a light, easy read and wasn't wholly bad.

However..... it was forgettable.

I could not finish this book.
The premis was great and helps me ready to go. But the characters fell flat and I couldn’t get invested. The explanations of what was going on was ok and things for moving plot wise but I just couldn’t feel a connection. I wasn’t enthused to see what happened to the main character which left me dragging myself page to page. I very rarely dnf but after a few attempts to get in to this I just had to walk away and read somthing else.

An exciting book that I plowed through. It's been hard for me to get into books and find my groove lately, but this one was really fun and exciting. Loved the plot and the characters.

Bit of a slow start. Interesting but still slow. Although after the main character said "Greatness. For someone illiterate and stupid? Ridiculous." I kind of just put it down and walked away.

A few months later I decided to try it again.....after getting pass that line I couldn't put it down.

It's your basic beautiful girl from a no where town thrown into a contest and the court life with 3 royal brothers at every turn. She's having to play this game all in the hopes of freeing her town from a curse.

I really liked this book!
The cover is amazing - Bowater slays it every time!
I enjoyed the story a lot

Disappointed and would have DNFed, if it weren't so short. The premise was good, but the execution less than mediocre. The writing is simple at best, and the story doesn't captivate you whatsoever. Yes, the pacing is fast, but, unfortunately, it doesn't make you want to follow it.

The book got my attention because of the amazing cover. The story which is hidden within the book is so good. The description was indeed my cup of tea but I didn’t expected to fall in love with this book. I loved it and I had never a boring minute while reading it. I read it in one setting and startet book 2 immediately.

The world-building and the characters are interesting. Zora is a badass character and does everything to achieve her goals. I fell in love with Griffin. He is mysteries and has a dark secret. The writing style is refreshing and easy to read, but it doesn’t make the story plain. I can highly recommend it. You should read it!

Title: The Cup and The Prince
Author: Day Leitao
Pub. Date: October 15, 2020
Rating: 2 (DNF @ 41%)

This will be a short spoiler free review. Thank you to NetGalley and Sparkly Wave Publishing for gifting me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Ultimately this book just didn’t do anything for me. Comping something to Throne of Glass can be a huge benefit, or detrimental and in my opinion, it didn’t do this book any favors. I had such high hopes for this book and had immediately requested it upon seeing it comped with Throne of Glass. I really liked the cover and synopsis sounded promising.

Then I started reading.
And that’s when the disappointment set in.

But before I get into my issues – I stopped reading at 41% because I just couldn’t make myself continue on. I do think the premise of this book is amazing and it truly sounds promising. It feels like such a missed opportunity and I’m really bummed that I couldn’t force myself to finish this book and that I didn’t love it. I don’t want to give it a 0 or a 1-star rating, because I do think this book has promise, and maybe one day I’ll go back to it and try again.

Now, I can’t talk on the whole book, since I didn’t read it all, but even with only having read roughly half, I have complaints.

I hate Zora – the MC she’s whiny and cries ALL THE TIME. Everything is a personal slight. When she was first introduced I kind of thought she was a bit of a badass – she takes matters into her own hands and forges her own path. Everything kind of just goes downhill from there. She talks a big game, but rarely delivers. I’m all for strong female characters, but Zora talks so much about defying the societal norms but doesn’t actually do much and then gets all morose that she’s not as pretty or like other girls. And I get that we all compare ourselves, even when we’re confident in who we are, but Zora just seemed to flip-flop between being “strong” and being “whiny”. She was also woefully naïve.

I didn’t care for the love interest. Like, at all. He did nothing for me. And while I didn’t actually read their “romantic” relationship, I could easily pick him out and he just wasn’t enticing.
Between the two of them she’s all power to women and he’s all women are pretty little fragile things. Blech. His brothers did nothing for me either. I was just unimpressed with the whole cast of characters. They were all one dimensional at best and basically stereotypes. Other than their physical descriptions I had no idea who they were so there were no emotional ties.

The writing is trying to be coy and clever but just comes across stilted and flat. Everything is just told to you, there’s hardly any world building. Like, I have no idea what anything is supposed to look like. The lore/mythology/magic system is vague as fuck. A goddess was introduced in one scene, seemingly out of the blue and never ever mentioned again. And the whole existence of the shadow creatures is never explained beyond “someone did something bad and this was the consequences.

Don’t even get me started on the ex-boyfriend who’s just rotting away in a dungeon seemingly forgotten about. Who cares about him? Why he was even included in the first place, I’ll never understand.

The contest for the Blood Cup (though idk what that is or why it’s so important - it’s NEVER explained) is supposed to be dangerous af, but the first task was literally “pick up these balls in the dark, get as many as you can, but you can move when the light comes on”…like, really?
It’s like a modified game of Simon Says, or flashlight tag. What bearing does that have on anything?

I just…I have no more words. I’m honestly so baffled by this book. I honestly don’t understand how it has high ratings, but I’m glad people are enjoying it. I wish I were one of them. Unfortunately, I’m not. I probably won’t pick up the second book in the series, but I do recommend picking up this book if you’re curious. My goal isn’t to turn you off books, but to give my honest opinion. Again, I wish I’d loved this book.

What an enjoyable read! I admit that it was both the title and cover that got my attention first but then I read the synopsis and I was sold with the Royal Games idea.

Zora was a great character to follow and I couldn't not cheer for her. She was relatable, yet very strong and passionate. She was determined in both her goals and values. On the other side, we had Griffin, which was interesting to read about, because you learn more about the inner workings of the games and how he really felt. However, I still preferred Zora's point of view, because it was fresher and filled with more action. Griffin's perspective was necessary but some passages felt a bit repetitive because of his storyline.

It is a pity that the book was so short because even though it was still entertaining, it could have had more in character development and the relationships built throughout the story. Some characters were a bit too much and a couple relationships suffered from the shortness of the book, but it's not something that took me out of the book or made me enjoy it any less. Some characters surprised me because I was not expecting to like them or did not imagine they would be in the book as much, but I was disappointed in others (again, probably due to the lenght of the book) and their actions. I am wondering if we will see any changes in the next books with those characters or get to understand them better.

The Royal Games were interesting and I was curious about the process and the actual games, which were easier than I would have expected, but it was Zora, her defiance and attitude that made me enjoy the book as much as I did. I cannot wait for The Curse and The Prince in a few days!

This book was fantastic I really loved the world building and character development. Zora was a great under dog and this made my girl power heart Soar. Zora is betrayed back home and extracts her revenge by taking her betrayers place as the Dark Valley Champion. Her she must undergo a series of challenges to defeat her competitors to take the blood cup. She goes up against Prince Griffin. Zora proves her worth even as roadblocks are put up against her. There are secrets and deceit and it all builds up to a mind blowing cliffhanger. What a great read.

This was actually good!
Zora leaves home on revenge to compete in a competition to win a cup that will help her home.
It's hard to tell who is good and bad. And im intrigued with the ending and want to read the 2nd book.

**Thank you to Netgalley and Sparkly Wave for an eArc in exchange for an honest review. This in no way changed my rating**

The Cup and the Prince has two main protagonists: Zora, a girl who leaves her dangerous village as a means of petty revenge on her cheater ex, and Griffin, a prince with a secret. Both enter into a dangerous series of competitions, as well as games of political intrigue.

This was a perfectly good Fantasy book. The idea of the shadow creatures Zora has to fight in her home village and her underlying motivation to win the competition to help her people were bright spots. Additionally, I liked all three royal brother characters (although Larzen was my favorite). I liked that Zora was a capable female character with capable female friends, which is a trait that is all too often skipped in YA series nowadays.

That said, the idea that the main motivation for another female character appears to be jealousy the entire book up until the bitter end was a problem for me. The actual issue behind her character was so much more intriguing than "a pretty girl is flirting with a prince" and I would have liked to have been let in on that earlier. Additionally, the ending left a lot open. I would probably read the second book of this series because it was left in a place that I want to know what happens and the writing was good enough to check it out. I just am hoping for a little more detail on the parts that were left open (where did the shadows come from? can they be stopped for good? What's going on with Griffin?) and less petty girl fights and open underestimation of female characters due to sexism.

4/5 stars

This was not my cup of tea, and I DNF’d it. It was more YA than I was expecting. So, I’m not discounting it’s ability, but it just wasn’t for me. What I think is a 1 star review is someone else’s 5 star!

I really enjoyed The Cup and the Prince! It was fast-paced and kept my attention from start to finish! I would have liked a little bit more detail about the world and background information on some of the characters...hopefully we will get more juicy details in the next book! I can’t wait to read it!

#TheCupandthePrince