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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
"SO CUTE! So. Fucking. Cute." - me during the majority of Bitter Medicine.
A little weird, very charming, and utterly sweet genre-bendy goodness. Urban fantasy meets Contemporary Romance with some of the most earnest and tender characters.
The world is set up in a way where the fae and magical creatures are living quietly alongside/behind the scenes in modern day. Our characters work for the magical company, Roland and Riddle, and the descriptions of the bureaucratic minutiae that occurs was very Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy funny to me.
So, in essence, it's kind of a workplace romance. But it's also full of family dynamics, secrets, and dangerous missions.
Elle and Luc are a couple that you root for immediately. Their respective quiet yearning (OMG the YEARNING!!!) from the start just had me by the heartstrings. The mutual secret pining was delightful. I loved them. I loved their journey.
I read this in tandem via e-book and audio and I really enjoyed the narrator. It was also really nice to be able to hear the multiple languages used spoken out loud.
I also really enjoyed the author's note on language in the afterward:
...and her reasons for including English, Chinese, and French dialogue.
When discussing growing up in the Taiwanese diaspora, in a multilingual environment, she mentions the experience of a conversation partner switching to a language she didn't know and how it often felt like "a door being shut."
A little weird, very charming, and utterly sweet genre-bendy goodness. Urban fantasy meets Contemporary Romance with some of the most earnest and tender characters.
The world is set up in a way where the fae and magical creatures are living quietly alongside/behind the scenes in modern day. Our characters work for the magical company, Roland and Riddle, and the descriptions of the bureaucratic minutiae that occurs was very Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy funny to me.
So, in essence, it's kind of a workplace romance. But it's also full of family dynamics, secrets, and dangerous missions.
Elle and Luc are a couple that you root for immediately. Their respective quiet yearning (OMG the YEARNING!!!) from the start just had me by the heartstrings. The mutual secret pining was delightful. I loved them. I loved their journey.
I read this in tandem via e-book and audio and I really enjoyed the narrator. It was also really nice to be able to hear the multiple languages used spoken out loud.
I also really enjoyed the author's note on language in the afterward:
...and her reasons for including English, Chinese, and French dialogue.
When discussing growing up in the Taiwanese diaspora, in a multilingual environment, she mentions the experience of a conversation partner switching to a language she didn't know and how it often felt like "a door being shut."
I wanted to bring some of that to Bitter Medicine, which is why I did not provide translation. There isn't anything in the non-English dialogue that's critical to the overall understanding of the text, but I wanted explicitly for readers to experience the shutting of the door, the dropping of the portcullis. The English-speaking West operate on strict English accessibility (and likewise, Mandarin-speaking China operates on strict Mandarin accessibility.) The only acceptable language to speak is English because the dominant culture has an imperialist desire to know everything. If it cannot be known, it must then be conquered and colonized. People of the dominant culture can and do get upset when they suddenly no longer understand what's happening because they've been denied the access they believe is theirs. But that's a discomfort I'm willing to bake into my book.
This was the most frustrating read of 2023 for me. Rounding up because I think the premise was so great and I do want to see what the author does next.
Bitter Medicone has a lot of my favorite tropes and I was really excited going in but this book never clicked (though I desperately wanted it to).
I felt like the magic system and world building were never really explained and the pacing didn’t work for me — most of the plot happened in the middle 20% of the book, with the first 40% and the last 40% being very slow. A lot of plot points were set up and never resolved, so I ultimately found this a really unsatisfying read.
Bitter Medicone has a lot of my favorite tropes and I was really excited going in but this book never clicked (though I desperately wanted it to).
I felt like the magic system and world building were never really explained and the pacing didn’t work for me — most of the plot happened in the middle 20% of the book, with the first 40% and the last 40% being very slow. A lot of plot points were set up and never resolved, so I ultimately found this a really unsatisfying read.
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
tense
medium-paced
I wanted to love this book so much, but I couldn't get into it. The world building was pretty non-existent and so I was left confused about so much that was happening. It made it so I couldn't get into the story. That and I HATE that our main character lady had all the powers! She was so strong! But then she lost them...and that's about where I stopped reading. I also didn't like that her younger brother is literally trying to kill her and her older brother and yet she has this must save him! thing going on. Like I get it is family and that is hard, but when someone is literally trying to kill me maybe I need to let that go. Like I don't know. The self sacrifice because must save the brothers was not my favorite. Plenty of people like that, but not what I enjoy reading.
No world building, no introduction to anything that’s happening, lots of saying rather than doing, poorly written…
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
3 ⭐️
A little torn on how to rate this. I really enjoyed what MT was trying to do, just the execution did not go through. The pacing was terrible, and the plot was out of order in a way. It felt like it should have been 80 pages shorter — the climax of the story was far too early, and then we have what is supposedly the finish of Luc’s arc as the final act but it was not nearly as hard hitting as the end of act 3.
As well, I struggled with the world building. I basically had to kind of interpret things as though they worked for the Ministry of Magic, but it was definitely a rather nebulous thing with no exposition. At the end it felt like Oberon’s gang of henchmen, rather than a governing/policing body.
However, I really enjoyed Elle. Her relationship with her family felt true to culture. I loved what MT did with language in this as well, it was definitely a little bit of a pushback against English speaking culture, and it meant the character’s backgrounds rang true. As well, I identified with Elle as both an overachiever and an underachiever. There was a lot to like in her as a character, and her grit and joy were positively contagious. Luc was a cinnamon roll mother hen and he did a great job of being both high achieving and burnt out.
This does have some spice in it and the scenes (multiple) were pageS long but not with crude language.
A little torn on how to rate this. I really enjoyed what MT was trying to do, just the execution did not go through. The pacing was terrible, and the plot was out of order in a way. It felt like it should have been 80 pages shorter — the climax of the story was far too early, and then we have what is supposedly the finish of Luc’s arc as the final act but it was not nearly as hard hitting as the end of act 3.
As well, I struggled with the world building. I basically had to kind of interpret things as though they worked for the Ministry of Magic, but it was definitely a rather nebulous thing with no exposition. At the end it felt like Oberon’s gang of henchmen, rather than a governing/policing body.
However, I really enjoyed Elle. Her relationship with her family felt true to culture. I loved what MT did with language in this as well, it was definitely a little bit of a pushback against English speaking culture, and it meant the character’s backgrounds rang true. As well, I identified with Elle as both an overachiever and an underachiever. There was a lot to like in her as a character, and her grit and joy were positively contagious. Luc was a cinnamon roll mother hen and he did a great job of being both high achieving and burnt out.
This does have some spice in it and the scenes (multiple) were pageS long but not with crude language.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
adventurous
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A poignant story that lives up to its title. I enjoyed Elle and Luc's relationship.
I felt a bit like Elle's relationship with her family could have been explored more. Her brothers put her in an impossible position and started the whole mess in the first place, but neither lived up to it.
I felt a bit like Elle's relationship with her family could have been explored more. Her brothers put her in an impossible position and started the whole mess in the first place, but neither lived up to it.