Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review. it was confusing and i didnt like it

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

The book was great, but I did not feel it was time for this type of fiction. I'll be continuing reading it in another period of time and for sure I'll love it!

Unfortunately I can't provide feedback as I don't have access to the mobi file anymore and when I came back here to download it, it's no longer available! I didn't posted my star rating anywhere either. If you'd still like to get my review I'd love to be able to download the mobi file.

This book was all over the place and just too confusing. It was also problematic in places. I wanted to love it, based on the premise, but it just wasn't for me.

DNF’d, as the start as very confusing and needlessly wordy. I would suggest making the first chapter clearer as to what is happening in order for a reader to create an image in their mind.

The book seemed different from the description provided. It seemed like too much was going on at once, and it overloaded my brain. Also, it’s prose is forced. “Her vivacious lavender eyes were transfixed and purposeful” can easily be a determination shone in her eyes, or something else.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC copy!

I received a free review copy of In Lost Dreams the Four Were Bound from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review - my sincerest thanks to both the author and the publisher. :)

This book sadly fell very flat for me. The writing in terms of its description of people, places, things, etc is well done. The story itself is a bit of a soap opera-esque confusing mess. The really strange practices of the main race to my Western Societal sensibilities as well.

The biggest thing that stood out to me was very early on in the book one of the main characters is established. This character is a philanderer that uses alcohol to coerce his conquests. Fine, no issues yet in terms of things that bother me literature wise. Then it is quickly established that he plied a young child's care taker with alcohol to have sex with her, in front of the child. Red Flag. Then it is proceeded to be revealed that he invites her over on her own any time. Um...what?!

Young child tells her adoptive mother what happened. The exact words she thinks are:
"But Elis [Child's Adoptive Mother] would have to wait till later to confront and draw lines with Nerin [Adult making advances on child]. She [Adoptive mother] didn't care if he had his way with every woman in the village, but such gestures directed at her ward was trespassing upon sacred ground."

OK HOL' UP. This adult is soliciting a child with alcohol and the thought process is "This can wait." Never mind that but to this reader the part I quoted above from her adoptive mother makes it sound like sex with children is a normal part of their society. That for me personally is not what I want to read about in my free time. I would even understand or not mind from a literature sense if such a thing happened and she immediately marched into Nerin's chambers and string him up by his testicles. But nope, it's something that just isn't that big of a deal to this race/species.

Beyond that there is a ton of mental hand wringing, almost soap opera levels, of inner dialogue which was incredibly annoying as a mechanic for world building or plot progression.

The fight scenes and the end is very well done, just a shame these were weighed down with an incredibly slow start, a real outta left field hit early on with the whole species being cool with bedding children, and pages upon pages of internal dialogue.

I got an ARC of this book after it was already released, so it fell out of high priority. I also will not be getting to it before the Archive Date.

I read this book for the Number’s in a Title challenge and got it as a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

And, honestly: this book wasn’t for me. It did have some good parts, especially the world-building and the plot, but it was a tad too confusing for me. I think the story just has a bit too many elements to really work (but that’s just my opinion, of course).

I don’t actually really know how even to describe what the story is about. But I’ll give it a try. We start the story in a sort of space-ship, where some virus attacks an AI. The people on board, one of which is Maximillian, captures the being that infiltrated their system. They’re after an entity they call the ‘Virage.’

Then we shift to a people who call themselves the ‘Hyunisti,’ who are suffering under a curse. They live in a place in the forest and live there quite peacefully. Elis is one of the few Talvuo (the Hyunisti race) who is from before the curse and has a longer life. Then two strangers come to their village, a brother and sister called Neris and Nerin (yes, even those names were too confusing in the beginning, because they’re so similar). Not too long after, another stranger arrived, who was wounded and needed care. This stranger was no other than the Virage. Neris and Elis take it upon themselves to heal the Virage, while Nerin is up to some scheming to take over the Hyunisti village. And this plan of his turns out to be quite dangerous and possibly disastrous. But can they actually stop it? And who exactly is this Virage? And will they ever be able to lift the curse from their people?

Those are the main question of the story, I think. But the way it’s told is often quite confusing. There were times where I thought I got it, but then this sort of dream-like chapter came, and it confusing again. While from the title, I understood that dreaming would be a factor; it didn’t seem all that coherent. And then with the added sci-fi element of the AI’s and the ‘other world’ people… it was just too much.

Another thing that wasn’t really my cup of tea was the constant sexual manipulation. It seemed that pretty much every chapter was about sex in some way. I don’t mind sex in books, but I felt it was used too often to get something or to advance the plot.

And the story was quite long, a lot longer than I felt it needed to be. It dragged quite a few times, with added details that I don’t think actually mattered that much to the plot. We saw several people’s background through dreams or visions where it wouldn’t have been necessary (or less of it would’ve sufficed).

Oh, and it’s actually the first book of a series, which I didn’t realize before I started reading. But I won’t be reading the next books.

DNF at 13%

I don't have a lot to say about this book, so my apologies for this very short review.

The first chapter already confused me a lot. It was totally not the same energy as I got from the blurb, which was disappointing because it seemed really promising.

After that first chapter, the energy changed to something completely different. I liked that a bit more.

When I read some more of it, I completely lost focus on what the story was even telling me. I had no clue what I was reading. And it sure didn't help that the character pov's changed very often, but all the characters felt the same, and that made it hard to keep them apart.

Maybe I would've liked it more if I kept reading, but since it took so much energy to try to understand what was going on, I decided to stop.

DNF at 25% of the ebook. Not a bad book but I couldn't get invested in it. I'd love to be more helpful but I can only say I tried to force myself to continue but finally gave up.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

DNF at 37%

in lost dreams, the four were bound by Bradley Blankenship blends genres together, such as fantasy and scifi and a bit of horror and mystery. This is why it caught my attention since I do have a soft spot for stories that do this, and so expand the idea of what defines a genre.

However, I do feel like that was also the downfall of the book. At the start, it very much read like a scifi book, later on it got more fantasy like and the little bit of mystery and horror there was, kept feeling the same. This might be why the story moved so slow. Not that I mind a slower paced story, but in this scenario it didn’t work out, and there might be another reason for it.

The character. There were so many, and it was hard for me to keep them apart. They all felt very much the same to me. Even though I liked the fact that they blended in nicely with the world and so many social things could be explained with them, the characters themselves and their motivation and relationships with each other, felt bland and kept confusing me. I wonder if it would help if there was a page dedicated to the characters and who they are + terms used in the world.

Overall, I’m sad I didn’t like this book since it contained elements I normally like. The world does seem interesting and I would love to read more in depth about it, but in this case I couldn’t enjoy it due the confusion with the characters and the way the story never really felt like it picked up and was going anywhere.

this was a great start to a series, it had a great way to learn the world and getting to know the characters. The story itself was great and I look forward to more from the author.