Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - A Strange and Stubborn Endurance

Lovely, imaginative book about QPOC fantasy romance with great mutism and sign language representation, but BE SURE TO CHECK TRIGGER WARNINGS. The subjects are handled well, but they are handled explicitly.

Content Warnings

zed_dog's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

4.0

I would recommend this book more widely and wholeheartedly, but I hesitate because of the very, very prominent description of sexual violence and the associated physical and mental trauma. It's ultimately a hopeful book about resilience (and healthy romantic relationship negotiation, empowerment, and political intrigue), but there is certainly no flinching from the disturbing content.

Content Warnings

albernikolauras's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense 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? Yes

4.5

An emotional queer romance that will put you through the ringer as you follow the main character (Vel) and his love interest (Cae) as they navigate their somewhat unplanned marriage and try to figure out who is trying to kill Vel.

This book has everything - great friendships, adorable romance, some fun politics to explore (and main characters who aren't very good at politics), and a murder mystery. It was a great book to read amongst the middling books around it.

Note - This story starts out with an extremely violent scene (check trigger warnings), and for a large part of the book, a character is dealing with the repercussions of that act.

Content Warnings

anxiousnachos's review

Go to review page

emotional

5.0

LOOOOOOOOOOOVE. Heart broken and then full at the same time. Full review to come.

Content Warnings

vibrantcolours's review

Go to review page

emotional

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

Longer review later? I found this super readable but not 100% sure how much I liked it.

Tl;dr topically quite similar to Winter's Orbit and A Taste of Gold and Iron: queer arranged marriage/political intrigue/SFF setting/overcoming trauma etc., though I would recommend those two books first.

Spiritually, it's similar to angst & hurt/comfort fanfic, maybe even a little too on-the-nose.

I get that the suffering and growth is very much inherent to the character arc here, e.g. the somewhat intense trauma in like chapter 2, but by the time we got to animal death several traumas and crying jags later, it registered a bit as emotionally manipulative ("make the MC feel even worse") to me... again, though I realize that emotions are very much part of the point here.

I thought the writing was generally strong but it didn't always read as fully authentic? Still putting a finger on it; maybe it was some of the banter

("sorry, I'm being Ralian again, aren't I?" was vaguely endearing the first time, but grating to me by, like, the fifth)

or relationship, or maybe it's more the plot.

If you tend to avoid certain triggers, look up the content warnings for this one first

(most notably SA)

; these topics come up quite early and are not subtle.

On the positive side, I particularly liked Velasin and that his intelligence was given space to shine (and we didn't only see him suffering/trying to recover), as well as the language/cultural elements, particularly sign language & Vel's friendship with Markel. While I liked Kae, it seemed his defining traits were "kind" and "attractive"; I really felt Vel got more character development and also thought it was unusual that only one of the two multi-POV characters got first-person narration.

Tagging mlm for obvious reasons. Also, enby and trans side characters; similar to the other two books, the queer-normative society recognizes a "third"/non-binary gender with established linguistics (incl. neopronouns) and clothing conventions.

<i>LOL at the length of my tl;dr</i>

Content Warnings

lh_reads's review

Go to review page

adventurous emotional 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? Yes

5.0

This book is why I love queer high fantasy so much. Watching Caethari and Velasin relationship develop warmed my heart. Also I came for the queer high fantasy but stayed for the political intrigue and mystery. I also loved how Velasin Truman’s was written and how he reacted and grew. As someone also having a similar experience it really hit home but I loved it all and all

Content Warnings

wandering_not_lost's review

Go to review page

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

Mind the warnings - this book contains descriptions of rape, homophobia, violence, and animal death (not necessarily at the same time).

A book that attempts to be (and largely succeeds at being) a happy romance and a hard-nosed, high-stakes mystery. The structure also kind of segregates these two layers, so there are parts of the book (the beginning, which contains the rape scene, and the end, where no punches are pulled in confrontation between the antagonist and protagonists ) that are dark in the gritty whumping on the characters, but the long middle is much lighter. So, if you read the beginning and go "holy crap, this is HEAVY, what did I get into?", I'd recommend keeping going, to see if the middle can carry you through.

For the romance angle, I really liked it in that it avoids some of the worst romance tropes (misunderstandings/miscommunications carried much longer than they have to be, jealousy, characters not respecting each other, etc.) while hitting on the good stuff (characters acting in good faith and expecting each other to do the same, helping each other with their problems, and a general healthy dynamic). The two protagonists are both good people, and they form a solid team early on, which helps them through the rest of their troubles. At the same time, their relationship doesn't shy away from its issues: Velasin has gone through a lot and has some definite Issues with a capital ISS to deal with. But he makes a minimum of impulsively dumb choices, and Cae throws in with him early on to help while mostly managing to avoid making new problems. They talk. They listen to each other. Also, the long burn they have going is pretty hot, ngl.

The mystery was engaging, and though there is some minimal "it's just magic" handwaving, overall the sussing out of the mystery made sense. The resolution of the mystery and the antagonist's actions were a bit more questionable. Without getting spoilery, it hinged on the antagonist being very good at hiding their motivations, and the author did not provide any clues at all about this. Thus, the reveal wasn't really predictable and came from a really unwise shouting match that the protagonists are in the right place/time to hear.

The book was quite long and had some points where I felt it could have been tightened up or things set up a bit better (

Markel's archery skills could have been set up better and where the hell did he find an already-strung bow so quickly? why didn't they try to send a message to the Aida for help once they knew who the villain was and knew they'd be unable to get back there without them knowing and possibly ambushing them? And the father's inability to communicate well with his children could have been better broadcasted earlier.

), but overall, I really liked it.

Content Warnings

marina_michelle's review

Go to review page

dark emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

I wanted to like this book so much more than I actually did. I picked it up after hearing it recommended for fans of Winter's Orbit and I had pretty high hopes.

I will say that I did very much enjoy Meadows' prose and dialogue. I also think their characters themselves felt quite fleshed out and a ton of them were even very likable. Velasin definitely stands out as the strongest character with the clearest voice and motivation. I've seen a few reviews from people saying they found him standoffish and therefore unlikeable, but I think that's a bit silly considering the circumstances he's in. Of course he's going to be standoffish. That's also what made him feel real! He reacted to his circumstances like a real person, flaws and all. I loved Caethari and Velasin's relationship overall and found myself really rooting for them.

Unfortunately none of this was able to make up for the faults, at least to me. To start with, I am not at all the kind of person who feels that all difficult topics are off limits to explore in fiction. However there wasn't really a reason for

Velasin's sexual assault

to happen in detail on page. I do give Meadows and the publishing team kudos for putting a trigger warning on the first page of the book! That was an excellent idea and I'd love to see it more often.

The most jarring problem for me was that this book is written in two different points of view. Velasin's chapters are in first person and Caethari's are in third person. It was incredibly distracting. I spent the entire book trying to figure out any artistic reason why the choice was made to write it this way and I came up blank.

Despite being a little put off I continued reading anyway because I did really enjoy the writing itself and the characters. The mystery was engaging enough that I wanted to see where it was going. Unfortunately the culprit ended up being quite literally the most obvious choice possible. Like, I had initially written this character off because I thought it would be too obvious.

I might have been able to roll with that, even if it was a little disappointing, but the real kicker was that the mystery wasn't even solved through any actual investigative work in the end! They'd chased multiple false leads over the course of the story but when it came time for them to check out the lead that would actually get them somewhere they just so happen to stumble across the culprit detailing their evil plan! I would have loved to see them cut one of the earlier false leads and actually follow this one to it's conclusion.

Overall I would probably give any future books by Foz Meadows a try and I think they're a promising author, but I would have liked to see some more discerning editing.

Content Warnings

More...