ARC Review: Fawkes by Nadine Brandes

2/5 stars 

It boggles my mind how a book that supposedly has everything I love in books ended up being the book that I didn't love. 

Historical fiction? - check!
Beautiful cover? - check!
Magic woven into history? - check!
YA book that doesn't have any unnecessary and annoying sex scenes? - check! 
The execution of all of those things together? - ehhh...

I honestly don't know what, or even how that happened? The premise seemed so promising. The cover obviously caught my cover-whore loving eye. But from the very first pages I was very uninterested, and to be honest, pretty bored. 

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For starters the story drops us into the historical setting of Guy Fawkes' son and into the era in which Guy Fawkes was famous for something. Who is Guy Fawkes? What did he actually do? I have absolutely no idea - my point is that if the reader is not already familiar with history of that era -  will be just as lost as I was. And probably uninterested, because if guy Fawkes had any significance, I didn't know it, thus I really didn't care for his character. 

His son, Thomas, and our main character was the most bland, whiny and illogical character ever. Emma is honestly the only character that had any potential. The plot wasn't holding my attention at all, but the biggest mess of this book was "the magic system". 

​If I tried to explain "the magic" - I couldn't. Because it wasn't explained in the book. The ideas, the premises were so good, so much potential! But in the end it was just too much, or too little? Too undefined, too underdeveloped - just messy. 

My disappointment in this book is quite sad - when I got approved for my request for it I literally squealed with glee because I was so excited for it. But, alas. 

Big thanks to NetGalley and THOMAS- Nelson Fiction for my e-ARC for a review. All of the opinions are mine, honest and come from the heart.