Reviews - A Captive of Wing and Feather

A Captive of Wing and Feather by Melanie Cellier

73 reviews for:

Review
3.75 stars ✨
At this point, I'd read anything by Melanie Cellier. But this book was very... interesting.
Honestly, I was wondering if a different author wrote this at times. Maybe Melanie got brainwashed?
I'm not saying this because of the writing style, that was the same. It read smoothly, and that part I loved.
As usual.
I'm talking about the plot.
Adelaide can kind of talk to swans, (and I never like talking to animals trope, btw), so it just felt kind of strange. There were plenty of twists and turns, and I never saw some of them coming. The plot wasn't as strange as the original, and I liked it. Kind of. It just seemed like a different kind of fantasy than I usually like and kind of odd.
You shouldve seen my face when I realized that Adelaide is NOT turning into a swan at night, but is trapped at the pond with her swan friends.
And thank goodness for that ending! I looked up the original ending...
*shudders*
And it scared me. I legit thought that they were both going to drown and die!!
Gabe is PERFECT for Adelaide, too. He doesn't bat an eye about the enchantment, and treats her like a normal person.
I do feel like he underreacted when she told him about the swan curse, though.
He basically just shrugs and says, "Oh well. Lets find a way to break the curse."
Like, really? You just found out that you childhood friend van talk to swans and has a curse on her and that's all you can say?
Because curses TOTALLY happen everyday in his kingdom.
I don't remember much of a character arc, but then again I read this in one day, (mostly at night), so I could've forgotten. My late night reading isn't quite as sharp...
I did not like Audrey at first. Mostly because I thought she'd start a dreaded love triangle, but luckily she didn't.
*sigh*
The idea of having a love triangle with Adelaide, Gabe, and Audrey honestly scared me.
It also bugged me how both of them are trying to deny their feelings towards each other most of the book. And she finds out that true love is the only thing that will break her out, and pretends that she DOESN'T like Gabe for no apparent reason.
I mean, c'mon. You have a way out of the curse, and suddenly deny that you ever loved Gabe back? Really?
Overall this was an okay book. The swan part was strange, (kind of,) but I liked it. And it helped me break out if my comfort zone and try something different!

CW: three no detail kisses, two kisses with a three to five sentence description, two almost kisses, one hair kiss, blushes, winks, noticing closeness, warmth Gabe calls Adelaide beautiful, some minor physical attraction, (but only a tiny bit and the romance is NOT because of physical attraction), a mention of an older couple acting like "courting youngsters," other couples kiss, semi detailed, Gabe is tricked into saying that he loves someone else, (he doesn't, the other girl, Audrey, was dressed like Adelaide), Adeliades parents were in a marriage of convenience/alliance of sorts before they died, mentions of a newly married couple possibly having a lot of kids in the future

Almost drowning, (but they survive), minimal details, Adelaide is under a curse that causes her to almost die, but true loves sacrifice saves her, glares, Gabe wanting to put an arrow in the persons leg (or kill them) who cursed Adelaide, remembering a broken arm, Adelaide remembers her mom dying, (she was pushed down the stairs by her father and died because she protested a massacure) in return her dad was killed my a godmother, semi detailed, her dad killed everyone in a village years ago because they "rebelled", (they hid a rebel so the whole village was punished,) Adelaide didn't watch it happen and its semi detailed, getting kidnapped, they get almost attacked by wolves and bears, (but the swans fight them off), Gabe and Adelaide break into a manor, they're betrayed by a friend later, (Audrey didn't want to do it but was forced to), mentions of a bar, an old lady tells a story about how her husband betrayed her by wasting aall his money on alcohol when all the kids needed shoes, mentions of treason
Many mention of curses, magic, Adelaide is under an enchantment where she can't leave the lake at night, and can only speak English at night, while she can honk like a swan at day, godmothers come, (they haven't been to the kingdom in years), Adelaide can talk to the swans at day and they understand simple phrases from her, a potion from Leander put her into the curse, (she was tricked into drinking it), other people are under a similar curse, the whole kingdom is timid because the water is poisoned by Leander, and they won't take action for anything,
Age recommendation: 12+
If you still want to read this book after all that, go for it. I didn't really like the swan part, though, and found the idea of talking to swans and acting like they're people very strange.

celly_cuppycake's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous emotional lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

sparklegemstone's review against another edition

2.0

Standard disclaimer from me: I feel like 2 stars is overly harsh, but that's what Goodreads maps to "it's okay".

My main interest in reading a Swan Lake retelling was for the existential drama of the transformation curse and how the villain treats her. This did not end up being the book for me. If that's also what you're looking for, you're going to be disappointed.

Spoiler

There is no physical transformation. The curse is simply that she gets crippling pain if she isn't back to the lake by nightfall, and that during the day she loses her human voice and can only vocalize like a swan.

The most interesting part of the book for me was pretty early on and it was just a single paragraph about how icky it felt for her to be carried in the villain's arms back to the lake after the magic had left her incapacitated with pain. The book pretty much opens with her experiencing that pain in a race to get back to the lake and then, unless I missed something, it never happens again because she never steps out of bounds from the curse again after that.

I just don't think this book was for me.

I listened to this in the background on audiobook. I could be missing things because I wasn't giving it my full attention, but I never found anything that was interesting enough for me to start giving it my full attention. It felt like not that much happened except for the protagonist breaking into the villain's space at one point, and then the climax. Other than that, it felt like a lot of talking and writing about the protagonist's relationship to other characters, which was fine but again not terribly interesting, and I felt it could have been cut down significantly without losing anything.