Reviews

The Scandalous Letters of V and J by Felicia Davin

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lmcg614's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

3.25

vortacist's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious 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

pedantichumbug's review

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.25

The first time this book lost me was when it switched to omniscient narration after the first 25 installments or so. I don't think it served the reading experience of that scene. The first-person pov in the last two similar

spicy!!!

scenes proves my point I think. The only time that switch worked for me was the

tense climax scene with Julie, Victor, and Alphonse.

But gosh, the queer rep was absolutely great. How the author used the metamorphosis magic theme to reaffirm gender fluidity was ingenious.

Overall, I liked the writing and the characters. The first one third of the book was more charming and absorbing for me, but I wonder if the loss of its charm relates to the fact that I stopped reading the emails daily after a while. Maybe it was the curiosity that made it more gripping for me at the beginning. I agree with the others saying that the second half stagnated at times. Some parts and characters could've been left out. It was still a solid 3.5 for me until the ending, which I found a bit underwhelming.

Content Warnings

rheah's review

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dnf 51% in
I was worried about the French going in due to some bad reading experiences lately but it's fine, I had no issue with it or the setting.

This book is so long for no reason at all. I was seduced by the premise of an epistolary romance but instead of working with the storytelling tools of the medium the author worked against them. Since they couldn't limit themselves to letters the author added diary entries and just normal scenes. The thing is: more than half the time the author has forgotten that those are diary entries and write them like an actual scenes with word for word dialogue and dialogue tags as well as detailed description of action and movement. It took me out of the story so fast I couldn't be bothered anymore. It add to the length of an already bloated book when we could have had something fascinating in letters exchanged.

Now let's talk about the plot/fantasy plot. I was never at any point hooked by the plot or anything going on. I went in wanting romance and instead I got thirty sideplots I couldn't care about. So there's magic which the characters explain as "it's magic". Okay so why should I be interested in your magic system?

Now I have complained about the length. I am a slow burn lover. There is no real slow burn as the characters do get together quickly. It's just long because of sideplots and their day to day life.