Review | Storm and Fury by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Alright. Storm and Fury and I didn’t get off to a great start.

Problem #1: The book is a spin-off from a well-established universe … A well-established universe that is not very well described. (Or, at all, really.) I spent most of the book going: “What?! What is happening?!”

Problem #2: Good lord. The YA-ness.

Background?

I’ve been itching to read Armentrout’s From Blood and Ash for months now. The fan art is intriguing, and it’s highly rated. (Thanks, Sophie, for adding to the hype!) Unfortunately, it’s not available through my home library … and it doesn’t have a Canadian distributor. I would have to purchase/ship a copy from the States.

Not only is that super expensive, but it violates my 2021 resolution to buy fewer books.

Having never read Armentrout before, I figured that I’d start with one of her books that are available through the library … I could check it out, see if I like her writing, and make a quasi-informed choice on whether to purchase Blood and Ash. Coincidentally, Storm and Fury was both on my TBR list and available at my neighbourhood branch. So, yay!

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What’s it about?

Trinity — yup, Trinity — is a 18-year-old half-human / half-angel / 100%-snowflake, who’s been raised in a compound surrounded by human-gargoyle shifters …

(I can’t believe I just wrote that.)

She has a sworn, bonded gargoyle protector who’s supposed to look out for her. He’s doing a hardly-passable (★★☆☆☆) job of it … until he gets kidnapped by a big boss demon during a raid. Trinity sets out to save him.

Coincidentally, super-hot gargoyle Zayne — yup, Zayne — just happens to be visiting Trinity’s compound as all this goes down. And, because there’s this intense love-hate-weird-connection thing between them, he offers to help.

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First line:

“Just a kiss?”

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Highs and lows:

❌ Show, don’t tell. I like judicious use of exposition, especially when it comes to world-building. Exposition elsewhere is … well, it’s a bore. Unfortunately, Storm and Fury did the exact opposite of what it should have. There was so much of it … in all the wrong places.

❌ Why was it so long? This is a huge book! Like, 512 pages huge. And it should have been closer to 300.

❌ ... it felt cheap. I don’t consider myself a literary snob, but my general reading preferences shy away from some of the … err … more trashy fantasy. i.e., if there’s a samurai-sword-weilding-very-buxom-woman-fighting-dragons-in-a-cropped-shirt and/or a duster-wearing-staff-wielding-incel-dude on the cover, I’m probably not going to read it.

… wow. I totally just branded myself as a literary snob.

OK. How about this? I like it when good stories also have pretty words. (cough. cough. cough.) I like it when authors care about their books. (cough. cough. cough.) I like it when authors have fun with their work. (cough. sneeze.) I like it when books are a thing of beauty. (cough. cough.)

Despite there being sans boobs on the cover … Storm and Fury felt cheap. The langue was concrete and often crass; the pacing was off; the stormy formulaic; and the characters bland. It was early-2000s YA … published in 2019. It felt like a soulless book from a book factory. Though, considering that Armentrout has released 64 titles (!!!) since 2011, “book factory” is probably close to the truth.

❓ The world building. It’s been a long time since I read a fantasy like this, and I enjoyed aspects of the world and gargoyle culture. It was also full of many meaningless rules, inconsistencies, and stretches of imagination. I’m OK with making leaps of faith if it makes sense given the context … but, when a book is supposed to take place in our world, it needs to conform with our laws of physics/biology/state/society.

❓ Trinity’s vision. I like the inclusion of a protagonist with a visual impairment — especially since it’s an #OwnVoices thing. But … it was so inconsistent. Why does the super-angel-healing-powers fix all of Trinity’s booboos, but not her eyes? Why is her vision an issue in x-setting-on-page-a, but not x-setting-on-page-b?

✔️ Peanut. Peanut-the-ghost was the best part of the entire book — I swear. Though 100% unncessary to the plot, his quirks and over-the-top 80s-ness was a stereotyped breath of fresh air. MORE PEANUT! MORE PEANUT!

✔️ … it was strangely addictive. Honestly, my experience with Storm and Fury was almost exactly the same as my experience with Twilight. At one point, I put the book down and had a, “Y’know, there is soooooo much better stuff out there to read” moment … shook my head … and went right back to it.

We can’t always eat fine chocolate – sometimes you need a grocery store chocolate bar.

We can’t always read soaring fiction – sometimes you need a buff gargoyle making out with a special snowflake.

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You should read this if …

You want an easy and relatively brainless fantasy-romance to fill your Wednesday evening.

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The details:

• The book: Storm and Fury
• Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
• Publication: 2019, Inkyard Press
• My copy: Public library
• Read dates: January 17-21, 2021
• Rating/5: 🗿🗿