Antonia Bernardin

The 18th book I read in 2025 was Chaotic Guidance by Dari A. Malaunt I was given an ARC copy of the book and now it’s officially launched, I can share my thoughts!

Plot summary attempt

Set in a world similar to Earth but slightly different, some humans souls are assigned a guardian angel, to guide them along their path and help them follow what the soul was hoping to achieve on this cycle through life. Damian has watched over many souls but he’s never had to sit through suffering like this and finds it harder and harder to simple watch as Kara goes through increasingly tragic events. From a harsh ballet school to the loss of friends through suicide, to an abusive boyfriend, until he reaches a breaking point, defies all the laws of the angel realm, Celestium, and bargains with another angel to transport him to earth and save her from another tragic event. This sets off a chain of events that threatens both of their worlds.

My thoughts

Here’s the thing… the bones of this story was good, the world was interesting, the premise of the love story had a lot of potential. I’ve seen this author on Tiktok and I know they are kind of young, so I tried to give the story some grace because of that. But there were a lot of issues, there’s the flash back at the start of the book, which takes us 11 chapters to return to the present and totally kills the pace of the book. Plus when we’re in the mind of Kara as a child, she thinks like an adult which would be fine if it was written as though she was reflecting back but it was done in present tense.

Honestly, a lot of what Kara goes through felt like misery for the sake of misery, it didn’t really drive the plot or her character development; it was just depressing. The world building was a tad vague and the writing stye was trying too hard to be lyrical and beautiful. The ending wars (plural), without spoilers, came out of nowhere, aren’t really well explained in the plot. Also, for a book that had a fair bit of smut, it was also incredibly prudish, with far too much talk about the MC’s virginity and everyone around her getting pregnant, or having abortions, or generally being corrupted, except her. Also the fact the angel knew her since she was a soul, prior to conception, then watched over her her whole life, to then become romantically involved once she was older but with an age gap of like 20 vs 300 years old, just didn’t sit right with me.

I think this author has a ton of potential but this book just wasn’t it for me unfortunately.