This is a normie who read Wuthering Heights one time and decided she knew what gothic was. It also made exThe ad copy was more Gothic than the story!
This is a normie who read Wuthering Heights one time and decided she knew what gothic was. It also made exactly zero sense when explained at the end.
I did like the concept. And the line about how some stories imprint themselves in time and repeat over and over until something changes- again, strong concept. Pooorrrr execution.
This was pedestrian, which is worse than bad. I can forgive bad in service of a mood and frequently do, but there’s no gothic with no magic. It doesn’t work. ...more
Well I couldn’t detect any new plagiarism in this one at least. So point for her, I suppose? Also my guess is that she got some shit from people beforWell I couldn’t detect any new plagiarism in this one at least. So point for her, I suppose? Also my guess is that she got some shit from people before this book was published about lack of diversity because all of a sudden, all at once, we have gay people! Bi people! Lesbians! People who are not evil or unique unicorns with dark skin! We’ve got your alt-right/Trump supporter standins to hate just so it’s super clear she’s super down or whatever. It was just very not present and then all of a sudden this cornucopia of stuff. Again, I mean, good. Yay, this is good. But my sense and what I have heard is that this was likely reactive rather than organic. Mor’s thing, for example,… again, good, but 500 years of stringing someone along who would have been awesome about it if she just told him privately… I don’t believe she would do something like that. Retconned in, for sure. I also liked that she pulled back at least 10% on the character murder she did on Tamlin in the last book, and that Lucien had some realistic developments.
Feyre continues to be a selfish little asshole more than she thinks she is- omg that thing with Lucien where it’s like “oh so which place do we go- the place where I will die or the place where you will, obviously we’ll pick the one where you’re in danger without a second thought.” or the thing where Tamlin is like “MAYBE you shouldn’t have destroyed the unity of my court right before an invasion” and he’s right and there is no response from anyone saying otherwise- and I DEFINITELY wanted to be in that room with the mirror with her and actually see her materially face some of the shitty stuff she’s done in this series and say out loud how shitty it was. Instead it’s left vague and not specific as to what she sees and is treated as a love yourself self-care exercise AND as a mea culpa/wipe the slate clean moment. Which, fine, but pain and honesty ON SCREEN first please. I don’t forgive you if you don’t state very specifically what you did wrong. Like. Good for her getting her ending and Rhys definitely deserved it but I wasn’t 100% on board with her being let off scot-free quite yet. The Lucien/Elain/Vassa/Azriel thing could be interesting if she goes through with it. Other than Rhys Azriel deserves the bestest ending of everyone. Poor guy on many many levels. Nesta is and always has been a raving bitch and if she weren’t a rich Special girl someone would have killed her a long time ago. Like, she has sucked since line one and nothing at all has redeemed her for me. I don’t understand why Maas keeps including her. Cassian deserves better. As far as the plot, I guess it all wrapped up fine, though she had to draw from some old bags of tricks and repeat herself to do it. I also have never cared for extended battle sequences on paper- they bore me. So parts of this bored me especially when we had not just one Final Battle described in detail, but several. I can see there are more books but I’m unclear why unless it’s like one of those family romance novel series where they do a Christmas special epilogue where they match up a secondary character. Like… it’s over. The stakes cannot be topped. … ok I just looked it up and it’s a book about NESTA?!? Nah, man, I’m out.
Side note: I really thought this was the series everyone I know read and told me to stick with of hers and it would get better like a revelation, but like that definitely never happened here and I have a sinking feeling they actually meant the Throne of Glass series and I don’t know if I can do it. Not after this....more
Look so, I am not sure I buy the 180 in this one. I think what she did to Tamlin didn’t 100% work with book 1. But she had her point and she stuck to Look so, I am not sure I buy the 180 in this one. I think what she did to Tamlin didn’t 100% work with book 1. But she had her point and she stuck to it I guess. And she did say that it’s okay that people fit once and then don’t because they change- even if she then went on to totally negate that by emotionally justifying everything by making anyone who stands in her MC’s way the Worst Person by the end. And fine, Rhys is hot and stuff but like…. Ooh man the erasure of what he should really be like emotionally after 50 years of doing what he did if what he’s really supposed to be like is true. And man do they gloss over that shit real quick while letting MC wallow in pain and make sure her every feeling is a 1000% priority. Like. This is what we’re doing and I bought in by the end, but… she didn’t have to do Tamlin like that. It’s a better message to the teens if she doesn’t.
Anyway my biggest beef with this is there is some STRAIGHT plagiarism here. Remember how I said on #1 the emotional beats were stolen from Hunger Games? (And the end from Twilight honestly.) This one has like straight scenes and characters and pieces of world building and even description choices lifted RIGHT from Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels trilogy. The one time she acknowledges Rhys’ damage it’s ripped right from Daemon’s life and thoughts and the way Bishop has men talk about sexually pushy women (down to how he calls being forced to have sex with powerful women “servicing” them). The vocabulary changed to sound like Bishop’s. All of a sudden people started “crooning” and “snarling” and everyone is suddenly “males” and “females” for this section, which is the language the group in Hell uses in Black Jewels. Feyre calls Rhys Prick, which is Lucivar’s nickname in Black Jewels. The Illyrians are the Eyriens (she barely bothers to change the name) with the same warrior training and tools and rules about bastards and “rings” they work in, even!! The mating bond thing is the Consort acceptance thing… it’s SUPER blatant. It was like she hit pause on her own world and jumped into Bishop’s for many pages. Maas and I clearly read the same books and love a lot of the same things, which is why I’m reading these but that also means I’m gonna see it every time she does this. Anne Bishop has a plagiarism case here, y’all. It was super ick. There’s homage and there’s clear fanfic and this stuff was WAY over the line into playing in someone else’s world....more
This book was terrible from top to bottom. I’m sorry to just be that bald-faced blunt about it, but that’s how I feel. And it is a shame because I reaThis book was terrible from top to bottom. I’m sorry to just be that bald-faced blunt about it, but that’s how I feel. And it is a shame because I really really liked All the Missing Girls quite a lot. Even viscerally, parts of it. This book… I am scratching my head as to how someone thought this was all set and ready to go to print. I just… well to start with, this author has clearly never met a teacher in her entire life. We’re leaving in the middle of class and not getting fired? We’re assigning busywork essays that we don’t grade and expecting kids to do it? We’re leaving school at 3 pm? We leave town for two days with “accrued leave”?! There is no such thing as accrued leave in teaching. The main character’s appeal was marginal. I did not super understand why the hot detective was into her. Super weird characterization commentary- (using the phrase “that ship sailed” is clever ironic repartee, she believes, for reporters in Boston? Seriously.) And the lack of resolution on so many levels!! Almost none of the plots quite got there. It was like she stopped the book at kindle marker 90% and forgot to add the rest. I am just flabbergasted about how bad this is- unrecognizable from her first book. Just not the same author at all. I generally only one star actually offensive crap or I would one star this. It is… bad. ...more
Gothic popcorn from the first to the last. And I’m pretty sure that was the point, if my understanding of Wilkie Collins’ deal is correct. Ghosts and Gothic popcorn from the first to the last. And I’m pretty sure that was the point, if my understanding of Wilkie Collins’ deal is correct. Ghosts and murders and spies and arson and street fighting and doomed love, oh my! The promise of all that was the string that reeled me in at first (and boy did it deliver!), but it was the narrative structure that made me stay. I loved the passing of narrators and different document forms as we went, and how that became part of the story itself and made it feel as close to a documentary as possible (or as much as you can with the amount of cloaks and daggers and Drama involved here.) I loved how good he was at altering the narrator’s voice so truly none of them sounded the same- as anyone who follows me knows, I love a good in charge narrator.
And some of these characters! Oh some were the cardboard gothic cutouts you think they will be (Laura is a notable and unsurprising- annoyingly unsurprising-example). But others are wonderfully well done. Count Fosco, at least for most of it, twirled his mustache *and* felt frighteningly intelligent and menacing (I just wish he hadn’t undone all of his work on that at the end). Mr Fairlie the viciously selfish invalid. Gilmore the at-the-end-of-his-rope lawyer. Mrs Catherick the crawling up by her bootstraps small town witch and a half. And Marian! My glorious, glorious Marian! The true hero of this novel- something the main character himself closes the book admitting. She’s too fucking good for the lot of them. I wanted to scream with frustration by the end about what became of her. Did anyone else tear their hair out a little every time Walter and Marian talked about Laura and managed her like the helpless child she was, then had Walter sing Marian’s praises to the sky, then turn around and go weak at the knees for the lady-child Laura again? I mean I didn’t need them to get together because Marian is too good for him too, but ughhhh there must be good feminist as well as LGBT readings of this book out there. I feel like Wilkie had her talk about being “just a woman,” so often just to calm people down that she knew her place- she’d be threateningly independent and intelligent otherwise. I guess it’s like in Middlemarch where people love Dorothea and say she should have been better known and more people been acquainted with her awesomeness- before Eliot tells us “but no one could say exactly how that should have happened,” and then the novel just ends on that note. Just “Here’s your HEA, or is it?!? Enjoy this extremely uncomfortable fly in your ointment, where it will and should keep showing up forever.” Probably not a coincidence that this was written around the same time.
My one thing was that I think the bit at the end with Fosco and the societies and all that nonsense was where it jumped the shark for me. I was fine with him running off into the sunset- I didn’t need international conspiracies/secret spy jujitsu in our finale. I know it was one of the 19th century bogeymans in the newspapers at the time tho, so maybe it was a big crowd pleasing banger when this came out. I’d buy that. I bet serialized versions of this appeared alongside accounts of assassinations and new nation states saber rattling.
Super fun though! I did it half audiobook, half on paper, and it was excellent both ways. A great leisurely evening read....more
Final Girls was far better than this. I found the ending underwhelming, to say the least. I did not at all like any part of anything that happened aroFinal Girls was far better than this. I found the ending underwhelming, to say the least. I did not at all like any part of anything that happened around Theo at any point. Gross. I did not think the Vivian-Emma relationship was as amazing as everyone else did. It started off well but then it dropped the thread- I think it would have been much more effective w/o the constant need to go back to the present day storyline- much more time to develop it and make it continue to feel emotionally real. Much more time to establish the mystery and power of Vivian- this cut that off way too soon. And I liked present day Emma far less than past Emma so I’m not sure we’d be missing much by cutting the present day storyline. ...more
Would you like to read a version of Jane Eyre where everyone is even more fucked up and selfish than they are in the original? One where there are no Would you like to read a version of Jane Eyre where everyone is even more fucked up and selfish than they are in the original? One where there are no Victorian era excuses for why, even? Would you like this to include Jane, who is only the heroine for having a reason that approaches the original and acting on it in the least fucked up of the fucked up pile of ways that everyone acts out their trauma here? And for everyone else to be graded on the scale of how good their reason is after hers, the best reason?
Finished this just after midnight on January 1st! My very first read of 2021!
And I’m not mad about it! I was promised updated Wuthering Heights, with Finished this just after midnight on January 1st! My very first read of 2021!
And I’m not mad about it! I was promised updated Wuthering Heights, with a twist, and that is what I got. The author put this in Not!Scotland (or Yorkshire maybe but the coding was pretty fantasy highlands to me), prior to the Reformation, with a heaping helping of Sicilian mores on the side: particularly the vendetta. Then the cherry on top was the addition of magic to the tale- not the metaphorical kind the Brontes were fond of implying existed mystically between their lovers, but the literal here’s a wizard with a staff who can burn people up from the inside kind. I liked all these choices. The setting was effectively the same but an order of magnitude more brutal, appropriately for its high fantasy genre. The magic acted as a great metaphor for the terrifying social consequences people faced in Victorian England for not obeying social norms- one that readers of YA (which I guess this technically is?) would get without having to take a semester on the Enclosure Acts, urbanization trends and gender politics. The Sicilian stuff definitely had me sucking in a “ooooh boy, let’s see how this goes,” kind of breath when it was first introduced but I think it worked fine in the end. It gave the housekeeper a depth and more three dimensional backstory than she got in the original, and added to the menace of Lina’s story.
Speaking of which, Lina’s story was definitely the best part. Which makes sense since I think giving Cathy a more reasonable context for being the way she is seems to be the main purpose of this rewrite. Without giving away spoilers, Cathy’s abrupt changeability, particularly the decision to marry Linton and her brief happy moments with him, is given a far more sympathetic read, with a far better backstory than Emily ever gave it. Same with her refusal to deescalate the tension between the two men at the end, or to choose. She has a line about how no man wants her unless “he can jangle me in his pocket,” and the fact that she applies that equally to Heathcliff and Linton is the best moment in the book. I wish the author had chosen to update this story further to change the ending and see what she would have done about that if she had had the chance. I picture her as the fierce headmistress of a women’s college who would NOT like to admit men into the building, thank you. Like that lady on the last season of Endeavour- who you thought would turn out to be a baddie... but no, turns out she’s just a fierce one who has clearly been hurt enough by men to need to literally put a fence between herself and them for most of her life. The wizard scene near the end was satisfying for that reason. I won’t spoil it, but if you’ve read it you know what I mean.
It may not be surprising to hear then that where this was relatively lacking was the men. Croggan did not seem especially interested in updating Heathcliff’s side of things, or giving his story the same level of depth or complexity. He was just... Heathcliff. I didn’t get any more out of him than I usually do. Linton got a bit of something- certainly described with more respect than Emily did. But not enough to get beyond pity for him. I thought the narrator update was interesting- the letter at the end especially was very District Commissioner among the barbarians at the end of Things Fall Apart, seeing nothing but a story in the destruction of these lives. That was nice. Most interesting of the men- but of course due to the structure of the story we barely see him. The stuff with the king & the blood tax was a bit on the nose, the vendetta stuff, while helpful to the mood, wasn’t as necessary to the plot and took away from character work time in my opinion (maybe a function of being YA and needing some more action?), and the stand in for Hindley is a cartoon villain. I just think the men deserved better characterization, as a whole.
But I still quite liked this, despite these missed opportunities. If you want something atmospherically grey, covered in mist, if you’re down for a bit of Victorian magic, or if you ever walked away wanting more either from Cathy or for Cathy on your Wuthering Heights read... this one’s for you....more
Well THAT was great. Finished it in a matter of hours, up far past the time I planned to be. Not perfect- I don’t love stories that give women litmus Well THAT was great. Finished it in a matter of hours, up far past the time I planned to be. Not perfect- I don’t love stories that give women litmus tests around children to prove how good of a person they are or to provide the justification for what happens to them. So I did feel a bit uneasy about that part of this. The twist end was about that too so that made it less fun for me (as good as it was otherwise).
But man did this atmosphere succeed. Man was I fully freaked out when she wanted me to be. Oh wow was I fully invested in those autobiographical chapters. And oh man was I really not at all sure what to think about who did it and what I thought of everyone for most of it, so it was a rip-roaring success from the thriller angle.
This would make an amazing movie. I hope someone adapts this. Whoever did A Simple Favor should do this one, they’d be great at it. Consider my ticket bought in advance....more
By far the strongest plot of the series. It was a bait and switch in the sense that there was no bait and switch and I kept waiting for one to kick inBy far the strongest plot of the series. It was a bait and switch in the sense that there was no bait and switch and I kept waiting for one to kick in, all the way up to the very last page. And she stood her ground and it just did not happen. Well done. Excellent choice. Kind of what I wanted from her in Book 4 with a certain character and didn’t get. I hope she doesn’t walk it back. I loved that we got resolution, but not fully, too. Very realistic for who the victim turned out to be. I love Clara so much. I’ve always thought the little insistent thread of progressivism that shows up in her work is great and I was glad Clara got it this time- she deserves it. I continue to hope she also deserves better than Peter bc he has still yet to justify to me why he is not a waste of space. And Ruth! The quiet gut punch that is Ruth in this one! Poor awful woman- I love her more than Clara. And I really really do want to know what the content of the brutal telling was for poor Emily. Someone actually write that novel, I will preorder. Oh and Therese and Jerome! Plz may they become regular cast characters? I want her job/life/Gamache needs more equals around. And Gamache himself.... I like him as a lens, a background color, a tone setter, a lever that makes things happen more than I am fond of him as a person anymore. Which is maybe what he would most want anyway. And I love the deeply Catholic flavor that’s always thrown all over these books- even and perhaps most when it’s the lightest, most unthinking of sheens, something you could almost pass over and not realize is there. But I was raised Catholic and it’s just in the air these books breathe and it works so well.
What I didn’t like is what I always complain about: the over the top melodramatic writing- which I think I just need to accept is here to stay- which does not allow her characters to have any moderate feelings of any kind, her weird tension breaking jagged cut scenes, her withholding of information at times when it makes no sense to do so, her constant repetition of information we already know to new characters that don’t know it yet but don’t add anything to the story by receiving the information- which tends to stretch the story out across more pages than it needs to. And she gives way way too much space to her red herring storylines.
But it just works anyway. Or this one did. And far more successfully than anything since Book 1. I am on the record as being the OPPOSITE of the “but OMG it gets good later in the series you can’t judge it by the first keep going!” person. I think you absolutely CAN judge it by that and should. If you didn’t like Book 1 and couldn’t put up with Book 2, you’re never going to get on board. The flaws I’ve listed above are freaking annoying and I get it. I’m only talking to the people who were warmed up from the inside out of Book 1 now, who keep going with this series and don’t know really why but something keeps bringing you back: Finally, these are the droids you’re looking for. Skip Book 2 and 3, move forward to 4 or 5 and don’t look back. ...more
By far the worst of the series. The vast majority of this one was spent talking in circles about underwhelming philosophy and that freaking Arnot caseBy far the worst of the series. The vast majority of this one was spent talking in circles about underwhelming philosophy and that freaking Arnot case Penny thinks we’re all far more compelled by than we actually are. I can only hope that’s all wrapped up now. We also got far less villager charm, which makes it worse than the second. Giving this ONE more shot with the next one because I loved the first so much and the second one was still ok. ...more
Nowhere near as good as the first, and yet unfortunately exactly the same length. I assume the only reason this book exists is the clamor for getting Nowhere near as good as the first, and yet unfortunately exactly the same length. I assume the only reason this book exists is the clamor for getting the fan-fic-y payoff for all the OTPs here that we all wanted. And we get that, for sure! And hey, there were a few I was super squee-OMG about seeing. (Not to mention one or two very hot scenes that I think will translate very well to the tv show I have heard is in the works.) ...but the main heist plot didn’t work nearly as well. Bardugo saves our ragtag gang from one too many consequences-and it felt like she tried to buy absolution for that making one character’s fate cancel out all of it. (Poor character! I pour one out for you- you did not deserve to take the sins of this book upon yourself!) Things took far, far too long to get started, and rushed far too quickly to its end. She never used her point of view chapters as well as she should have- there were a few moments that, if you’re going to do the POV thing, were *absolutely* given to the wrong character in a way that left way too much on the table. She also is flat out not good at writing emotions. I don’t know how else to say it. It was all very melodramatic and cringey. (Right out of the worst of Anne Bishop’s playbook. I will bet all the money in my pockets she’s a big fan of hers. If one more good character “crooned” while threatening a baddie who had harmed someone they love, I swear to God.) I am also not sure about how I felt about her providing a cinematic LOTR HEA at the end of this with a very unmixed, squeaky clean moral message about The Love of a Good Woman and The Power of Family. On the one hand, ok, squee! On the other... not sure if it really fits with what the book has told us it’s about this whole time? I found myself skimming through to the end. I dunno.
TL;dr It was okay, but not nearly as good as the first one. Maybe skip and wait for the tv show. I bet they’ll at least get the pacing right. And the hotness. I’ve got my popcorn ready for *that* for sure. ...more
Does anyone else read the “Am I the Asshole?” reddit posts? Well, if you don’t, there is a code as people comment. YTA=You’re the Asshole NTA=Not the Does anyone else read the “Am I the Asshole?” reddit posts? Well, if you don’t, there is a code as people comment. YTA=You’re the Asshole NTA=Not the Asshole and ESH=Everyone Sucks Here. Welp. This is a big ole pile of ESH. And this is not even an “oh they’re so unlikeable!” thing. I’m not that person. I definitely don’t care about that- it’s that almost no one was compelling. The characters- their wild inconsistency, their weird changes of diction, their crazy convenient changes as needed for plot. The plot, now that we’re talking about it- a complete mess. The central marriage was absolutely bewildering and only existed for the events to play out. The writing- uneven to say the least. I’m into “everyone has a past,” and guilt stuff. That’s my Catholic girl emotional jam. But it was all dealt with too late and too incoherently for the most part. I *almost* liked what was done with Carla and her survival skills as a child, but I did not like that it was turned into some moral panic scare. So yeah- ESH like whoa on so many levels. Except Ross. He’s cool. Let’s have a drink sometime at the fictional character bar, that guy. And you can tell us all why you kept buying into this mess for fifteen years....more
Meh. Not one of my favs of hers. It probably didn’t help that the back jacket summary gave away that most of the misdirection was in fact misdirectionMeh. Not one of my favs of hers. It probably didn’t help that the back jacket summary gave away that most of the misdirection was in fact misdirection- so marketing person from this very old copy from the 60s, this one’s mostly on you! I also didn’t care for the manic pixie dream girl situation and there wasn’t nearly enough Miss Marple!! Dropped in like deus ex Jane in the last 20-30 pages. This made a great Midsomer Murders ep when they adapted it a few years ago tho!...more
Rather a disappointment after Essex Serpent. It certainly should have worked- it had all the ingredients, checked all the boxes. An incantation of a sRather a disappointment after Essex Serpent. It certainly should have worked- it had all the ingredients, checked all the boxes. An incantation of a start, a song to the Muses, an ancient fairy tale, a brilliant setting, characters that had complexity to them. I also thought who she chose to focus on was kind of fascinating- the sort of people who don’t usually get a story. Neither the arch villain nor any kind of hero, large or small. Just people who took advantage because they could. What happens to those who are unlikely to be prosecuted but should be? But there was something about the sentences here that was off from the beginning. One too many that didn’t belong and broke the rhythm. I never believed in it enough. The Melmoth parts in particular felt like a bad old horror movie, hisses and zippers and storm machine and all. I wish she’d left Melmoth’s existence a lot more ambiguous than it was- I think that might have allowed some deeper exploration of the exciting psychological stuff going on here. I don’t know- I am more difficult to please these days I suppose. I did like the Essex Serpent so much though and you should absolutely read that. ...more
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