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4.57 AVERAGE
4.57 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I don’t even know if I can possibly put everything swirling in my head into coherent words. This is easily one of the best books I have ever read. Now, I loved A Tale of Two Cities, but I never read Great Expectations for one stupid reason—the protagonist’s name is Pip. Like, come on. So, I can’t say how close this is to the original, however, I can say it certainly has the feel of a Charles Dickens’ lush prose and excellent story-telling.
Scarlet Drake is literally my favorite author now, and I can’t see why a publishing house hasn’t picked this up. It does need editing, though. There are enough instances of a closing quotation that isn’t preceded by an opening one that it sticks out in my mind as an issue. Still, excellent, excellent, excellent.
For those here looking for a romance in the traditional sense, this isn’t it. What it is, though, is a story about love, raw and nuanced. It’s about the pains of growing up and falling in love with all the good and bad. It’s mostly about, though, how you only see life through your own eyes. Jude watches Cas from the outside and can only imagine what is truly going on in Cas’s life or what’s behind the choices he makes, and his theories are compelling, but there is never a way to really know what someone else is going through. It’s a hard lesson to learn.
I guess the best way to process what I just read was to simply accept this one fact: Everything happened exactly as it should have. I know, that’s awful to say. Both Jude and Cas experience such pain throughout their lives, and the tragedy is that you believe Jude—that it could have all been avoided with a few simple words. I think that’s why I get this overwhelming feeling of sadness come over me whenever I think about this novel. Because I’m an optimist, and I just want to say, “But you could have worked it out, day by day!”
The truth is harder to accept. It couldn’t. The characters had to go through these challenges in order to become the grown adults they are in the end. Cas is right; it couldn’t have been any other way because he wasn’t ready (obviously), but Jude also wasn’t ready. He was young and naïve and knew very little about life. His experiences led him to become a stronger man, being able to retain his goodness while becoming wiser and stronger along the way.
The last thing I’m going to say about this absolute masterpiece is that the big reveals aren’t really surprising. There are obvious hints along the way, but that’s not the point of the story—you know, to be surprised. The point is how Jude perceives it as he’s growing up. And that is what makes it all the more tragic and heart-breaking. At the end of each Part, my heart broke and then broke again. I think the following quote sums up how you should expect to feel as Jude feels them:
I don’t know how Scarlett Drake worked her magic, but I felt such pain when I was reading this. Usually I welcome the pain (like Erha), but this was almost too much to bear. I truly thought if I put it down, I didn’t think I’d be able to pick it up again. I made myself keep reading because I was promised a happy ending.
It was so hard to keep going. I cried at the end of each Part, with every heartbreak, and at the end. Granted, my psychiatrist lowered my anti-depressants about a week or 2 before, and I think the withdrawal symptoms reeeeaaaalllly hit me the same time, either that or this book triggered it because I cried basically the whole day I read it. And then at 3am in the morning, I woke up and cried some more until my work alarm went off. Then I cried half the day at work. And even now, when I think of it, I still feel this deep, profound pain in my chest.
I am also going to add one more thing: to those who say that Caspien remains the same throughout the entire novel didn't read the same novel. Caspien is cold and calculating and detached and puts on an act that says he's so much more mature than Jude when the story begins. But as time goes on, he becomes more timid, unsure, hesitant. It's literally a huge change in his demeanor. BUT you have to get to the very end to see the entirety of it. It clear with each time he reappears in Jude's life that he becomes less assertive and acerbic and meeker.
Anyway, I can’t recommend this enough!
Scarlet Drake is literally my favorite author now, and I can’t see why a publishing house hasn’t picked this up. It does need editing, though. There are enough instances of a closing quotation that isn’t preceded by an opening one that it sticks out in my mind as an issue. Still, excellent, excellent, excellent.
For those here looking for a romance in the traditional sense, this isn’t it. What it is, though, is a story about love, raw and nuanced. It’s about the pains of growing up and falling in love with all the good and bad. It’s mostly about, though, how you only see life through your own eyes. Jude watches Cas from the outside and can only imagine what is truly going on in Cas’s life or what’s behind the choices he makes, and his theories are compelling, but there is never a way to really know what someone else is going through. It’s a hard lesson to learn.
I guess the best way to process what I just read was to simply accept this one fact: Everything happened exactly as it should have. I know, that’s awful to say. Both Jude and Cas experience such pain throughout their lives, and the tragedy is that you believe Jude—that it could have all been avoided with a few simple words. I think that’s why I get this overwhelming feeling of sadness come over me whenever I think about this novel. Because I’m an optimist, and I just want to say, “But you could have worked it out, day by day!”
The truth is harder to accept. It couldn’t. The characters had to go through these challenges in order to become the grown adults they are in the end. Cas is right; it couldn’t have been any other way because he wasn’t ready (obviously), but Jude also wasn’t ready. He was young and naïve and knew very little about life. His experiences led him to become a stronger man, being able to retain his goodness while becoming wiser and stronger along the way.
The last thing I’m going to say about this absolute masterpiece is that the big reveals aren’t really surprising. There are obvious hints along the way, but that’s not the point of the story—you know, to be surprised. The point is how Jude perceives it as he’s growing up. And that is what makes it all the more tragic and heart-breaking. At the end of each Part, my heart broke and then broke again. I think the following quote sums up how you should expect to feel as Jude feels them:
“If I counted all the little ways he broke my heart, totalled them up, and set them on a scale, I doubt they would even come close to that first, deep break. The one that felt like a crack tearing through stone and earth, through things that had existed since the beginning of a life, to alter it irrevocably.
That was the thing about heartbreak – mine anyway – it didn’t feel like a complete shattering, like something that could never heal. It felt more like a deep fracture over which, in time, things could grow over. The tear could never be completely mended, not so that it was as it had been, but with enough work and time it could fool the eye into thinking there’d never been a crack there at all.”
I don’t know how Scarlett Drake worked her magic, but I felt such pain when I was reading this. Usually I welcome the pain (like Erha), but this was almost too much to bear. I truly thought if I put it down, I didn’t think I’d be able to pick it up again. I made myself keep reading because I was promised a happy ending.
It was so hard to keep going. I cried at the end of each Part, with every heartbreak, and at the end. Granted, my psychiatrist lowered my anti-depressants about a week or 2 before, and I think the withdrawal symptoms reeeeaaaalllly hit me the same time, either that or this book triggered it because I cried basically the whole day I read it. And then at 3am in the morning, I woke up and cried some more until my work alarm went off. Then I cried half the day at work. And even now, when I think of it, I still feel this deep, profound pain in my chest.
I am also going to add one more thing: to those who say that Caspien remains the same throughout the entire novel didn't read the same novel. Caspien is cold and calculating and detached and puts on an act that says he's so much more mature than Jude when the story begins. But as time goes on, he becomes more timid, unsure, hesitant. It's literally a huge change in his demeanor.
Spoiler
Literally, he chose the path with Xavier, and Xavier humbled him. Absolutely and irrevocably stripped him down to his essence and made him reassess himself. His self-hatred. His depression. When he comes out the other side, Cas is mature, calm, sweet, even. He's working with a therapist, and it shows in his actions and the Epilogue, which is told from his POV.Anyway, I can’t recommend this enough!
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
PHENOMENAL
They’ve used up all my tears.
Oh to be loved by Jude Alcott.
This book was heartbreaking and it got worse and worse. But Jude and Caspien finally got their happy ending. No one deserved a happy ending as much as they did.
Jude is so precious to me he’s my baby. The way he loved Caspien through all the pain and heartbreak even when Caspien put him through the worst and made fun of him for it.
“As long as Caspien Deveraux breathed, I would love him.”
And he did
They’ve used up all my tears.
Oh to be loved by Jude Alcott.
This book was heartbreaking and it got worse and worse. But Jude and Caspien finally got their happy ending. No one deserved a happy ending as much as they did.
Jude is so precious to me he’s my baby. The way he loved Caspien through all the pain and heartbreak even when Caspien put him through the worst and made fun of him for it.
“As long as Caspien Deveraux breathed, I would love him.”
And he did
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Loved.
I felt like this was going to be like the 90s movie, and I just did not like Estella (Caspien here), and especially didn’t like HEA.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
One of the best books I’ve read in 2024. The way that it was written turned this into a masterpiece. So many layers to this I couldn’t put it down and finished it in one night
Content Warnings
Moderate: Domestic abuse
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Sexual violence
“I tried to consider what this would mean, how much it was going to hurt when he left me again – because he would, it was what he did, and decided I didn’t care. I was Jude. He was Cas. This was us.”
Running a blade through my chest would have been less heartbreaking than this book.
Before I start my review I find it important to mention that I have never read A Great Expectations so I don't have a reference point to compare Oleander to the way Im sure those with the reading experience do. What I can say, however, is that after reading this book, I am much more inclined to read it.
Oleander follows Jude. This at its core is his story; who he was before Caspian and who he is after meeting him - and it hurts. The pain is a visceral burning sensation. You want to root for Jude. You want him happy. You don't think Caspian can make him happy but Jude does. It's all one gaping wound that's constantly being touched even though we all know it shouldn't. And even when we finally get the stitches we so desperately need it's still fragile to the touch.
If that's not enough to get you to read this achingly heartbreaking story I'm not sure what will.
Running a blade through my chest would have been less heartbreaking than this book.
Before I start my review I find it important to mention that I have never read A Great Expectations so I don't have a reference point to compare Oleander to the way Im sure those with the reading experience do. What I can say, however, is that after reading this book, I am much more inclined to read it.
Oleander follows Jude. This at its core is his story; who he was before Caspian and who he is after meeting him - and it hurts. The pain is a visceral burning sensation. You want to root for Jude. You want him happy. You don't think Caspian can make him happy but Jude does. It's all one gaping wound that's constantly being touched even though we all know it shouldn't. And even when we finally get the stitches we so desperately need it's still fragile to the touch.
If that's not enough to get you to read this achingly heartbreaking story I'm not sure what will.