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pedanther's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.75
I found the prose style easy to read - aside from an irritating tendency to change its mind several times a scene about who the viewpoint character was - but for me the story never entirely came alive. The plot is serviceable, but unsurprising, the characters underdeveloped, and while the worldbuilding has some interesting elements, it also has a tendency to rely on unexamined tropes that often left me wishing that certain aspects had been thought through more. I suspect that someone who's already more into urban fantasy and/or regency romance than me would find it more enjoyable. (I don't know if someone who's more into regency romance than me would be more or less annoyed by the use of regency romance tropes in a story that's explicitly set in the late Victorian era.) I wasn't surprised to find PG Wodehouse listed as one of the author's inspirations; I'm going to say that she doesn't have Wodehouse's knack for funny character names and leave it at that.
It says something that I've gone on so long about the book: I don't usually have this much to say about books I really dislike (or books I really like). This one's in that middle ground where it was good enough that I want to be just to it, but not good enough that I really liked it. Not sorry I gave it a shot, not likely to read any of the sequels.
It says something that I've gone on so long about the book: I don't usually have this much to say about books I really dislike (or books I really like). This one's in that middle ground where it was good enough that I want to be just to it, but not good enough that I really liked it. Not sorry I gave it a shot, not likely to read any of the sequels.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Violence, Kidnapping, Classism, Torture, Medical trauma, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Sexism, Blood, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Racism, Stalking, Cultural appropriation, Alcohol, Body shaming, and Confinement
Minor: Death, Death of parent, Infertility, Mental illness, Murder, Self harm, Genocide, Gore, Police brutality, War, Emotional abuse, Religious bigotry, and Cursing
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