#dracoreviews

LGBTQ+ fiction/stories with LGBTQ+ characters strongly encouraged.

Title: Freedom's Gate

Author: KR_Williams

Thoughts:

There's a lot of things I like about this book. The magic system is interesting and way less light and dark [lol] than things first appear to be. I like the concept of Binding. I like how this is [mostly] not about the Chosen One, but rather about someone related to the Chosen One in some sort of way. I like that this book tackles mental abuse - and familial at that - head on and that it actually affects Kit and warps his state of mind.

I also don't like some things. I don't like all the POV switching. Half the time, it felt like a TV episode where they pan to the villain just so we can see how they're undermining the main character's plan. Short scenes of Ifrod [I can't remember his exact name] sending letters and being conniving. I didn't like it. On that token, chapter 24. What happened there? It feels like we switched POVs halfway through a scene and it's very disorienting - and not in a good way. I didn't like that we found out what happened to Kit after the mountain accident... but not from his perspective. All we hear over and over again is about the horse and not much else.

I also don't like the prologue. It commits one of the big sins of prologues - not that it's history world-dumping, and not that it leads right into chapter one, but that it's basically one of the last scenes in the book, just with some alteration. That's not what a prologue is. That's not what a prologue is supposed to do. Take it out.

And while I understand the magic's dialogue is stylized for effect, the combination bold/caps/I think italics kinda made my head hurt.

On a more neutral note, the world and the magic that resides in it definitely has depth. The class/race disparity has weight and it's a very obvious problem. A lot of the groups in this world are not cut-and-dry. The Dark Mages aren't all defectors. The Light Mages aren't all good. The... one rebel group. They have good intentions. There's a lot of morality to play with here, and play with it we do. It's fun to see.  And, again, I like how this is about a chosen one but not in the way we tend to think.

On one hand, I'm interested to see how this goes, but on the other I feel kinda eh about this? There's a lot to like, but a lot of technical things dampened my enjoyment and in general I didn't find myself wholeheartedly enthralled with this project like I wanted to be.

Title: Of Rust and Gold

Author: Poindexter / @junekinn

Thoughts:

This quickly became one of my favorite books on this orange hellsite, and that's quite the feat to accomplish.

I don't say this to stroke June's ego, or because he's my friend. Truth be told, this book is really fucking great. And it's obvious he has put a lot of thought into what he's writing and who he's writing about, and that he cares about this project very much.

The worldbuilding makes this world one of my favorite ones I've read about. True, it at times was hard to pick apart country names, but for the most part all the names slung about make sense and are easy to follow. And not just the names, the associations that go along with them. I love these countries. I love their cultures. I can see all of them in my head. I want to visit the Rhine.

Well. Something tells me I don't want to actually do that. But you get the point.

Title: Wildlings

Author: theemmpress

Thoughts:

I had two major problems with this book: the world-building and the point of view. The first point has a few facets to it.

There are some aspects of the world-building that I like - the actual linguistic changes are, while at times cheesy, clever. The implementation of tech, clever.

Everything else about the worldbuilding... various degrees of not clever.

The basis of the culture surrounding this book reads like someone with a sixth grade understanding of racial matters decided to write a world centered a lot around racial matters. The basic idea is there, but the result is cringey at best. And, to be honest, this book is a peak example of why white people shouldn't write narratives centered on race. It's really not our place to.

Speaking of the worldbuilding... the terms for the three main groups. I cringed. Really hard. We have the Generics - who as far as I understand are basically white people - the Exotics - the people of color, as I understand - and the Natives. I have several problems with these name choices.

-They're entirely too simplistic. I'll use America as my example here. We don't call POC "exotics". We tend to use umbrella terms - Asian and Black and such - but even these are way less overarching than "exotic". Even real life chose better [still not good] collective names for groups of people. -Even "generic" is too overarching and broad. And comes with a lot of shitty connotations. Which I mean, I understand where the author is going with this? But like a lot of things that happen in this book, the meaning behind it is cringey at best. -Exotic as a descriptor also just has a lot of bad connotations. Which, again, I get it, but it's... hamfisted at best. -This is equivocable to me to fantasy stories that just capitalize Big Important Terms rather than try and come up with their own words for it. And it's lazy.

Moving on. The Point of View. It took me five chapters to realize I was supposed to be reading about two different characters. I kept getting confused about who the fuck I was reading about. I honestly thought it was the same person with two different names, until Sannah and Judit get separated. And then when they're reunited, the same thing happens. The only reason I know how to tell them apart the second time is because the POV flips each chapter.

I understand this is third person, but the fact I was unable to tell who I was reading about for five entire chapters is very very bad. They read so samey that it hurts. Unless you're writing omniscient - and this book is not in omniscient - each POV character should have a sort of voice that makes them stand out from the rest of the cast. And these characters did not.

If I could tell these characters apart without them needing to be separated, and if one of the key themes of the book wasn't so egregiously hamfisted, maybe I would like this. But unfortunately, I couldn't, and it was, so I didn't.

Title: The Life of Cassander Stoutsworth

Author: ILikeCrabs

Thoughts:

This is a story that goes through and - literally - recounts the life of Cassander Stoutsworth. How he lived and how he got to present day. At parts, it's engaging. My biggest, problem, though, is why is he doing this? The first chapter has no real, logical lead into him giving his life story. Why is he doing this? Furthermore, why should I care? Why do I care about the Mossy Flagon and Thomas? We're not really given a lot of time TO care about them. Why did the author choose this method to open the story up? It gives readers specific expectations that were then not met.

As such, I don't really think the narrative style chosen was the best fit for the novel. Which is a shame, because the general idea is a good one if it was presented in a better way. I would suggest either writing through the sequence of events and delving deeper into them, or choosing a better reason and transition into the story itself.

Also, delve deeper into Bethany. Cassander dedicates a LOT of words to Lilly, but Bethany is the real problem here - at least, she's the one that basically fucked Cassander over. Really, all the characters could be fleshed out more, but she's the biggest victim in my opinion of being a cardboard cutout.

There were also some minor grammar errors, but that can be fixed with a light round of edits.

Again, this could be something really awesome, but it's framed in... well, not the best way.

NOTE: This is not a review of the movie, but of a fanfic I was handed by the same name. A similar concept ig TO the movie, but... not of the movie.

Title: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Author: DiegoVIII

Thoughts:

I tried. I really did. And I threw in the towel after the first chapter.

The writing style is so stilted and awkward that it hurt to read. I very, very, very strongly encourage this author to pursue an editor to clean it up. The saving grace here is that it's readable and that the spelling is good, but that still doesn't help matters much.

The other massive issue is that the first chapter was very long and very boring, and all the information is told to readers. We get a lot of things right off the bat, like Rey's past, and not much time to process it. "Oh, you were a Jedi trainee and your brother is Kylo Ren and some other Jedi wiped your memories" and she just takes it. Bonus points for telling us how she's supposed to be characterized. Don't just tell us she's supposed to be traumatized. Let us feel that trauma. And, preferably, don't have flashbacks/memory scenes that last half the chapter.

Title: Cracked Coffins

Author: TheDeadPlace

Thoughts:

This was a very difficult book for me to read, but not because of the writing style. The writing itself is fantastic. The way the topics are handled? Also fantastic. However, it's because these topics were so visceral and handled that made reading this book a challenge.

Marianna is... a unique character. She has the type of facets and backstory that a lot of writers tend to mess up egregiously. She's stubborn. She's aggressive. She's not good at seeking help. But in this case, it works for her. See, the failing with most characters of this sort of personality is that they eventually [and often very quickly] lose it. Something - normally a person, normally a man - gets in the way of the MC and their personality falls to the wayside...

But not here. And I am unspeakably grateful for that.

The flipside to this, though, is that while I can sympathize with her, I find it very hard to like her. For the most part I felt pretty ambivalent about her and her character, but after... I believe it was chapter 28, this ambivalence flipped to dislike. This is not a fault of the author. Really, it's just a byproduct of the type of person Marianna is. And, by far, Marianna really is a well-rounded character. That said, I reverted right back to liking her in the last couple of chapters. I hope she finds peace, somehow.

But.... it's hard to say the same about other characters. Marianna's "friends", for instance. I can barely remember their names. Honestly, I couldn't very well tell them apart aside from the fact one was more sensible than the other. I knew Jenna was dead, but that's the biggest distinction I could make. That said, considering the plot and the type of person Marianna is, developing them would be difficult. BUT it could be done.

That also leads me to a sort of problem I had: Jenna's death. I know she died. Marianna knew she died, and kinda dwelled on it. But it didn't come across like Marianna's friends were all that bothered by it. At least, not until Marianna is put in Carol's home. This, like Marianna's "friends" in general, came across shallow. I wanted to care about them and everything that happened, but found it incredibly difficult to.

Another problem I had was with Denendrius's abuse. Not the abuse itself, but the sheer lengths he goes to. When he takes Marianna to the woods [the chapter escapes me...] he assaults her within an inch of her life. Honestly, I feel like she would've been dead long before he was finished "teaching her a lesson", based on everything he does. I know she's gone through a lot, but the human body can only handle so much. I'm not saying to water it down or anything, but I feel like in these cases, less is more. Especially since we find out something else that happened in this forest towards the end of the book.

Contrariwise, Marianna's got a drug problem, but aside from cigarettes it didn't seem so much that this was an issue for her, especially later in the book. I know we can't always cover everything, and that there are other, more important parts of the book, but this is one thing that I'm not sure should be left to the wayside the way it feels like it does.

Overall, this is a very impacting read that I had to take my time with. The problems I mention didn't hamper my enjoyment of it.

But uh. Fuck Denendrius though. I really hope he's fucking dead.

I write this with the full conscious awareness that I will probably step on toes for this review. However, it was a review I was asked to do and both I and the asker were aware of my terms.

Title: Republic's Chosen

Author: Rori I.

Thoughts:

I received a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

If I had to sum this book up in one word and one word only, that word would be shallow, and it applies in a multitude of ways. The plot is shallow. Liana's and Marcus's relationship is shallow. The characters overall are shallow. I get more depth from a kiddie pool than I do from this book and it made me incredibly frustrated when I was attempting to read it. What made me more frustrated was what I was promised with this book, which I was then not handed.

I'll start with the writing, because it's the easiest to handle. On the whole, the writing is mediocre and oftentimes, unfortunately, sloppy. I am really curious who the author hired as an editor for this project, because it became very apparent to me early onward that Rori did not get zier money's worth. There are many awkward sentences, punctuation choices, and misspellings throughout the prose. At times, I would find myself reading a paragraph three times to figure out what it had said. This is a bad thing. There was nothing in the prose that particularly excited me. I can't pick a favorite line because honestly it was very hard to have one. In short, I walked away disappointed.

I don’t know what the plot was honestly. What's written on the summary is not what I was handed. I understand Liana and Marcus were taken from their house and put into military training, and some training happens... but that's all I know. After they get to the base, it feels like a slice of life novel and considering the setting and the themes that are attempted to be addressed, this is... a bad thing. Not to mention there were many things skimmed over that would've been interesting to see [Liana's strategy battle with her teacher, for example] and I don't understand why they were skimmed over in place of transition scenes that only really served to bore me. Not to mention, each chapter change was jarring in its own right and it took me an impossibly long time to figure out how we got from one chapter into the next because the connections were often hard to draw. Not to mention overall the only consistent plot points were Li's sexual assault, Li's and Marcus's relationship issues, and some vague problem with Li's past and a secret identity that gets waved in reader's noses like an annoying older sibling with a toy and serves to only frustrate readers with how badly it's handled.