Cel
i really enjoyed this book, i loved the three main characters and while the ending was sad it was also very beautiful and felt like the right way to end this story...
also i just want to address everyone who gave this book a bad rating on this website before it was even released, just because of one interview where the author said she had not read the entire odyssey: guess what, it doesn't matter, you don't need to know the entire epos for this story. actually, you don't need to know it at all. i think it's enjoyable either way. also please do not come along with cultural appropriation or whatever, this is not applicable here at all.
i sincerely wish you would just read this book with an open mind without being so set on hating it from the beginning and without nitpicking the author's every word, misinterpreting her on purpose and writing hateful reviews. it is an awful pile-on here on goodreads and i absolutely hate that it's targeted at the one more recent sapphic story set in ancient greece that we got during this whole hype around ancient greece in literature. if the marketing tried to go for the whole “odyssey” retelling schtick then this is NOT the author's fault, publishers love doing that kind of misleading marketing all the time. just read the book or don't.
at heart this is a lovely sapphic story filled with a lot of love and compassion and i do recommend it.
a very solid 4.5 stars, highly recommended if you like bees and/or girls being creepy but also loving
i read the fan translation ages ago, but i think it was about time that i read the official release, i still love these charas, but the pacing and action scenes are a bit off sometimes here. the world building is very cool tho
dnf
this book was incredibly boring somehow and i dont know what went wrong here
the setting and the characters had so much potential, but the execution....
Ich versuche mich kurz zu halten: Das Buch ist grundsätzlich genau das, was ich erwartet hatte, nur irgendwie ein bisschen langweiliger.
Ich hatte definitiv nicht so viele Probleme mit diesem Buch, wie ich mit Not Your Type hatte, aber manches hat trotzdem etwas angeeckt: (CN: bifeindlicher Inhalt, slut shaming, Harry Potter Erwähnung)
- Ich finde es ziemlich problematisch, dass das Love Interest Jackson, der bisexuell ist, am Anfang als die “Campus-Matratze” dargestellt wird, d.h. er schläft quasi mit allem und jedem. An sich ist das überhaupt nicht schlimm, live your life, have fun !! Aber sobald er die einzige bisexuelle Figur in einem Buch ist, dann verfallen wir sehr schnell in unschöne Stereotype. Wie stellt man am besten dar, dass eine Figur bi ist? Ach ja, indem sie einfach mit jedem flirtet, hypersexuell ist und es einfach nicht lassen kann, mit anderen zu schlafen. Klar, es wird dem Leser später schon irgendwie ein Grund gegeben, warum Jackson das macht, aber für mich war das echt nicht ausreichend um diese stereotypische Darstellung zu entschuldigen. Es kommt anfangs auf mich auch so rüber, als ob Luke ganz schön viel slut shaming betreibt, was Jacksons Verhalten angeht. Das hat ihn bei mir natürlich sehr sympathisch gemacht. Nicht.
- Dieses Buch erwähnt Harry Potter so oft, dass ich fast glauben könnte, dass es von JKR gesponsert wurde. Es stört mich einfach, dass wir das in einer Reihe, die “Love is Queer” heißt und die im ersten Band einen trans Protagonisten hatte, unbedingt haben müssen. Ich will jetzt nicht groß erklären was mein Problem mit JKR ist, aber zumindest schien die Autorin selbst zu wissen, dass sie nicht mehr wirklich “cool” ist, weil sie in Not Your Type ja so eine Passage eingebaut hatte, was denn ist, wenn bestimmte Autorinnen, die man eigentlich gemocht hat, sich auf einmal als schlechte Menschen herausstellen. Cool. Das kam in Not Your Type schon komisch rüber, weil sie an anderen Stellen trotzdem von Harry Potter redeten als wäre nichts, aber in Maybe Not Tonight sind sowohl Luke als auch Jackson riesige Harry Potter Fans. Das brauche ich in 2021 einfach nicht mehr. - Kommen wir schnell zum Kern der Sache: Die Beziehung zwischen Jackson und Luke. Sie leidet von dem Syndrom, das viele Bücher in dem New Adult Genre haben: “xxx ist anders als die anderen, unsere Beziehung ist etwas besonderes”. Okay, ich bin nicht unbedingt eine sehr romantische Person, aber ich wünsche mir einfach mal, dass die Beziehungen ganz normal sind, es muss doch nichts super special sein, dass man einander mag/liebt ist doch schon besonders an sich. Keine Ahnung, bei den zwei Figuren hier habe ich es vor allem auch nicht ganz abgekauft, ich frage mich immer noch, was genau so besonders an ihnen ist. Und ich verstehe auch nicht so ganz, wieso Jackson sein bisheriges “Verhalten” (One Night Stands & Co.) gerade wegen Luke unterbricht. Nur weil Luke anscheinend die erste Person ist, die nicht sofort mit ihm ins Bett springt oder so? Ich habe genügend Geschichten mit einem ähnlichen Plot gelesen und im Vergleich zu diesem Buch waren diese viel glaubhafter. Keine Ahnung, wieso Luke so special ist, die Zwei finden den anderen eigentlich sofort attraktiv und eiern dann eine Weile deswegen rum, ich saß nur im Hintergrund und schrie: “Es ist keine Quantenphysik, Luke, du findest ihn halt heiß!!” Für mich fehlt dieser Moment, in dem es bei ihnen “Klick” gemacht hat. Und wenn es einen geben sollte, dann hat er wohl für mich nicht funktioniert. Und am Ende dachte ich mir nur: Ihr solltet einfach getrennt bleiben, wenn ihr schon nach 2 Monaten Fernbeziehung Schluss macht... Die Lösung dafür ist es absolut nicht, einfach nach Frankfurt zu ziehen, um dort den Master zu machen.- Apropos Momente: Ich glaube das Buch leidet auch ein bisschen von seiner Länge, in zwei sehr entgegengesetzte Richtungen. Zum einen ist das Buch zu lang, ich glaube das Audiobuch hatte 14 Stunden? Es erstreckt sich über eine ziemlich lange Zeitspanne und dafür passiert eigentlich nicht viel. Es dümpelt ein bisschen vor sich hin, natürlich gibt es Konflikte, aber ich finde ihre Lösung meistens nicht sehr befriedigend bzw. sie sind von vornherein sehr durchschaubar und nicht wirklich spannend. Ich glaube, dass man einige Szenen und vllt. sogar ganze Nebenhandlungen in dem Buch hätte streichen können, ohne viel zu verlieren.Zum anderen ist das Buch aber auch zu kurz. Es gibt sehr viele Zeitsprünge, wir kriegen dann nur kurz erzählt, was in den letzten Wochen passiert ist. Das ist an sich kein Problem, ich verstehe auch, dass die Autorin zu einem bestimmten Punkt in der Geschichte kommen wollte, ohne dass das Buch doppelt so lang wird, aber es werden oft Szenen übersprungen, die für mich zumindest interessant gewesen wären und die auch die Beziehung, die ja im Fokus der Geschichte steht, meiner Meinung nach besser ausgebaut hätten. Mir fehlen die Szenen, in den Luke und Jackson richtig miteinander reden, nachdem Luke Jackson das erste Mal bei den Kulissen hilft, wir kriegen nur auf einmal gesagt, dass Luke ihm wohl schon mehrmals dabei geholfen hat. Oder mir fehlt auch die Szene, in der sie sich das erste Mal wiedersehen, nachdem sie sich zum ersten Mal geküsst haben. Nein, man kriegt nur die Information, dass auf einmal eine Woche rum ist und sie sich zwischendurch mehrmals getroffen haben oder so?? Hier wird eine große Scheibe an Potential einfach abgeschnitten, was ich sehr schade finde. - Die ganze Nebenhandlung mit Lukes Cousin Alex fand ich an sich gut, aber es gab mind. zwei sehr fragwürdige Momente, die ich nicht notwendig fand. Zumindest fand ich es mehr als nur seltsam, fast schon übergriffig, dass Jackson, ein erwachsener Mann in seinen 20ern einem 16jährigen Kondome zum Geburtstag schenkt. Unter Gleichaltrigen kann das sicherlich witzig sein (je nachdem, wie die Freundesgruppe natürlich drauf ist), aber hier haben wir einen Erwachsenen und einen Minderjährigen und es war eigentlich nur unangenehm. Ich bin mir auch noch nicht ganz sicher, wie ich darüber denke, dass Alex quasi verwendet wurde, damit Luke den weisen, älteren schwulen Mann spielen konnte und so ein paar Standardsätze von sich geben konnte, aber wenigstens wurde es meiner Meinung nach gut gehandhabt.Alles in allem fühlt sich dieses Buch nicht an, als ob es wirklich für queere Menschen, vor allem nicht für MLM geschrieben wurde. Maybe Not Tonight war schlussendlich leider sehr langweilig für mich und hat mich nicht wirklich berührt. Die Figuren sind mir am Ende auf die Nerven gegangen und das Ende des Buches fühlte sich trotz der Länge zu schnell und nicht zufriedenstellend an. Es gibt mittlerweile viele andere Bücher mit queeren Männern/Jungen als Hauptfiguren, die auch schon ins Deutsche übersetzt wurden (und auf dem englischen Buchmarkt gibt es noch hundertmal so viele) und die meiner Meinung nach interessante Handlungen und Beziehungen darstellen. Diese würde ich Leserinnen, die sich nach einem solchen Inhalt sehnen, eher ans Herz legen.
actual rating: 3.5 stars
this is a very cute book. and i think it can be very important for young queer (latinx) people to read smth like this, so i am very happy it exists!!
i just think the pacing was a bit off and the plot itself... idek if there really was one, so these aspects felt slightly weak to me. especially the last 30% werent really exciting at all anymore for me
(also, while accurate for the time period, i feel like the many pop culture references and twitter lingo are going to age really badly,,)
anyways, only the best for jules and mat, love them to bits
this book is great, i highly recommend it if you like YA and want good bi rep.
the characters are extremely likeable in my opinion and the premise with the agony aunt side hustle that darcy has going on is very well done and kept me interested throughout the whole book.
i also liked that there are consequences for actions and the characters just. act like normal people?? idk, there wasn't really a moment that made me very frustrated with anyone because i could clearly tell where they were coming from.
i only gave it 4 stars in the end because there were some scenes that were a little bit too cheesy for my taste, but thats just a very subjective thing.
i can't wait to read more from this author <3
i am torn on this book! it is a fun read but i also had some issues with it; all in all im giving it 3 ½ stars! which is still a good rating!!
what i liked:
- it expanded a lot on the four characters that the novels focuses on and it was nice to see more about their backstory and their thoughts/feelings; the comics are a bit more superficial in that aspect since there is also the heavy focus on fencing
- the writing style is easy and fun and works really well with the different characters. i loved some of the dialogues and several lines made me laugh out loud!
- if you liked the comics then this book feels like the official canon fanfiction that you needed. and i mean this wholeheartedly as a compliment. i'm glad that we get more content with these boys. choosing to focus less on fencing and more on the interpersonal relationships and making the characters grow that way was also a good choice in my opinion. the comic works well as a sports story but i think as a text only story it was better to focus more on other aspects.
what i disliked:
- while it focuses a lot on the four point of view characters, some characters from the comics just.... aren't even mentioned; characters who would have clearly been involved in some scenes
- i could see the overarching theme of the book. i think. but at times it felt a bit ... plotless. especially the two different stories of aiden/havard and seiji/nicholas didn't have a lot of connections; which is fine on its own but it just added to the feeling of the book having no proper plot going on. at times it felt a little bit like various fanfiction tropes were combined and the reader just jumps from one trope to the next. i don't mind tropes at all but i would have liked to get a little bit more than just that
- some stuff just made me go “what.” and made the characters and their actions seem like weird fictional caricatures, i think it might have been better if some ridiculous plot points/scenes had been toned down just a little bit. although i will say that the ridiculousness certainly amused me, even if it broke any semblance of immersion
conclusion:
read this book if you liked the comics! i don't think you will regret it, it is very fun and these characters are so lovable. i am very curious about the sequel to this and i can't wait :B
cw: discussions of domestic abuse, misogyny and homophobia
now, let me out myself as a basic b*tch before we get into this review: i absolutely adore the cinderella story, used to be obsessed with it as a kid and grew up with my own lovely illustrated german copy of the grimm fairy tales. and to this day cinderella retellings can get my attention quite easily if they bring something new to the table.
“cinderella is dead” is not a typical retelling in its structure. it is much more about the question of “what if that story was real and what if an entire country decided to live by that fairy tale's lessons”.
as you can probably tell by my 1 star rating... the book didn't really hit any marks for me. i will try to put some structure into the aspects that turned this book into the disappointment that it ended up being for me, so hold on and fasten your seatbelts
the writing
the writing itself often felt a bit too modern for the setting of the world. i am not quite certain when this is supposed to take place - and bear in mind that this is a made up world - but there are some hints in the world building that it would probably be around the 18th century in our real world? it doesn't really matter what the answer to that is, but it sure isn't 20th/21st century. i know that this is a ya novel but i think that teens are smart enough to understand non-colloquial english, too. i am being a little bit nitpicky on that aspect so let's move on.
aside from the modern style i also feel like the pacing was quite off. sometimes scenes went on for too long and sometimes scenes that should have been really important were over in a flash. what adds to this is that most of the time the atmosphere of the scene wasn't brought across properly. i could somewhat tell what the vibe was but i just wanted more of that. the same goes for how emotions were written in this book. most of the time emotions that the characters, especially our protagonist, were feeling, weren't given enough time to breathe. this is where more words would have been great. writing something along the line of “she felt fear” made the scenes fall flat to me because in my mind i just went “yup she sure did”.
the language
let me start by saying that i almost lost it when it was revealed that the kingdom is called “mersailles”. i was like huh did the author mean to write marseille (big city in france)? or maybe versailles (that's where the french king had his castle)? but no, here we have it, the kingdom of fantasy france is called mersailles. i do not like the name. it's subjective of course, but man this immediately took me out of the story and its fantasy world because i felt like the delivery man just brought me the wish version of france.
the problem isn't just the name of the kingdom, it is the language itself. the fairy tale cinderella is also known as cendrillon, which is basically the french version of the fairy tale, and afaik it is the more well known version thanks to disney & co. so it makes sense that our fantasy world is maybe at least inspired by france. and the name “mersailles” sure sounds like that too. well, why do some characters have french names and why do others have english names? honestly, this confused me a lot. the setting became a linguistic hodgepodge. obviously it is still a fantasy world but i can't help comparing it to our real life countries and languages because that is what the setting is using too. but why is there a character called luke when the author could have just gone for the french version luc?why is one brother called édouard and the other morris instead of the french version maurice? little details like linguistics are something that can make a fictional world feel much more real very easily, especially if you use languages that the readers can recognize, because they associate something specific with it already. and listen, if you want to use english sounding names in your french sounding fantasy kingdom? then use that as an interesting excuse for some background world building, language tells a story. i don't expect every author to be on tolkien levels of linguistics, but at least putting some thought into it can have such a big payoff in the end.
the world building
this is the first big aspect that made this book not work for me at all. the world building here is. not great. and it doesn't make sense.
so, this kingdom basically uses the cinderella fairy tale as its own version of the bible. everyone has to have a pristine copy of the story in their house and the girls have to read it aloud every evening. they have to learn the story by heart like some weird bible verses or whatever. girls have to try to live after cinderella's example and then they might get their own fairy godmother who grants them a wish to help them find a suitor at the ball!! okay obviously this isn't supposed to be something good, it is something that our protagonist is working against actively because it's fucked up propaganda and a tool used by the king to control the people but let's just look at this part separately for a second. why are people doing this? just because the king told them to? cinderella apparently lived 200 years ago - WHICH ISN'T A LONG TIME TBH - and suddenly everyone worships her and her story? that sure is wild. and extremely unrealistic. even if the old king told them to do that 200 years ago... that is such a specific thing to worship, especially when it's just a random woman who managed to get married to the king two. hundred. years. ago. it's as if the king of france suddenly told his people to worship the betrothal story of him and his queen. and 200 years later people were still doing that. in reality, people might be like “okay sure i guess?” and maybe some might believe in the fairy godmother part but also why would they - it is not like magic is deeply established in this world. it doesn't help that the king seems to be enforcing this rule in a very tyrannical way here. i think this part of the world building really discredits the people of fantasy france and makes them all seem a bit.. let's say gullible.
everything about this fantasy france kingdom mersailles just feels like it can be broken down to “evil king oppresses his people, especially girls and women, no one is having a good time”. i really, really wish there were more to it. i had so many questions while reading it. why can't the girls just run away to another kingdom? what are the borders here? how big is this kingdom even? how big is the capital? how does anything work in this kingdom? i don't even know anymore, all i know is “evil king makes people do things”.
i think the cinderella idea itself with the balls and whatnot has a lot of potential. but translating it directly into the world building like this just seems sort of ridiculous and unbelievable. i just feel like this could have been done in a more intriguing and clever way.
the misogyny
i can't NOT talk about this. i understand what the author was trying to do here. mersailles and its laws are misogynistic. women are constantly oppressed and treated badly. one might be able to draw some parallels to how the world is for women in our modern times but also back when being a woman meant not having many rights that men had. so, in theory, this isn't too unrealistic.
but then i dive deeper into the text and think about it for one more second.
the way that this story and world were written reminds me of a very superficial idea of what feminism is about. the stereotypical way that feminist are often portrayed by less well meaning form of media aka “all men are bad and should die”. this book, in its core, unfortunately carries that message. with very few exceptions every single man in this story is a piece of shit. they are either mean, creepy or just flat out abusive. and please do not accuse me of trying to go “not all men” right now, but what i am missing is some realism. all of this is very over the top in the book. as soon as a man popped up i just knew he was either going to say something extremely inappropriately sexual that objectifies women or he was going to be very horrible to his wife. yes, all of that unfortunately happens in real life too. but this is not what makes misogyny the problem that it still is today. i am missing the subtle forms of oppression, mindsets that have developed over centuries that women are for some reason “inferior” to men. being disgusting, creepy and abusive is not where misogyny starts or ends. it felt like a bad caricature.
simply put: i am missing so many nuances on this very difficult and important topic. instead the whole story feels like someone dipped their toes into feminist theories and now thinks that the big takeaway of that is “okay, men are bad, i have learned enough”.
let's talk about the female characters. the two main characters give me girl boss vibes, and you know what, good for them. but what i want to focus on is almost every other female character that we come across. most of them are extremely passive, they just accept that life sucks apparently and that men treat them like shit. oh you beat me half to death every day? guess that's just how it is! guess i should have lived more like cinderella! why. just why. this book wants to show us some kind of feminist stance but then it writes the female characters like this? only our special snowflake protagonist and her love interest are allowed to be smart and strong enough to not believe the propaganda or to not just give up and accept life as it is. yes there are a few minor characters like that too later on but they do not really matter. what matters it the overall impression that one gets from the story: women just let this shit happen to them and think that someone who tries to defy that is simply taking unnecessary risks and should just follow society's rules. amazing. outstanding. i will not travel back in time and show this to the women who always protested against any kind of injustice that they experienced. i don't get it. this also ties into the world building aspect but, like, why would they just accept it as normal that their husbands might treat them like shit and beat them up daily without anyone interfering? and why does every other man just accept this too? wish there were more moments of women rebelling. because that is how it has always been in real life.
once again, i was missing some nuances.
the resolution doesn't make any sense. the way that this story was written made it seem like one singular person aka the king was responsible for introducing the oppression of women into this world. we don't really know how it was before that but from some tidbits i guessed that women were at least allowed to work in the same positions as men, maybe they were even equal in everything, who knows. and then prince charming comes along and is slowly making the laws more restrictive for women under the guise of trying to protect the people. this is NOT how misogyny works. or oppression in general. it is not just cause by one random dude and everyone else just nods and goes along with his new ideas. societies don't work like that. especially considering how fucking awful it gets for the women in this kingdom. this is pretty much pushing the blame onto one person even though it is never just one person. i wish it were that easy.speaking of easy, i wish we could abolish sexism as easily as this book did it. obviously i am exaggerating right now but when we break it down it's like this: evil sexist king is killed, new reigning person is a girl, yay she abolishes every law that oppresses women, problem solved! and the book does mention that it of course isn't as easy as that and that many people will still think like this but it doesn't change the fact that it seems like the problem was suddenly solved very easily.
all in all, i feel like the topic of the oppression of women was treated on one hand in a very exaggerated way and on the other hand in a very superficial way. you don't really gain anything from it, especially since the blame was, in the end, pushed onto one man instead of society itself
the antagonist
it seems fitting that i continue with this aspect now. the antagonist. oh man, this book gave me “cartoonishly evil villain” as the final boss with a sprinkle of sexism on top of that. let's just say that i did not like it.
everything that we learn about the king and then later on the witch/his mother doesn't make him a compelling villain at all. and that's what he is. a typical evil dude who just wants to be evil and have power. this man lacks motivation. yes he wants power and wants to live forever but who is this man?? we barely learn anything about him except that he is EVIL and DISGUSTING and SEXIST. also greedy for power. but why? no one is just born like that. tell us more about him!! in theory i liked the idea of this eternal king who keeps coming back under new disguises and i loved the necromancy angle but i wish the author would have done so much more with that. and then the big reveal that the fairy godmother aka the witch is his mother. i went through the five stages of grief in like 0.1 seconds. once again, in theory i like that idea. i LOVE the idea that she was the one who brought him back and who is now tied to him. but that reveal happened way too late and in such a weird and comical way. it didn't help that the witch dies immediately afterwards. I HAD SO MANY QUESTIONS ABOUT ALL OF THAT. what was that woman even doing? why did she have to bring her son back from the dead? and what was her big plan in the end?i was hoping to learn about their motivations but i guess i didn't get my wish after all, worst fairy godmother, 1/10 would never book her again for any of my gigs.
the romance
another aspect that i was let down by a lot: the romance. dare i say it, but this book suffers from the “insta love” problem. now let me explain this for a sec: i'm not talking about teens feeling intense crushes and thinking “omg they are the one for me” even though they don't know the person yet. i am talking about a character going “wow i am so drawn to her, idk why, and i need to stay with her no matter what, we will save the world together, yes we have only known each other for two days what about it?” i did not care for the romance here. it was very rushed and honestly it almost felt like it was just a rebound for the protagonist who was still in love with another girl two days ago. i could see the author trying to bring across that inner conflict, but it didn't really land.
this romance had potential to be something cute and powerful, if it had not been this rushed. of course it was fine that our protagonist was immediately attracted to her love interest, i think that is something that most people who experience sexual and/or romantic attraction have felt at least once. but it is everything that follows that initial attraction. this story takes place in the span of like 2 weeks. why are these girlies ride or die for each other after two days. it didn't help that a lot of the time of those two weeks happens off screen, which means that we don't really see them grow closer. why should i be rooting for these two, i barely know them as individuals and i certainly don't know them as a potential couple yet!!
the queer rep
we have at least four known queer characters in this book. i appreciate that.
but there's more
1) the treatment of the one gay man that appears in the story. luke doesn't appear a lot in the story itself because he is mostly locked up in some dungeon in the castle for daring to be in an altercation with some bully who forced himself onto sophia. the glimpses that we see of him include some tropes that we see a lot in media. the angsty backstory where his boyfriend and him were outed against their will and something terrible happened to his boyfriend. gay suffering as we have seen it many times before. why is it always like this. and then he gets beaten up by a guy who was essentially his school bully? luke is not having a good time, but he at least survived? yeah the bar is barely above the ground right now.2) erin and sophia's relationship. my problem lies within the crux of their “breakup”: sophia wants to basically come out and run away with erin at the beginning of the story, erin is scared and doesn't want to do that, she just wants to stick to what society tells them to do. if we ignore all of the fantasy elements it should be a very familiar trope when it comes to queer couples: partner A who wants to come out, partner B who does not want to do that yet (and usually has a very legitimate reason for that). it is a very tired trope. most of the time it is also written in a way where the one who doesn't want to come out yet is the “problem” which is just unfair. let's look at sophia and erin here. sophia was being pushy about coming out and running away. erin on the other hand was very scared because the consequences of running away would be very awful and pretty much tells sophia to move on. she wants to find some guy who will marry her at their first ball. it all climaxes at the end of the story when erin has gotten married to a horrible man who hits her and sophia tries to save her one last time. erin is suddenly ice cold and blames sophia for leaving her alone. she still doesn't want to leave and gets mad at sophia for wanting to save her. sophia gives up at that point and returns to constance.my problem is that this story blames erin for not coming out, even though her fears were absolutely valid: they live in a homophobic world and being outed might get them killed. running away isn't a great option either, they don't know where they can go, etc. i get why erin is scared. she is now stuck in an awful, abusive marriage. and she has become an asshole herself now all of a sudden. and her first love chooses the free, more interesting girl instead. all of this in the span of two weeks, by the way. it is incredibly mean towards any queer person who hasn't been able to come out (yet). i was just imagining some random queer teenage girl with parents who wouldn't be okay with her sexuality reading this book and feeling absolutely awful about herself. i don't think we need this. especially if you look at how sophia literally chooses the girl who she can be openly gay with. i know that this is a very difficult topic in real life but i wish this would be treated better in media. because if it is treated like this? you are essentially blaming someone for not coming out.
i think i would describe this book as “the hunger games meets game of thrones but every noble gets a dragon”
and i absolutely mean this as a compliment
i liked this book.
i love the world and the lore and boy oh boy do i love dragons
i think the main characters suffered a bit from being trope-y, some more than others, but none of them were at least completely flat
it also was rlly easy and nice to read, which i appreciate a lot. it had some funny scenes and some scenes where the humour fell a little bit flat for me personally, but thats alright
this is more of a 3,5 stars rating than a full 4 stars, but i think the book deserved the bigger number in the end
also: vespir is best girl
3.5 stars
this is mostly a very fun read but the ending felt rushed and very unsatisfying... i also feel like there were too many loose ends and not in a way where you can call it an open ending
im also a bit disappointed that almost no trope subversion happened in the end, smth that i rlly wanted to happen here
the zombie outbreak and everything tied to it was in theory very interesting and i liked the twist BUT i think the author bit off more than she could chew here because everything was suddenly a much bigger scale which made the ending super unfitting in comparison
anyways, i still want to commend the author on writing fat characters who arent reduced to their weight and body shape. all of the characters were very fun and distinctive
the writing style was pleasant to read for the most part even though i do feel like some action scenes fell a bit short and could have used a bit more descriptions
i read this in one evening, couldnt put down the book for more than 10 minutes
its so good !!!
this book is so lovely and charming, i would recommend this to basically everyone who loves the found family trope and wants a bunch of lovable characters in their story
there have been others who already mentioned the horrendous marketing that misgenders and deadnames the trans male main character and how the book blurb and previous marketing made it sound like a f/f romance.
and there have been at least two reviews on this book (one on GR, one on twitter) that pretty much confirmed my suspicions: this book won't be good trans rep, or any other kind of good queer rep
actually, i think it might be triggering and harmful for some readers (especially young ones. i wouldnt want a young queer person to read this, especially not if they are trans bc it might leave some lasting, damaging thoughts and images)
and i guess according to this book, queer ppl in the past dont deserve to be happy; instead they all have to suffer and go through traumatizing experiences (that dont ever get resolved properly either, bc who cares, i guess).
its an interesting contrast to her previous books which were always praised for being happy queer historical novels. for a book that was in the works for 10 years... and had sensitivity readers... and it still kept all these harmful tropes... well.
i saw someone describe it as “queer pain porn” and tbh. from what i have heard, that sounds pretty accurate.
i was excited for a historical novel with a trans mc, but god, not like this, nope. lets support ownvoices authors instead
me, chanting in the background: percypercypercypercy
anyways, this comic series is so much fun and i love the art style. cant wait for more
i read this book in less than a day. i think that's a good sign
it combines many tropes that i really adore and has some very fun dynamics between great characters. sure, it's not the most epic story of this century and im sure there would be some flaws if i dug a bit deeper and analyzed it or smth
but it's a hopeful and fun book and i think this book could be a comfort read for many queer people (it certainly was one for me, even made me emotional at certain parts,,)
the main romance is cute and mushy and lots of fun and i think im totally okay with its development. and gosh, do i love the two main bois
also, i want a sequel with some of the other characters as the protagonists, not gonna lie
or just. a sequel in general.
this book is so lovely.
i already was a big fan of the solarpunk genre but this rlly cemented my love for it.
the story feels like a big, warm hug. i couldnt recommend this more
(also can we talk about how beautiful the cover is???)
caves are just incredibly spooky to me, so i already knew that the setting would work for me in a horror novel.
honestly, theres not a lot that i would criticize about this novel, i liked the plot itself, i enjoyed the dynamic between the two characters and the writing style felt very alive.
i do think that the story suffered a bit frol the length of the novel though; this could have easily been way shorter and nothing would have been missing. it wasnt ideal that i went from being on the edge of my seat to “okay can she just get out of the cave now please, im starting to get bored :')”
the last 10% were really strong though and i loved the ending!
lovely art style, great diverse cast of kickass girls and an interesting concept
its definitely entertaining to read
the pacing of the first volume is a bit off for me personally, theres a lot happening in 4 issues that might have been better if it had been spread out a bit more, but its still fun
We could have had it all...
Okay listen, originally I thought that the premise had a lot of promise. This whole Bad vs Nice schtick where they have to compete against each other to make a person fall for them so that they could be in their life forever as The Love Interest aka as a secret spy to sell information.
That's a fun premise, you can do something with that.
Well. You certainly can. Doesn't mean that the premise by itself is enough to make the book good or enjoyable.
Maybe I am a bit angry right now that I spent time on this book, but I will still try to be as objective as possible.
First of all, my biggest issue was probably the writing, especially the dialogues.
Most of the dialogues feel absolutely fake. I cannot imagine a real person saying some of those things. And oftentimes the characters were saying way too much at once so it felt like a short monologue with a lot of exposition. Even unimportant characters say some really weird sh*t.
It would have maybe made sense if the two Love Interests Caden and Dyl had talked like that, since they are faking it to make Juliet fall for them respectively and are maybe using some cheesy lines to woo her, but god, no one in this book talks like a normal person.
Aside from the dialogues the writing is also very clunky most of the time. There's not a lot of “show, don't tell”, but rather the opposite. You either have the main character Caden thinking intensely about everything and spelling everything out for the reader or the characters have their surreal conversations with as much exposition crammed into them as possible.
All of that wasn't very enjoyable for me, unfortunately.
Speaking of the characters. Oh boy. I think I can see what the author was trying to do, there was definitely an attempt to make these characters three-dimensional. But in the end it just felt like every character could be interchanged with any other character. Well, except for Trevor because he's just a dumbass.
It's like the author picked some tropes for every character, smashed them together and hoped for the best. Most of the characters are either extremely one-dimensional because they only have to serve a specific purpose or they are very wishy-washy and it is very unclear who they really are.
And if the characters did show a unique personality or character trait, then it would usually just feel like a really bad caricature.
The characters don't act (or talk) like real people most of the time. They don't fell organic at all and I through the entire book it was very hard for me to care about any of them.
Which leads to my next point on the list: Relationships.
One would assume that, if you have a premise where two boys have to fight over the affections of a girl (but then end up falling for each other, or whatever), the romance would at least be developed properly.
Well. If the characters don't feel organic and the dialogues don't sound real, then it is maybe a bit harder to accomplish this.
I don't know, on one hand ca. 75% of this book are about the relationships between Caden and Juliet and Caden and Dyl (and a bit between Juliet and Dyl, I guess). So, technically this should be enough. It sometimes even felt too long or too repetitive.
But at the end I was still left with a “That was it?”. Caden and Dyl definitely had a few scenes together that felt like some sort of development but all of that was kind of destroyed when it turns out that Dyl was faking all of that to manipulate Caden. Even if he ended up falling for Caden - which by the way also happened all of a sudden and gave me whiplash -, it would have still taken some recuperation from Caden's side to make this relationship work again. But we don't really get that, just a short kiss, then the final showdown and then an epilogue "One Year Later".
Juliet and Caden's relationship was. Well. Boring, I guess? I can't really say much, except for the fact that Juliet often felt like a flat piece of untoasted bread and Caden's fake persona as the Nice Love Interest wasn't any better. Of course, they aren't the real couple that the reader is supposed to be rooting for, but storywise their relationship is very much the focus of most of the plot. Caden's life depends on it. But it doesn't come across as believable, at least not from Juliet's side aka the side that should be “real”.
Caden plays the nice guy and best friend role quite well, but when he has those moments where he tries to be charming or flirty or whatever, he just sounds cheesy, smarmy and maybe a little bit creepy. But don't worry, Juliet is super into it, Caden does have abs, after all. Maybe I have different standards when it comes to flirtation and developing a romantic relationship, but with Caden and Juliet it didn't feel like it made sense. Suddenly they were throwing around “I love you”s at moment that were way too early and would have made me run for the hills if I had been in Juliet's position.
....Other relationships also felt one-dimensional and made me go “meh” most of the time.
I usually love friend groups that solve the big problem together, so technically this constellation of Caden, Juliet, Trevor and Natalie should have worked for me, but their friendships felt extremely flat and I couldn't care less about their dynamics.
Last but not least, I also need to address the plot. I mean, listen, I did like the idea of having this secret organization that deals with information by planting secret agents disguised as Love Interests of important people. I had this whole idea in my head of what you can do with all of that.
The book went a slightly different direction, which isn't necessarily bad, of course.
Some aspects were just very hard to believe or were a bit too over the top for my personal taste.
And I did not like how the plot was basically resolved in the last 10% or so. It was extremely rushed, the pace couldn't even compare to the rest of the book where, in retrospect, almost nothing happens.
And all of it felt.. almost too easy? During the whole book there was this Big Problem that Caden did not know how to solve but somehow at the end they come up with this plan that magically solves everything. It felt kind of cheap? I don't know, it wasn't adequate enough for my expectations.
And Trevor. That whole thing was a mess in itself. First you make him cheat on his girlfriend, then we get some unbelievably dumb line about how when you love someone unconditionally you will forgive anything and then Nat and Trevor are somewhat together again?? Just so that we have Trevor in the group as cannon fodder during the final showdown?? But then the characters barely reacted to his (sort of brutal) death? I have so many questions about why any of this was necessary. As if Nat wouldn't have her own agency if Trevor hadn't come along? I could talk about this tiny part of the story for hours probably.
To sum it up, this book was definitely not up my alley. I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone either. It felt unsatisfying in the end and I do slightly regret that I spent time on it.