Lauren

Lady Tremaine is the infamous “evil stepmother” Etheldreda’s side of the Cinderella fairy tale. That is all I knew going into this book. It is worth noting this is not a fairytale in itself, as is not magical or full of whimsy. It is a historical fiction placing this tale in the real world.

This is somehow the fourth book I’ve read this year about motherhood, and I know I have one more on my physical TBR. It is odd considering I actually really do not enjoy books about motherhood, but here we are. And I did enjoy this one.

I’ve seen people complain that the protagonist of this book is not evil, and while I agree, I also push back on the notion that she is good. In fact, she herself also pushes back on this idea. I will not provide specific examples to avoid spoilers, but there are many times I wondered if I was suppose to feel sympathy towards her or dislike, and that is the point. She loves her daughters deeply and wants to right all the wrongs she had faced through them, for better or worse. This causes her to act selfishly, to be cruel, to hurt people. This causes her to even harm her daughters in a way, turning them into copies of herself. And the cause of this all stems back to womanhood and motherhood. I will say it again: That is the point.

Throughout history women have been pitted against each other and given little to no rights in most parts of the world. It is really only in recent decades women have gained independence from their husbands, and even then women do not have the same rights as many of their male counterparts. This story explores this idea by showing us how different women (particularly one trying to fake her way to a better life and one living in wealth) approach life, each other, and the lengths they are willing to go to for their children.

So no, Etheldrea is not cartoonishly evil like she is in the source material, but she is deeply flawed and complicated. She is sometimes a character you root for and other times completely unlikable. Her daughters and the the Cinderella character are similar in this way too. None of them are perfect. None of them are “good” or “evil.” They are all simply women trying to survive.

review coming soon

You Did Nothing Wrong is C.G. Drew’s adult debut. It is about Elodie’s and Jude’s experience living in an old house as Elodie’s new husband renovates it. Jude hates the house, saying he can hear things in the walls and the renovations cause the house pain. At first Elodie assures her son he’s only nervous about living in a new place, but quickly starts to wonder if maybe he’s right.

I think people are going to love or hate this book. Although it’s far less connected to the earth and botany, the writing is still very much like C.G. Drews other works.

Personally I had a great time with this book. Even the ending - which I am sure some people will absolutely hate - made complete sense to me for this story. I’ve come to accept I will always have questions leaving Drew’s books. It’s actually something I’ve learned to enjoy about them. It never feels like plot holes or laziness, but as a real part of the story telling. My only criticism (if it can be called that) is this didn’t really feel like a horror. While I suppose get why it was placed in the genre, I would say it’s more domestic and psychological thriller than horror (and I get the publisher has more say over this than the author). As someone who gets scared easily, I never felt scared. Instead, I spent a lot of time trying to decide what I thought was happening, who was playing what role, and what the catalyst was. Those topics were pretty obvious from early on, but there’s still plenty I didn’t figure out (and some things I’m still trying to understand).

Elodie is a tough pill to swallow. Sometimes I felt bad for her, sometimes I was frustrated by her, and sometimes I hated her, which made the reading experience interesting, but admittedly a little exhausting at times. I know that all sounds like a negative, but it was clearly intentional and I enjoyed the experience.

I really liked Jude as a character. I was worried we were going to go the typical “creep kid” route with this, but this book didn’t feel stereotypical at all. Drew’s also has shared that they are autistic, and though Jude is never formally diagnosed, it’s very clear from the writing that he is autistic and I have to imagine some of Drew’s experience was placed into Jude. For better or worse, it felt very real, from how he reacted to things and untold the world around him to how people reacted to him.

Overall I really liked this book, but it certainly isn’t for everyone and I’m curious to see what people think of the ending.

The Beauty of Darkness is the third and final book in the Remnant Chronicles. As such, I really can’t say anything more on the synopsis without spoiling the prior books.

What I can say is, I’m not sure if it’s me or the book. I’ve been feeling very indifferent to every book I’ve read recently. I know this is YA and I’m certainly no longer the target audience, but I see adults gushing over it all the time and I do love a YA fantasy. That’s not to say I didn’t like the book. I did. It was technically fine in every way, and I think if I read this at 16 I would have been obsessed. At 29, however, I struggled to care. It felt very predictable, and if I’m honest, though I could see the ending coming, I still felt lied to. (I know prophecies are never straight forward, but still).

To be fair, I didn’t love book 1, so maybe I should have just given up there. I just wanted to live it because it sounded like something I should.

I do think this series will work for so many people, and I think it’s a great book for the intended audience, just not me.

The Beauty of Darkness is the third and final book in the Remnant Chronicles. As such, I really can’t say anything more on the synopsis without spoiling the prior books.

What I can say is, I’m not sure if it’s me or the book. I’ve been feeling very indifferent to every book I’ve read recently. I know this is YA and I’m certainly no longer the target audience, but I see adults gushing over it all the time and I do love a YA fantasy. That’s not to say I didn’t like the book. I did. It was technically fine in every way, and I think if I read this at 16 I would have been obsessed. At 29, however, I struggled to care. It felt very predictable, and if I’m honest, though I could see the ending coming, I still felt lied to. (I know prophecies are never straight forward, but still).

To be fair, I didn’t love book 1, so maybe I should have just given up there. I just wanted to live it because it sounded like something I should.

I do think this series will work for so many people, and I think it’s a great book for the intended audience, just not me.

The Beauty of Darkness is the third and final book in the Remnant Chronicles. As such, I really can’t say anything more on the synopsis without spoiling the prior books.

What I can say is, I’m not sure if it’s me or the book. I’ve been feeling very indifferent to every book I’ve read recently. I know this is YA and I’m certainly no longer the target audience, but I see adults gushing over it all the time and I do love a YA fantasy. That’s not to say I didn’t like the book. I did. It was technically fine in every way, and I think if I read this at 16 I would have been obsessed. At 29, however, I struggled to care. It felt very predictable, and if I’m honest, though I could see the ending coming, I still felt lied to. (I know prophecies are never straight forward, but still).

To be fair, I didn’t love book 1, so maybe I should have just given up there. I just wanted to live it because it sounded like something I should.

I do think this series will work for so many people, and I think it’s a great book for the intended audience, just not me.

I can’t say I’ve ever had an interest in Moby Dick not putting the tale in space, but I have really enjoyed Alexis Hall’s work in the past, so I was anticipating this book. Unfortunately, it fell flat.

I will say the writing itself was fine and there were a few moments that I found humorous (not funny per se, but funny adjacent). I also mostly read this via audiobook, and the narrator did a good a job at making it clear who was speaking. I also generally enjoy stories where the narrator keeps things from the audience in the way this did (not as plot conscience, but this book is written like a memoir, and the narrators tells you they’re keeping information from you).

However, that’s where my enjoyment ended. The book was so casually sex focused that I couldn’t concentrate on anything else (note: this is not erotica and does not read as it. For example, the unnamed narrator will casually mention they’re having some sort of sex while something else is happening). In fact, I’m shocked anyone has time to do anything else with how often it seems like they are all thinking about sex. Other words are used to imply that content (railed was used twice, but I think there were others), but the words sex and sexy appear in the book 53 times. The fact that the MC was having sex with multiple people (consensually and with everyone’s knowledge - a plus) does NOTHING for the story.

There were the bones of a message in this book. It seemed like there was an attempt to have some commentary on the perception of lost histories and history discovers solely through artifacts and science (a really interesting concept that got lost in the story - I wanted MORE), as well as maybe how going out and having experiences first hand is valuable and necessary.

Lastly, I think it’s a little unfair to compare this to Gideon the Ninth. I can see where the comparison comes from, but hike Gideon uses an unreliable character who is chaotic and sometimes discusses her “dirty magazines,” that book is layered and the characters are well constructed. This book had potential, but the MC really needed to be reigned in and the book’s messaging needed to be focused better in my opinion.