Bring Me Their Hearts by Sara Wolf

DNF @ 50%

When I was in high school, I was really into Inuyasha - to the point where I would actually seek out fanfiction for it, because the manga was not enough and I wasn't really allowed to watch that much TV growing up. One of my favorite characters in the series (apart from Seshoumaru and Naraku, because villains) was the witch, Kagura, who was a servant of Naraku and rode around on a giant feather. She hated Naraku, but he had her actual heart removed from her body which put her under his control, so even though she despised him, she was tied to him until he freed her.

When I heard the summary of BRING ME THEIR HEARTS, it sounded so much like Kagura from Inuyasha that I was excited. Zera's entire family was murdered by bandits, but she was saved from the same fate by a witch named Nightsinger who also removed Zera's heart and keeps it in a jar while Zera serves her.

Zera's latest task is to steal a Prince's heart because... I forget the reasons. There were several - magic, the prince's family is about to rekindle a war against the witches, for funsies. So Zera signs up to be a bachelorette in his bride lottery, and here I started to side-eye the book, because it was starting to sound more like THE SELECTION, which I personally couldn't stand. Of course the prince is intrigued by Zera because she's a jerk who always speaks her mind.

I could probably force myself to finish BRING ME THEIR HEARTS if I was at all invested in the storyline, but I'm not. This is just more stock fantasy fare with a bad romance, being packaged as a "breathless, heart-pounding fantasy" (have you noticed that the people who write the blurbs for these types of books seem to have a very limited vocabulary?). Zera is one of those heroines who is just sarcastic all the time, in a way that isn't funny, but just makes her seem stupid and petty. She also slut-shames the other girls, even though she's in the same boat and probably worse of a person than they are (after all, they just want to get married - she wants to commit murder). No, thanks.

Thanks to Netgalley/the publisher for the review copy!

1 to 1.5 out of 5 stars