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starting-today-you-are-a-writer · 5 years

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WICKED SAINTS

1.5 stars out of 5 stars

Summary: Kalyazin and Tranavia have been at war for untold decades, owning to a religious/magical feud where one side claims the other heretics and the other side invaded them for…power? A young woman, Nadya, blessed with powers by the gods flees when her monastery is destroyed by the warrior prince of a nation she is at war with. Running, she bumps into a mysterious blood mage, Malachiasz, and together the two of them plot to end the war between their countries.

Overall:

When I first opened the book, it seemed promising. Different viewpoints, an interesting magic system, the main character fleeing everything she had ever known to begin an adventure in the wider world.

Except the book promised a fearsome cleric, an in depth look at monsters and a prince. And it only delivered on one of those things. Perhaps I was expecting the monsters or villains to be in the vain of Vicious (by VE Schwab) or even ala Forest of a Thousand Lanterns (by Juile C Dao) where characters with understandable motivations but dark ambitions and flaws ultimately struggle with their monstrosity and lose.

Alas, this book did not even deal with any struggling of monstrosity, or even deal with the concept of monsters outside of “looks like a literal monster” and “betrays people.” But didn’t even examine whether or not “looking like a monster” was necessary or sufficient to be one.

Not to mention, the cleric wasn’t fearsome, her actions felt contrived and very few characters in the entire novel actually had any clear motivations. The book felt very much like things happened because they were supposed to, instead of because that’s what the characters wanted or would have done. Not to mention the main romance was nonsensical. Sure, there’s enemies-to-lovers. This was not it. It was more like enemy lovers, except not one reason was ever give as to why this guy was appealing, and nothing about him was ever shown, only sometimes told, if that. Nadya felt drawn to her love interest Malachaisz, but not for any reason. Overall the book started strong but fell flat, and felt contrived and unable to hold my suspension of disbelief for even minor events.

Dislikes

Nadya and the Love Interest (Malachiasz)

I could write an essay on the problems here but the basic problem is that Nadya has no motivations, reasoning or rationalization for anything let alone for her attraction to her love interest Malachaisz. She meets him, decides she wants to kill him for being an evil blood mage, but then decides she doesn’t. She had already killed several Tranavian soldiers by this point, many weren’t evil blood mages and none of which brutally betrays her.

Does she perhaps look at Malachiasz like many a lovelorn hero and think “what measure is a man or a demon? Can I really strike down someone who has not wronged me? Can I lift my blade and execute someone who may be innocent? And how to I think of innocence? He has fled from Tranavia, from a life of evil, is that enough? Is it enough to forsake his country for its evils if he does not embrace the gods? Would he change if only he knew the gods? Do Tranavians even have the chance to know them? With mercy could he change?” Nope! Not only are none of these things thought of, now only are no rationalizations provided for her feelings, but she does not even consider any of those points when she thinks of him or evil. She doesn’t consider his past and how he might have been tortured or not like the ability to use his powers. She doesn’t consider that all heretics are not evil. She doesn’t consider that people can be redeemed. No. Not once does she spend even one second trying to figure out a reason why she doesn’t want to kill him even though she has killed before. She ignores all those things, insists that he is evil and a blood mage and …. doesn’t want to kill him. For some reason.

Does she even think “wow, with his pretty eyes, and his kindness towards me and his banging body, maybe, I mean, the monastery was very chaste but….” Does she think this and let her romantic heart speak for her? No. And she doesn’t think this because 1) nothing in his description seems attractive or like she is supposed to find it attractive 2) he is not kind to her. He is not nice to her. He is just mean to her (thought not cruel) 3) the times that seem like they might have sexual tension are always tied up inextricably in violence. But there is no OTHER aspect to him that might seem attractive to her EXCEPT the threat of violence. What I mean by this is she occasionally reflects that he looks sad, or is sad, but there’s no real textual evidence. In the same what that just saying a character is sad when they are laughing, and running about, glib, and seem happy, does not make them sad. So all other aspects of his character ring false EXCEPT that he is violent or has the potential to be. So her only reason to be attracted to him is…that he is violent? Gross.

Now, likely he was supposed to have other, likeable qualities. But he does not. This is a problem with the characters themselves. Their character traits are often told instead of shown. His actions are almost always glib and argumentative and he really doesn’t take any other actions that that. He does not even rescue a lost dog from the rain as a token gesture of god will. And Nadya despite claiming that he might be lost, does really extrapolate or explain or provide any evidence or think about that. For instance, she could try to Sherlock Holmes his situation and realize he must be sad. But she does not do this. She seems to regurgitate these things like she has another magical power of empathy and can actually read people’s emotions in their heart instead of on sad expressions or through actions, but she does not ever give evidence for her thoughts, opinions or rationalizations for anything.

In short, their relationship reads like the worst kind of Insta Lova/compulsory heteronormativity, even thought I know this was not the intention of the author. However, Nadya seemed to fall for him just because he is THERE and every time she says anything about him, it seems completely unbelievable, because there’s no textual evidence for it, and ever time she says that she likes him or doesn’t want to kill him it’s just WHHHHHHHHHHHY? Is it “Half of her wanted to kill him, but he was still a person… [insert moral quandary here]” NOPE, we don’t get that. It’s just “half of her wanted to kill him, but half of her didn’t. What were they having for dinner again?” but WHY didn’t she want to kill him? Personal goals and motivations are not things that you withhold form the reader to be clever, they are basic components of characterization.

This lack of interior reasoning goes beyond just her relationship to this character. Even her plans and actions seem to change without reason. She had a plan. She meets Malachiasz and immediately agrees with his plan to kill the king of her rival country. But why? Does she think it will work? Does she spend one second considering the merit of the plan? Does she try to think of another plan? Does she ask him to elaborate on this? NO. She does whatever Malachiasz says. She sacrifices principles of herself, she does X and Y and Z and there never really feels like a reason for 90% of it. She’s surprised when she gets betrayed, but since she had not reason to trust anyone (she did not posit a reason in her internal monologue for trusting them, let alone have this be supported by the actual actions the characters take!), it falls flat. Her reactions and failure fall flat, because it’s never clear why she has to be doing what she’s doing, what’s at stake if she’s not doing that, why she couldn’t do something better, or why she thinks it’ll work.

It really was a slog to get through her sections sometimes because there very few scenes where I cared about the stakes because the series of events themselves felt arbitrary.

Minor Characters and Otherness

The minor characters and plain, forgettable, have no real character or personality traits and clearly serve as props to make whatever point, or facilitate whatever outcome, is supposed to happen at any scene. This becomes very transparent. The characters from the desert country Akola are constantly referred to as Akolans instead of their names even when their race has no point in the scene, and they only exist to like the main Love Interest Malachaisz, but no reason is give as to why they like him, what they want, or their goals or agency. So not only are they flat props to make the Love Interest related and sympathetic, they are also heavily Othered. Not to mention another minor character, Ana, is presented as a Strawman who’s only purpose is to dislike the Love Interest for No Reason so that he seems more relatable and agreeable in comparison. Again, do these characters have motivations? Thoughts? Goals? Personality? No.

Worldbuilding

In the beginning I felt the world building was fairly good. Each country has distinct language and naming conventions. The differences between the countries respective magic systems seemed intriguing. But as the story went on, not much is learned about Kalyazin other than what was learned in the first few chapters, and only a scattered detail or two is learned about Tranavia. What do they eat in Tranavain? How do they dress? Fine silk? Heavy furs with flower patterns? What are their values outside of blood magic?

The author continuous repeats that Kalyazin is based on fantasy Russia and Tranavia on fantasy Poland but in the novel there feels like no real effort to elaborate and expects the reader to fill in world building with real world Russian or Polish culture. Perhaps that wasn’t her intention, but it comes across that way when no real details about the culture are give outside the very one note religious differences.

Religion

Speaking of the religious differences, this was something else I thought was interesting at first but quickly disappointed me. The religion conflicts starts off with Kalyazins claiming that magic should come from the gods and that using blood to fuel magic (like the Tranavians do) is heresy and terrible. However, the main character Nadya, never explores this beyond using it as a talking point. Why would it be considered terrible? Because accessing magic is holy and to do so without it being holy is bad? There is something said about how Tranavia is also bad for rejecting the gods, but what really bothered me was that the main character never really thinks deeply about these things. She never examines what she thinks is bad, or what her thoughts are on the war and the gods. She only repeats what she had been told and makes it clear she is doing so, providing no real analysis on her own. For all that she is claimed to be empathetic she does not actually empathize and consider the other position.

It’s fine for characters not to know something, but if you’re a cleric, you would think you’d spend some time contemplating the morality of what you are doing. Moreover, as the novel progresses Nadya comes into more and more contact with blood magic, but her analysis of the situation never changes, she never stops to think “is it possible for someone to use blood magic if they aren’t evil?” or “is it truly doing evil if you aren’t aware that it’s evil?” Instead, it seems her views seem to shift but there’s no corresponding rationalization or thought as to why. Rather than Character Development it feels more like her Character just slips into something else. This is a recurrent problem with Nadya, but it was something that bothered me on a larger scale. Lip service is paid to characters having different viewpoints on this issue but nothing is ever developed from it.

Notes on Confusion

A lot of people had complained (I think) that they found the ending confusing, to which the author said that something things were supposed to be confusing. In general I agree that books don’t have to answer every question raised. The magic system didn’t have to be completely explained.

However the end was confusing in that the prose was literally unclear. The blocking and actions taken by the characters were unclear. It wasn’t “Wait! But I never learned why this happened! How does the magic work! Why would he betray them!” unclear. It was “Wait, is he still in the scene? When it says he “flies up” is he leaving this location or hanging around near the ceiling? What does this sentence mean?” confusing. It was difficult to follow the sequence of events without multiple rereading of lines, and even then it was unclear as to why the characters were taking certain actions. Not in a “why does the character not betray X” sort of way but more in the “wait, what is he trying to do? Is he trying to kill X? What does he think killing X will accomplish? Why did he even come back here? Does this benefit him? What does he think will happen?” the problem is that, when you don’t understand the characters goals/thoughts, it’s hard to know if they are succeeding or failing at them, so the conflict wanes immediately.

Likes

Serefin

Unlike possibly every other character, Serefin had clear motivations, goals, and things at stake. His life was at stake if he didn’t figure out what going on. His goal was to figure out what his father was doing, and to thwart it and live. Boom. A dynamic character. Throw in interpersonal conflict with him being traumatized from a war but now being forced to act in court and you have someone who actually has stakes in most scenes he’s in, who’s actions are logically derived from what he wants, and who makes progress towards his goal. A good character, a likeable character. One who can be funny, but with flaws.

Magic System

The idea of two different magic system did seem interesting to me. I’ve always liked the idea that there were different ways to use magic and of course there was room to have rife interplay of how magic actually worked, how people accessed it, what that meant, etc etc

#wicked saints #emily a duncan #This is my first book review that I am posting here. Yikes!#book review #ya fantasy

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