I recieved this arc through NetGalley for an honest review of my thoughts and mine alone. This novel was very enjoyable, this character growth was impeccable. I really felt myself being amiable towards the characters and could feel myself empathizing with all the emotions they were going through. This novel was very enjoyable. Reminded me of Robin Hood.

This book was a quick read, but honestly not my favorite. The story began super intriguing and could have been made into something great. It really wasn’t something I had not already read before, though. There was nothing special to mark this book as its own.

This was a tough book for me to get through. I kept putting it down and coming back days later to read a few more pages. I originally thought that this was a fantasy, which it sort of is. But it also happens in our world. The main characters are very 2-dimensional and it really effects the way the story reads. There we a lot of ideas that were brought up but not explored - I left with the feeling of having read a fanfiction.

I just, well I really wanted to love this book. The idea is great and of course it’s filled with all the things that check off YA boxes. 
It’s the execution for me. Some parts feel vastly rushed while others seem to just drag on with no real reason as to why we are even discussing it. I’m not sure if this is an editing error or what, but it hurts the book. It feels like there should have been more time giving depth to the characters and the actual plot,  instead of things that just truly don’t make any sense. 

-Stone

I was approved for this title and then it was archived before I could download it. 

The premise seemed interesting and I'm sure it's a great book. Maybe I'll get to read it someday.

“Don’t blame the reckless.” By Maddyson Wilson. 

An assassin, a prince, warring kingdoms and betrayal. 

That is everything I love in a story, it has cliffhangers that keep you wanting to read the next chapter instead of putting in down and doing what you should be doing in life. It has the advantage of having two POV characters so we can see events and situations from both sides giving us more insight into the story. 

Unfortunately for me as much as I loved this plot of this story it just felt too rushed, as though it should have been broken up into a few more books so we could be given more information and see more growth of the characters. It moved incredibly quickly that I would often forget  about the side characters and that the main characters of the stories emotions and thoughts weren’t fully thought out so we as a reader could understand them. At points such as in the beginning I believed were in a fantasy world not a dystopian world, just a few more details may have cleared that up and it was the same throughout the story with large plot points, a few more details and explanation about situations and emotions would have made it a more enjoyable read  

I do believe that it was a great story, I finished it in a day and the author has a great style of writing for me it was just the pacing of the story that was a let down for me.

Title: Don’t Blame the Reckless
Author: Maddyson Wilson
Pub. Date: July 12, 2021
Rating: 2

This will be a mini spoiler free review. Thank you to NetGalley and Zenith Publishing for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review. 

Based on the synopsis, I expected to really enjoy this book. 
Based on how it started and the first couple of chapters, I was pleasantly surprised and still expecting to enjoy this book. 
I don’t quite know or understand what happened, but this book was hard to follow. The characters gave me whiplash with how often they changed their convictions, their moral compasses, their feelings…
And it wasn’t like a character growth thing – it just felt like either the author didn’t really understand who her characters were supposed to be, or she was just trying to make them into people they’re not. 

I’m not even going to dive into the unbelievable relationships in this book. I don’t mean shocking; I just mean that I don’t believe in any of the relationships. There was practically no build up, no emotional weights and it felt like we were just supposed to accept these apparently burning feelings between characters. 

I also have no idea what the world actually looks like. I had no idea, based on the cover and the synopsis, that this book wasn’t some high fantasy, but more of a SF dystopian. Which, I’m not knocking, but I was expecting a different genre. It also didn’t really feel unique – but more of a conglomeration of Divergent, The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, etc. The only reason that I could even remotely envision this world, because I’d read and watched these franchises. I mean, it’s kind of your run of the mill post-apocalyptic, dystopian landscape, with a dash of fantasy in the form of Kings and Empresses. 

And while I enjoyed the writing at the beginning, it quickly became annoyingly stiff and formal. 
As for the plot – so much happened, and I couldn’t keep track of it all. Nothing seemed to cohesively mesh, plot elements were just left dangling, and weird unexplained time jumps happened and I was left utterly confused and lost. 

I feel like this book had the potential to be really good, and the premise is – I just think it needs some more editing and maybe a couple thousand more words to flesh out the characters and the world. 
I’m disappointed, but what can you do.

Ember is an assassin that kills in order to save her people from the corruption of the government.  When she is captured after trying to kill the Empress,  she makesa deal. She has to go to the neighboring country of Angeles and free a prisoner in exchange for her life and the reforms her people needs. While on her mission she meets the Angelesan prince, Roman. Roman is just trying to survive. Together they decide to try and do what is best for both countries while staying true to each other.

I really enjoyed this book. It was fast paced and had a lot of action. I loved how there was politics involved but it didn't overwhelm the story. The ending caught me by surprise and I am really hoping that there is a second book....

So very intriguing! The world building was great, and I loved all the character dynamics and relationships! I also love anything that includes some spying and stealth! Would highly recommend this to anyone looking for some adventure and high-stakes!

What an emotional rollercoaster that was! 

This book had me hooked from the very beginning.  I kept telling myself I would read one more chapter only to be greeted with another cliffhanger. 
It was fast paced and gripping the whole way through. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to full process my emotions towards this book but wow, it is worth the read.

1.5/5

Don’t Blame the Reckless by Maddyson Wilson is about an assassin named Ember, and a crown prince named Roman, from enemy kingdoms. By some twist of fate, their lives become irreversibly intertwined and they must work together to find some semblance of a future for themselves. Corrupt rulers and suffocating society are just but a few things that bring trouble to their lives. The question is, will they work together to survive? Or will they fight alone in fear of facing their true feelings for each other?

Oh boy. Buckle up, kiddos. You are in for a wild ride. 

Let me start of by saying that I have nothing against the author. She has great potential and I’m interested to see what she does in the future. And if there will be a second book, I’d be impartial to read it. 

Here goes:

First, there’s no impact of the events. There’s no urgency either. It feels like there’s no consequences. Like someone died (this isn’t a spoiler, it’s in the synopsis friends) and I just didn’t care. Events happen without much explanation or definition. Like a day would pass and I’d be like “oh okay, moving on I guess.”

Next, I guess there’s not much depth to really anything here. Not the characters, not the world, not the plot. I wish the world was explained more because it was really confusing at times. I would have read 100 extra pages if it meant more world-building. The world was interesting enough from the small snippets we got of its history so I would truly love to hear more. 

Furthermore, the way the plot progressed. Wilson only really wrote scenes for their dialogue. That’s how this plot progresses, almost purely through dialogue. It kind of gets old. I feel as though this book would have played out better if the written format was like diary/journal entries. 

Lastly, I also felt that there’s barely any relationship or character development. The choices each character make one after the other just don’t make sense to me. Because so much in between stuff is missing, it’s so strange and confusing when the very next chapter a character completely changes their mindset without explanation. 

I’m going to stop there because whew, that’s a lot. I was honestly just confused and shocked reading this book. I can say that it was interesting enough to finish, but maybe only because of my confusion. I do hope Wilson keeps writing more. Maybe I should check out her other stuff. We’ll see.

This book was a fun read... to a point. I really like Ember and her personality.  It is always fun to read a character, like her being morally grey and witty i just wish It remind the same throughout the entirety of the book and not get her to do things out of her assassin witty character. That felt off and pulled me out of the story. What also put me out was the info dumping. I've seen a lot of authors lately "telling" the readers what is happening instead of showing them and its frustrating. My other problem is that I feel like if there was a better editing perhaps this book would've been amazing, because as it is, some chapters felt too fanfiction-ish for me and i'm not saying fanfiction is bad by any means! But in this case it wasn't good.
Overall the book was good and enjoyable even with its flaws.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I always appreciate the morally gray and bad ass female characters, along with a tense romance, but I sadly just couldn’t quite connect to these characters or their story. The narrative felt a little too formulaic at times for me, without the necessary exciting plot twists or good writing to make up for the places where the action and character motivations were falling flat for me. I just wanted more fleshed out characters and a more nuanced plot. But there were lots of redeeming elements, the snarky exchanges were so entertaining and I loved the fight scenes

This book has a lot of potential, but I feel like the story wasn’t fully hashed out. It’s almost like it needed to breathe more before it went to print. 

The world itself I don’t feel had adequate enough building. I couldn’t get lost in it visually. The main characters Ember and Roman were okay but their relationship moved so quickly that I don’t feel like there was enough foundation building for the decision at the end. 

I loved the idea and there were some good moments, but I just think that it’s not complete.

I received an eARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

2.5/3 stars.

I had really high hopes for this book, it had all the ingredients to be something I really loved. It had murder, mystery, enemies to lovers ect. however the delivery fell very short for me.

First off let me just add a trigger warning for this book with regards to domestic abuse, torture and drug related abuse. 

There were so many inconsistencies with the plot, a lot of information given that characters somehow didn't remember despite there being no real reason for them not to (i.e there was no amnesia ect). The world building didn't feel fully fleshed out, it was confusing to try and immerse yourself fully. And the romance seemed very rushed with no substance at all, it was 0 to 100 in the space of what felt like two chapters at most. 

Also, the ending. It was, I don't know. That's how abrupt it was.

I really really wanted to love this book, the idea of it was right up my alley. I loved the themes, I was just disappointed with the storytelling itself. Great potential though.

3.5 Stars
 I finished this book relatively quickly (in one day), and I really want to say it was an enjoyable read, but it wasn't quite there yet. First reading the description, I was pulled in and loved the plot idea. An assassin pushed into the world of royalty to help her sector but upon reading it, I loved and disliked many aspects of this novel.

Ember Levin. An assassin looking for justice in her sector. She tries to kill the Empress but gets caught in the midst of it. On her execution day, however, the Empress tasks her to do what Ember claims "a suicide mission" instead of getting executed. She takes on that task in hopes that the Empress would help fix her society in the East Sector. Ember disguises herself as a cousin of Ivelisse, a member of the court and future queen, to find and free the prisoners from the Angeles Prison.

I honestly love Ember as a character. She is witty, cunning, morally grey (my favorite), and doesn't care what others think; however, that only lasts for a few chapters, and throughout the book I find her doubting herself and not at all acting like the murderess she is. 

Roman Stone. The crown prince of Angeles that has baggage. His relationship with his father--the king--is strained after losing his mother, and him being pushed to be the perfect prince and future leader in the eyes of his father. Roman meets Ember (Helene at the time) at his brother Ian's gala. Roman brings her on a tour around the palace, and Ember tries killing him, but she gets caught and gets sent to prison. Roman can't help but pity her, so he helps her try to escape. As they continue through the story, Roman battles feelings for Ember whilst dealing with his father. 

I don't have much to say for Roman except how Maddyson was able to write the trauma of Roman so wonderfully. I could tell how his childhood experiences affected Roman's ability to make relationships and how he always pushes people away. As for the romance in this book, I couldn't exactly tell what trope it was aiming for due to the lack of growth between Roman and Ember. To me, it felt like one moment Roman has no feelings for her, then the second moment they're kissing because their relationship did not go in deep and was overall very shallow. 

I felt like the setting was slightly confusing and very vague. I thought it was set in an older era until random technology and the mention of countries we know today popped out. I wish there were more world-building in this world because it would've made this book much more enjoyable; however, it was not a major issue for me.

I don't have much to comment about Maddyson's writing style other than the consistency was somewhat off. The book wasn't choppy, per se, but at some points, the book moved very slowly, and in other points, it felt rushed. I also noticed that both POVs were written with the same voice, and I got confused many times at who's POV I was on especially when they were together. 

Overall I give this book 3.5 stars out of 5. I enjoyed the plot of this book, and I wish I could've been able to give it a higher rating, but I think there were so many ideas in this book that the main ones couldn't be properly conveyed. It almost read like fanfiction. I think this book was good, and I can't wait to see what else Maddyson has in store for us.

*Courtesy of Gen Z Publishing via NetGalley
*All opinions are my own

**Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free e-book in exchange for an honest review**
"Don't Blame the Reckless" by Maddyson Wilson is a dystopian novel about Ember, an assassin, and what happens when she's sent to an enemy country to rescue a prisoner, in exchange for not getting executed.
The thing I liked about this novel is that it got straight to the point and the writing is great, descriptive, but it doesn't feel like that of a finished piece, it needs a little editing still.
The setting is vague, you don't really know where you are until quite far in. Is this futuristic? Fantasy? I had no idea until I was several chapters in, which made it really hard to picture the world. The main characters are both annoying and they had no chemistry whatsoever. I never believed they were in love even though I knew that was where the author wanted to take the story. And the exposition! There is so much! And still, I had no idea what was happening.
In the end, I decided to DNF the book since I had no interest in the story and it was marketed as LGBT+, but no such representation was present. I might read from the author in the future, because like I said, their writing was very good, but this book just wasn't for me. 
DNF at 75%

I loved the representation in this book and thought that the pacing was very well done. I loved the world that the author created and couldn't get enough of this story.

I got to say that this one was a bit hard to like. The pacing of the story doesn't sit right with me. It felt off at some point which could have been executed greatly without much information dump. The characters were okay, to say the least. Both Ember and Roman were morally grey to some extent. They did some things recklessly here and there. They got me rooted during the climax. I did not expect what happened at all. It was such a cliffhanger.

With this, I'm going to have to give this a three out of five stars. I'm sure there is more room for improvement in the next installment and I'm all in to see it happen.

Worth a read. There are lots of the usual young adult themes but the book is well written and the plot is well placed.