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[BOOK REVIEW] "The Gilded Cage" by Vic James (7.5/10)
British dystopian fiction asks, once again, âWhat if the government was evil?â
So, apparently every lower-class citizen is denied full citizenship unless they complete 10 full years of slavery. You can start as young as 10 and get them out of the way, or do the back-breaking work as a geezer if you wait too long, probably killing yourself in your golden years.
Do those years when youâre old, and youâll never get through them. Do them young, and youâll never get over them.
The story starts with Abigail essentially strong-arming her parents, brother, and 10-year-old sister into starting their 10 years right then. There are also aristocrats, called Equals, that have powers that are not all that well-explained but theyâre genetic and they vary from person to person. The magic system seemed too vague to seem cool, but this is apparently a trilogy, so Iâll wait to be judgey.
I ended up liking how they split the POVs. It mainly ended up pivoting between Gavar, Abigail, and Luke. Gavar, the heir to the throne, I hated at first, until I realized most of his chapters are him getting drunk and internally making fun of the other fascists around him. His actually ended up really fun. Abigail, I absolutely hated. Sheâs naĂŻve to an infuriating point and she keeps wandering around, being surprised that signing herself and her family up for slavery wasnât the cute internship that she envisioned. Luke is Abigailâs little brother and is actually pretty alright---pessimistic without sounding like a downer but has enough of a heart of gold to get attached to. Heâs actually split up from the family and sent to the bad slavetown. As opposed to the good one.
Yeah, thereâs good and bad slaveries in this book.
I donât know what you want from me.
Theyâre three completely different perspectives and they actually pan around pretty well---Like if Luke pulls off some rebellion, you then get to see Gavar just absolutely sloshed, going, âLol Dad sucks to be you---Oh, youâre making it my problem? Boo.â
The pacing is just weird. The familyâs first week is stretched out over a good chunk, but then the book suddenly squeezes three months into a chapter. I guess the author didnât want to linger, but it looked a little clumsy to me.
Thereâs also a character named Silyen and I couldnât tell if he was just a lazy plot device or the heart of the story. Heâll drop in with some lore and exposition, presented like the dayâs headlines are delivered via sparkling mist, and then just cheerfully disappear. I think he does actually walk out of the scenes and doesnât slowly fade out like a Cheshire cat, but I couldnât really be sure.Â
Anyway, it had its problems and the whole âOh what if slavery wasnât done by white people, but magic people insteadâ thing had me rolling my eyes, but thereâs a few good twists that got me pretty good. Like saying, âWoah, what the fuck?â in a crowded bar, good. Itâs like when a Paranormal Activity movie actually makes you scream, you gotta give it credit. Plus, itâs well-written and the author has a real gift for metaphors.
I do wanna see where this goes, so Iâve added the next two books to my TBR and Iâll be back to you.
-Sparrow Harvey
SPOILERS BELOW!!
One part they do the alternating POV thing really well is that one of the Equals casually mentions their Aunt Hypatia bringing in âher beastâ on a leash. The species isnât really even clarified but most are figuring itâs a dog of some kind, considering itâs growling and sniffing around. You get the sense that people find the dog distasteful---maybe itâs ugly, maybe itâs grumpy, who knows. The speaker is used to it, so there isnât too much focus on Hypatiaâs pet.
Anyway, it switches to Abigailâs POV and sheâs like âWhy does that aristocrat have a NAKED, STARVED PRISONER ON A LEASH?â
Even better, it just kind of LEAVES YOU THERE. Her POV is cut right the fuck off and you get to spend about 100 pages going, âUh yeah good to see how Lukeâs adjusting but what about Pavlovâs bad acid trip???â That is such a deliberately sadistic choice that it had me actually laughing out loud. Â
July has me deep in PTSD hell and grief so if you're wondering why I still pay for the Rowan Janiszewski takedown page to be one of the first results on Google, here's some supplemental material.
So, Rowan's go-to for new members was saying that you two shared a past-life. And for anyone that had DID, it was easy for them to say, "Oh, no, it isn't mental illness, it's ghosts. I'm some sort of psychic and I can see it. Actually, I can channel the person that past-life dated!"
Once, they took it a step further. Well, twice with my system and they reportedly did this to others. See, I had a girlfriend, Elisabeth, who passed in 2013. Congenital illness, not taken by the cult like my husband was. When I wrote my novel, ZeitstĂźck, I wrote Elisabeth in as a tribute. Rowan knew this and they'd read ZeitstĂźck.
The novel was set in London; therefore I made Elisabeth a posh little thing. She was actually from Newfoundland.
Rowan made the disgusting decision to "channel" my dead girlfriend. "I remember you!!! Xanthe, remember? Drinking wine with me at Gallery Espresso?" Rowan faked an English accent to do this.
They didn't realise Elisabeth had been from Canada.
When I pointed that out, Rowan dropped into a demon voice, Exorcist-style, and hissed to our shared partner, "I DON'T TRUST THEM."
My partner calmed them down, then Rowan snapped out of it just to act dazed and say, "Wait, what happened?" That was when our partner explained that Rowan was a conduit for the spirit world or some such. This is the same person who says that DID doesn't exist, by the way.
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The thing about cults is that they allow you no privacy. Six years since I've escaped Rowan Janiszewski and the Faerie Cult and I still wonder if they'll show up to my doorstep at a new address just to tell me to quit stalking them.
Well, let's be honest, they'd send someone else to do it. Oh, the irony.
Famously, I wasn't even able to journal about what was going on; they read it and took pictures of the pages. They still have spies stalking my accounts, one who claimed to know my IP address. (That was bungled, but I never said they were good at stalking.) They've contacted my place of business to try to get me fired. (Also bungled) They've tried contacting bar regulars they've never met just to try and silence me. And also contacted my therapist.
That's where it gets fun.
See, I'd caught on to them listening in on my tele-health sessions with my therapist. Rowan sort of made it obvious when they popped up after every session and said, "I don't think you're telling your therapist everything." Not certain what the end-goal was, just the average post-therapy jumpscare to keep my blood pressure up.
Oh, I do, it's just that I know you're listening. I'd already told the bloke about how Rowan thought they were the Unseelie Fae King and how they asked for money to keep from dying of iron poisoning. I'd already told him about the how Rowan would be suddenly possessed by a 'past life', one of which was my deceased girlfriend.
But while I was still all brainwashed and, y'know, cultified, I used to defend Rowan to my therapist about these ideas. He knew I wasn't talking shit, I was in it.
Anyway, after I escape, therapist tells me that Rowan actually fucking called him. Saying that they were 'worried about me' because I was delusional and didn't have a grasp on reality.
He never answered, but he got the voicemail. Of the Unseelie Faerie King telling him that I was delusional.
My jaw hit the floor. "The fucking FAERIE told you that?"
Therapist said, "I know, I got a chuckle out of it."
[BOOK REVIEWS] "The Silvered Serpents" (8/10) and "The Bronzed Beasts" by Roshani Chokshi. (9.5/10)
This series was beautiful. I do think, on the whole, it needed polishing, but the strength of the characters and the knowledge of culture, etymology, and history shone through (most of) the flaws.
As these are the 2nd and 3rd books in their trilogy, this review will be a retrospective of the series in general.
So, obviously, spoilers below~
I'm not the first to laud Chokshi on her inclusive cast bursting with personality, but it's worth another look. Though we have seen SÊverin's archetype before, (Kaz Brekker anyone?) it was nice to have one that wasn't pasty white and with blue eyes. (Come to think of it, I think there is only one pale character in the entire friend group.) Anyway, SÊverin was one of my favourites out of sheer empathy. His arc of struggling between maniacal hope and acidic cynicism was incredibly well-written. Then when it comes to his guilt and, later on, his redemption, it actually twisted at my poor decrepit heart strings. It may be a character archetype that I've seen, but I happen to love it and it was done beautifully.
Laila's abilities and backstory made for intrigue, but her character was that rare combination of both fierce and sweet made her unforgettable. I did struggle with her in the beginning of the third book. To be fair, she was going through a lot. Her insistence on holding a grudge over SÊverin's little betrayal theatre got to be frustrating, so I was ready to throw the book through most of their interactions. But the way she interacted with the rest of the cast was genuine and loveable. She was one of many that had me actually invested, even when the pace dragged.
Speaking of holding a grudge, Enrique also drove me just about half nuts towards the end of the series. I understand why he's sore at SĂŠverin, but there were times that the pettiness went so deep that it nearly sabotaged the group's goal of saving Laila. He might have been my least favourite character. Though his historical and etymological knowledge essentially helped kept the world turning as far as this entire series went, his insecurity could be grating.
Hypnos. Oh, Hypnos, my dear flamboyant, egotistical alcoholic. Another one of my favourites, but I do feel like he was somewhat 'dumbed down' as the series went on? Or he was simply acting silly to keep morale up. "I do not interrupt, I either complement or enhance." I'm going to be using that line way too often and for a while.
Zofia is actually the only pale-skinned one in the bunch, and she's also autistic and Jewish. Since the first book, the author has slowly leaned off on a lot of the 'Big Bang Theory' type of autism for her. The 'I take things too literally moments' could be incredibly heavy-handed and not at all accurate, but those moments became fewer and further in-between. In 'Silvered Serpents', there was a line about how Zofia noticed Laila's voice sounded 'cold' and wondered if she should offer Laila a coat. So, it wasn't literal with the tone of voice but it was with how Zofia wanted to solve it???? But she really came into her own within the series. And I loved how she interacted with everyone else.
Ruslan was highly annoying at first, due to his endless references to his baldness. When he was revealed to be the antagonist later on, it just felt right. And he actually was a great antagonist with a lot of fresh tricks up his sleeve. From the gold keeping him alive to his reanimated servants, this was a well-written villain.
The most glaring issue I found within this entire series was the concept of Forged objects.
See, a lot of the complaints I hear about the fantasy genre as a whole is that the rules never seem set, that there could be a magical deus ex machina pulled out of thin air that lets the characters proceed through their journey. And I hate to say it, but this series does this loads. Whenever the crew is trying to work out a riddle or puzzle, it does have its 'National Treasure' moments where history and culture and language is referenced. That's brilliant to see and honestly sets this series apart from others. Buuuut, if there's anything that's Forged in the room, it can basically do whatever the script calls for. Knowing this, the 'puzzle' segments could get tedious.
The pacing could be rough. Chokshi seems to like either a tortoise's pace or a head-on collision. And SÊverin and Laila's will-they-won't-they back and forth could inspire more irritation than suspense at times. And like I said before, the puzzle sequences could be fun, but I feel like there could have been too many of them. I almost felt like skipping chapters to get through it.
However.
However.
The ending was so heart-wrenchingly beautiful and perfect. I loved everything about it. I loved how Ruslan died, I loved what happened to Laila, I loved what happened to the Forged objects, and I absolutely adored to pieces that SĂŠverin adopted those two brothers. The ending satisfied everything---There was no 'happy ever after', yet it wasn't a devastating let-down. Also, everything with Chokshi's writing just utterly dazzled within these passages. Authors always do give their all in the chapters that mean the most to them and, see, well done. Because those chapters ended up meaning a lot to the audience as well. It honestly would have made me cry if I were ever inclined.
[BOOK REVIEW] "Mirror Girls" by Kelly McWilliams. (2/10)
I wanted to enjoy this book. It's historic and frankly has good merit in the idea alone. Unfortunately, it's also painfully ill-written.
Two twins were separated at birth after the lynching of their mixed-race parents. Neither knew the other girl existed until they meet in Eureka, Georgia, circa 1953. One of these girls, Charlie Yates, was born dark-skinned raised in Harlem with the loving, kind-hearted Black grandmother. One of the girls, Magnolia Heathwood, was born light enough to be mistaken as white, therefore spent her life with the spiteful, racist, plantation-owning grandmother.
It was a short story, had a lot of history, and some good lessons about racial equality. And thaaaat's about where the benefits ended.
So, the story jumps back and forth from the first-person POV of both sisters. However, both are out of their element in some way. See, this is Charlie's first introduction into the 1950's south. Magnolia is used to it, but just found out that she is, in fact, mixed-race. Which sort of puts them both in a situation where they wander around and react with "Wow gee that's new" that I always hate out of Dickens' protagonists. And that's their personality for 3/4 of the book. Most of the supporting characters are sort of there for exposition alone, save for Darius, Hilda, and Jeanette. It didn't help that everyone was sort of dull and without a lot of personality.
All of the villains were incredibly one-dimensional. Even Finch started out the story saying that he was an anti-segregationist and then just turned right back to blatant and hateful racist rhetoric later on. He's only in two separate scenes but the author couldn't get the character to remain consistent for even that long.
And here, I'll get into my main problem with the story, but it does involve spoilers. So, spoilers and all-caps ranting below because hoooooly shit.
So, after Magnolia learns of her mixed parentage at her grandmother's deathbed, she starts to notice that her reflection is gone. Not only that, but she's also unable to eat, as everything smells and tastes like grave dirt and rot. You learn that, apparently, the local spirits of departed Black people have cursed her to die soon unless she goes back to 'passing as white.' What???
First of all, that seems more like something white supremacists would do. And why is she being punished? She was a baby; she didn't separate herself from her culture. The local spirits can do that but they let Blanche Heathwood, the incredibly racist plantation owner die peacefully in her bed at an old age? Not only that, but if the spirits were irate about some of the things Magnolia had done before learning the truth about herself, why did they start this only after she was told? Why not after she put her name on the petition to segregate the local cemetery?
Second of all, there is absolutely no reason for this curse. Magnolia was already threatened with losing her house, her prospects, and possible lynching if she came out as mixed race. Piling it on to say 'Oh and you'll die too because ghosts' made no sense. There is legitimately nothing about the plot that wouldn't have happened without this bafflingly stupid curse. It added nothing and subtracted a great deal. If you want to express to the reader how being mixed-race is dangerous in the south, why pile on a curse on top of it???
Third of all, it's later revealed that they cursed Magnolia so that she could find this secret chest in her grandmother's house that had several receipts that showed the purchase of slaves. Once that was done, she was free to live her life with her sister, because I guess the ghosts never even meant that first part. ??????????? And also, how does STARVING the curse victim get her to go rummaging in her house?
I'm not done yet. As the proof of purchase rained down all around her, Magnola's narration said something to the effect of, "The secret of Heathwood Plantation revealed at last!"
EXCUSE ME?
It was a secret that your RACIST, PLANTATION-OWNING FAMILY OWNED SLAVES? HOW?????
It's a fucking PLANTATION. Jfc.
And if it couldn't get any more ridiculous, during the climax, the ghost of Blanche Heathwood was fully in her 90's super villain era. She announces something to the twins along the lines of 'YOU FOOLS, I BET YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW IT WAS ME THAT PAID FOR YOUR PARENTS TO BE KILLED!!!'
So, that wasn't exactly the twist you thought it was. I'm not sure who couldn't parse that on their own. And also, the cheesy, over-the-top way it was shoe-horned in there was cringe-inducing. How in the world do you manage to make the announcement of a lynching to sound just goofy? The twins didn't believe her at first, so Blanche just turns the nearest mirror into a flashback TV as a 'gotcha.'
It got even worse as her monologue went into "HOW DO YOU EVER EXPECT TO DEFEAT ME? YOU'RE FROM A FAMILY OF SLAAAAAAVES!"
That was just painful.
Though credit where it's due---the ghosts of all of the slaves helping Charlie rip the shackle off of Magnolia was pretty awesome.
Anyway, I did see the other ratings, and I may very well be one of the only ones who had such an issue getting through this. But if you do read it, don't read it on audiobook. Whoever they got to voice Magnolia had the most grating 'airhead' type voice and inconsistent accent on the planet.
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Let me rant about Peaky Blinders and what it BRILLIANTLY showed about substance use and PTSD.
âTommy Shelby is an alcoholic. His relationship goes anywhere between binging and abstinence, with moderation being his usual fortĂŠ.
What is important to understand is that Tommy Shelby's relationship with alcohol is all about control.
âWhen he drinks heavily, it is shown as desperate attempt to drown out his PTSD, the ghosts of the trenches, and the relentless noise in his head. But when he goes completely off the rails, it terrifies him. Losing control means losing his tactical prowess, which is a vulnerability that has been exploited.
âOn the flip side, total abstinence backfires every bit as much. When he endeavours to be completely sober, the noise, the guilt, the memories, the doubt---it's deafening. Without that chemical buffer, his hyper-vigilance and paranoia skyrocket. He's miserable, and so are those around him.
âEssentially, alcohol is depicted as his medicine and his poison. He needs just enough of it to numb the pain so he can function, but any extreme---either total numbness or total sobriety---completely fucks his ability to operate.
âThe show avoids the clichĂŠ of a standard addiction narrative. He's not weak, he's not mind-controlled by chemicals, he hasn't found complete healing and stability through sobriety. Instead, it treats both alcohol and opium as tools Tommy uses to manage his mental pain. His struggle is his inability to exist in the quiet; when he is sober, the trauma of the war and his past actions catch up to him, but when he loses control to the drink, his empire falters. The tragedy was never the substance or the addiction itself; it was his desperate, impossible attempt to perfectly balance his own mind.
Sometimes he just wants to crawl out of his own skin and peg it on a washing line to air out for a bit while he takes a long nap somewhere cool and dark.
- "Hazelthorn", C.G. Drews
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[BOOK REVIEW] "Hazelthorn", by C.G. Drews. (10/10)
I've just finished this and I feel like I'm coming out of a beautiful, delicate, vicious daydream. And that's precisely what the story is.
The point of view mostly stays with Evander, an isolated, walking anxiety attack of a boy that has spent most of his life under the bedridden haze of illness and traumatic memories. He lives in a mansion that really feels more like a haunted asylum, that which Evander's caretaker, Byron Lennox-Hall, rules with no room for negotiation. He is feverishly obsessed with Laurie, Byron's grandson, with a complex cocktail of feelings that are anything from yearning, hunger, and loathing---more often a combination of the three. To be fair, Evander remembers nearly being killed by Laurie when he was a kid. We all have our problematic faves.
âThere is nothing else to me but the hollow spaces I've carved out for you. I knew I'd cut myself to pieces on you if we ever had the chance to touch, but I wanted to.' His voice unravels, massacred on yearning. 'Let me ruin myself on you.â
When Byron suddenly dies and the rest of the family comes knocking, everyone becomes a potential murder suspect and snake in the grass.
It's hard to actually quantify my review in the usual fiction terminology. I mean, technically, this is a novel, but you earnestly have to read it more as a poem or a song. The moment you stop wanting this tale to speak a human language, it lets you in. Evander's past, the family's secrets, and his and Laurie's complicated relationship all unravels in a way I'm sure is going to haunt me for years.
Lies have been placed like delicacies on his tongue for so long he canât recognize anything else; he is a cobwebbed collection of pretty untruths and made-up stories, and if all of that is cut away, there is nothing left.
This did take a while to get through in the beginning. There's just so many unconnected dots that it felt difficult, as the reader, to even know what plot you were trying to engage with. And Evander, as a character, can be overwhelming eyes to see through. I also had no idea where this was going. But all of my little frustrations and 'wtf' moments all come together in a moment that literally gave me chills.
âPain is meant to take up space or else we wouldnât know how to scream.â
TW: LOTS of body horror, Munchausen's by proxy, existential issues? And some cannibalism. (Kind of.)
Spoilers ahead!
This book is nearly perfect. And I say nearly because, though I sort of know why Drews had to write him this way, Laurie is the most inconsistent character I've read in a long time. The way he goes from being disinterested, arrogant, insulting, to loving, doting, and selfless was too much of a whiplash. And there was so much he could have just told Evander/Hazelthorn to cut down on a lot of the paranoid shutdowns. Boy, your family are killers, Evander is barely keeping it together, but you're not even thinking on correcting his 'You were sacrificing me for a ruby???' line of thought? Especially at a time you two need to stick together?
The reasons he says he didn't, I thought were weak. It did sort of put me out of the immersion in a couple of instances. But from the author's POV, I get it. Laurie telling Evander everything when it would make sense to would cut the plot short. This would be a 10/10 otherwise.
