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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
“The Beautiful Maddening” is a very reflective and somber young-adult romance with magical realism and a hint of mystery. The writing was lyrical and descriptive which was very beautiful, BUT the descriptions got a bit repetitive throughout the book.
I personally was hoping for more background on the magic of the tulips and a stronger focus on the two main characters actively falling in love. Overall, this was a very nice read!
Read if you love:
- Curses
- Magical realism
- Flower power
- Lyrical writing
Thank you NetGalley, Simon Teen, Simon & Schuster, and Shea Ernshaw for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
I personally was hoping for more background on the magic of the tulips and a stronger focus on the two main characters actively falling in love. Overall, this was a very nice read!
Read if you love:
- Curses
- Magical realism
- Flower power
- Lyrical writing
Thank you NetGalley, Simon Teen, Simon & Schuster, and Shea Ernshaw for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!
'The Beautiful Maddening' is a YA fantasy novel by Shea Ernshaw.
What I love about this author's works are the major twists that they manage to use, especially in the ending, twists that are unpredictable and a shocker more often than not, and the atmosphere that is always lush and enchanting.
This time around, the mood feels like a fever dream, haunting, maddening, and beautiful. It has those vibes of a bayou in a hot, sticky summer.
Also, the magic was interesting, but, in the end, it wasn't handled well. There were a lot of plot holes when it came to how the tulips and the sickening love work for the family and those around them.
In addition, there were way too many repetitions of the same thing. At some point, a chapter was just repeating the same idea through different metaphors, like how Oak's eyes looked like or what the magical love was. And hardly anything happened to move the story forward.
Moreover, I can't say that the ending was that great, but it was nice enough. The characters were interesting and likable as well.
What I love about this author's works are the major twists that they manage to use, especially in the ending, twists that are unpredictable and a shocker more often than not, and the atmosphere that is always lush and enchanting.
This time around, the mood feels like a fever dream, haunting, maddening, and beautiful. It has those vibes of a bayou in a hot, sticky summer.
Also, the magic was interesting, but, in the end, it wasn't handled well. There were a lot of plot holes when it came to how the tulips and the sickening love work for the family and those around them.
In addition, there were way too many repetitions of the same thing. At some point, a chapter was just repeating the same idea through different metaphors, like how Oak's eyes looked like or what the magical love was. And hardly anything happened to move the story forward.
Moreover, I can't say that the ending was that great, but it was nice enough. The characters were interesting and likable as well.
I know this is young adult and maybe I am jaded bc I have read other young adult that had more depth, but this felt like junior high. The IDEA was decent and unique, but the execution wasn't a hit for me.
dark
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A really interesting little book. It almost has a Ray Bradbury quality to its tone and writing style/word usage but then it’s like a fable and a gothic put together. It’s unique and pretty. I wouldn’t say it’s a happy book even though it does have a happy ending and it was darker than I was in the mood for right now, it feels like something to read in the fall even though it’s set in spring/summer, but it ended up being good anyway.
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
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
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was one of the biggest wastes of my time ever. Like, genuinely, it pissed me off so much that I lowered my rating of The Wicked Deep from two stars to one out of spite. The narration felt very "I'm 14 and this is deep", and like 100 pages in I thought that if I read about Oak's green eyes again I was going to end up in the news (spoiler: it never stops talking about his green eyes. Btw did you know his eyes are green? Because they're green. Emerald, some might say. Others might say green. Not me. I would just say that he has green eyes).
The plot made absolutely no sense either. Full of plot holes, painstakingly slow and pointless. Everything felt repetitive and immature, and it genuinely has one of the worst structures and character arcs I've ever read. I thought that the point would be discovering who stole the tulips, but don't worry, this book doesn't want to waste your time and talk about things that are not the romance, so the culprit just confesses out of nowhere in a very weird scene and every problem is immediately solved.
Also, it was never fully explained how the tulips work. Hey, can you be consistent for five fucking seconds? For what I understand, if you have a tulip, people fall in love with you as long as it serves the plot, otherwise they don't work, or they make you fall in love with someone else, unless the author doesn't want you to, and they only work in the main character's village, which is why she wants to move away, except that it's implied that they might work in other places as well <3 don't worry about it. If you think about it for two seconds, you might have given it more thought than the author did.
The characters are atrocious. The only thing that Lark ever did was complain and whine, she was incredibly passive and I kept waiting for her to do literally anything. I'm going to copy and paste what I told my boyfriend while I was reading. Spoiled in case you want to read this book because you don't value your free time:
Something else that made me feel I was losing braincells.
Also, are we not going to talk about the fact that Lark's mom and Oak's dad were dating, Oak knew from the beginning and they kept making out anyway? Am I the only one who thinks that's weird? Alright. Straight people are wild.
The ending of the book felt like a big slap to the face. Lark hadn't had a lot of character growth or evolution (if she'd had any), and then the last scene reverses everything she had stood for. Alright. What was the point?
BTW, in case you forgot, Oak has green eyes.
Don't waste your time with this.
The plot made absolutely no sense either. Full of plot holes, painstakingly slow and pointless. Everything felt repetitive and immature, and it genuinely has one of the worst structures and character arcs I've ever read. I thought that the point would be discovering who stole the tulips, but don't worry, this book doesn't want to waste your time and talk about things that are not the romance, so the culprit just confesses out of nowhere in a very weird scene and every problem is immediately solved.
Also, it was never fully explained how the tulips work. Hey, can you be consistent for five fucking seconds? For what I understand, if you have a tulip, people fall in love with you as long as it serves the plot, otherwise they don't work, or they make you fall in love with someone else, unless the author doesn't want you to, and they only work in the main character's village, which is why she wants to move away, except that it's implied that they might work in other places as well <3 don't worry about it. If you think about it for two seconds, you might have given it more thought than the author did.
The characters are atrocious. The only thing that Lark ever did was complain and whine, she was incredibly passive and I kept waiting for her to do literally anything. I'm going to copy and paste what I told my boyfriend while I was reading. Spoiled in case you want to read this book because you don't value your free time:
Spoiler
alright this fucking sucks
i was sure that the climax would be the main character deciding that she's fed up with this house and this garden and burning everything to the ground, and i was waiting for that cathartic moment
and after having a fight with her brother she was like "boobooboo poor me i hate this house and this garden i wish the rain would get rid of everything i hate it hereeee" and i was like alright. now she is going to make the active choice of destroying this place, right? right?
nope. it starts raining very hard and the rain destroys the house and the garden and the love interest, who for some reason was there, saves her, because she's a useless fucking idiot. i want to kill myself
are you telling me that in five or six generations or whatever this small village in the mountains of oregon hasn't had a single big storm. fuck off
Something else that made me feel I was losing braincells.
Spoiler
How did she see that Oak's book had a tulip petal? Does she have fucking X-ray vision? I hate this book.Also, are we not going to talk about the fact that Lark's mom and Oak's dad were dating, Oak knew from the beginning and they kept making out anyway? Am I the only one who thinks that's weird? Alright. Straight people are wild.
The ending of the book felt like a big slap to the face. Lark hadn't had a lot of character growth or evolution (if she'd had any), and then the last scene reverses everything she had stood for. Alright. What was the point?
Spoiler
If she has spent her entire life worried that no one is going to love her because of the tulips, why the hell did she keep the tulip petal? Let's play in a scenario in which it makes sense that she had it. Why didn't she get rid of it. I genuinely felt that the author was laughing in my face, pointing at me and saying "look at the loser who wasted so many hours with this!"BTW, in case you forgot, Oak has green eyes.
Don't waste your time with this.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes