I wasn't sure I was even going to finish this book. I'd say for about 70% of it the vibes I was getting was just a more beige and euro-centric atla which was sooooooo boring. Then things actually got interesting.

With Valla being sent to war I hope the interest and tension keeps building.

I might have to check out the next book.

Where do I begin... The protagonist's name being two random Norse words? The chapter that is Divine Rivals But Worse? And actual dialogue tag that is "demanded gently"? The love interest asking the protagonist if she's ever fucked a man or masturbated two pages after calling her a child? (She's seventeen by the way.) The way the love interest's entire personality changes chapter to chapter? (And no, the protagonist thinking "the two halves of his personality don't seem to fit" does not fix that.) Why does this love triangle have so many sides when it's crystal clear who she is going to end up with! 

I literally only finished this due to a reading challenge. The back 40% was better than the first 60%, but I cannot get over how bad it was.

MC was a bit annoying at the start but she got less annoying quickly. I absolutely did not see the ending coming at all, otherwise a great read and I really like the world 

This book is like eating a cold slice of pizza at 3 AM after a hard night of drinking. So satisfying in the moment but in the end, you are still waking up from a wicked hangover. Also if SOMEONE could please explain what a gummy throat feels like, I would greatly appreciate it 💕

I have never seen a book squander SO MUCH potential until now! It's all there! It basically oozes off the page begging, pleading, and screaming at the sky to be used - but it's flatly ignored to give us boring inconsistent one-dimensional characters, teenage angst, and unnecessary drama llama all wrapped up in mediocre writing.

This book follows Vhalla, a shy boring nobody commoner who works in a library as an apprentice. One day, low and behold, after saving the broody and mysterious crown prince's life with magic, our boring chosen one is thrust into the world of magic she has been taught to fear.

I had a few problems with this book, so let me try work through them as best I can...

1. The book has a premise that instantly hooks you in and I wanted to love it as it fell into my niche of fantasy romance perfectly but I went in apprehensive based on the vastly juxtaposing reviews out there ranging from 2 - 5 Stars, all from people and friends who's reviews I NORMALLY trust as gospel! As said I absolutely LOVE fantasy romance; however, those that think this is a "Fantasy Romance" are deluded as this is actually a "Romance Fantasy". Let me explain... "Fantasy Romance" is a book where the fantasy is the main plot and the romance is the subplot. These are set in fantastical, magical worlds with an overarching FANTASY plot. This book, romance is the main plot with a slight sprinkling of fantasy. It is almost like the fantasy elements are just used to put our main characters into situations that would cause drama and angst for the ROMANCE. So if you do not like your fantasy books filled with MOSTLY romance, this is not for you.

2. I appreciate a good book just like fine dining and a good bottle of wine, they have class and an air of sophistication. This book is NOT that! This is basically trash TV on the CW or Netflix. The type of show you'll binge-watch for an entire weekend until your brain turns to mush and your eyeballs are rectangles; but still, you can't turn away from the screen because of the teenage angst and drama. It's not only that the book feels like a TV show, but the writing style mirrors this. Its inconsistent plot feels like jump cuts and scene changes. There are a lot of scenes that happen with no clear transision of how the character got there. It's just meant to be accepted that this happened. A LOT of the dialog is quite far-fetched and seems unnatural as it's very witty, quips, and often feels like it skips natural progression in a conversation.

3. Vhalla as a character is shit! She is difficult to describe because I've just read a whole book about her and I STILL DON'T KNOW WHO THE FUCK SHE IS... One second she is innocent as a rose and timid, and shy and scared of you "the prince" and things beyond her ken... (if you got the reference to this I LOVE YOU). She spends almost the whole book feeling sorry for herself, sulking, soapy, crying, and starving herself whilst living the most boring life on the planet...THEN the NEXT second she changes her mind 16 times a minute over the whole "should she/shouldn't she" become a sorcerer. It's frankly EXHAUSTING!!!

4. The writing in general gave me a headache. It was so choppy. It would be 5-word sentences. Every one of them just stops. It was so unnatural. There were pauses when we didn't need them. Breaks that could have been avoided. It was like Elise Kova was so badly scarred from being reprimanded for run-on sentences and comma splicing that she completely avoided making sentences longer than 2 lines and so made it very difficult to get into the writing itself.
An example of this:

“You are fine. See how quickly you are healing now? You will be better than fine soon. I will even teach you myself.” He outright smiled, as though he was bestowing some great honor upon her. But Vhalla did not smile. She took another step away and swayed as the world was suddenly unstable. She had been on her feet for too long. Prince Aldrik was there in a moment, his hands on her upper arms for support. “Stop this foolishness,” he said, his deep voice gentle. “You know you should not be standing. Let me help you back to bed.” His sudden kindness made her want to scream.

I did like the cocky bastard prince, even if he pushed her off a building. He has smirks for days, gushed sex appeal, and created a whole lot of sexual tension you could cut with a knife.

Overall if you take this book too seriously, you are going to have a bad time. It's trashy, over-the-top, extravagant, cheesy and extremely unrealistic. But I had an OK time reading it because it got reactions out of me... Some might have been eye rolls and huffs of anger, but I did appreciate the drama. If you like teenage drama and shows like Reign, Riverdale, and Charmed appeal to you, you might actually like this! 

I really enjoyed this book. There were a few plot points that felt weird or unfinished to me, but overall it was good.  One thing I really didn’t like was that Vhalla almost always skipped meals. It came off like she had an eating disorder but it was never looked at like a bad thing. I would’ve rather meals just not been mentioned in the book instead of her starving herself for no reason. On to the next one!

High fantasy isn’t usually a genre I read, but the promise of a library apprentice and a sorcerer prince was something I couldn’t pass up. 

“Air Awakens” had a lot of great ideas and a great magic system. The characters felt a little bland and the book was very slow, but there was a lot of groundwork that needed to be established for the other books in the series. 

Reads almost like a watt pad story in the beginning but addictive and awesome toward the end. Totally character driven and the romance is top tier. 

2.3 stars. 

Only 300 pages and it's a better fanfiction-ey read than most of the other fantasy romance books I've read.

Although short (maybe even to it's on undoing) 'Air Awakens' seems to be scratching just the fanfiction-yearning spot I always seem to be awfully pestered by. 

Knowing there were 4 main sequel books in this series, I was content enough with how the protagonist, Vhalla, was introduced. Even though she was quite the quiscent character, what was there, or rather wasn't, left room for development and improvement for future books. 

However, I can't say the same for the other characters, prince Aldrik specifically. Is it just me or is this guy flip-flopping all over the place? One second he's fawning over the MC, the next he's harassing her... I'm quite confused with my stance on this guy. Although I like flawed characters, including flawed main romantic interest, he seemed quite out of place and outright annoying at times. The same could be said for the other characters. Spefically this one guy...

I don't remember his name... was it Cerulean? Cerillian? Anyways, whatever it was, he's just as forgettable as his name. Larel was the only exception but even then, her kindness and approachability towards Vhalla was a bit forced.

This seems to be a big problem with the book and I think it could all boil down to time and pace. 

Generally speaking, we needed more time with the plot progression of the book. Some plot points and storybeats were a tad too fast paced to the point where I had to imagine some scenes here and there in headcannon to be content enough with the pacing. I understand if an author wants to keep her novel within a 300 page margin, but sometimes it's be better to include some additional scenes for some breathing room and to explain a thing or two. For example,

I wanted Vhalla to earn Larel's love and friendship, I wanted to see more of Vhalla and Aldrik's cute lil' garden dates. TW! I wanted the genocide of a whole race of magic weilders to be handled with proper care and seriousness

Stuff like that might seem insignificant for the story as a whole, but it really helps with the character development and world building later on. 

As for the magic system; It was kinda wishy-washy. I love elemental magic, but the laws and functions of this book's magic system was ruining my whole suspension of disbelief. However, again, I really don't expect much from these types of books. I'm perfectly content with an iffy system as long as the story, plot and characters seem fine. 

In conclusion, I'm probably going to re-read this book if I ever were to find myself stuck in an airplane for 5-ish hours. A good, guilty-pleasure read that leaves room for my own imagination to fresh out the little I got.