Isles of Storm and Sorrow, Bex Hogan | Series Review | Overbooked [CC]
welcome back to dead good book reviews I’m Judith
and you’re watching another episode of overbooked
the series where I talk about every single book
on my shelf because it’s the only way to prove to
my father that I’m worthy of a place on the crew
today we are talking about bex hogan’s Isles of
storm and sorrow series I always just call them
the viper series or that series with a bunch of
‘V’s in the titles but we’re talking about them
today just let’s enjoy some shiny foil there we
go some quick disclaimers before we start as
always uh I bought all three of the books in
the series for myself um I think this is a fairy
loot edition so it’s slightly different from the
actual cover in that it is vaguely purple instead
of vaguely navy uh this was a gift I think venom
was a gift and I bought viper but I bought it as
a ebook because I wasn’t sure how I was going to
feel about the series and if I was going to hang
on to it so that’s what this is what viper looks
vulture vulture looks like there it is as nice
and shiny and kind of almost middle-grade -y as
and would involve quite a lot of content warnings
I will link the story graph particularly for the
first one below if you’d like to check that out
spoiler warning I’m going to be talking about all
three books in the series as a whole I’m not going
to reveal any major spoilers for that series but
obviously if you do want to go into this set of
books knowing absolutely nothing you may want
to pause this video and come back when you’ve
read the first one at very least um but I’m not
going to spoil anything intentionally for you just
you know you know the drill at this point this is
a ya fantasy series that first started with viper
in 2019 followed with venom in 2020 and 2021 we
had vulture it’s swashbuckling it’s dark it’s got
a lot of y-a tropes to it let’s go let me tell you
all about the author and the book I will link bex
hogan’s website below but raised on a healthy diet
of fantasy and fairy tales bex hogan has spent
much of her life lost in daydreams writing her
stories down was a natural progression and now she
enjoys sharing her time between living in the real
world and escaping to her imagination a cornish
girl at heart bex now lives in cambridgeshire
with her husband two beautiful daughters and
crazy cocker spaniel she might be found riding
horses talking to our plants or eating marzipan
or not just there’s something about like in this
series you can tell bex hogan grew up near the sea
uh and that speaks to me at my core um just I
i liked her biography and I wanted to read it
to you so I’m gonna read you the plot summary
for book one and then I’ll touch on the other
two uh seventeen-year-old marianne is fated to
one day become the viper defender of the twelve
isles but the reigning viper stands in her way
corrupt and merciless he prowls the seas in his
warship killing with impunity leaving only pain
and suffering in his wake he’s the most dangerous
man on the ocean and he is marianne’s father
she was born to protect the islands but can
she fight for them if it means losing her family
her home the boy she loves and perhaps even her
life a brave heroine an impossible dilemma an
epic new fantasy trilogy set on the high seas
I can’t really talk about the plot of book two and
three without revealing the ending of book one so
suffice to say it carries on from there marianne
is still our main character I mentioned this being
quite a dark series and having some quite dark
themes and dilemmas as the blurb suggested I
actually think that’s a huge selling point for
this series I really like that this book doesn’t
or this series even doesn’t pull punches when it
comes to exploring some of the like darker aspects
of potential piracy it’s not exactly piracy
but I’m gonna call them pirate-themed books
anyway it makes sense book one has quite
a graphic description of keel hauling
yeah that’s quite a intense thing to depict in a
book that has quite this like middle grade-esque
cover but I personally really appreciate it and
I think it’s a book that doesn’t shy away from
those really quite difficult themes which in quite
short books is very impressive uh and as the books
went on the more I kind of went okay yes this is
more than I don’t wanna say more than the cover
leads it to believe because that makes it look
like I really judge books based on their covers
but I just think there is more meat to these
books than you would have thought and I also
I’m not saying that something has to have like
dark elements to it to be kind of like meaty or
worth reading or anything because you can read
something that’s just very casual and she’s coming
back it’s a cool setting I really liked gradually
learning more about the setting as the books go on
I think particularly in book early book one and
late book three you really get a sense of like
what’s happening here there’s a lot of magic
that’s just sort of part of the world um I
might have liked a little bit more detail but
again these books are quite short it’s not really
something that I would expect from this type of
a series if this was like a big epic sprawling
fantasy maybe I would expect more um but yeah it’s
a cool setting there’s some fun stuff going on
I like the way that the magic interacts with the
more kind of mundane stuff I just I found it very
enjoyable there’s also the sense of there being a
lot of history to this place which I appreciate um
often in books like this you’ll just get the
situation as it is now and maybe like a touch of
in the past it was like this whereas this you can
really feel the the journey that led them to this
point I mentioned this being a little bit tropey
and I think that that’s definitely a selling point
there are some moments in this series that
really lean into some ya tropes not in an
annoying way and not in a cliched way but just in
an enjoyable way I really liked reading the series
I liked seeing those things that I was expecting
to happen happen it was just it was enjoyable if
you really don’t like tropes obviously that that
might not be a selling point for you and I don’t
think I can talk about is specifically what they
are without it becoming a little bit spoilery um
but they’re there some things to bear in mind
uh some things that maybe I think might make
you not want to read this I think Marianne as
a main character like I really like the cast
of characters in the series but Marianne as a
main character can be a little bit annoying and
I don’t really know why and almost always when I
find a character annoying it’s because I’m seeing
some facet of myself that I don’t like in that
character so take that with a pinch of salt um
I think that sometimes the choices she makes are
a bit irritating and sometimes she just feels like
one of those characters who could just solve a lot
of her problems by talking about them more and I
get why she wouldn’t do that but I just at times
I got very frustrated with her and overall across
the whole series I think she’s a good character
but there are moments where I’m just like ah
stop it I mentioned if you don’t like tropes
you might not like this I don’t think it’s too
too tropey it’s not kind of like Roar by cora
carmack or anything the other thing I’d mention is
I think book two is definitely the weakest of the
books I really liked the first part of book three
and maybe like the middle chunk of book one were
my favorite sections book two I found a real slog
and I don’t know if that’s because of where I was
at the time or to do with the the just the second
book problem I found it just really drained me I
personally feel controversial opinion you could
read book one and three and be quite happy I don’t
think book two served the series too much but feel
free to correct me on that in the comments if you
love book two I did also uh minor spoiler warning
I guess it’s not talking about a specific thing
that happens but it’s talking about a thing
that happens so you’ll know to expect that thing
skip ahead to here if you want to avoid that um
this book does a thing that I really
dislike which is using a character
death as a magical kind of plot button that
just solves a problem because the problem
is gone because the problem died um I don’t love
that I think it feels like it’s a way to solve
a problem I don’t think it’s the most interesting
way to solve a problem and I think it just sort of
it made it feel like this had been written into a
corner and they’d run out of time to fix it so it
was just like right we’ll kill off that character
and it’ll be fine you know just something that
bothered me a little bit some comparisons if you
want other things to read I do have a whole video
of seafaring related books I will link if you
would like to see that um the bone ships by rj
barker is my obvious comparison if you want like
an equally emotionally destroying but much more
adult book that features piracy and becoming
a crew and backstabbing and all of that stuff
if you want even more tropey y a pirate my dad is
terrible content um trisha levenseller’s daughter
of the pirate king is a good time I will have
a overbooked video for that in a few months I
guess um what else are there any other things that
I would recommend what else happens on the sea or
involves daddy issues oh what about um mermaid the
witch and the sea is just a really good queer on
the sea story I haven’t brought that up in a while
but maggie tokuda hall it’s a good time should you
read this should you pick copies of these up am I
going to buy a third one so I have matching sets
the answer is no I’m actually going to possibly
unhaul these I think not because I didn’t enjoy
them at all it’s nothing to do with that it’s
just that they’re not something I particularly
want to reread and I don’t really want to own the
third one so then I just owned book one and two
book two was such a slog I’m okay my suggestion
is if you would like to read these if this sounds
good they are well written they are enjoyable
reads I personally don’t think you need to own
them I would suggest looking for them in the
library because they are guaranteed to be there
they will be there they will have copies and as
I say my my private suggestion is to read book
one and three I know no one’s gonna do that but
you could skip it too you’d be fine have you read
these do you have plans to do you own copies of
them what are your thoughts and feelings I would
love to know what are your general thoughts on
second books in series I’m always interested
plonk those things down in the comments below
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me and I will see you in the next one
it’s gonna be bloopers now welcome back to spoiler
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so
