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chanelle_m17's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
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? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Gore, Death, and Death of parent
Moderate: Murder and Rape
palibuchanan's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-paced
1.0
Okay. So, I found this book through TikTok, like many other readers, and the author said that he drew from Throne of Glass and some other books that I liked. So I figured, why not? I love supporting up and coming artists and creators (having just finished another book by a college student, These Violent Delights). I bought it and started my winter break reading with it.
1. the exposition is... half the book? It is incredibly slow-paced, but not because Curbow is description-focused like Tolkien or metaphor heavy or anything. The book actually extremely lacks in the description department (unless it's the gore of a death scene, where the description comes out of nowhere and is way too gruesome for the tone of the book overall and also why does EVERYONE die because they get stabbed or slit in the throat? seriously how many times is "smile" used to describe a throat getting slit? oh my godddd). But anyways - the exposition feels like it takes forever because...
2. The characters are not developed. Not in that they don't have an arc or anything, no. I could not tell character motivations beyond doing things that clearly lead the plot in a direction. The biggest offender:when Eileen, the other witch who I've forgotten the name of after literally just finishing the book, Finn, and Castor meet Queen Adara and want to make a deal to start the war with Finn's dad (I think that was the premise? I'll get to my issues with plot later), Adara says that she will do what Eileen wants only if Eileen hands over Finn. At this point, Finn and Castor have been Eileen's captives, they have spent time together but there has literally been no development of any kind of relationship. Eileen says no and her thoughts are just like, "why am not okay with this? Hm don't know." The reasoning is so bizarre because given the writing up until that point, Eileen would have ABSOLUTELY handed over Finn. What the FUCK!!! So by the end of the book, I had no sense of why the characters were doing what they were doing, taking me out of the world every time the characters did something. Also so many characters died and each time, someone threw up, and it was an emotional scene but with no character development - like literally no PERSONALITIES - absolutely zero death scenes elicited any emotion from me. And I watch Grey's Anatomy to cry. So.
3. The plot! Do you like Throne of Glass? Well I do, and I read the whole series last winter break, for the first time, with three of my other friends, so we were constantly talking about Throne of Glass. With the series fresh in my mind... OH MY GOD THIS IS THRONE OF GLASS FAN FICTION. I do not read fan fiction. I don't like things that are derivative at all. This is an absolute knock off of Sarah J. Maas, done incredibly poorly. I originally was going to rate this book a 2, but then the similarities started to stack up in the last 100 pages, and I could not in good faith give this any more than a 1. So the similarities: first of all, there is a Red Desert. Alright, naming similarity, I'll give it a pass. Main characer's name is Eileen, like Yrene and Elide from Throne of Glass combined, but again I'll give it a pass. Oh prince in love with the maid. Prince doesn't like his King dad and doesn't want to inherit the throne. Oh no, Eileen has elemental powers. Oh she has more powers than she thought and has to train (except the training is SO BORING AND THERE'S NONE OF IT IN THE BOOK). Oh there are magical COLLARS THAT STRIP MAGIC BEARERS OF HAVING MAGIC. oh no THE KING'S EYES ARE DESCRIBED AS BEING OBSIDIAN. There's a dream sequence in a prison. There's a race LITERALLY NAMED AFTER NOX FROM THRONE OF GLASS. I started to think that Curbow was pretty decent at creating imagery of the places that we walk through in the book and then I realized that no, he's not. It's just so fucking similar to Throne of Glass that I already have an entire internal image for every scene. Because it basically takes place in the same world.
The climax of the book doesn't make sense, feels rushed and confused, and left me feeling like I had no idea what the book's main conflict even was. There is a massive rift between how important Curbow makes conflicts out to seem and the actual impact of those conflicts, the motivations behind the drivers of them, and the characters' reactions to conflicts. I read this genre all the time; I love this genre so much. But it wasn't even tropey enough to where I could understand what the hell was going on. Did no best friend read a draft of this and point this stuff out? Curbow, question your friends' loyalty to you because I sure as hell would not let you publish this if I were your friend.
Back to the character thing for a moment - It's very clear that Eileen's personality was never decided on because she is incredibly different chapter to chapter. She's indecisive, and then she's really bold. Or she's cursing or she barely talks. She's crying all the time or she's really stubborn. There is no clear sense of who she is supposed to be, so she doesn't feel like a real character at all. And as Throne of Glass fan fiction, holy hell she SUCKS compared to Aelin.
OH! One thing that I am happy with this book. He does a good job of including diverse characters in a way where the diversity is implied and described, not exoticized at all. Sexual identity and racial diversity are both in this book, and that was quite nice.
So yeah. Don't read this book unless you're going to highlight all the issues and send it back to the author. I really can't believe that no one stopped him and told him how derivative of Throne of Glass it is. Dervative and not even done well. I would say props to Curbow for publishing a book as a student, but no. Some stories are better left to the archive of your middle school work, never to see the light of day again.
1. the exposition is... half the book? It is incredibly slow-paced, but not because Curbow is description-focused like Tolkien or metaphor heavy or anything. The book actually extremely lacks in the description department (unless it's the gore of a death scene, where the description comes out of nowhere and is way too gruesome for the tone of the book overall and also why does EVERYONE die because they get stabbed or slit in the throat? seriously how many times is "smile" used to describe a throat getting slit? oh my godddd). But anyways - the exposition feels like it takes forever because...
2. The characters are not developed. Not in that they don't have an arc or anything, no. I could not tell character motivations beyond doing things that clearly lead the plot in a direction. The biggest offender:
3. The plot! Do you like Throne of Glass? Well I do, and I read the whole series last winter break, for the first time, with three of my other friends, so we were constantly talking about Throne of Glass. With the series fresh in my mind... OH MY GOD THIS IS THRONE OF GLASS FAN FICTION. I do not read fan fiction. I don't like things that are derivative at all. This is an absolute knock off of Sarah J. Maas, done incredibly poorly. I originally was going to rate this book a 2, but then the similarities started to stack up in the last 100 pages, and I could not in good faith give this any more than a 1. So the similarities: first of all, there is a Red Desert. Alright, naming similarity, I'll give it a pass. Main characer's name is Eileen, like Yrene and Elide from Throne of Glass combined, but again I'll give it a pass. Oh prince in love with the maid. Prince doesn't like his King dad and doesn't want to inherit the throne. Oh no, Eileen has elemental powers. Oh she has more powers than she thought and has to train (except the training is SO BORING AND THERE'S NONE OF IT IN THE BOOK). Oh there are magical COLLARS THAT STRIP MAGIC BEARERS OF HAVING MAGIC. oh no THE KING'S EYES ARE DESCRIBED AS BEING OBSIDIAN. There's a dream sequence in a prison. There's a race LITERALLY NAMED AFTER NOX FROM THRONE OF GLASS. I started to think that Curbow was pretty decent at creating imagery of the places that we walk through in the book and then I realized that no, he's not. It's just so fucking similar to Throne of Glass that I already have an entire internal image for every scene. Because it basically takes place in the same world.
The climax of the book doesn't make sense, feels rushed and confused, and left me feeling like I had no idea what the book's main conflict even was. There is a massive rift between how important Curbow makes conflicts out to seem and the actual impact of those conflicts, the motivations behind the drivers of them, and the characters' reactions to conflicts. I read this genre all the time; I love this genre so much. But it wasn't even tropey enough to where I could understand what the hell was going on. Did no best friend read a draft of this and point this stuff out? Curbow, question your friends' loyalty to you because I sure as hell would not let you publish this if I were your friend.
Back to the character thing for a moment - It's very clear that Eileen's personality was never decided on because she is incredibly different chapter to chapter. She's indecisive, and then she's really bold. Or she's cursing or she barely talks. She's crying all the time or she's really stubborn. There is no clear sense of who she is supposed to be, so she doesn't feel like a real character at all. And as Throne of Glass fan fiction, holy hell she SUCKS compared to Aelin.
OH! One thing that I am happy with this book. He does a good job of including diverse characters in a way where the diversity is implied and described, not exoticized at all. Sexual identity and racial diversity are both in this book, and that was quite nice.
So yeah. Don't read this book unless you're going to highlight all the issues and send it back to the author. I really can't believe that no one stopped him and told him how derivative of Throne of Glass it is. Dervative and not even done well. I would say props to Curbow for publishing a book as a student, but no. Some stories are better left to the archive of your middle school work, never to see the light of day again.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore and Vomit
Minor: Rape
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