I want to start by mentioning that I absolutely enjoyed the world-building, but somehow, I still was confused about most of the ongoing events in the book. The protagonist was, well, generic in a way all fantasy FMCS are, but that is not to say she wasn't enjoyable. Quite the opposite really. Anyhow, it was a solid 3.7/5 read for me.

The premise of this book was really good, and the world and magic system is very complex. However, the world building felt incomplete, and I was very confused about what was going on way too often.

As described, the book is very lore heavy, like LOTR, and I don't find this type of books often enough, but the fact that it was written in such a way that it was hard to follow made me lose interest after a few pages, so I needed to take many breaks in order to finish it.

In conclusion, the idea of this book is great, but it feels unpolished

Currently catching up on reviewing my arcs so I will give a more detailed review in the future!

This book was very lore heavy, which isn't a bad thing! The magic system was really interesting and the world really felt worth learning about

One of my few favorite arcs read of the year.
Was not too wordy for the length of the book. Perfect amount of fantasy for my reading type.

I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

Firstly as always thank you for the eARC.

I really wanted to love this book. I was intrigued by the idea and the magic system but unfortunately the book feel flat for me and I didn’t end up enjoying it as much as I anticipated. I didn’t hate it but didn’t love it, felt very middle ground for me.

The Moon Tear has interesting premise and blurb, insanely beautiful cover, and an intriguing title, but it feels like I missed an entire prequel book while reading this. Oftentimes things confused me, and I spent time guessing whether this particular word is a name, a term, or another magical race. And figuring out what is what or which is which unfortunately hinders me from understanding and enjoying the real story. I came across beautiful sentences, and I knew where the stakes go higher, so it's a bummer that I couldn't feel what the characters feel here, couldn't follow their footsteps and language.

Maybe I can enter the fantastic realm of Alagana in some other time, when I'm in the much better headspace to take all the conlang and worldbuilding in or if there's a practical guide to Alagana realm.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this book.

The Moon Tear is an enjoyable YA fantasy filled with magic, elves and gods.

The world building feels very familiar, if a little basic at times. I really liked the magic system and the main character, Eyolin. I did struggle to connect to any of the characters beyond the main FMC, as the wider cast of characters had limited time and development, even with the inclusion of Kipp’s POV. It made them all feel quite one-dimensional and limited the impact of the emotionally charged scenes.

The pacing was also slightly off and I wish the action/fighting sequence at the end could have been longer; having it end so abruptly felt like a strange choice.

Overall, I still found this book entertaining but didn’t quite reach its full potential. I am still interested enough to continue with the series and would recommend it to lovers of YA fantasy.

The potential of this book and its premise is immense but the storytelling left me confused.
I had to read the book from the beginning 3 times everytime I got around 3-5 chapter to understand what was happening and it still didn't help.
The world and magic very unique and despite drawing from LOTR has its own distinct tinge. I enjoyed reading about the characters and their internal struggles but I needed more world-building in more detail.
The pace it took up mid-way through the book had me thinking that this is a standalone, and I do enjoy fast-paced standalones.
The violence and segregation against the races, mostly human but elves too, was jarring and sufficiently gory.
I really wanted to like the book but it just left me dazed.

I really enjoyed this. The magic system was interesting, the world building was great, I loved the characters especially the main characters and I'm looking forward to the other books!

i had hope for this, i mean it has promise, but unfortunately this fell flat overall.
the character was intriguing and a cool character to follow.
the worldbuilding was never ending, the descriptions of the world and magic were really cool but sadly the never ending descriptions didn't properly explain the story to me. so many times we'd been in a scene in one location with a new character then quickly shot into a completely different scene with another new character but i didn't know anyone and was lost with the in between, having little time to process. i couldn't picture anything and found myself confused pretty early on. this might've been a case of the author knowing their world incredibly well but explaining it to a fresh audience has proven more difficult.
i was intrigued for this story from the prologue but ended up slogging my way through this. also, might be a my netgalley app issue but sometimes the formatting was near unreadable that it made the experience itself annoying and off putting but i don't blame the author for this, but it has impacted my experience.

First off, thank you very much for this eARC.
I must unfortunately admit that I DNFed, as it was hard to get into, and the worldbuilding was meh, and all in all, it did not manage to keep me interested enough, or make me care.

Firstly thank you so much to Netgalley for providing me with this eARC!

I just want to start off this review by saying I really really wanted to enjoy this book. The synopsis is absolutely fantastic and ticked all the requirements that I want for a fantasy book. That being said, I found myself confused, frustrated, lost and unmotivated with reading this one.

The main character Eyolin is your standard main character in a fantasy novel. She’s cool, inspiring, powerful and likeable. But she just wasn’t enough of a positive for me to enjoy this book.

The main issue for me was the lore dump. The world and politics and magic system are awesome but there’s an abundance of info dumping during this book that leaves you confused. A lot. I found myself lost quite early on in the book and I had to reread certain bits which, even afterwards, I was still confused.

I found this really disappointing because the author has put so much time into creating this world but the way the story was written left me feeling like I was just not getting it.

I pushed through in the hope that I would understand it but I really didn’t. Which left me feeling frustrated at myself because I really wanted to get it

I may try to reread it in the future to see if it’s just my brain not getting it at the time of reading it. It’s a shame because as I said, the book overall is very much high fantasy and has everything you would want in this genre of book. It’s just the execution

I had a bit of trouble getting into the book at the beginning because it started rather ‘sluggishly’ and because of the worldbuilding. As a result, it took me a while to get used to the characters.

But once I really got into the book, I really enjoyed it. I think it still has more potential, but as it's only the first volume of a trilogy, I'll definitely get the second volume as soon as it's available.

eARC copy provded by NetGalley

I wanted to like to this, I really wanted to like this book. The description of the book, the characters, even the world seemed like it was going to be a fun read. However, the way information is presented in the book made the whole thing hard to follow. There were multiple times where I wasn't sure what was happening plotwise and had to reread various sections just to follow everything.

While I wanted this to be an easy read, it certainly was not.

I tried to like this but it was honestly so convoluted and just a bit too much. The characters were different shades of meh and the constant flashbacks and references to the past got annoying quick. Honestly, I skimmed my way to the end.

Description sounded better than the actual book and the story was hard to follow but I may try again in the future. I love fantasy and this book contains all of it but I had to go back and forth between pages to follow the plot

i had the chance to read an advanced copy of this book through netgalley and will review honestly

this book could be something amazing, the blurb and the cover art really drew me in, but at 61% i DNF’d the book. the premise and the magic within the world that Royce has created is very unique and could make for amazing story telling but i was so confused whilst reading this book 😅

i understand the book is set in a fantasy world but i was struggling to see it in my head, the world building is very overly detailed but also lacking (if that makes any sense) there were times the author referred back to a character by their name but hadn’t previously told us that characters name and i was left feeling lost in the story, and not in the escapism way i was hoping for.

the story feels convoluted, its overly complex and if it was stripped back a bit and the characters fleshed out a little more then it could be something amazing.

i will be keeping an eye out on the author and look out for any other books they may publish as there is so much potential there, i just feel like it wasn’t executed well in this particular book.

Thank you, NetGalley for an arc of this book. The premise and cover are beautiful, and the writing was promising. I echo other's reviews where I felt confused most of the time. There's something off in the book, and I'm not sure what. I'm hoping I can give it another try this year.

The Moon Tear unfortunately fell flat for me. While the premise had potential, the execution left me wanting. The world-building felt shallow, and I struggled to connect with the characters. The dialogue was often clunky, and the plot felt predictable. There were a few interesting twists, but they weren't enough to salvage the overall experience. It's a shame, because I really wanted to love this book, but it just didn't deliver.