Mountains Made of Glass (Fairy Tale Retelling Book 1)

Mountains Made of Glass, Scarlett St. Clair 3.75-4/5 You definitely notice how short this book is. The beginning is pretty much cut to the chase, without much further explaining to a back story or a lead up to what’s happening/going to happen. I wouldn’t necessarily say the focus is solemnly on spicy scenes, they felt definitely more elaborate than quests necessary for the story or development of how the MCs feel towards each other, which I perceive not necessarily as sad but I would have wished for them to be a little more descriptive or extensive in writing. Nonetheless I really enjoyed reading MMoG! I love how MMoG is not only made up of one fairy tale but many together and the illustrations are simply beautiful! I really liked the development of Cas and also enjoyed reading about the banter between him, the mirror and Naeve a lot!

I really love a fairytale retelling, and the naming of all the different fairytale characters and creatures at the start of the book was very promising. However, the story here is very thin. And though yes, it's more a novella than a novel, but still I would have liked to have a bit of plot with the spice. The spice starts at 12% of the book and then every scene seems to be an excuse for more spice. This book was good testing if the author is for me or not, and I can safely say it's not.

Thank all the gods this book was so short. Honestly, this book and the Adrian X Isolde ones have me doubting if I secretly was on something when I read „Touch of Darkness“ and the other Hades & Persephone books, because I do not remember the writing feeling so … disconnected? It‘s definitely a fairy tale retelling, all right. There is also definitely smut, which on it‘s own was okay, but I‘ve read better. Maybe because the first thing happening between the elven king, who is about to forget his name and needs someone to fall in love with him AND guess his name (being cursed by the mysterious glass mountains), but is still able to give Gesela single letters for some reason (and why not just give her ALL letters at once so she can solve a wordpuzzle and worry about the love part later) and his prisoner is a BJ that made me go „wtf is happening, why?“. Maybe because it’s because he calls her „creature“ all the time. Maybe it is also because the first time they actually have sex is because a little fairy blew gold dust on them, making them give in to their desire for each other. So it was essentially lifting their inhibitions by fairy dust drugs. The enemies to lovers „i hate you, why do i not hate you, i love you“-pipeline lasts exactly seven days. I am not convinced. There is no reason for Gesela for falling in love with the prince besides his dick and him doing the very bare minimum (and even failing at that). He is in no way adorably awkward like Beast from Beauty & the Beast. It‘s not for me. I wanted to like it, I really did. It seems curious to me that some people love the writing in this book so much more than in the Persephone books, because I definitely prefer those. Actually I am little scared that the next two books from that series are written like the Glass Mountains and the Isolde books. I know this is the first one of a series, but I have pretty much decided I am going to skip those ones.