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A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas

★★

Feyre has returned to the Spring Court, determined to gather information on Tamlin's maneuverings and the invading king threatening to bring Prythian to its knees. But to do so she must play a deadly game of deceit-and one slip may spell doom not only for Feyre, but for her world as well. As war bears down upon them all, Feyre must decide who to trust amongst the dazzling and lethal High Lords-and hunt for allies in unexpected places. In this thrilling third book in the #1 New York Times bestselling series from Sarah J. Maas, the earth will be painted red as mighty armies grapple for power over the one thing that could destroy them all.

As I’ve said before in my review of Empire of Shadows, I have a complicated relationship with SJM’s books. Some of her worldbuilding interests me, as do one or two of her characters, but her worlds and stories are so problematic and so white, cis, allo and straight that now I’m just waiting to read the last books of her series to say good bye to her writing completely.

(Spoilers ahead) (I do mean it: SPOILERS AHEAD).

(Also, this review is 3.5k words long, fyi).

I had heard many bad things about A Court of  Wings and Ruin before starting it and sadly most of them are true. I wanted to talk first about her use of acephobic tropes, first brought to my attention thanks to the excerpt below:

Dagdan and Brannagh had listened to her fawning with enough boredom that I was starting to wonder if the two of them perhaps preferred no one’s company but each other’s. In whatever unholy capacity. Not a blink of interest toward the beauty who often made males and females stop to gape. Perhaps any sort of physical passion had long ago been drained away, alongside their souls.

There is a lot to unpack here. First, the assumption that lack of interest in a beautiful women probably means the two characters have no physical passion; second, the link between having no physical passion and no soul, since they (the souls and their physical passion) apparently were sucked out of their bodies together.

Many fans of the series said that the soulless part of this paragraph had been mentioned before, so no, their lack of physical passion and their soullessness weren’t linked. I disagreed with them – even if it had been mentioned before, it’s not okay to say two soulless characters lost their “physical passion” alongside their souls, not only because the statement itself is shitty (it implies someone with a soul would never lack physical passion) but because it assumes everyone has this “physical passion” and that not having it is abnormal.

Now, when I first read this, I thought Feyre meant it literally – as in, Dagdan and Brannagh had their souls drained away for real. But when I read the book, surprise!, they didn’t. They are just evil.

Here’s the first time Feyre mentions the twins’ evilness:

But it was the two commanders – one male, one female – that had a sliver of true fear sliding into my heart. High Fae in appearance, their skin the same ruddy hue and hair the identical inky black as their king. But it was their vacant, unfeeling faces that snagged the eye. A lack of emotion honed from millennia of cruelty.

And how she keeps establishing that they feel no emotion:

Tamlin inclined his head to the prince and princess. “Welcome to my home. We have rooms prepared for all of you.” “My brother and I shall reside in one together,” the princess said. Her voice was deceptively light – almost girlish. The utter lack of feeling, the utter authority was anything but.

By the way, there is no proof whatsoever of them being incestuous. Granted, we can assume SJM left it open and that they probably are, but Feyre thinks they are because 1. they don’t fawn over Ianthe, the beautiful woman, or show any “physical passion” and 2. they sleep in the same room/tent.

That’s it.

So no, their souls weren’t drained from their bodies.

And no, there is no proof in canon that they are incestuous twins.

They are just evil. Cold, emotionless faeries who are so evil they don’t feel any ~physical passion~ (only maybe for each other, which, again, isn’t even canon, it’s just something Feyre assumes about them).

Their characters rely in many acephobic tropes, because well, lots and lots of villains rely on acephobic tropes. One of the most common ace(phobic) stereotypes is that ace people (or just people who feel no “physical passion”, since no one ever uses the word) can’t feel anything and are cold, frigid beings, mostly likely also evil. It’s no coincidence that in a series like this one, where anyone who is 1. pretty or 2. good will probably date/have sex with someone at some point and where hetero romances are forced down the reader’s throat all the time, the characters who are portrayed as feeling no physical passion are evil, emotionless and cruel.

I’m not saying SJM wrote them thinking, hehe I’m gonna use acephobic stereotypes and hurt ace folks! because I’m sure she didn’t. This trope is ingrained in the way we tell stories. Villains are the cold, emotionless ones who feel no sexual or romantic attraction and are forever alone. Heroes are the open, feeling ones who get the girl/boy in the end and live happily ever after. This goes back to what I’ve talked about a thousand times in this blog: the belief that sex and romantic love are what makes us human, and if aro & ace people don’t feel romantic/sexual attraction, then they aren’t human. Since villains are usually villains for not being nice humans, then they also never have sex (and if they do, they don’t feel in love with the person and that is portrayed as something bad) and never date anyone, which implies a lack of sexual and romantic attraction.

See what I’m trying to say? Lack of sexual and/or romantic attraction = bad, and since villains = bad, it’s common for villains to be portrayed as lacking sexual and/or romantic attraction. Which is, well, one of the reasons I spent my whole life relating to aro/ace coded villains instead of relating to the straight, cis, allo heroes, since aro/ace coded heroes are so damn rare, but using this trope to build evil villains is still a shitty thing to do. I’m not saying villains can’t be aro/ace, but we must be careful with how we portray the lack of sexual and romantic attraction and why we usually link these two things to villains who are literally the most evil, cruel and mean people to walk on earth.

SJM sadly wasn’t careful. She made use of aphobic tropes like many authors do, and while I’m sure she didn’t do it on purpose, that doesn’t mean the harm she caused is any less valid.

And since her series is so damn saturated with sex and romance, the use of this trope is even more glaring.

Second thing I wanted to talk about: her portrayal of the only bisexual character, Helion, the High Lord of the Day Court.

This is how his bisexuality (or pansexuality or polysexuality) is introduced:

Helion threw himself onto the couch across from Cassian and Mor. He’d ditched the radiant crown somewhere, but kept tht gold armband of the upright serpent. “It’s been what – four centuries now, and you three still haven’t accepted my offer.” Mor lolled her head to the side. “I don’t like to share, unfortunately.” “You never know until you try,” Hellion purred. The three of them in bed… with him? I must have been blinking like a fool because Rhy said to me, Helion favors both males and females. Usually together in bed. And has been hounding after that trio for centuries.

Which… Well, I’m sure I don’t need to say why this is not exactly good rep, but in any case: one of the most common stereotypes of bisexuality is that bisexuals are 1. always promiscuous and 2. always looking for threesomes.

Or in Helion’s case, foursomes.

Of course there are bi people who have a lot of sex and enjoy three or foursomes, but the stereotype is so common, and so harmful, that the author, esp a straight author, needs to be very careful when they write a bi character like this. And well, Helion isn’t an important character. I mean, he is – he’s the High Lord of the Day Court, after all – but he’s not one of the main characters and he isn’t that crucial to the story. Maas doesn’t have time (or just didn’t bother, who knows) to develop him and establish him as a more multidimensional, complete character. As it is, all we know about Helion is that he’s really powerful, really beautiful, that he’s the High Lord of the Day Court, that he loves three/foursomes with both men and women and that he did nothing to save a woman he loved from her abusive husband. Also, that he’s Lucien’s father.

That’s it.

I think things could have been different if he were a more developed character. In ACOWAR, unfortunately, he’s more stereotype than character, which doesn’t really convince me of SJM’s efforts to diversify her work, especially if we take the problematic way in which she revealed Aedion’s bisexuality in Empire of Storms in consideration. Also, it’s pretty clear she didn’t do any research or had any sensitivity readers; the promiscuous, threesome-loving bisexual is easily, as I said, the most common stereotype about bisexuals. A simple google search would’ve saved her in this one, but apparently she couldn’t be bothered to do that.

Third thing: Mor.

Mor comes out as lesbian to Feyre only in this book. Here’s how she does it (after Feyre throws in her face that fact that Mor doesn’t do anything with the info that Azriel loves her):

“No.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “No. I don’t … You see …” I’d never seen her at such a loss for words. She closed her eyes, fingers digging into her skin. “I can’t love him like that.”

“Why?”

“Because I prefer females.”

For a heartbeat, only silence rippled through me. “But—you sleep with males. You slept with Helion …” And had looked terrible the next day. Tortured and not at all sated.

Not just because of Azriel, but … because it wasn’t what she wanted.

“I do find pleasure in them. In both.” Her hands were shaking so fiercely that she gripped herself even tighter. “But I’ve known, since I was little more than a child, that I prefer females. That I’m … attracted to them more over males. That I connect with them, care for them more on that soul-deep level. But at the Hewn City … All they care about is breeding their bloodlines, making alliances through marriage. Someone like me … If I were to marry where my heart desired, there would be no offspring. My father’s bloodline would have ended with me. I knew it—knew that I could never tell them. Ever. People like me … we’re reviled by them. So I never breathed a word of it. And then… then my father betrothed me to Eris and… And it wasn’t just the prospect of marriage to him that scared me. No, I knew I could survive his brutality, his cruelty and coldness. I was– I am stronger than him. It was the idea of being bred like a prize mare, of being forced to give up that one part of me…” Her mouth wobbled, and I reached for her hand, prying it off her arm. I squeezed gently as tears began sliding down her flushed face.

So she is a women loving woman who is okay with having sex with men (maybe she’s bisexual, but homoromantic? The whole thing isn’t clear, in my opinion. Does she just enjoy the sex and feel no sexual attraction to men – which is more probable, I think, since I doubt SJM knows about the split attraction model – or feel sexual attraction to men, but not romantic love?). She’s had a female lovers before, even one with whom she says she was quite happy, but she was a human queen who died long ago. Mor’s story is also full of suffering because homo/lesbophobia and she’s still in the closet because of fear.

She doesn’t sleep with men in hopes it will cure her, though. She mentions she thought about sleeping with Azriel to see if she could feel something for him, but ultimately chose not to because of how he would see it and the fact that she knows she just won’t fall in love with him. In her words, “I’m not sure I can give my entire heart to him that way. And… and I love him enough to want him to ind someone who can truly love him like he deserves. And I love myself… I love myself enough to not want to settle until I find that person, too.”

Honestly? I’m not sure about her rep. I’m not a wlw, not a lesbian and not even a woman, so I prefer to abstain from comments on it. The whole thing is complicated and I don’t think a voice outside of the wlw community or the lesbian community is needed here.

Some other notes on diversity: there are more queer characters and more characters of color in ACOWAR. Thesan, the High Lord of the Dawn Court, and his male lover; Nephelle and her wife; Helion, who is described as having “dark skin”, Lucien, who is revealed as being biracial (he’s Helion’s son, after all, though I don’t remember Maas mentioning that he has darker skin than his (half) brothers until this book), and some other character here and there. With the exception of Lucien, all of them are minor characters, and Thesan’s lover and Nephelle and her wife don’t even speak. In fact, I don’t think Nephelle’s wife and Thesan’s lover even have names.

So. Yeah.

Which brings us to another thing I wanted to talk about: the worldbuilding of this series and how much of a mess it is sometimes. Something I’ll never understand is why Maas never bothered to name the human queens, for example (with the exception of Vessa), or even her kingdoms. I mean, have no idea of where these kingdoms are. In fact, I didn’t even know (or remember) that there were other faerie kingdoms besides Hybern and the Seven Courts.

But what really bothered me was how SJM tried to retcon her world into being queer friendly while still making it heteronormative.

There was no mention of queer characters in book one and two, as far as I can remember. They simply didn’t exist. And well, the fae are really, really heteronormative and exorsexist. There is only male and female and 99% of the time it is assumed that a male must want a female, and a female must want a male, and that everyone, regardless of gender, must want someone else as well. I mean, look at the mating bonds – they are many times described as something primitive, that the males can’t resist, and in ACOWAR Rhy even admits mating bonds probably only exist as a way to provide the strongest offspring:

“A mating bond can be rejected,” Rhys said mildly, eyes flickering in the mirror as he drank in every inch of bare skin I had on display. “There is choice. And sometimes, yes—the bond picks poorly. Sometimes, the bond is nothing more than some … preordained guesswork at who will provide the strongest offspring. At its basest level, it’s perhaps only that. Some natural function, not an indication of true, paired souls.” A smile at me—at the rareness, perhaps, of what we had. “Even so,” Rhys went on, “there will always be a … tug. For the females, it is usually easier to ignore, but the males … It can drive them mad. It is their burden to fight through, but some believe they are entitled to the female. Even after the bond is rejected, they see her as belonging to them. Sometimes they return to challenge the male she chooses for herself. Sometimes it ends in death. It is savage, and it is ugly, and it mercifully does not happen often, but … Many mated pairs will try to make it work, believing the Cauldron selected them for a reason. Only years later will they realize that perhaps the pairing was not ideal in spirit.”

The Fae’s masculinity is more often than not extremely toxic. Extremely feral and territorial. Usually because of the bond, something apparently biological that exists to provide “the strongest offspring”.

The foundations of this society are built on heteronormativity, sexism and amatonormativity.

And yet it is queer-friendly, with the exception of the Court of Nightmares, Mor’s home. No one blinks at the very minor queer couples. Not even Feyre, who was raised a human beyond the wall, which one can understand as being a indicative that humans are also queer friendly.

And yet there were no queer people, or at least no hint that queer people could at least exist, in 2/3 of the series.

Now, I’m not saying the fae society should be queerphobic. Far from that. But in my opinion? Maas didn’t even think about including queer characters (or POC) until people criticized her for her lack of diversity (which, fine, it happens to straight cis allo white authors), but then she didn’t do the work to actually make her queer-friendly society believable based on what she had already established. If no one bats an eyelash at Thesan and his male lover or at Nephelle and her wife or at Helion and his many male and female lovers, than why was Mor assumed straight all this time? Yes, I know she came from the Court of Nightmares, but most characters didn’t. As far as the reader knows, the other characters grew up in a queer-friendly world, and not one of them suspected she might not be straight?

Why is the assumption that everyone is straight a thing in a mostly queer-friendly world?

And how does the bond work for same sex couples? Does it exist? If not (I think not, since it is a “we need STRONG offspring” thing), then how does that difference influences the way straight couples and queer couples are seen? Or it doesn’t? And if doesn’t, then why is the mating bond such a big deal?

(WHY why W H Y does it exist at all???)

We just don’t know.

And that’s what really bothers me. Maas’s world is extremely heteronormative, cisnormative, exorsexist, amatonormative and so on, and yet she tries to mask everything with some worldbuilding elements that make no sense. It’s the same thing for how abuse is handled – ACOWAR is full of conversations about consent where Rhys tells Feyre he doesn’t own her, that she is free to do as she wants, etc, but not once does it acknowledge that what Rhys did to Feyre Under the Mountain was a violation of her consent. That it was abuse. Everything is explained away with “well, I did it to save you“, which isn’t exactly nice.

As for the story… there are some good elements in it. I liked Lucien and Feyre’s moments, for example (Lucien is in fact my favorite character in this series and I’m still pissed that SJM made him have a bond just to make him miserable) (and pissed that the abuse he suffered in Tamlin’s hands wasn’t recognized) and despite some things (aka the men being ridiculous) I really enjoyed the meeting of the High Lords. But this is the weakest novel in the trilogy for me. The writing I liked in ACOTAR is gone, as is that amazing atmosphere that made me want to read reading it, and the sex scenes continue to be truly awful (not only awful. Dreadful. Embarrassing. Maybe romance novels have been spoiling me, because SJM’s sex scenes are so terrifyingly bad). The ending here is rushed and lacks tension. So many things were badly handled – there was so much build up to the Ouroboroes mirror, for example, for 0 payoff, and no one will ever convince me that the Weaver and the Bone Carver didn’t die so Feyre & Cia didn’t need to deal with them being free. It was so obvious that Maas didn’t want Feyre and Rhys to deal with two powerful death-gods free in the upcoming spin-off series.

Also, Amren and Rhys dying and coming back from the dead? So cheap. As much as I like Amren, at least her should’ve continued dead. Bringing them back was such a cheap move, and the whole scene was also so bad. It’s like Maas was running out of time to write it.

Also, Lucien was away for like, 60% of the book, which was extremely disappointing.

In conclusion, this wasn’t a good book. The latter half in especial was bad, rushed and not fun to read. I have no idea of which story Maas will tell in the spin-off series. My only interest in it is in the possibility of it being about Lucien, but if she makes a love triangle between him, Elain and Azriel…. ugh.

2.0 stars for A Court of Wings and Ruin.

[angryelves2-blog]

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

★★★

Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children No Solicitations No Visitors No Guests Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else. But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children. Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world. But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter. No matter the cost. 

My feelings for this book are… complicated. I’ve been hearing about it for months, mainly because of its asexual main character, but I didn’t pick it up for many reasons. I’m not a fan of shorter stories, for one (I think Every Heart a Doorway is a novella or novellete? It’s ~170 pages long on my tablet), and even though the premise did sound interesting it just wasn’t my thing. But this book has been everyone’s first choice when it comes to asexual representation in SFF, so I wanted to check it out to know what to say when people ask me about it.

First, the story itself: I enjoyed the first 30-40% of the book a lot. The writing is really good and the atmosphere the author created is fantastic. But honestly, my favorite thing about Every Heart a Doorway were the other worlds, the ones the children ended up going (and leaving). They sounded so interesting and original, and I’d love to read a story set in any of them. The story kind of flounders in the second half, though, for many reasons: the murder mystery just isn’t that interesting and, which is worse, it just isn’t that mysterious either; the characters don’t develop at all; the climax is weak and lacks real tension; the resolution also feels too easy… And, of course, the protagonist isn’t that good. She doesn’t do anything. I don’t understand why Nancy is even the main character of this story: she doesn’t make any critical choices, she doesn’t advance the plot, she is just… there, watching things happen. That isn’t to say I hated her, but, well, she is unnecessary. The story could happen just fine without her. Now, the ace rep: it’s… good. But like… it’s Asexuality 101 for (at least in my opinion) non-aces. It feels very impersonal and didactic (same for the trans rep, though I’m happy overall with how the trans character was handled – TW for transphobia, though it is called out in the text), and though the author gets some things right (aesthetic attraction, for example) it doesn’t deal that well with the difference between romantic attraction and sexual attraction. At the beginning of the book Nancy affirms she can be romantically attracted to people. Some time later, she thinks about how she likes kissing, holding hands, about how she had boyfriends in elementary school but that puberty changed the rules (aka sexual attraction entered the scene) and she started to notice she was different. But then, by the end of the book she says she doesn’t date anyone. Not girls. Not boys. Nada. Which is just confusing and contradictory? Unless “date” here was used to mean “have sex”, which I’ve never seen happen, but well, I’m not a native English speaker. And to make things even weirder, the author uses both “aromantic” and “asexual” in the book to make it very clear that Nancy isn’t aromantic. So, why the no dating thing later? Figuring out your sexuality and romantic orientation can be confusing, of course, so it’s possible that Nancy was still trying to understand what she feels (or doesn’t feel). But the story doesn’t frame it like that. There is not one scene in Every Heart a Doorway where Nancy feels confused or unsure about her identity. The book just… contradicts itself. Which, taking in consideration how scarce aromantic and asexual characters are, isn’t exactly nice.

In conclusion, Every Heart a Doorway starts strong, but gets a little lost in its second half. The ace and trans rep is good, but it feels mostly for allosexual and cis people. 3.0 stars.        

[angryelves2-blog]

Blank Spaces by Cass Lennox

★★★★★

Absence is as crucial as presence.

The decision to stop dating has made Vaughn Hargrave’s life infinitely simpler: he has friends, an excellent wardrobe, and a job in the industry he loves. That’s all he really needs, especially since sex isn’t his forte anyway and no one else seems interested in a purely romantic connection. But when a piece is stolen from his art gallery and insurance investigator Jonah Sondern shows up, Vaughn finds himself struggling with that decision.

Jonah wants his men like his coffee: hot, intense, and daily. But Vaughn seems to be the one gay guy in Toronto who doesn’t do hookups, which is all Jonah can offer. No way can Jonah give Vaughn what he really wants, not when Jonah barely understands what love is.

When another painting goes missing, tension ramps up both on and off the clock. Vaughn and Jonah find themselves grappling not just with stolen art, but with their own differences. Because a guy who wants nothing but romance and a guy who wants nothing but sex will never work—right? Not unless they find a way to fill in the spaces between them.

So, I loved this book.

Like, really, really loved it.

One of the reasons is fairly obvious: one of the main characters, Vaughn, is ace, and he’s one of the best ace characters I’ve ever read (granted that they aren’t many, but Vaughn was great). The author is ace too if I’m not mistaken, which would explain how Vaughn’s experiences felt so genuine to me. In fact, I think that’s one of the first times where I identified almost completely with an ace character based on said character’s experiences/feelings about their asexuality. It was that good.

I also liked Jonah, but obviously didn’t relate that much to him since he’s Vaughn’s opposite and sleeps around a lot + sees sex as something essential. I still found him an interesting character, though, and like how the author handled his inner conflict.

Another reason I liked Blank Spaces so much is that the relationship between Jonah and Vaughn is awesome. I enjoyed how it developed and how they interacted with each other, and loved how they resolved their issues re: sex. Mixed relationships (ace char + allo char) aren’t rare in the few books with ace main characters out there (in fact, they are the norm) but what is rare is that the allo char accepts that the ace char isn’t okay with sex. Usually the ace char is the one who has to compromise and that’s beyond annoying (and sends a not so nice message to all aces). So I’m glad it worked out differently in Blank Spaces.

The mystery of who robbed the painting was the only weak thread in the book for me. It was fairly obvious who the thief was & the Agatha Christie fan in me is totally against everything being solved by chance. Still, I don’t think this subplot was meant to be important? I mean, it was obviously what brought the main characters together, but to me it didn’t feel like we should care much about who was stealing the paintings. YMMV though.

Last reason I liked this book is simple: the characters. All of them were well developed and even the secondary characters felt fleshed out/real (with the exception of Maurice, who was kind of cartoonish to me). Vaughn was by far my favorite. His love for art was adorable, as was every single of his quirks. He’s so interesting and fresh and relatable it was a pleasure to see the story through his eyes.

So, 5.0 stars for Blank Spaces. I can’t wait to read more from this author.

[angryelves2-blog]

i just read your lady midnight review and i'm in tears. i'm aromantic as well and as much as i love cc's books and TDA generally as a series the arophobia within hurt me deeply. i'm still yearning for romantic love but after 20yrs of my life trying to force myself to feel it with no luck so far, i've asumed my romantic orientation or really lack thereof. the quote that got me the most was 'there was beauty in the idea of freedom, but it was an illusion. every human heart was chained by love' [1]

like everything was ok and i loved the characters and the main love story but did you really have to say that? you really had to outright deny the fact that love can exist outside of the concept of property, that people belong to other people and their hearts are owned by them and if they are freedom is nonexistent. those... things... have not... correlation... whatsoever? it's hurtful to young aro people. i will continue to read tda, i like it, but now i know how much personally it'll hurt     

this is what makes me more angry/sad, nony: all of these arophobic quotes/concepts/ideas/whatever, could have been easily avoided. there was absolutely no need for her to use this quote or for her to have the main conflict of her story be about how much stronger and meaningful romantic love is. but this is something i see a lot, especially when people try to defend romance (the genre or the romantic subplots in other genre books), that is, they need to make romantic love seem like something great that makes us all human, something sublime and divine, so people won’t be assholes to romance writers & readers. which, fine, i get it. i know how people can be (and are) shitty when it comes to romance readers/writers, but it’s not necessary to dehumanize & to hurt aromantic people to defend the genre (or the romantic subplots in other genres).

just yesterday i read a post that did just that: it praised romance (rightfully so), but there was the obligatory line about how romance makes us all human. people don’t even notice when they do this, when they use harmful language to aromantic (and asexual) ppl, and most won’t understand why these seemingly “small” things hurt us so much (though the author of the post apologized and changed the phrasing, which was honestly unexpected but very appreciated). i’m a romance reader - i love romance, despite the fact that i never had a crush in my life. but it is exhausting to read romance and sff books with romantic plotlines only to find quotes, comments by characters or just concepts and plot points that reinforce that idea that i’m not human, that there is something wrong with me or that i’m missing out on the thing that defines humanity. these things hurt and i wish more people were aware of that.

sorry, nony, this got long... but that’s to say that i absolutely understand you and i’m sorry you will have to deal with more arophobic shit on the next tda books. this isn’t right and we shouldn’t have to go through it just to read the books we enjoy ): 

[angryelves2-blog]

Frost Like Night by Sara Raasch

★★

Angra is alive, his Decay is spreading—and no one is safe. Meira will do anything to save her world. With Angra trying to break through her mental defenses, she desperately needs to learn to control her own magic—so when the leader of a mysterious Order from Paisly offers to teach her, she jumps at the chance. But the true solution to stopping the Decay lies in a labyrinth deep beneath the Season Kingdoms. To defeat Angra, Meira will have to enter the labyrinth, destroy the very magic she’s learning to control—and make the biggest sacrifice of all. Mather will do anything to save his queen. He needs to rally the Children of the Thaw, find Meira—and finally tell her how he really feels. But with a plan of attack that leaves no kingdom unscathed and a major betrayal within their ranks, winning the war—and protecting Meira—slips farther and farther out of reach. Ceridwen will do anything to save her people. Angra had her brother killed, stole her kingdom, and made her a prisoner. But when she’s freed by an unexpected ally who reveals a shocking truth behind Summer’s slave trade, Ceridwen must take action to save her true love and her kingdom, even if it costs her what little she has left. As Angra unleashes the Decay on the world, Meira, Mather, and Ceridwen must bring the kingdoms of Primoria together…or lose everything. 

This series was such a disappointment to me.

I liked the first book, Snow Like Ashes, even though it was kind of cliché. It had strong characters, good writing & a nice world. The second book, Ice Like Fire, wasn’t nearly as good as the first though, so I was weary of what Frost Like Night would bring. Unfortunately, I liked it even less.

I’m not sure I can tell what was the problem exactly, but I couldn’t connect with the characters. Everything felt too easy, too nice, too convenient. Even though I liked Meira’s development, as in, objectively I could see it was there, I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel anything with what happened in this book. Maybe because nothing about it was subtle – it was too obvious, too on the reader’s face, much like a cheesy movie.

It was boring, to speak plainly. Nothing new or original happened. There were no surprises and no scenes where I felt that the characters were in danger and no moment where I was happy for them or anything. I also didn’t like Theron’s plotline and the romance didn’t grab me even thought Meira ended up with the one I liked more. The ending was also too convenient.

Overall, I did not like this book at all. I’m still planning on reading Raasch’s new series, but I confess that now I’m not that excited anymore. 2.0 stars.

[angryelves2-blog]

Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare

★

In a secret world where half-angel warriors are sworn to fight demons, parabatai is a sacred word. A parabatai is your partner in battle. A parabatai is your best friend. Parabatai can be everything to each other—but they can never fall in love. Emma Carstairs is a warrior, a Shadowhunter, and the best in her generation. She lives for battle. Shoulder to shoulder with her parabatai, Julian Blackthorn, she patrols the streets of Los Angeles, where vampires party on the Sunset Strip, and faeries—the most powerful of supernatural creatures—teeter on the edge of open war with Shadowhunters. When the bodies of humans and faeries turn up murdered in the same way Emma’s parents were when she was a child, an uneasy alliance is formed. This is Emma’s chance for revenge—and Julian’s chance to get back his brother Mark, who is being held prisoner by the faerie Courts. All Emma, Mark, and Julian have to do is solve the murders within two weeks…and before the murderer targets them. Their search takes Emma from sea caves full of sorcery to a dark lottery where death is dispensed. And each clue she unravels uncovers more secrets. What has Julian been hiding from her all these years? Why does Shadowhunter Law forbid parabatai to fall in love? Who really killed her parents—and can she bear to know the truth? 

So, months ago I wrote a review for Clare’s The Mortal Instruments in preparation for the release of Lady Midnight, but, as it’s probably obvious now, I never wrote a review for Lady Midnight despite having read it. Why? Well, I hated it. A lot.

Spoilers for the whole book below.

To be honest, I didn’t hate the book while I was reading it. As far as Clare’s books go, Lady Midnight wasn’t as bad as City of Heavenly Fire, for example. The characters were still bland & the characterization was still forced and clumsy, the romance was still melodramatic and annoying and the narrative still treated the protagonists as if they could do no wrong, but I liked the plot – I liked how Emma was determined to find her parents’ murderers & and I even enjoyed how she went from point A to point B aka how she solved the mystery. Mark, Julian’s half-brother who is also half-faerie & spent years as a prisoner with the faeries, was my favorite character, and the one that could have been interesting. Julian and Emma were Clary and Jace gender-swapped for me.

My problem with this book begins & ends with how it treats romantic & platonic relationships. Julian and Emma’s big drama is that they are parabatai & for some reason parabatai can’t fall in love. It’s forbidden. Now, parabatai are warriors deeply linked by platonic love – that is, their friendship is so strong they are basically platonic life-partners.

It sounds like queerplatonic relationships, doesn’t it? It does. I know that just me projecting (obviously), but well, it contributes to how I feel about the book’s revelation at the ending.

Again: spoilers.

In the final chapters of Lady Midnight, Emma finally finds out why parabatai can’t fall in love. It’s because the parabatai ceremony increases the power of each parabatai, making the runes they make on each other stronger, but here is the catch: if the bond between them grows too close aka becomes romantic love, the runes become so strong they basically turn both parabatai in overpowered, power hungry monsters.

That’s right. The story clearly implies that romantic love is stronger than platonic love. I wouldn’t even say it implies – it says it outright.

That made me furious. I couldn’t believe the book was really going to die on this hill as I read the final chapters. After finishing it, then, I searched for reviews, to see if someone had said anything about it, but I found nothing. Not one review mentioned how wrong it is to say that romantic love is stronger than platonic love. At least, I didn’t find any, and if I’m being honest that’s what kept from writing this review for so long. I kept thinking that I was exaggerating since no one had said anything. But then again, it’s almost impossible to find aromantic bloggers out there.

What I did find, though, was an ask Cassandra Clare answered on her tumblr. You can read it here, but basically: someone pointed out that romantic love isn’t stronger than platonic love & Clare answered saying that nowhere in the book any character says it is.

Look. That’s what made me really mad. I pride myself in my reading comprehension and the book made it clear as water that romantic love is stronger than platonic love.

Here’s part of Clare’s answer:

Neither Jem (nor anyone else) indicates that romantic love is more powerful and that’s the cause of the parabatai curse. Romantic love is not more powerful or special than familial or platonic love, it is simply different in kind. The love someone feels for their mother is not the same love they have for their wife or husband. That doesn’t make either love stronger or better.

Here’s an excerpt from Lady Midnight:

“Ideally, the ceremony increases each parabatai’s power – runes given to each other are stronger – and the closer the personal bond, the greater the power. […] It was not long after the ritual had been in use for some generations,” Jem said, lowering his voice, “that it was discovered that if the bond was too close, if it tipped into romantic love – then it would being to warp and change the kind of power that was generated by the spell. One-sided love, a crush even, all that seems to pass by the rule – but real, requited, romantic love? It had a terrible cost.”

You can’t get clearer than that. I mean, just look at this: the closer the personal bond, the greater power  + if the bond was too close, if it tipped into romantic love. If the problem was the bond being too close in general, it wouldn’t make sense to forbid only romantic relationships between parabatai. It would make sense to forbid all relationships that were too close, but only romantic relationships were forbidden, which implies that only romantic relationships can reach this level of closeness. It’s obvious that yes, the book says with all letters that romantic love is stronger/more intense & that it brings people closer than platonic love.

The fact that the author tried to make it seem like none of her characters said anything arophobic only makes it worse. It’s literally in the book & anyone can read it, and yes, it is arophobic. The idea that romantic love is somehow more important than platonic love is always arophobic and it is an idea that needs to die. I feel like I talk about it all the time, but one of the roots of the dehumanization aromantic people suffer from is the idea that romantic love makes us human, that romantic love is the most powerful and meaningful kind of love. If that’s true – if romantic love is really more important, powerful, meaningful, if it really is what makes us human – that how can aromantic people be human?

One of the most common arophobic stereotypes is that aromantic people are heartless, cruel and manipulative, all that because many of us never feel romantic love. I’m not exaggerating when I say, then, that keeping this idea that romantic love is more important/meaningful/what makes us human alive is actively harmful to aromantic people and that’s exactly what Clare does in Lady Midnight.

Back in my review of The Mortal Instruments I talked about how disappointed I was by the end of the last book. What first made me pick up City of Bones was the promise of a story that was fun & that wouldn’t focus too much on romance, but by the time I was done with the series I was sick of how Clare killed only the characters who weren’t in a relationship (cof Raphael cof, which, as I’ve also already talked about in my review of TMI, is a latinx character who is also aroace by word of the author and the only one who dies in the final chapters of City of Heavenly Fire). It’s pretty obvious to me that romantic relationships are what Clare is really worried about – which wouldn’t be a problem if the series hadn’t started as urban fantasy and not paranormal romance & if the single characters/aroace character weren’t thrown away because of this.

Honestly, I can’t think of another series that is so alienating and harmful to aromantic people as the Shadowhunters series is. In Clare’s books if you are 15+ and aren’t in a romantic relationship you don’t matter and is probably going to die soon. I’m not even kidding. There is this feeling of if you are not in a romantic relationship it is not worth to tell a story with you in it all over the books, or at least that’s the idea I get.

After Lady Midnight‘s disastrous and arophobic ending & Clare’s awful answer on her tumblr, I’m completely okay with saying that I’m done with her books and with her as an author. I’d only touch another book of hers if I was being paid for it – and even then it would need to be a lot of money. 1.0 star.

[angryelves2-blog]

Timekeeper by Tara Sim

★★★★

In an alternate Victorian world controlled by clock towers, a damaged clock can fracture time—and a destroyed one can stop it completely. It’s a truth that seventeen-year-old clock mechanic Danny Hart knows all too well; his father has been trapped in a Stopped town east of London for three years. Though Danny is a prodigy who can repair not only clockwork, but the very fabric of time, his fixation with staging a rescue is quickly becoming a concern to his superiors. And so they assign him to Enfield, a town where the tower seems to be forever plagued with problems. Danny’s new apprentice both annoys and intrigues him, and though the boy is eager to work, he maintains a secretive distance. Danny soon discovers why: he is the tower’s clock spirit, a mythical being that oversees Enfield’s time. Though the boys are drawn together by their loneliness, Danny knows falling in love with a clock spirit is forbidden, and means risking everything he’s fought to achieve. But when a series of bombings at nearby towers threaten to Stop more cities, Danny must race to prevent Enfield from becoming the next target or he’ll not only lose his father, but the boy he loves, forever. 

I received an ARC of this book in exchange of an honest review.

Timekeeper is the kind of book that has a lot of stuff I don't like but that still manages to be entertaining and, well, good. Explaining: my relationship with romance in books is complicated. I quite like reading a romance (though I'm very, very picky) but I dislike non-romance books where the romance is the focus or the main force behind the plot. Or books that go on and on about the power of (romantic) love and blah blah blah (I'm aromantic, so yeah).

Timekeeper, fortunately, doesn't go around singing praises to romantic love, but it is very romantic-centric even if Danny and Colton's relationship isn't the main source of conflict in the story. Three romantic relationships are what moves this book (Danny and Colton's, Danny's parents' and one that is a spoiler) and, well, usually that would piss me off. Not because it isn't a valid thing to do in a book or anything like that, but, well, my aromantic soul relates to 0 of that and is 0% interested in stories like this. They usually bore me to death. A story about the power of love? Yes. A story about the power of platonic love? More yes. A story about the power of romantic love? Ehh, not interested.

But Timekeeper is simply... delightful. I loved the worldbuilding. Loved it. And like, I definitely am not a fan of steampunk. Quite the contrary, actually, but I loved the world Sim built in this book. It is refreshing, original and so cool. The characters are also really good, as are their relationships. Danny and her mother's especially is very well done and his romance with Colton is cute and beautiful.

And Danny himself is such a sympathetic character. I was screaming with him through at least half of this book, because people were so unfair to him sometimes and it made me so mad. And even though the book is kinda slow and the plot kinda... sparse?... I did not feel bored. Not once.

But there is that: the plot isn't given much attention. At times I felt like Danny was just running around waiting for the next big thing instead of, you know, acting to make said big thing happen. That is too say, the plot felt kind of like background noise to the characters & their relationships, which is weird and should've sunk this book for me, but well, I'm glad it didn't happen.

The writing lost a little of its quality in the last 10/15% or so of the book, though, and the little interludes about Aetas and the other gods were kind of unnecessary in my opinion. They didn't reveal nothing that the characters hadn't mentioned before. but nothing serious. I can't wait to read the next books. 4.0 stars.

[angryelves2-blog]

Assasins: Discord by Erica Cameron

★★★½ 

Kindra’s moral compass has never pointed north, but that’s what happens when you’re raised as an assassin and a thief. At sixteen, she’s fantastic with a blade, an expert at slipping through the world unnoticed, and trapped in a life she didn’t chose. But nothing in her training prepares her for what happens when her father misses a target. In the week-long aftermath, Kindra breaks rank for the first time in her life. She steals documents, starts questioning who their client is and why the target needs to die, botches a second hit on her father’s target, and is nearly killed. And that’s before she’s kidnapped by a green-eyed stranger connected to a part of her childhood she’d almost forgotten. Kindra has to decide who to trust and which side of the battle to fight for. She has to do it fast and she has to be right, because the wrong choice will kill her just when she’s finally found something worth living for. 

I received an ARC of this book in exchange of an honest review.

Being completely honest: I wasn't expecting a lot from this book. I'm not the biggest fan of assassins in modern days so I went into Assassins: Discord with very low expectations. And well, I was surprised (at first, at least).

First, because of the writing. I loved it. It's sharp and efficient and totally fits the tone of the book and the story. Second, because the first half of this book is absolutely breathtaking. I-need-to-find-out-what-happens-now kind of breathtaking. Assassins: Discord has everything a good action movie would have: assassination attempts (duh), car chases, bombs exploding, lots of guns and knives, etc. It is good. Really good.

But then the story kind of loses its steam after the midpoint. That is, more or less when Kindra and Dru get stuck together (kind of), which is sad because the world needs more f/f couples, but they didn't work for me. I didn't dislike them or anything, but I didn't really feel their romance. It happens way too fast and since Assassins: Discord is a very plot-driven book, the characters don't have much space to be, let alone to build relationships. I found the romance kind of awkward.

To my surprise, the more well-developed characters for me were Odira, Amett and Sera, Kindra's parents and sister. I didn't like them (is it even possible to like Odira?), but they seemed very real, which many of the other characters didn't do. Odira's characterization in particular was very well done, but overall, I don't think the characters are this book's strong point. Honestly, though, I would have loved it anyway if the story didn't sag after 50%. And, well, I can't point out exactly why that happened - maybe the pacing? The not so interesting chase? The complete change of scenery/characters?

Anyway, I will read the next volume if I have the opportunity, but it isn't my priority.

I do appreciate how diverse Assassins: Discord is, though. Kindra herself is bi, Dru is either bi or lesbian, there is an intersex character (very minor but it's there) and an asexual character.

Unfortunately, the character who maybe would have made me want to read the next book isn't going to show up again, so there is that. 3.5 stars.

[angryelves2-blog]

Interborough by Santino Hassell

★★★★★

The Raymond Rodriguez from a few years ago wouldn’t recognize the guy he is today. He’s left his slacker ways far behind him and is now juggling two jobs and school. But the balancing act doesn’t allow much time for the man he loves.

David is doing his best to be supportive, but problems at work and his own insecurity leave him frustrated—in more ways than the obvious—whenever he goes to bed before Raymond gets home. The heat and affection between them is still there, but they barely have the time or energy to enjoy it. And it doesn’t help that Raymond is still hiding David from his colleagues.

The stress mounts so high that a vacation in paradise is filled with turmoil instead of harmony, and culminates on their return to the five boroughs with broken promises and heartache. They have to figure out how to stop allowing their differences to overshadow their love. It’s the only way they’ll make it to forever.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange of an honest review.

I was about to start writing this review when I realized I didn’t write reviews for the first 3 books in the Five Boroughs series, which is a crime. Five Boroughs is probably my favorite romance series ever; I didn’t like the first book, Sutphin Boulevard, that much, sure, but I really enjoyed the third, First & First, and absolutely loved the second, Sunset Park, where Raymond & David’s story begins. And by loved I mean I finished this book and suddenly all books were awful by comparison and I need to read it again right now kind of loved. So yeah, I was really excited for Interborough, which is about Raymond and David again, and I’m happy to say I’m not disappointed. At all.

What makes me really love this series is how real the characters are. Even when I don’t like them that much – I’m not the biggest Michael or Caleb fan around, for example – I can see that they are very well developed and, well, real. In Interborough it isn’t different; David and Raymond have completely different voices and are completely different, independent characters, which is why I love their romance so much. I love how they have to work for their relationship, how they have to change & understand each other better if they want to stay together.

I also a firm believer that love isn’t enough when it comes to any kind of relationship, romantic or not, so characters having to deal with their differences is like, my kryptonite. The conflict here in Interborough is real, not at all forced, natural, the kind I find much more likely to see in real life because it comes from the characters & how they interact with each other (and since the characters are, as I said before, super real, it works really well).  

I’ve seen many people saying Five Boroughs is a bit darker than your average romance series, but that’s another reason I like it. I don’t even find it dark, just realistic, which I love (weird coming from a fantasy reader like me, but in romance I reaaally do not like it when the conflict is forced/coming out of nowhere/just there to make the main couple fight. I like a good angst, but give me a reason for it to exist first).

The writing is also really good & I really liked the secondary characters. We finally meet Tonya here and I loved her (can we have a Meredith/Tonya book in the future? That would be awesome), though Chris is probably still my favorite from Ray’s crew. I also appreciate how this book & the series in general treats its female characters. M/M is famous for being kind of (or even extremely) misogynist but the women here are awesome & treated well by the narrative.

Anyway, Interborough is an amazing book. I can’t wait to read the next one (or anything Hassell publishes, really). 5.0 stars.

[angryelves2-blog]

Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas

★★★

The long path to the throne has only just begun for Aelin Galathynius. Loyalties have been broken and bought, friends have been lost and gained, and those who possess magic find themselves at odds with those don't. As the kingdoms of Erilea fracture around her, enemies must become allies if Aelin is to keep those she loves from falling to the dark forces poised to claim her world. With war looming on all horizons, the only chance for salvation lies in a desperate quest that may mark the end of everything Aelin holds dear. Aelin's journey from assassin to queen has entranced millions across the globe, and this fifth installment will leave fans breathless. Will Aelin succeed in keeping her world from splintering, or will it all come crashing down? 

(MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!)

So, before talking about what I thought of Empire of Storms I have to say something: I have a really complicated relationship with SJM's books. I found Throne of Glass awful, but after some friends told me that the series got better I decided to read the rest. Crown of Midnight was, for me, mediocre, but I kept reading and to my surprise really enjoyed both Heir of Fire and Queen of Shadows, even though I knew some stuff in this series was just... bad. Really bad.

Like the blatant racism. Or how cisheteronormative it is.

In Heir of Fire we had a very, very minor queer couple and I thought they were sign that Maas would add more queer characters to her series, but when Queen of Shadows came out... Nothing. Instead of the queer characters I thought we would have, we got what seemed to be more straight couples (Manon x Dorian and Lysandra x Aedion, for example). In fact, the only good thing re: representation in Queen of Shadows was Nesryn, the only important (well, kind of) woman of color still alive in TOG.

I had no hopes for Empire of Storms because of that and, to be honest, I really dislike how most of the straight couples in the series are build/developed, too. Or, to be fair, I hate the whole "Fae are males, humans are men" thing because it just reeks of toxic masculinity. Now, I'm not saying all Fae males are abusive or whatever or that Fae males can't be sweet and caring, but I just... hate how awfully and stereotypically masculine they all are. I'm a transmasculine person, so I identify more with masculinity than with femininity, so no, this is not me saying masculinity is bad, but this kind of masculinity? The dominating, feral type? Not interested. Not even a little bit. Actually, it is one of the main reasons I barely read M/F romance nowadays (and when I do, at least one of the characters is queer).

So it's easy to conclude I couldn't care less about Rowan. Or Lorcan. Or Fenrys. Or Gavriel. Out of the men/males of TOG, Dorian and Aedion are the only ones I care about, and even Aedion has some macho tendencies. So yeah, I'm not reading this series for the ships. To be honest, I feel like I'm still reading this series despite the ships, since I dislike most of them.

Even Lorcan and Elide, the new ship of Empire of Storms, frustrates me, because oh my god another straight couple but mostly because Elide/Manon would've been a much better ship with a much better story/development/chemistry. I mean, where are the queer girls of the TOG? Why make Manon out of all characters straight? Unless I'm missing someone, all queer characters in TOG are men, even the ones that super, hyper minor/insignificant (and they are all cis. I don't even dare to hope for trans or non-binary characters in these books).  

In Empire of Storms it is made clear that Aedion is bisexual and at first I was really, really happy about it (I've been headcanoning him as bisexual since he first showed up), but bisexual readers have pointed out that his ""coming out"" was in fact offensive (here is a thread about it). I consider myself to be in the multisexual spectrum, though I identify as queer instead of bisexual, polysexual or pansexual, and since I'm also aroace my experience as m-spec person is really different from that of a non-aroace bisexual. I don't feel like I have any kind of "authority" to talk about this issue, but I obviously trust the m-spec readers harmed  by how SJM portrayed Aedion's bisexuality.

Though I have to say: criticizing how Aedion's bisexuality was portrayed just because he isn't dating a man is biphobia. Bisexual people don't have to date someone of their gender for them to count as queer characters. TOG lacks same-gender couples? Hell yes, it does. But shitting on bi people is not the way to solve this.  

Anyway, there is also the issue of Chaol. I'm not a fan of him, but I don't hate him or anything. He annoys me a little but I can see he is a good character - he just isn't my type of character. And he isn't in Empire of Storms. I can understand why - the book would have to be really long to include his chapters - Maas is still sidelining one of her two disabled characters (because, yes, you guys, Elide still exists).

All of this to say that yes, TOG is a very problematic and offensive series. I still like it, to a degree, but it's impossible to deny how it is basically White Feminism in fantasyland, and as far as I can see, the author doesn't seem to willing to change this.

Now onto the story itself... I liked it. It is a very long book and it does drag in the middle, but the beginning and the ending are really good. I liked Manon's chapters the best (that scene in the beginning is just so good) and Elide's and Lorcan's the least. Needless to say, I didn't like the couples and their scenes - and, yes, SJM's sex scenes are still awful. Overall it was still a very enjoyable book (I did read it one day, after all).

But some stuff bothered me, and all of them are spoilers, and spoilers for Empire of Storms, A Court of Mist and Fury and Ice like Fire (by Sara Raasch). So you've been warned: SPOILERS AHEAD.

One thing: Empire of Storms is A Court of Mist and Fury 2.0.

The endings are just too similar. A male Fae (Lorcan/Tamlin) betrays the Good Guys to supposedly save the woman (Elide/Feyre) he loves; the main couple (Aelin & Rowan/Feyre & Rhysand) marry in secret and it revealed to the readers later in the climax/right after the climax; the protagonist (Aelin/Feyre) is taken away by (one of) the villain(s); it is later revealed that the kidnapping was the protagonist's plan; and so on.

Hell, even the plot is kinda similar. Feyre & Cia have to find a book in ACOMAF; Aelin & Cia have to find three keys in TOG. It's just... too much of the same thing.

And you know how Aelin realizes she has to die to save everyone and everything? It's just too much like Sara Raasch's Ice Like Fire, where Meira finds out she has to die to defeat Angra. I'm not saying SJM plagiarized Raasch or anything, but it just shows how generic the whole plot is. I've seen it a thousand times before. It's not new and it's not exciting.

At last, there is SJM's obsession with making every single characters super, mega beautiful. It's distracting and honestly a little ridiculous. She exaggerates too much in her descriptions of the characters (which also happens in her sex scenes) and the result is too artificial and not a little bit convincing.

Still, I like TOG. I'm not even sure why but I want to know what happens next. Maybe it's the amount of female characters? Or the (sometimes) interesting worldbuilding? We may never know, but one thing is clear: ACOTAR #3 and TOG #6 will be my last SJM books. 3.0 stars.

[angryelves2-blog]

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova

★★★½

Nothing says Happy Birthday like summoning the spirits of your dead relatives. Alex is a bruja, the most powerful witch in a generation...and she hates magic. At her Deathday celebration, Alex performs a spell to rid herself of her power. But it backfires. Her whole family vanishes into thin air, leaving her alone with Nova, a brujo boy she can't trust. A boy whose intentions are as dark as the strange marks on his skin. The only way to get her family back is to travel with Nova to Los Lagos, a land in-between, as dark as Limbo and as strange as Wonderland...

On one hand, urban fantasy isn't really my thing. On the other, I'm always 100% here for latinxs in ANY kind of fantasy. It doesn't even matter that they aren't Brazilian (well, they never are), I get excited anyway.

That's why I picked up Labyrinth Lost as soon as I could and for the first 40% or so I couldn't put it down (really - it was almost 2am when I finally gave up and decided to finish it when I woke up). The reasons for this are many: the mythology is really, really interesting, the plot is gripping and I loved Alex's family's dynamics.

But the story loses some of its steam around 60%, a little after Alex and Nova enter the magical world of Los Lagos. I couldn't see Los Lagos like I wanted to, and it wasn't because it isn't interesting or whatever (I mean, a river of souls? A rainforest that sets itself on fire?), but because of the writing, mainly. Everything happens so fast in Labyrinth Lost that I couldn't help but not feel much for what was happening. The obstacles Alex & Cia have to fight are too easy and in one occasion really, really cliché. The climax is also too easy/rushed, and the story falls somewhat flat because of that.

I still loved it, in a way, though. I'm not Mexican or Puerto Rican or Ecuadorian, but I still could recognize some of my culture in Labyrinth Lost. In fact, what made me rush to pick it up was a post by the author where she explained who are the brujas of Latin America (in countries that speak Spanish, that is) and I realized that we have the same thing here in Brazil, but with other names: razadeiras and benzadeiras. I've already visited some even, thanks to my mother's (really big) family and their (well, our) traditions. And speaking of family, it was nice to see one that looked a lot more like mine than the average white American family do. I chuckled during the Deathday scenes (before everything went to shit, obviously) because it was so much like what happens in my grandma's house in São João.

So, I still keep reading this series. I love the world & the mythology, and the characters are nice enough. I just wish the writing was stronger. 3.5 stars.

PS: I've seen people say there is a love triangle in this book but I don't really think so? Also, Alex is bi and her relationship with Rishi is precious.

[angryelves2-blog]

Age of Myth by Michael J. Sullivan

★★★★

Since time immemorial, humans have worshipped the gods they call Fhrey, truly a race apart: invincible in battle, masters of magic, and seemingly immortal. But when a god falls to a human blade, the balance of power between men and those they thought were gods changes forever. Now, only a few stand between humankind and annihilation: Raithe, reluctant to embrace his destiny as the God Killer, Suri, a young seer burdened by signs of impending doom, and Persephone, who must overcome personal tragedy to lead her people. The Age of Myth is over; the time of rebellion has begun. 

When I saw the blurb of Age of Myth months ago, I knew it was a book I needed to read. It seemed to be kind of fantasy I prefer, that is, a fantasy that is more about fantastical/mystic things, wars, all the good stuff, and not about how awful humanity is (yes, I happen to dislike all things grimdark). I had only read the first book of The Riyria Revelations and had liked it well enough, so I decided to read the whole trilogy before Age of Myth came out. Again, I liked it well enough (maybe I’ll even write a review for the three books in the future), and got even more excited for this book.

I’m happy to say I wasn’t disappointed.

Age of Myth is much better than The Ryria Revelations, at least when it comes to writing and characters. Here they are stronger than ever and it’s easy to root for them and to worry for them. I’m still not sure which one is my favorite because, well, I liked all of them. It was nice to see a woman like Persephone, who has already married & had children, being such a important character. Suri and Minna were also excellent and I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was a queer character (Arion!).

And yes, as you can see, the female characters were the ones that caught my attention the most. The same thing happened in Sullivan’s other books, so I’m not surprised, though I’m happy to see that – so far – not one female character was used to motivate a male character (because that happened in The Riyria Revelations, unfortunately).

But what made me enjoy Age of Myth so much was the fact that I already know how things end thanks to The Riyria Revelations. Or at least I know how people think things ended and it was fascinating to see how different history can be from reality in Elan or how much certain things changed. I mean, why no one talks to trees anymore in present-day Elan? Where all the other gods went? Is the goddess Mari the god Maribor? And how the hell Persephone and Nyphron will end up together? Because I sure as hell can’t see it happening, but well, Sullivan still has other four books to convince me.

The worldbuilding was also really nice. Like I said, I’m a fan of fantasy books that go full on fantasy and make mystic, strange things the norm and that’s what Age of Myth does, especially in the character of Suri. In this aspect the writing was excellent – the book has a “mysterious” atmosphere that makes the world and the setting much more interesting.

Sullivan’s world is still boringly white, though, which makes me more uncomfortable here in Age of Myth than it did in The Riyria Revelations. The Fhrey seeing and treating humans like they are inferior or like animals is a main theme of Age of Myth, but when you take in consideration that both Fhrey and humans – the Rhune – are white… well, things get a little ugly.

In conclusion, Age of Myth is very good read. It has interesting characters and nice writing, though it does have some flaws – its embarrassing whiteness, to be specific. But I still can’t wait to read the next book. 4.0 stars.

[angryelves2-blog]

writing diary #02 - camp nanowrimo

Remember how I said I wouldn't write the second draft of my WIP (#aroaceprincess for those who follow me on Twitter) during Camp NaNoWriMo or NaNoWriMo? Well, I lied. Camp NaNoWriMo is happening this July and well... I've already won it.

To be fair, my goal was very low, only 15.500 words (500 words/day), mainly because I didn't want to write desperately like I did back on NaNoWriMo '15 (when I wrote most of the first draft of #aroaceprincess). Since this was the second draft, I wanted it to be at least nice and not, you know, the ugliness that was the first draft. I prepared myself a lot more - I have now the summary of each book of the trilogy, lots of character profiles and at least a dozen files on worldbuilding. I know what I need to change and what I need to add (and what to take off).

Still, it wasn't as easy as I hoped. I've written 18k words for this second draft and while some parts were super quick to write, others were not. This WIP (now called Queen of Hearts instead of Masked Queen) has three MCs with POV chapters, and one of the them (the queen/princess of hearts herself, Valentina) is honestly a pain to write sometimes. Lori's and Rafael's chapters? Easy (usually). Valentina's? A nightmare.

It took me a while to find out why. I love Valentina. I know her. She's the reason this trilogy exists, even if nowadays Lori and Rafael are just as important as she is. But I just didn't love her initial chapters that much, and that was the problem, and one that was spawning other smaller (but just as annoying) problems the more I wrote. This almost made me throw more than 6k words of the second draft (during Camp NaNo!) in the trash, but thankfully I managed to save almost everything after turning her first chapter into her third or fourth (I don't know yet), writing a new first chapter and deleting 1k words of a scene I scene I really disliked.

Honestly, I can't wait to be done with the first act. Like I said in my previous post about QOH, the first draft I wrote during NaNoWriMo didn't have much of a first act to speak of. It had only six scenes (against twenty-one of the second and seventeen of the third) and was basically the characters going to where the first plot point happens. I didn't spend any time establishing anything in the first draft, and so I had to do all the work now in the second. And, again, it wasn't as easy I'd hoped. I keep worrying about it being too long.

I still need to write more four chapters + finish the one I'm writing right now before I'm done with it, which means I still have to write 15k words or more. This second draft will be way longer than the first one, but that I had already expected.

Now that I'm finally writing it, though, I realized it probably won't the final draft. I knew I would still need to edit a lot of stuff, but for me the second draft would the The Draft, you know, the one where you stop rewriting (or at least stop rewriting the whole thing) and start polishing everything. I'm not so sure now. The writing is honestly my weakness; my English vocabulary isn't that great and I'm far more used to writing in Portuguese, so I know it is a skill I still need to hone a lot more before even thinking of publishing this book (on the internet for free or otherwise). A possible third draft could help with that.

Anyway, I'm excited to finally finish this book.

Which will probably happen before the end of the year, I hope.

[angryelves2-blog]

Actually

The question I get the most is how I write characters that feel like real people. 

Generally when I’m designing a human being, I deconstruct them into 7 major categories:

1. Primary Drive 2. Fear: Major and Secondary 3. Physical Desires 4. Style of self expression 5. How they express affection 6. What controls them (what they are weak for) 7. What part of them will change.

1. Primary Drive: This is generally related to the plot. What are their plot related goals? How are they pulling the plot forward? how do they make decisions? What do they think they’re doing and how do they justify doing it. 2. Fear: First, what is their deep fear? Abandonment? being consumed by power? etc. Second: tiny fears. Spiders. someone licking their neck. Small things that bother them. At least 4. 3. Physical desires. How they feel about touch. What is their perceived sexual/romantic orientation. Do their physical desires match up with their psychological desires.

4. Style of self expression: How they talk. Are they shy? Do they like to joke around and if so, how? Are they anxious or confident internally and how do they express that externally. What do words mean to them? More or less than actions? Does their socioeconomic background affect the way they present themselves socially?  5. How they express affection: Do they express affection through actions or words. Is expressing affection easy for them or not. How quickly do they open up to someone they like. Does their affection match up with their physical desires. how does the way they show their friends that they love them differ from how they show a potential love interest that they love them. is affection something they struggle with?

6. What controls them (what they are weak for): what are they almost entirely helpless against. What is something that influences them regardless of their own moral code. What– if driven to the end of the wire— would they reject sacrificing. What/who would they cut off their own finger for.  What would they kill for, if pushed. What makes them want to curl up and never go outside again from pain. What makes them sink to their knees from weakness or relief. What would make them weep tears of joy regardless where they were and who they were in front of. 

7. WHAT PART OF THEM WILL CHANGE: people develop over time. At least two of the above six categories will be altered by the storyline–either to an extreme or whittled down to nothing. When a person experiences trauma, their primary fear may change, or how they express affection may change, etc. By the time your book is over, they should have developed. And its important to decide which parts of them will be the ones that slowly get altered so you can work on monitoring it as you write. making it congruent with the plot instead of just a reaction to the plot. 

That’s it.

But most of all, you have to treat this like you’re developing a human being. Not a “character” a living breathing person. When you talk, you use their voice. If you want them to say something and it doesn’t seem like (based on the seven characteristics above) that they would say it, what would they say instead?

If they must do something that’s forced by the plot, that they wouldn’t do based on their seven options, they can still do the thing, but how would they feel internally about doing it?

How do their seven characteristics meet/ meld with someone else’s seven and how will they change each other?

Once you can come up with all the answers to all of these questions, you begin to know your character like you’d know one of your friends. When you can place them in any AU and know how they would react.

They start to breathe.

[angryelves2-blog]

When your language denies your existence: being a non-binary Portuguese speaker & writer

So, I'm Brazilian. If you follow me on Twitter (@_renoliveira) or on my personal Tumblr (veretian-prince), you probably already know that - I talk about being Brazilian/about Brazil a lot. I also talk a lot about my first language, Portuguese, and how much it infuriates me sometimes. Now, don't get me wrong - I love Portuguese, and in a way I probably will never love English. I think it is much more prettier than English, if I'm being honest (overall I think romantic languages are the prettiest languages but that's me, I guess), but English gives me something Portuguese doesn't: the opportunity to exist as a non-binary person.

Portuguese is a heavily gendered language. Everything has a gender. A chair is feminine. A wardrobe is masculine. A pen is feminine too,  but a pencil is masculine. A fork and a plate are masculine, but a knife is feminine. And so on. For a English native speaker, I guess none of this makes much sense, but for me it's normal. If the above paragraph had been written in Portuguese, I would have had to chose between using masculine or feminine language in the first line. I would have had to chose between "announcing" myself as a men or a woman with that first "Brazilian".

If non-binary genders are not well known in the U.S., the situation is much worse in Brazil - for those not active in the community, that is, and language plays a part in that. Portuguese doesn't allow you to think beyond the binary of man or woman, so how could someone who isn't completely one or another exist? Or someone who is neither? The language doesn't allow this way of thinking. It's always a man or a woman, um menino or uma menina, and it is almost impossible to get away from that. Everything is gendered, and it is suffocating.  

This was huge for me growing up. I know it is for every non-binary person (hell, for every trans person), it doesn't matter your native language, but when your language reminds you all the time that you are gender x and you kind of feel off about that, it takes a toll. And then, when you finally realize why you feel off about being gendered all the time, you also realize that you can't do anything about it - it doesn't matter how many minutes you rewrite that paragraph, you will end up having to choose between a or o -, and it gets worse. Writing or speaking when you're not comfortable with traditional pronouns, even to people you are already out to, is like betraying yourself. You almost feel compelled to add, hey, I'm not a woman/man, and yes, I know you already know that, every time you write/say something to someone.

You can't even fight for the right of using the singular they, because, well, the plural they doesn't even exist. It's he or she. Deal with it.

Writing and speaking in English feels like a blessing after a lifetime of dealing with Portuguese's gendered nonsense. English has neopronouns that actually work (Portuguese's are very, very new, and kind of a work in progress that are still not common even in the non-binary community because they are just too hard to incorporate in the language) and well, English has the singular they or, you know, just the plural they (plural in Portuguese is, guess what, masculine even if there is only a single man in the group) (yes, sometimes I hate my first language). Most of the English words are also gender neutral. A English speaker might say teacher when I say professor or professora, or friend when I say amigo or amiga. I'm always having to gender everyone.

(Funnily enough, realizing that when I became more fluent in English made me admire people who translate English books to Portuguese so much. It's so easy for an English writer to never reveal the gender of a character in a book when it is downright impossible to do the same in Portuguese. Translators are the real heroes, y'all. The acrobatics they have to do!).  

In English, I use ze/zir/zirs and he/his/him. I identify as transmasculine and agender. In Portuguese, I still use she/her even to hose I'm out to. There are many reasons for that. In English, when someone use he/his/him, or a masculine adjective/substantive, to refer to me, I feel like it is a reaffirmation of my transmasculinity. I feel really good about it and it makes me happy. The same happens when someone uses ze/zir/zirs; it feels like a reaffirmation of my nbness, of my agenderness. Yes, I'm transmasculine. Yes, I'm also non-binary and agender.

But there isn't a way to reaffirm my agenderness in Portuguese. There is no ze/zir/zirs that is this easy to use. And the reminders are too frequent in Portuguese. The os show up just as often as the as. I can't disassociate them from maleness. I can't use it without feeling like I'm calling myself a man. I'm not a man. Maybe one day I'll be able to use them like I use he/him/his and English masculine adjectives/substantives, but not yet.

Somehow, I feel like masculine pronouns and words in Portuguese hold more power over me, because I've been hearing them my whole life and Portuguese isn't as flexible as English. You are ele or ela. No they. No xe, ze, fae. Just man or woman. I'm no man or woman.  

So, at least in Portuguese, I'm stuck with she/her. Ela/dela. And I don't like it either.

Which got me thinking about non-binary characters in fiction, and the startling realization that there was a wall between me and them. Because most of them are American and English native speakers and... I'm not. Our experiences are very different. They (or most of them) never had to deal with a language that is hellbent on gendering them every five words, or had to sit facing a blog post trying to dance around the words to find a way to not gender yourself to your followers. When they looked for a substitute to she/he, they had the they, and the neopronouns. I looked, found very poor substitutes that no one used and ended up working my ass of to learn a language that allowed me to express myself better. To write the stories I wanted to tell better. The language of a country I don't even like (sorry), because mine wouldn't have me and I was tired of trying to find a way around it. A language I'm still learning, years later.

But at the same time that I want to write in English in part so I can write non-binary characters using neutral pronouns, I have also realized that I want to write non-binary characters I can identify with. I want Brazilian non-binary characters, or at least non-binary characters who have to deal with the same things a Portuguese speaker do. I want the easy identification that comes with using "ze" to refer to someone, the immediate "oh, ze is non-binary!" - if your first language isn't as gendered as Portuguese, you don't know the struggle of having to use a traditional masculine/feminine pronoun while trying to indicate that a character is non-binary in a 2k words short story* - but I also want to feel the slow recognition in a character who also doesn't have words to describe what they are feeling, in a character who has to choose between she or he when they know none of them is what suits them better because they have no choice. I want both things, but (white) American writers will only give me one of them**.  

That's one of the reasons I'm writing a fantasy story based somewhat on Brazil. The language used by the characters is Portuguese, kind of, even if I'm writing everything in English. The non-binary character (let's call him L, previously Lysander, but his name will be changed) has to deal with everything I've written in this post. Initially alone, since he isn't out to anyone, and then with friends. L doesn't have an English-like language available like me, that is, a language that makes it easier for people like us to express ourselves, so for him things are even harder.

I don't write L like that so he can suffer and we can have another sad trans character, but because that's the reality of many, many people. Even if I was out to literally every single person in Brazil and they accepted me completely, I would still be called by ela/dela. Nothing would change that. Still the wrong pronouns in a language without right pronouns. What should I (or L) do?

Deal with it. And then try to change things. Neopronouns in Portuguese might be a new, fragile thing that doesn't work that well yet, and every single shit in this language has a gender, but we might still be able to change it or at least make it less worse. Who knows. I still love Portuguese. I still think it is one of the most beautiful languages in the world.

It just needs to stop denying I exist.

* For real. I have tried, many times. But it just sucks. Trying to indicate a character is non-binary in 2k words short story when you can only use she/he can fuck up the flow so beautifully it's almost funny.

**90% of what the average Brazilian reads comes from the United States, so yeah, Brazilian non-binary people are probably only reading about American non-binary people.

[angryelves2-blog]

Tension Prompts

Your protagonist was misinformed when they made a crucial decision, and now they have to face the consequences.

Your protagonist is put in a position where they’re completely helpless, and they know it.

Your protagonist is unable to overcome the antagonist and has to deal with the aftermath of their failure. 

Your protagonist is experiencing multiple issues at once. (For example: relationship problems with their spouse/partner + an illness or other emergency in the family + a threat at work)

The amount of time your protagonist has to deal with an important issue is suddenly cut in half, leaving them completely unprepared to deal with the crisis when it arrives. 

Your antagonist is more competent than your protagonist and constantly bests them in every encounter they have - even when your protagonist takes extreme measures to prepare themselves. 

Your protagonist’s personality flaws push away the only people who can help them overcome the issues they have to face. 

Your protagonist is unable to overcome a phobia at a crucial moment and is unable to reach their goal as a result, allowing the antagonist to gain the upper hand. 

[angryelves2-blog]

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

★★ ½

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

So, this book. I have lots of Thoughts (tm) on this book.

First, I need to confess I was never really interested in retellings of fairy tales or, well, in fairy tales. I remember watching all of those Barbie movies when I was young and all of those Disney movies too, but I never loved them or was really affected by them. But then someone said, "what if we had queer retellings of fairy tales?" and oooh, suddenly I was very interested. I'm currently brainstorming a fairy tale retelling that is a mix of Snow White, Red Riding Hood and maybe Sleeping Beauty, so I thought it'd do only good if I read some fairy tale retellings to see what everyone was writing too.

So, my problem with Cinder begins with the fact that Meyer did a really poor job with the worldbuilding. And by poor I mean offensive and ridiculous. I won't talk much because I'm not Asian (I recommend reading DiversiReads's review), but there are some glaring mistakes in Cinder that are just too ugly to ignore. I know that here in the West we don't learn much about anything Asian (here in Brazil at least we learn just the basics about Japan, India and China and that's it), but if you are a non-Chinese author writing a story set in China... Well, maybe do your research? Like, it wouldn't take you too long to realize that having a Japanese royal family ruling over all Asia (well, Eastern Common Wealth or whatever) and having everyone be super okay with it is a bad idea (also, same for America/Africa/Europe as a single country - I mean, I can't imagine Latin America ever agreeing to form a single country together, let alone one with the U.S. and Canada. Just nope).

Also, the story never feels like it is set in China. If we ignore the Chinese-sounding names and one thing here and there, Cinder could've been set anywhere and the reader wouldn't notice any difference. That's how bad the worldbuilding is. If you take all this into account, plus the fact the protagonist, Cinder, "looks European" and is probably white, the books nosedives into racist territory. It's ugly.

As for the story... Well, it isn't bad, but it isn't good either. It's... okay, I guess.

I mean, Cinder is a good protagonist and Kai is a nice love interest. I liked both, Cinder as well developed character and Kai as a love interest who was not an asshole but who wasn't that interesting either (until the ending, that is. The ending made me dislike him). The other characters were all very bland and unidimensional. The villain, Levana, was too cartoonish for my tastes, and not even for a moment did I feel like she was a threat, even though she could, you know, control people. I know this is a Cinderella retelling, but I guess I'm just past the vain woman as the villain (especially when the Cinderella in question is never said to be beautiful?). So eh, not convincing and way too cliché and I'm just really sick of it. Let women be vain (and yes, I know Levana is a tyrant. I just don't like this trope).

The plot twist was really predictable. Like, I guessed it at 10%. It made me think of Snow Like Ashes, because well... The same thing happens there, but while it did work for me in Snow Like Ashes, it didn't here in Cinder. I'm not sure I can explain exactly why without giving all the spoilers, but I felt like Cinder was totally, 100% thinking that its readers wouldn't guess its obvious plot twist and depended too much on it. The ending was kinda ridiculous because of that.

The whole futuristic thing was underused too. I expected a lot more from it. It's a really cool concept and I think the author could have done a lot more with it. But well, it is a fast paced book and, like I said, Cinder is a good protagonist - the kind you root for easily -, but not even her was enough to make this book a good book. Not even if I didn't take the racist issue in consideration, which I'll always do.

Overall, Cinder was a disappointment. I won't be reading the sequel. 2.5 stars.