(Book Review) “Among the Beasts and Briars” By: Ashley Poston

Good Afternoon everyone! With this review I would like to try something a bit different. In my previous book reviews I just give you a synopsis, my rating and then my review. This time I would like to do those things but also give you a bit more information on the author and the book. At the end I would love if you left some comments about whether you like my normal reviews better or this new style.

This book is a buddy read I started with some of my friends on bookstagram. We each put up options for our book and then had a randomizer choose the book we would actually be reading and this was the winner! I was very excited about this book winning because I don’t read a lot of fantasy and I want to jump into new genres.

About The Book

“Never let anyone make you feel unworthy. You deserve the moon just as much as anyone else.”

Direct quote from book.

Synopsis

Possible small spoilers Ahead

The kingdom of Aloriya is kept safe by the kings magical crown. Legend says the first king of Aloriya, 100 years ago, made a deal with the Lady of the Wilds in order to protect his kingdom and was gifted the crown. While Aloriya was prospering the forests around grew dark and were filled with monsters, the forest soon become forbidden.

Jump forward 100 years. Cerys is the royal gardeners daughter and grew up along side the prince and princess of Aloriya. All it took was one mistake, the prince went into the forest, his guard following him in to protect him and Cerys mom ran in after them. The boys never returned after the woods took them. Cerys mom showed back up at the house but the curse had taken over her body.

Cerys is now 17 years old, her best friend is still the princess but she now has a fox companion. At the royal coronation the curse strikes back and takes the rest of Cerys friends and family. Cerys and Fox now have the task to defeat the curse but everything they thought they knew turned out to be a lie. Will they reverse the curse in time to save all that fell victim to it?

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“Just because you are born a gardener’s daughter doesn’t make you any less worthy than someone born into royalty.”

Direct quote from book.

Rating

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Review

I don’t typically read fantasy books, this is only my second one since starting my bookish journey a year ago. It’s not that I don’t like fantasy it is just the world building that I get lost in. Each new world in fantasies have their own rules and ways of life that you need to learn in order to fully understand the book. My brain is fairly simple and I like things based in our everyday world. However, it really is fun to dive into something completely different and new.

With my point of view on fantasies laid out in front of you I think we can officially talk about my review and how I really felt about this book as a whole.

I really enjoyed this book! I feel that the world building was done very nicely and you could see yourself living in Aloriya and being apart of these characters world. I also thought that the main characters, Cerys and Fox, they had such a cute and playful relationship through the entire book. I found myself marking so many cute scenes between them or even just their little fights because those little moments really created that relationship between them.

The reason why this book didn’t get the full five stars from me was because of grammar errors and repetitiveness. Just like how I marked all the cute scenes between the main characters I also marked all the grammar errors that I found and there were too many for my liking, it became really distracting and would pull me out of the world that the author so beautifully created. The repetitiveness got kind of old. A lot of the story was them walking through the wild woods which I mean is a big part of the storyline but it was like lets walk for a bit, lets fight this monster, lets argue and then do it all over again. I just wanted something that pulled me into the story for that whole middle part of the book.

I am so glad I got the chance to read this book. I probably would have never of picked this book up on my own so I am lucky my bookstagram friends push me to try new things. I would recommend this book to anyone who is like me and wouldn’t typically pick up a fantasy book. It is definitely worth the read if you can get past the grammar errors.

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“The people who die never really leave. That we carry them with every breath we take, until the wind itself is gone.”

Direct quote from book.

About the Author

Ashley Poston has been in the publishing industry for about ten years! She has had here novels featured on the Indy’s Next List and even Teen Vogue. She is the author of seven books but soon to be eight! Her next book is set to come out summer of 2022, so we only have a year left to wait. In the mean time check out her other books; Geekerella, The Princess and the Fangirl, Bookish and the Beast, Heart of Iron, Soul of Stars and Battle of the Bands.

I think my favorite fun fact of Ashley is that she is a true crime fan! So relatable!

I got the Author information from Ashley’s website