Reviews with content warning for Classism - The Shadows Between Us

Reviews tagging 'Classism'

The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller

10 reviews

abicaro17's review

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book starts off so strong. Alessandra is the second daughter of an earl looking to gain power and acknowledgement by marrying the Shadow King, Kallias. The problem? She plans to kill him right after. Alessandra is cunning, vicious, manipulative, and talented in many ways. I think the general plot was so fun! I love a good murderess and mystery. Alessandra is fun to read as well with all her inner monologue and complex feelings about people. My issues with this book stem from development (or lack thereof). To me, Alessandra and the world building feel underdeveloped. Alessandra is supposed to be this devious murderess with this plot, but her idea is quite literally just to poison him and hope the blame gets placed on a neighboring kingdom. Also past the first few chapters she doesn't seem very murder prone. I think her initial characterization was much more interesting than what we were left with. My other issue stems from world building. In terms of kingdoms and the country laws we are never given any explanations. This leaves me at a loss at times for why things are the way they are politically. I think this book could definitely benefit from some elaboration and possibly a different ending?

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2blueshoes's review against another edition

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fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

Look, starting off your book with a quote from Vampire Diaries is a bold choice. Perhaps it should also have been a red flag.

Somewhere along the recent journey of reading fantasy romances about “morally ambiguous shadow zaddies…” I have come to the conclusion that I do in fact require SOME morality to be present in order to root for characters.

In so many ways this book aligns with very typical fantasy tropes:

1. A “feminist for her time” heroine is thrust into a situation where she is competing for power, and finds love along the way.

2. A psychologically tortured hero in a position of political power finds himself captivated by the heroine who originally wont give him the time of day.

3. They are both attractive. Various plot points keep them apart. Lots of longing glances occur. They slowly reveal their true selves to each other. Meanwhile, larger forces threaten their lives and happiness. Happy ending.

Yes, great, sign me up. 👍🏻

Here’s where the tropes end: these characters do not abide by (traditional western) morality. They do not root for the underdogs. They do not seek fairness. They actively pursue injustice to benefit themselves. They are unrepentant in murder and celebrate their success in silencing anyone who questions the monarchy. There is a “Robin Hood” type character who is trying to help poor people, and they happily

put him in jail for life

. When they get vulnerable with each other, the hopes and dreams they share are to “conquer all people and kingdoms” and “have ultimate power”.

I mean, at least they are aligned in their shared values… I guess?

There are a few things to love about this book.
- The author has chosen to write a heroine who is liberated in her body and sexuality, and who knows her own worth, which I applaud. (Side note: despite this, this book is fully fade-to-black when it comes to intimacy scenes.)
- While being an absolute dick to everyone else, the heroine does champion her two closest friends (while also kind of making fun of them in her head).
- There is only a very small element of magic in the story, but it’s a new take. There is some interesting fashion stuff if you are into that, and I only saw half of the surprise twist ending in advance.

If you love stories about really unusual characters, perhaps you’ll love this.

For me, this love story was believable - but I simply didn’t want to believe in it.

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kate_arts's review

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adventurous mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I have very mixed feelings about this book. I think the premise is fun. Alessandra, I think, is a hard character to like. She is a strong female character and is in tune with her sexuality and is all for the rights of women. However, she’s very much a ‘not like other girls’ girl. She constantly has to be one step ahead of everyone but in an annoying way. That’s not to say that she doesn’t bring up some important points and if you’re going to add sexism to your fantasy world at least let there be people that think it’s wrong.

I do appreciate how the author gives her challenges through out the story that feel realistic. Like her ex being manipulative or her not figuring out that what’s his face is the king’s brother.

In the dedication of the book the author says this is a Slytherin Romance. Because of this I kept envisioning Kallias as a dark Harry Potter. Which was at best funny and at worst distracting. Honestly if you read fan fiction you’ll be able to stomach this book. It’s definitely an ok romantasy book. I’ve definitely read worse. I think my biggest gripe is that the author repeatedly addresses the sexism in the fantasy world but actively portrays the classism and xenophobic in the book as a good thing. And like yeah these people are running a kingdom that has conquered a lot of the surrounding kingdoms so like if the shoe fits, but sometimes it was hard to stomach.

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plsnotanotherdamselindistress's review

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adventurous dark mysterious

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

2.75

So...this wasn't what I expected...

The story definitely contains a strong and confident fMC, but our girl is not likable...more like absolutely crazy and ehmm delusional.
It wss also great that the mMC supported her and acknowledges her wit seeing her as his equal, but the morals...

Both characters have a few things in common e.g. morally more than grey (as in anti heroes - figthing against a Robin Hood kinda guy, wanting to battle and in some way colonize other countries, working on strategies to oppress people), not reasonable and so on.

And while I can like morally grey characters you really feel like you are on the wrong side of the story in this book and I have now learned that is something I can not ignore (unreasonable killing - yes, this - no).

I liked that the society was diverse.
Not a fan of the ages chosen for the MCs even though it seemed fitting to how immature they acted.

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brookey8888's review

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adventurous funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I really enjoyed this! I really love the main characters she was probably my favorite part of the book. She was just so strong and unapologetic which I just loved. The romance was cute. I also really enjoyed the friendship aspect of this. The plot was interesting but wasn’t my favorite I just really like the characters and the relationships. I also liked the feminist tones of this book

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haley49's review

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adventurous

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

4.0

The characters are bad people but you still root for them??? They are casually down with murder and classism but are kind of feminists so it’s okay???
My feelings on the main characters are mixed but I loved them evolving together and realizing how alike they were, The pace felt natural and the story was interesting.

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b_robinson's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

1.75

ugghhhhhhhhh I was in pain during every single second of this ridiculous book.

I don't get it. Why is there SO MUCH HYPE??? WHAT IS THERE TO LOVE????
"it's a slytherin romance", yeah sure, a SHITTY ONE
"alessandra is a feminist icon", a completely insufferable and unloveable one, naturally

you know that something has gone terribly wrong when you're glad that the MC's plan falls apart :(

She was so goddamn WHINY and SNOOTY and ENTIRELY UP HERSELF; this girl was in desperate need of a reality check, something that this entire novel is disappointingly lacking. Where was the world? Where was the development?? Couldn't I have a single likeable character that wasn't a dog???

Why were we all for ~equality~ and ~dismantling the patriarchy~ until we weren't talking about the nobility? Why does the peasantry get looked down upon, as if they don't deserve these same rights?? MAKE IT MAKE SENSE.

I've already spent way too much energy on this story, and I'm so excited to mark it as finished, and I hope I never have to think about it again.

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princessrensa's review

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fast-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No

2.0

Hi. This review consists of upwards of 3000 words of me roasting this book. If you liked this book and would prefer not to read a critical review of it, I strongly suggest you scroll onwards. If you disliked this book, or just enjoy negativity like I do, maybe we can be best friends for the next 3000 words.

Anyway, here we go!

This book has been on my TBR for a while, so I picked it up kind of whimsically when I saw it available as an audiobook from my library. And wow! Am I both glad and regretful of that decision!

I wasn't even going to continue with this after the first hour and a half, given how much time was spent on describing Alessandra's outfits. But then I started gradually increasing the narration speed and that made things...better :). Also, the outfit descriptions do taper off eventually, if you're also stuck at the beginning.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think I actually recommend this book. I think it's important to reset your scale every so often by enjoying a book that simply isn't good, but also, there were so many things about this book that bothered me that I could spend hours going into it.

And I will!

Let's begin with a synopsis. Our main character is Alessandra Stathos. The first thing we learn about her is that she killed her first love for rejecting her. Exciting! And she's spent the three years since apparently sleeping with dozens of guys, all while never attending social events outside her father's struggling estate (???). But her ultimate plan is to seduce the ruler of their land, the Shadow King, and then kill him and take his throne (as per the official synopsis).

Initially, her plan to get his attention goes pretty well; she main-characters her way through a couple different social events where everyone is obsessed with everything she does. She even figures out that the king is trying to solve the murder of his parents with some TRULY paper-thin evidence. But then he invites her for dinner and informs her that he actually isn't interested in dating right now, but would she like to fake-date, because his council is getting on his back right now and preventing him from doing all of the conquering and imperialism that he sooooo loves. Put out, Alessandra reluctantly agrees. Various subplots ensue. I won't even call them shenanigans, because they're not fun enough to deserve the title of shenanigan.

I definitely had somewhat of an expectations mismatch with this book. From the synopsis and the fact that Kallias (the Shadow King) is called, well, The Shadow King, I thought we were in for more of a supernatural/faerie court situation, in a world where it maybe would make sense that killing a king would mean you get his crown. But that's absolutely not the case here. We're in a super generic world with little to no worldbuilding, and Kallias' court is made up of normal humans. The Shadow King seems like a character that should be mysterious, powerful, and threatening. But he’s kind of just Some Guy, with shadow powers. With that in mind, Alessandra's plan and how she intends to execute it makes no sense - which probably wouldn't bother some readers, but does bother me. Her whole thing is that she's going to marry him and then poison him before even producing an heir. Why no heir, though? Producing an heir would make her claim to the throne far stronger and make it harder for the council to immediately depose her. Alternately, Alessandra could try to make alliances among other nobles to form a coalition that would support her against challengers to the throne - okay hold on, I just realized that I was probably boring you there. To me, these things would have made this book a lot more interesting. But I'm definitely not this book's intended audience. And that's...fine! But I'm not done. So here's more I have to say.

There's not a lot to say about the world because, as I said, there's not much to it. We have semi-automatic guns and electricity, both introduced oddly late in the story, but we don't have sewing machines, so Alessandra is sewing entire ballgowns by hand via electric light. There are...apparently nine kingdoms? For a long time, I thought there were six, but actually Kallias has just conquered six out of nine. I’m pretty sure most of the kingdoms don’t even have names. This doesn't really matter, though, because the only time the six kingdoms become relevant is when Alessandra needs to #girlboss her way onto Kallias's council by helping him subjugate the conquered masses. #FeminismWin.

And let's talk about Kallias! I would love to talk about Kallias. His personality is fine, when you set aside the fact that he's an imperialist and wannabe absolute monarch trying to conquer the entire known world. You know, just girly things! Another fun detail:

he and Alessandra go on a picnic and then take a swim. A Robin Hood-esque figure shows up and steals the leftovers of their picnic to give to some peasants. Kallias is so enraged by this clear threat to his life (because, you know, what if he starved) that he stabs one of his guards on the spot and has the rest of the guards accompanying him on the outing hanged later. And this is the man we're supposed to swoon over! Wow! Absolutely a no from me!

In short, he's okay when you look past his major glaring flaws, and there were one or two moments when I was actually endeared to his relationship with Alessandra, but even in the realm of morally gray YA leading men, he's just not memorable. Compare him to Kaz Brekker, and he simply falls flat. I also feel Kallias is surprisingly underdeveloped. His only goals seem to be conquering more stuff, being a more absolute monarch, and eventually, marrying Alessandra. We know very little about who he is as a person. Well, he does have a dog. There is that.

Alessandra also falls in the realm of morally gray protagonists who are simply boring when they’re not unlikable. And I feel a need to say - I like morally gray protagonists! I support women’s rights AND women’s wrongs. I loved Zetian from Iron Widow. I think my problem with Alessandra is actually that she's not murderous...enough? If she and Kallias had been full-out evil, sick, and twisted, that could have been fun. Instead, they both just very casually don't care about things like the sovereignty of other nations, or the poor, or, you know, the guards who work for them. Alessandra cares about certain people, like her noble friends, but would never deign to care about the poor little peasant folk. It becomes super irritating when she's saying things like "Why would anyone ever steal and not keep the riches for themselves?" regarding the Robin Hood subplot. Sometimes people...care about others, Alessandra. It's shocking, I know. And she doesn’t get a ton of character development - she neither learns to care about others, nor undergoes a full villainification arc. The main change is that she allows herself to love someone again, but in all other respects, she’s basically the same person, just more concerned about Kallias. Also, this book kept trying to convince me Alessandra was smart. She's not :) and neither are most of the other characters.

Other characters: Hestia and Rhoda. Hestia is obsessed with copying Alessandra until she suddenly learns to be herself. She has no plot relevance, but she is sweet. Rhoda is a young widow who just wants to mess around, I guess? She gets together with her manservant later. There’s actually a funny moment where

Alessandra is encouraging Rhoda to pursue her manservant, and Rhoda says, “But he’s a servant! A commoner!” and Alessandra thinks, <i>Yeah, and for me that would be a problem because I have standards :) for you it’s good enough though,</i> before being like “I never took you as a woman who cared about class distinctions." I laughed out loud at the hypocrisy of it all.

Anyway, Hestia and Rhoda are fine. I liked them both fine. They just don't matter.

Orrin's worst crime is being kind of self-important about his own charity work, in more ways than one. This book acts like he's the worst person in the world for caring about orphans. Do I think he'd be the MOST fun to talk to at a party? No. But he's definitely a better person than either Alessandra or Kallias. Also,

we eventually learn he's the Robin Hood stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, which makes him even more sympathetic in some ways but also was a weird reveal. It just didn't seem very in-character with how he was portrayed up to that point, and it was odd that he would do public charity work as well as vigilante stuff. Him sponsoring the vigilante would maybe make more sense, but all we get is him being thrown in the dungeon and forgotten about for the rest of the book.

Leandros was one of the most enjoyable secondary characters, in true "doomed secondary love interest" fashion. I feel like whenever I don't like a book, I always end up liking the secondary love interest better than the primary love interest? Anyway, Leandros is friendly and charming, and he definitely had better chemistry with Alessandra with Kallias did for half the book.

And of course, not to be outdone by Orrin, he gets a possibly even weirder and more dramatic reveal. He is...Kallias' supposedly-dead older brother!!! This doesn't make any sense for so many reasons. He disguised himself by dying his hair a lighter color and growing a beard. -_- It just...doesn't make sense that Kallias wouldn't recognize him...I did find the reveal about their father hating Leandros/Xanthos for not having the shadow powers interesting, but it comes so late in the book that nothing comes of it. Honestly, this reveal was a waste of a perfectly good character, but I guess that's what happens when you can't write mystery or political intrigue to save your life.

Alessandra's older sister Chrysantha never appears in the book directly, but her letters to Alessandra always made me laugh. Despite all the problems I had with this book, I'm a little intrigued by Chrysantha's companion book because of her letters. As for their father, he just keeps showing up to tell Alessandra to give up on her seduction plan. It truly feels like his only purpose is to conveniently antagonize Alessandra whenever she’s doubting herself.

I want to get into some of the subplots and plot elements now. Obviously the plot hook is the fact that Alessandra is plotting to kill Kallias. While I did find this intriguing based on the synopsis, the way it’s executed in the book feels kind of stupid. Why kill him, when she could just be queen alongside him and not have to win everyone over after his death? And actually,

that's what happens. (Sorry. She doesn't kill him).

This is arguably the main conflict of the novel, but for a long time Alessandra gets stuck on step one of her plan, which is to woo Kallias, because they get into this fake-courtship limbo thing, and also Kallias' powers will only protect him if he doesn't touch anybody, blah blah blah...I think this book would have been more interesting if he had found out about her intentions a lot sooner than he eventually does.

When he figures out that she killed Hector, he just laughs about it and calls her a hellion and then re-proposes to her. I would have loved to see more of that energy when he found out she was trying to kill him. Like sure, he's paranoid about assassination attempts, but his reaction felt like a last-ditch attempt for a dramatic conclusion.

The resolution just felt a bit cheap.

We also have the issue of Alessandra murdering Hector, which is barely an issue. Hector's father is investigating his death, and Alessandra is definitely concerned about what will happen when they question her, but...it's fine. Nothing happens. She gets snubbed at a ball for like five seconds. The way news and gossip travels in this court truly makes no sense.

Then there's the Robin Hood plot (and the related “subjugating the rebels!” plot), which I feel only exists to A) make Kallias busy so he can’t hang out with Alessandra, B) give Alessandra a problem to solve, and C) illustrate that she is not a good person and does not care about the poor (this last one may have been unintentional). It gets resolved and dropped.

We also get a situation where Alessandra’s most recent ex, Myron, briefly blackmails her to bring him to court functions or else he'll tell everyone they've slept together. I actually have a problem with this for sort of an indirect reason. Despite how little we know about this world, we do know things are pretty patriarchal and women can have their reputations ruined by "impropriety." That's the whole reason Myron's blackmail works. But later on, Alessandra has a conversation with Kallias where he says he doesn’t care if she’s slept with other people. By telling the other ladies at court about this conversation, she is able to convince a majority of the women of the court that actually, women should be able to have sex outside of marriage too! and they immediately start gossiping about their own exploits. ???? The NPC energy of these courtiers is insane. Then again, I guess that conversation is meaningless, broadly speaking, because later Alessandra gets someone's engagement ended by arranging for the girl involved to be caught kissing someone else. So much for feminism. #girlboss

Speaking of feminism, the attempts that this book makes towards feminism were pretty wild, because they're interspersed with moments where Kallias and Alessandra are basically daydreaming about all of the conquering and tyranny they want to do. Not to mention the fact that several minor characters were portrayed in a way that felt…like internalized misogyny. The aforementioned girl whose engagement Alessandra ends is portrayed as a clingy, jealous shrew whose only trait was being way too possessive over her fiance. There are also a couple of other characters whose portrayals didn’t quite sit right with me. But oh, well. Feminism means noblewomen should be allowed to have more sexcapades, I guess.

On the topic of sexcapades, we should really talk about Kallias' powers, the elephant in the room. So. What are his powers? Early on, we're told no one really knows, and it's not super clear initially where his powers come from. I feel like this is because the author hadn't decided yet, but to be fair it’s apparently pretty privileged information. Later, we find out his powers are hereditary, passed down through countless generations. Basically, Kallias' shadows allow him to be incorporeal (selectively and at will), but if someone touches him skin-to-skin, he can no longer become incorporeal around that person. This is a bonkers insane inconvenient way for his powers to work, but obviously he and Alessandra get to spend a lot of time agonizing over whether they should touch because as soon as they do, he'll lose his immunity to attacks whenever he's around her...Oh no…the pining, the agony, the ~gloved touches…

But I have another problem. We find out from a conversation Kallias and Alessandra have that

Kallias has had sex before, multiple times. But I don't think this makes sense. He says that he spent the night with courtesans and then paid them a fortune to move to other countries and never return, so that his life wouldn't be in danger. But for the entire book, he's super paranoid about assassinations, so...that's a dumb move. All someone would have to do would be to track down ONE of those courtesans and secretly bring her back to the palace. In fact, it would have been a smarter evil plan than what actually happens. His would-be assassinators have to come up with a convoluted plan to get him to a gentleman’s club and pay someone to knock him over, which has the added drawback of putting him on high alert that someone is trying to kill him. But no. I think we just had to make Kallias experienced so he can magnanimously say that it's also okay for Alessandra to not be a virgin. #HeForShe

This is a long review, but I do feel a little bad bagging on this book for so long, so I feel like I should explain what I did actually like about it now. It was entertaining, I will say that. There are moments between Alessandra and Kallias that I found cute or endearing, like when he finds Orrin’s love letter to her and can’t stop laughing (but later writes his own love letter to prove he can do a better job). I think the concept had a lot of potential, but this book is truly too YA for its own good. If you like the idea of a scheming, selfish, morally gray protagonist finally meeting her intellectual match, I would suggest reading Little Thieves by Margaret Owen. It has a much more fleshed out world and a really enjoyable ensemble cast, so if you like this book or the concept of this book (and for some reason, you're still reading my review), maybe check that one out.

Here's a list of ways this book could have gone that I feel would have been more fun:
1. Alessandra plots to seduce and kill the Shadow King but finds, once she gets to court, that the palace is a much more duplicitous and cutthroat place than even she expected. Actual political intrigue ensues.
2. Kallias finds out Alessandra wants to kill him much sooner, but is only amused by it. Their friendship/courtship continues with him deftly blocking her attempts on his life at every turn. (This would have been cute)
3. Alessandra kills Kallias. Full stop.
4. Alessandra kills more people. In general. Villainification arc. Kallias LOVES murder, apparently, so I don’t think this would be a problem for him.

In conclusion, if you think this book sounds fun and you’re capable of turning your brain off to enjoy a silly romp through a generic world with some bad political implications and a couple of morally gray protagonists, maybe this would be a fun book for you. My brain didn’t come with an off-switch (manufacturing error), so instead I’m stuck contemplating the strength of Alessandra’s potential claim to the throne. It is what it is. I had a lot of fun writing this review, and that’s good enough for me.

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rensreading's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

5.0

by chapter 2, i was seriously considering DNFing this book but i carried on because the synopsis promised me a love interest that hadn’t been introduced yet and i wanted a glimpse of him before i DNFed.

i’m so glad i waited for him. he carried this novel on his back, his poor shoulders must be breaking under the strain of all that success. kallias is my everything. he was the only reason i started liking alessandra. and by the time he learns of what she did to her first lover (though his age is never brought up, i’m still of the opinion that hektor groomed her) then laughs about it, i realized they really deserved each other.

(in reality, i started liking alessandra when she schemed her friend out of a marriage he would have hated and solved her own problem of unwanted suitors with it. how could i not adore a girlboss?)

the political intrigue and the plot were absolutely marvelous. i started suspecting the assassin by the time that he confessed to alessandra while kallias was listening. i kept wondering why alessandra didn’t see it until it was almost too late but i am glad that his sexism was what caused his demise. a man like him truly assumed that alessandra was nothing less than a noblewoman newly scorned by her ex-lover. what a mistake!

kallias was down bad for alessandra and i loved that fact by the end too lol definitely a 5 stars read for me (:

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oliverreeds's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

i enjoyed this. its definitely YA and definitely romance. the plot twist could have been better hinted at but i liked that none of the characters were good people.

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