Thank you SO much to the author for sending me an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I really am so grateful to have been senThank you SO much to the author for sending me an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I really am so grateful to have been sent this ARC. This book sounded so up my alley: a dark academia with tragic sapphic romance! And certainly the vision for this book is still deeply appealing to me.
However, the story at hand was unfortunately so flooded with grammatical issues that it was impossible to discern, much less to appreciate the vision. I am much more lenient with indie and self-pub books in regards to elements that could be chalked up to editing mistakes (I’m well aware indie and self-pub books are not provided the same amount or quality of resources as tradpub books and refuse to judge them the same) but when the problems are at a level that inhibits the storytelling, I very much have to take issue. And in this case, most of the sentences had such extreme structural issues from both a technical and aesthetic standpoint that it severely affected the work. Not to mention the writing regularly contradicts itself. Whole paragraphs will be spent establishing a truth of the world just for that truth to be directly contradicted in the following sentence. I’ve seen a few reviews on here say “I was too dumb to understand the writing” or “I can’t figure out why the writing doesn’t sound good to me? Is it my fault?” and I’m here to say: No love, you weren’t. It isn’t. You’re not the problem here. The writing wasn’t too dense to comprehend, it was just incomprehensible.
I do absolutely love all of the themes and characters and magical elements that have been brought into these pages. If there is one success in this story, it is the bringing together of this unique collection of elements. Academic atmosphere, romantic queer obsession, murder, angels, ghosts, butterflies, etc., Quinton has captured an incredibly singular and fascinating realm of ideas.
But unfortunately, none of these elements worked together and instead all felt haphazardly dropped into this world. There was no command or control here in the crafting. Motivations were lacking, stakes were unearned, and themes and motifs floated in the atmosphere without any rhyme or reason. There was a clear attempt at referencing the dark academia genre, while missing its most pivotal thematic tether: commentary on academia. Without it, all those elements just drifted out to space in nonsensical orbit instead of offering grounded support to the story being told. It also very clearly tried to reference the high emotions and violent chaos of Shakespearean or even Greco-Roman tragedy, but again, without tying those elements down via earned and intentional moments or understanding how to utilize those elements as a narrative tool. Motifs and themes from well-known genres exist for a reason, and it’s important to make sure that if you’re using those motifs and themes, that you have an understanding of how they work together and what they accomplish. But sadly this was a book that certainly knew what it was in conversation with, but didn’t know how to have a conversation with it.
This is something that has also been brought up by some other reviewers, but this book seems to be set in a fantasy world that the author’s first book also takes place in. Which is fine, I love when authors do that! But there was little to no reason why this book should’ve been in the same world, and with the lack of world-building or explanation present in this story, the fantasy elements just felt like dead weight.
I do hate to have such a disappointing report from this book. The cover is absolutely stunning, the marketing has been INCREDIBLE, and the story really does seem like something worthy of a better execution. I do hope somewhere along their career, whether it be sooner or later, Li has the opportunity to rework this book. There’s something really promising here. But several rounds of scrutinous editing are definitely needed before this hidden gem can really shine.
I was lent an ARC of this book by a bookseller friend, I was not sent this by the publisher. Though, per usual, this is my honest review.
UPDATE: My feI was lent an ARC of this book by a bookseller friend, I was not sent this by the publisher. Though, per usual, this is my honest review.
UPDATE: My feedback has been sent to the book's editor, so hopefully some of these issues will be changed! I do think I was rubbed the wrong way a few too many times by this book to pick it back up but I'll be keeping an eye on future reviews to see if there were improvements made.
DNF p. 66
I'm literally begging authors to unpack their implicit biases of white supremacy and ableism before they write cozy fantasy books.
This is a problem that has continued to grow in cozy fantasy and romantasy as genres, in which authors strive to create idyllic and comforting stories for their readers to “escape into.” And what is more comfortable than the familiar, than the unconfrontational? So they seek to create safe spaces without considering what is necessary for a safe space to be actually safe for the people who need it most (aka marginalized people). And instead they use these “escapist” narratives and “safe spaces” as a bubble to protect themselves from the discomfort of confronting their own biases. And so these stories tend to tread harmful ground by blindly and unknowingly perpetrating bigoted narratives.
TOR actually published a really wonderful article (ironically) about this problem. Though this article very specifically talks about racism in witchy romantasies, the sentiment can be applied to other pillars of white supremacy as well as other types of cozy fantasy and romantasy:
"SFF and romance both promise escape, but they falter when they forget that we cannot escape to without also escaping from. When we step back from the sparkling overlay of a book’s premise, we discover that we have ended up on the same old used paths, hiding the selfsame horrors from which we were promised escape beneath the veneers of fairy tale, utopia, or comfort. Whatever fictional or nonfictional marginalizations a white character may possess, they exist within the protective sphere of whiteness, and it is the moral imperative of white authors to grapple with that fact when we write about power, about history, about oppression—or else not to write about those things at all."
I highly recommend reading the whole article, and using it as a jumping-off point to do some learning and unlearning about what fantasy stories (especially cozy ones) have to say about power and marginalization: https://www.tor.com/2023/08/08/the-pr...
In this book's case, these issues bled into the story very obviously and very early on.
Upon meeting our third POV character, within a matter of pages, we are slapped in the face with a Harry Potter reference as the character finds out he's magical: “Yer a wizard, Dan.” In 2023. In a LGBTQ+ book. Truly, I do not understand in this day and age how these references continue to seep through stories, even after other books have made active changes to take out HP references from previous printings. If at this point you are not aware of JKR’s violent TERFism or the way Harry Potter has become a platform of bigotry (though of course, the books have always been riddled with transphobia, antisemitism, racism, a butchered Holocaust metaphor, and more since their inception. But as of recent, more and more right-wing individuals have been brought into the development of the franchise’s content, creating a huge escalation in the level of this bigotry. I highly recommend looking into the VERY clear antisemitism and racism of Hogwarts Legacy), or are not actively changing the way you engage with HP media because of it, then I don’t know what you’re doing.
And then, we learn that this character has been cured of cancer immediately upon entering the magical realm. A magical healing trope will always make me suck my teeth and roll my eyes, but after just a couple pages, the rhetoric escalated and became a little too clear: “Magic self-repairs the host. Witches, are, in essence, hosts to magic.” And we are told that if this character returns to the human world, his cancer will return. So… there’s no such thing as disabled witches, or disability in the magical world in general. Which of course, is incredibly alienating to any disabled reader, but also sheds light on precisely what this author would define as “idyllic” and “cozy”: a world free of disability.
As always, I don't feel good writing this review. I am not pleased or smug or joyful to report these findings. It's never fun to come across these sort of things in stories. But sadly, with the way cozy fantasy and romantasy (especially witchy ones) have been following a trend of pushing under-the-radar accidental bigotry and shrugging any criticism or deeper thought off with an "it's not that deep, it's just a silly fantasy story", I was not surprised to find content like this.
I will most definitely be emailing the publisher with my feedback, in hopes that this content will be changed in the final copies. Fingers crossed it is. If you also got an ARC of this book, please consider emailing the publicity contact with feedback.
CW (so far): ableism (complacent in text), car accident, cancer, hospitalization, magical healing trope, death of parents (past), homophobia (mention)...more
this wasn’t a bad book by any means and i think a lot of people will enjoy it, but the F.T. Lukens comp led me to think this would be a littdnf p. 145
this wasn’t a bad book by any means and i think a lot of people will enjoy it, but the F.T. Lukens comp led me to think this would be a little more campy and silly than it was, and instead it was taking itself a little too seriously and just had an excessive use of inner monologuing and the word “‘tis”
Thank you to the publisher for sending me a finished copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Another disappointing anticipated relDNF p. 62
Thank you to the publisher for sending me a finished copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Another disappointing anticipated release. I'm really sad about this one (especially because there currently isn’t a ton of Black representation in romantasy or fae fantasy stories) but it's just rough.
The writing is incredibly repetitive (we get it, she cares about her family and the humans and everything she does is to protect them, we don't need to be reminded twice a page) and full of over-explanation (we don't need to be walked through every single thought and realization the MC has about literally everything).
I think this book is struggling to straddle between a high fantasy and a cozy fantasy, using all the wrong combinations of elements. There are intense political dynamics, life-threatening environments, and rich religious lore, but sloughed off to the side in favor of centering a character-driven, leisurely-paced narrative with a sweet little cottagecore vibe, using all those more gripping elements as decorative drapery rather than a driving force.
And I'm all down for a character-driven story, or an MC who has a limited perspective, but it feels odd that this book expects us to be gripped solely by the presence of our curious out-of-place MC in the story. (Especially since we know almost nothing about her other than the fact that she likes books and wants to protect her family.) Sadly, there's nothing at this point that I'm invested in, and I have too many books piling up on my shelves to chug through this one....more
not DNFing this for any reason in particular. I was just in the mood to read some short stories about dragons earlier this year and had checked this bnot DNFing this for any reason in particular. I was just in the mood to read some short stories about dragons earlier this year and had checked this book out from the library, read a few stories, and then had to return it. and it's now been months and I haven't felt like purchasing this book or checking it out again to read more. maybe i'll come back to it again if i'm in the mood for more dragon short stories in the future....more
Thank you to Penguin Teen for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
DNF-ing at page 77. (Though I also skipped around a bit later to see Thank you to Penguin Teen for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
DNF-ing at page 77. (Though I also skipped around a bit later to see some of the conversations develop.)
This book was probably the smallest offender of every book I've ever DNF'd. It wasn't even that bad, it just wasn't strong enough for me to want to continue on. Enter The Body seeks out to reclaim the stories of women from Shakespeare's plays, but seems to lack a central academic thesis pertaining to the "oppressive patriarchy" of these plays that it seeks to criticize. (It wasn't necessarily wrong in its arguments, but felt more driven by a feeling/idea of "wow these women were treated badly, let's talk about it" and lacked a foundation of sources/research that would've provided a lot more nuance and context to sustain this thesis.)
It felt a little too aimless, and without properly defining its critiques before leaping into action, it sort of reads like those high school theatre one act competition plays (you know, the really monologue-heavy ensemble ones that have a sort of a one-word, dimensional theme such as: "love" or "feminism" or "childhood").
I DO think this would be a great book to give to younger Shakespeare fans, especially young teenage girls, to help them connect with these characters. I think, by being set in an odd liminal space, it makes the characters more accessible to a modern perspective. It's a fairly quick and easy text to read and there's definitely an audience out there for it.
(Though I don't think it really helps make sense of the thesis, because I really just couldn't figure out what was attempting to be accomplished in telling these stories in a trap room under the stage in a weird fake space where characters are real people but also not real people who are performing the plays but also living them on the stage, and then have to live in their post-play purgatory before their story starts again? And only the women go under the stage when they die? And why do they exist after they die? Why do they exist at all? Where do the dead male characters go? Are there no actors? Are there actors and these are the ghosts of the characters? Do the people who don't die in the play have their own separate limbo space when their play isn't being performed? Is there Shakespeare-character-heaven? If this is a weird fake space where characters exist to be performed, wouldn't they not exist between performances? Who is at fault for their suffering: the patriarchy of their stories, Shakespeare, the patriarchy of Elizabethan England, the patriarchy of the current world that is performing their plays? I could really go on and on with these questions. The rules of the world were just vague and caused the arguments to struggle to land anywhere because there wasn't any grounded environment for anything to make sense in. I love a good suspension of disbelief, and am happy to accept a weird-limbo-character-space if there's literally any amount of thought to it but there was just nothing to grab onto here.)...more
I actually think if I finished this book, I would've ended up decently enjoying it and honestly still recommend it! It had really lovely prosDNF p. 68
I actually think if I finished this book, I would've ended up decently enjoying it and honestly still recommend it! It had really lovely prose, woodsy vibes, fairytale retellings, a sentient talking book, and interesting politics. It even seemed like it was starting to hold some commentary about Christian imperialism. Literally all the things I love. It's just very leisurely paced, and though I can really enjoy that at times, it wasn't quite working for me right now.
And I'm trying to more comfortably DNF books this year if they're not working for me in the moment. I honestly may come back to this one, maybe as an audiobook, but I have wayyyy too many books to get to this year and this month to read a book that isn't hooking me. (I also did the page 99 test and still felt the same.) I think the stakes and world of this book just feels like its asking to be packed in a little tighter in its pacing....more
I think i'm going to be DNF-ing this for now, though I hope to come back to it someday. (p. 276)
On paper, this book is wonderfully up my alley. It hasI think i'm going to be DNF-ing this for now, though I hope to come back to it someday. (p. 276)
On paper, this book is wonderfully up my alley. It has ghosts, stories about stories about stories, theatre, discussions about Christian imperialism, multiple timelines, and African mythology. And I was (heavily!) intrigued by all those concepts, but I just found myself having a hard time sinking my teeth into the story, and I tried REALLY (REALLY REALLY) hard. The most interesting part of this work, the only thing that truly kept me going, was its thematic conversations of decolonizing spirituality and bearing witness via story. And these are strong! Really strong! So strong that I still think I might pick this book back up again someday to see how these come to fruition. (I adored the exploration of magic and wisdom found in the spaces between things - and how artists and creatives are more deeply connected to those in-between moments/places - as well as the bleeding together of time and space through storytelling.)
But unfortunately it's just too long. (and that’s saying a lot, because that’s a complaint I NEVER have. I'm always asking for things to be longer.) There wasn't enough narrative direction or substance to keep the work moving for the amount of pages it does, which made it feel oddly stretched out. A single scene may take place over several chapters, with minimal emotional/narrative distance covered by the characters or the plot. (There was some more plot going on with the Wanderer's timeline, but it still lacked a forward motion.) Especially some of the detail work in Cinnamon's POV felt disconnected and random, as it often didn't help to build tone/world/story/character/etc. (which was especially frustrating for a book that aims to explore the connection between all things). It caused the writing to become too meandering and tangential, forcing a large amount of repetition to keep the through-lines well-saturated. I think the messaging and story would’ve flourished MUCH more at half the length.
Again, I really do hope to pick it up one day in the future (I want to see these brilliant themes play out!), and maybe it'll strike me as masterful then, but for now, reading this book feels a bit like staring at the horizon line and trying to see the curve of the Earth, but the perspective is just too small, and the Earth is just too wide.
CW (so far): grief, loss of family, homophobia & slurs, racism (anti-Black, anti-Asian, anti-Indigenous), gun violence, war, violence, blood & gore, decapitation, SA, rape (offscreen, recounted p. 81), childbirth (on-page), suicide attempt, fatphobia, bullying, eating disorder, slavery, drug use/overdose, emesis...more
Honestly I think I would've mildly liked this book if I finished it, but I just have too many things to read and this doesn't seem likeDNF @ 50 pages
Honestly I think I would've mildly liked this book if I finished it, but I just have too many things to read and this doesn't seem like it's something that is really as up my alley as I thought it would be. The combination of a plotline of allegorical oppression and a plotline of oppression copy and pasted from history caused a little friction in my brain, and I felt like though the writing style has lovely descriptions, it was also too direct in approach to characterization and plot.
Weirdly enough, I do think this would make a good musical, either on stage or as an animated movie.
DNFing around page 200, it wasn’t even so bad, it’s just that I got about halfway through this book and still had yet to form a significant connectionDNFing around page 200, it wasn’t even so bad, it’s just that I got about halfway through this book and still had yet to form a significant connection to the MC, or investment in the goings-on of this world. usually i’m down for a book that’s more vibes than plot but this was just a little too nothing for me.
CW/TW (so far): sex work, violence, slavery, SH, sexualization and objectification of women, death of family members (past), kidnapping (past), murder (past), sexual content, rape (mention)...more
I would add CWs but that would be preparing you to read the book when I just wholeheartedly believe that no one should read this.
Violently fatphobic,I would add CWs but that would be preparing you to read the book when I just wholeheartedly believe that no one should read this.
Violently fatphobic, this book discusses body dysmorphia, EDs, and lots of other complex topics, yet handles them all so poorly that I have no hesitation in calling it harmful.
If I were to write comps around this book, I would call it "if Becky Albertalli wrote A Little Life."
As a fat person, a queer person, a nonbinary person, and a Jewish person, I am absolutely appalled. Frankly, I don't trust anyone who recommends this.
Part of me wants to leave quotes to prove how awful this is but it's literally so triggering in its content that I don't feel comfortable doing so. Rather, here is the link to a review that I think sums up a lot of awful things about it pretty well.
A really fascinating retelling of Romeo and Juliet! I loved the coloring of the artwork and I really thought the choice to do the whole work in iambicA really fascinating retelling of Romeo and Juliet! I loved the coloring of the artwork and I really thought the choice to do the whole work in iambic pentameter was brilliant! It was unfortunately quite difficult to follow at times in terms of visual narrative and it just got too violent for me, which is why I decided to put it down....more
Someone else might really love this book, but I could already tell I was going to have to drag myself through this, and I have too much goinDNF p. 35
Someone else might really love this book, but I could already tell I was going to have to drag myself through this, and I have too much going on to have the time or energy for that.
If you know anything about my taste, you’ll know I love a strong narrative voice. And this book not only has that, but it has really creative world building, a riveting premise, and a gorgeous cover to boot. Unfortunately, regardless of all of those elements working in its favor, this book did not work for me. Maybe I would feel different at another time, but in this reading attempt, I struggled to find any narrative footing. I don’t mind a book that thinks faster than its readers, or that leaps right into world building and doesn’t wait for the readers to catch up. In fact, I consider that a hallmark of adult epic sci-fi & fantasy. But in this case, even the descriptors and the camera lens of audience focus was so vague and flimsy that I was never really quite sure what information I was supposed to be able to glean onto or not. I couldn’t picture anything, which was really tough for me as somebody who visualizes everything that I read. I don’t think I’ve ever struggled for a firm 30 pages without being able to picture almost anything.
I did really enjoy Yang’s writing style and the casual humor built into both the rhythm of the prose and of the world-building language, and will probably try something else by them, but yeah, I just don’t have time to keep trying with this one. Really sad that the queer Joan of Arc meets Neon Genesis Evangelion didn’t work for me :(
Thank you to the publisher for sending me a finished copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!...more
Thank you so much to Penguin Teen for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Okay, I don't think I'm gonna finish t2.5/2.75
Thank you so much to Penguin Teen for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Okay, I don't think I'm gonna finish this one (I might pick it back up one day but I'm not so sure) so I figured I'd write out all my thoughts.
This book held SO MUCH potential. I mean the concept alone is so exciting: a retelling of Sleeping Beauty with Indiana Jones vibes and a sapphic relationship? Completely up my alley.
Every single element on its own was so well-crafted. The characters were interesting and dynamic, the action was fun and thrilling, and the lore and world-building was absolutely captivating. But they all felt mushed together without a lot of thought. It lacked a necessary narrative foreplay. We had approximately a couple paragraphs to meet each of the main characters before they were tossed into life-and-death situations with almost zero explanation. The way that this book just tossed us as audience members between different scenes and flashbacks and environments in such a short amount of time and with such drastically different stakes was giving me motion sickness. It made the pacing feel hard to follow and never gave me enough time to catch my breath or actually sink my teeth into what was going on. Each scene and moment were individually wonderful, but they were scrambled in such an odd order. Almost like the author wrote a bunch of scenes and plot points and just tossed them up in the air to see where they'd land. It felt like those questions on quizzes in grade school where you would have to unscramble the sentences to make a functional paragraph but like with a whole book.
Maybe this might be a book for someone else, but I could just feel it putting me into a reading slump and I had to put it down. Hugely disappointed....more
(DNF at page 160) One of those cases of right book, wrong person. I absolutely thought it was wonderfully diverse, exciting and emotional, and I absol(DNF at page 160) One of those cases of right book, wrong person. I absolutely thought it was wonderfully diverse, exciting and emotional, and I absolutely understand why I have so many friends that love it. It just wasn't for me. The distance between myself and the target audience of this book was a little too tangible, but I’d highly recommend this for LGBTQ+ teens, especially teens who immerse themselves in queer spaces online or in person.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Erewhon for this eARC!
Unfortunately, I think this is going to be a DNF for me.
It is just too dense to comprehend, aThank you so much to NetGalley and Erewhon for this eARC!
Unfortunately, I think this is going to be a DNF for me.
It is just too dense to comprehend, and though I can see the faint outline of a spectacular book, it's just so clogged and covered by this thick web of descriptive and overly-complex vocabulary that nothing is quite taking shape.
I've seen a lot of people on Goodreads experiencing the same difficulties with reading this book that I am, and I was hoping I might still be able to squeeze some enjoyment out of reading it, but alas, It's just not worth the continuous attempt to chug through this absolute mess of text....more
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