4.5/5

Thank you NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own. 

I put off reading this book for SO long; I was not a fan of The Atlas Six, so I assumed I would not enjoy this book as well. I was so wrong. This was a fantastic book that roped me in from the beginning. I fell in love with the characters and really enjoyed the Romeo and Juliet vibes the plot gave.

I was able to access this book from NetGalley. This is my honest review.

So to begin, I mostly really enjoyed this. I love Blake's style of writing, the drama, and the intensity she can evoke. The storytelling was engaging, the romances have you hanging on. In truth, I liked it more than I thought I might - the Baba Yaga/Koschei the deathless thing made me a little skeptical, but it ended up not being silly. I loved the Atlas Six series so I thought I would go out on a limb and try another book by her and I'm so glad I did!

There were elements of the middle of the book that I think could have perhaps been more tightly edited, it got to be rambly and a little muddled in the middle section of the book.

in the year 2023, no one is writing longing, yearning, and angst like olivie blake. every book i pick up by her, vast in different concepts, the writing and one liners she is able to string together just rendered me speechless. what a gift to the literary world and the lyrical prose readers (me).

this story is a mash up reimagining of Romeo and Juliet and A midsummer Night’s dream, which is a really insane combination. we get to see two different families, two different worlds, and two different timelines of power, love, and betrayal. this is a story about family, and sibling bonds, and love that feels too big too much of the time. but everything is also filled with magic, and fae, and secrets. i really did adore this, and it was very impressively crafted. i loved seeing all the different powers, and u think i lost part of my own heart upon finishing this epilogue.

trigger + content warnings: a lot of talk of drugs + selling drugs + drug use, alcohol, vomiting, blood, murder, death, loss of a loved one (a lot too), grief, brief mention of bullying in past, magical compulsion, violence, gore, suicide.

I was so intrigued by the premise of One for My Enemy and I had hopes that it would be the Olivie Blake book that finally won me over. Unfortunately, I rapidly lost interest in the story. Days would go by without me having any interest in listening to this audiobook.

There were a lot of characters to keep track of and their introductions were particularly difficult to process via audiobook. Despite the wide cast of characters, none of them felt unique enough to draw my attention. The character's motivations were nonsensical at times and I wasn't invested in any of the romance plots.

My biggest complaint with this book is the disastrous lack of world-building. The existence and importance of magic are established very early on. And yet the first half of the book contains almost no real magic. This makes it impossible for the reader to learn how magic works in this world or what the limitations might be. Then suddenly large feats of magic are being performed and it is important again. Blake fails to explain the logic behind any of the major plot moments in the book which made the story feel disjointed and underdeveloped. The setting itself is incredibly bland making it easy to forget that this is supposed to be set in New York.

One for My Enemy lacked substance and direction making it my least favorite Olivie Blake book so far.

Olivie Blake is simply a master at her craft. Every sentence she weaves is a lyrical masterpiece and while her books are more vibes than plot, she is extraordinary at it. The One for My Enemy audiobook was a purposeful and poignant read, with the narrator fully capturing this and bringing to life Blake's words that leave the reader entranced. I loved every moment of this ambitious and gorgeously written story.

A totally different vibe than previous books I've read from Olivie Blake, but equally as enjoyable! Olivie has moved their way onto my auto buy author list and One for My Enemy did not disappoint. I appreciated the nods to Russian folklore and Romeo and Juliet, while making the story entirely their own. The narrator was incredibly talented giving each character their own voice and mood, while keeping the overall tone of their narration in line with the dark theming of the book.

Thank you Net Galley for providing this book and allowing me to read it in advance. I was unable to personally get into this book but that is the power of reading. There’s books for everyone. I know someone else will adore it!

This is definitely an "it's not the book, it's me.." kind of vibe.

DNFed at 43%...However, I recommend it to anyone who loves Romeo and Juliet.

My thoughts: I was very interested in the beginning. The magic system was pretty cool, the main love interests really drew me in. I was certainly enjoying it. But then we shifted gears completely and started to focus on another couple who I had no repertoire with nor did I care much about. As such I began to lose focus in the story. I'm not the biggest fan of Romeo and Juliet but I see the appeal. I likely would have been more interested had I physically tried to read this rather than listen to it....b/c I did like the " Act 1, Scene 1" shifts/chapters. I've enjoyed other books of Olivie Blake, this one was just a miss for me.

Thanks to NetGalley for the an audiobook ARC.

What started with potential, quickly poisoned itself with too many plot lines and uninteresting characters. Russian mobster Witches in NYC, based off of an Italian romance should have way more draw than this. I did not mind the Act formatting or the narration, but the characters held absolutely no connection for me and it felt like 2 different books smashed together.

Beautiful, haunting, and heart-breaking. Really loved this twist on a romeo and juliet retelling.

Thank you Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for this arc in exchange for my honest review!

This reworking of Romeo and Juliet held my attention the entire time - but with witches and powerful families in Manhattan! I loved Masha and Dima and Sasha and Lev. The shifting timelines added depth to the story, and the morally grey characters evolved so brilliantly. Blake’s prose was stunning, and the narration was on point. So exciting!

I'm a huge fan of Blake's THE ATLAS SIX, but I had mixed feelings about this one. I thought the first half (which adheres most closely to Romeo & Juliet) was a well rendered and interesting adaptation, but the book jumped the shark for me at 50%. I kept going despite the hard veer into melodrama, but I also kinda felt like the book came to a natural end at 50% and this might have worked better as two books. For me, the second half really dragged and I struggled to care about the epic back stories for each of these families, I wanted to love this one, but it just didn't hold me in its grip as the Atlas series did, and I think this one felt distinctly more like an apprentice book to me.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to listen to the audiobook! A great narrator, too.

I have tried to listen to this 4 times now and I still only remember half of this, and what I remember is good but it unfortunately is easily forgettable for me. I am going to try again when I can find it on a platform that plays faster because NetGalley only working up to 2x speed makes it much harder to retain a book this long.

One for My Enemy by Olivie Blake boasts both well-developed characters and intriguing plot points. I enjoyed the audiobook and the narrator.

I received a review copy of this book from the author/publisher through NetGalley for my honest review. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

AAPI Heritage Month #14

author: Filipino American

This is clearly a case of "it's not you, it's me," because nearly all of you seemed to enjoy this. Don't come for me.

I read the premise for The Atlas Six. It gave the same found family vibes as Six of Crows, so I went for it. I didn't make it very far before giving up.

I also have issues with Olivie's Dramione fanfic. Maybe I've outgrown Dramione. Or maybe she is just wordier than I prefer.

In any case, I was doomed before I began. I have issues with Romeo and Juliet. I have issues with Shakespeare. So a white Englishman is writing about Italians. These Italians are turned Russian-esque for the sake of what? Did we even research Baba Yaga and Koschei the Deathless before using their names?

I'd like to hear from an actual Russian, but the only great Russian-esque series written by a non-Russian appears to be The Bear and the Nightingale. Do not come here if you liked Shadow and Bone's wannabe Russian undertones.

If after all that, you are still interested, and want to know more about this book, please read the other reviews, because I found myself zoning in and out. The characters are alive. The characters are dead. No, the characters are alive. The end.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher.

thank you to netgalley for the advanced reading copy of one for my enemy. this was great! we had multiple pov, magic and fantasy in the modern day. romance between multiple people. this was a mix of the tale of babayaga and Romeo and Juliet. I like that it wasn't just multiple povs of each side we also followed different members of the family and characters outside. This was a fantastic listen.

This is a story about the stars that incline us.

I loved this! I wasn’t sure about the formatting going in, but it was such an enjoyable read. The drama! The Russian culture! The star crossed lovers! Olivie Blake never disappoints.

Thank you so much @netgalley & @macmillan.audio for the book! I enjoyed it so much.

*3 stars*

This was an interesting reimagining of Romeo and Juliet with witches. It had a long cast of intricate characters.

I feel like this had so much potential to be a really amazing story but just fell flat for me. This was my first Olivie Blake book, and I did enjoy the writing style. I liked that we got to look into the motivations of each of our main characters at one point or another. However the pacing was off and the story felt like it lagged towards the middle of the book. It felt like the plot was trying to do too much at once and the result was very chaotic. I also would have liked the story to focus more on the magic system and world building as they felt almost forgotten at times.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ALC of this work. All opinions in this review are my own.

Have you ever read a book and think 🤩. Then you see they have other works out, but you hesitate because you’ve read multiple works from another author and been disappointed.
If you’ve read one of Olivia Blake’s books. You won’t be disappointed reading another one.
I will be thinking about this book for awhile.

This is not your normal Romeo and Juliet retelling. Yes, there are rival families and forbidden romances but it is SO.MUCH.MORE.

Firstly, I would like to thank whoever decided to include a character list at the beginning of the novel. I listened to the audiobook so the majority of the novel, I was thoroughly confused on who was who with all the nicknames and relationships.

We have the Fedorov clan, with the head being Koschei the Deathless (a.k.a. Lazar), consisting of the three main brothers in order of eldest: Dimitri (Dima), Roman (Roma), and Lev (Lyova).

There are also the Antonova witches, with Baba Yaga (Marya) as the matriarch, and her seven daughters: Marya (Masha), Ekaterina (Katya), Irina (Irka), Yelena (Lena), Liliya (Lilenka), Galina (Galya), and Alexandria (known primarily as Sasha or Sashenka by her family).

Yep. And that is just a summarized version of a handful of main characters. There’s also Ivan, the bodyguard, Eric Taylor, Sasha’s classmate and an idiot, Stas Maksimov, husband of Marya, and one of the most important characters of all, Brynmor Attaway (The Bridge).

The novel is also formatted with a play-like structure, mirroring Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. We’re given “the stage” as well as which characters are interacting within each scene and an occasional quotation between “Acts.”

Okay, now onto the good stuff. Dima and Marya’s tragic love story in juxtaposition to Lev and Sasha’s? That made this novel. There’s a whole “we don’t want to repeat history” type of theme going on where the elder siblings want to protect their younger siblings from the world but the younger siblings want to make their own path in life. Of course, this is still a Romeo and Juliet retelling so you can guess what happens. We also have witty banter, stolen kisses/glances, “I’ll love you beyond the grave,” and, oddly, my favorite thing (?), flirty text messages.

The entire story takes place in New York City, so you can feel the buzz of energy and mysticism within each page. However, I do wish there was more to the descriptions of the setting since I couldn’t entirely imagine the surroundings outside of Baba Yaga’s shop, the Federov household, the Antonova household, and Bridge’s office. There were other settings (the bar, Sasha’s class, Eric’s home, the concert, etc.) but they were sort of blank slates within my mind since the characters themselves were so colorful, that the background faded into nothingness.

Things I didn’t like? Personally, I hated the Bridge’s character. He was the in between guy that everyone went to, and I mean EVERYONE, just so they could backstab one another or maybe gain some information to blackmail the opposing family. However, the Bridge didn’t have any real power besides his connection to information (or power that he would use to his advantage if he had the chance). His character, a majority of the time, felt like a cop-out for plot building and character interaction. There was a lot of potential behind his character, especially the whole reasoning why he’s called “The Bridge” in a magical reference, but he continued being a bridge that one character would cross in order to discover information on another.

Without giving spoilers, there were main plot points that did leave me frustrated but that is because it’s a Romeo and Juliet retelling. I almost became accustomed to grieving characters and then not really caring if they lived or died (for certain reasons). I’m not entirely sure that I like the ending yet so I’ll have to think about it for awhile but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

5/5⭐️