Initial Impressions 3/7/17 and full review posted HERE on The Book Addict's Guide 5/3/17: Well hello again from the black sheep side of the world! Sadly, it has not been long since I've been over here. 
 THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS has been on my TBR for so many years and I've heard nothing but good things about it... But this first book, man. I had a very hard time with it. 
 The beginning was not a struggle. I enjoyed that Elisa was not perfect, not slender, not the favorite. She does bear the Godstone which brings about her important marriage to a king in another land. I appreciated so many things about Elisa but her character felt very young compared to other YA characters that have been thrown into the same situations and her naivete just really bothered me at times. I appreciated that the romance was not a main focus BUT I was annoyed that there were three different non-romances that Elisa was involved in and it was bothersome for her to have at least some form of feelings for so many different people. I also had a hard time with knowing that Hector becomes such a big character in future books (because of everyone's flailing) so the romances (or lack thereof) with other guys was just frustrating because I wanted it all to be Hector. 
 Can we just pause here for a second, though? Why. Is the stone. In her belly button. I don't know why but that bothered me so, so, SO much. It was weird and annoying and she was getting some... intense sensations from it. (Okay, it was nothing sexual but the descriptions were weird sometimes.) I just really hated it. 
 I didn't really ever get into the story either. I enjoyed the first part of the book and I was interested to see it go somewhere... and then in my least favorite plot turn ever in any book, everything is upended and the characters get taken somewhere brand new and are around 100% different people, totally changing everything that you spent time getting to know in the first third of the book. I also didn't like the people that Elisa ended up with in the next part of the book when everything changed so it was really just all downhill from there for me. I also really didn't like the ending of the book and I was hoping for something in a different direction. 
 Things just fell apart after the first third of the book for me and it was annoying enough that I don't know if I even want to continue the series. I've heard such good things about the series but if I didn't enjoy the plot and tone and where this one went... I don't know if it's worth continuing for me.