Reviews with content warning for Acephobia/Arophobia - Behind These Doors

Reviews tagging 'Acephobia/Arophobia'

Behind These Doors by Jude Lucens

1 review

magicshop's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective slow-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

2.75

He didn’t belong and never would; when they looked at him, nobles and working people alike saw only a flawed imitation of themselves.

i got this book recommended to me through gnod, a pretty nifty little recommendation service. totally free, and no affiliation here — just wanted to remind my future self of where i found this book and possibly help other people potentially find new media at the same time!

you should read this book if...

you want positive polyamourous representation
you want positive ace-spectrum representation
you're willing to put up with quite a bit of tell-don't-show

the good

just about everyone’s poly and they all end up happily together (i'd put this under a spoiler tag but i'm sure most people reading this will want to know they're not diving into yet another tragic queer ending)
one character is in the asexual spectrum and extremely relatable (i had a good cry thanks)
good writing for the most part, time and place are well established, reading flows well
the book deals with every topic in a very open-minded, communication-forward way, and there’s something to be appreciated about the intent behind that even during times where it didn’t work too well in the narrative

the bad

i don’t really like how often the author uses the same phrasing for certain things, mainly when a character is thinking about something they shouldn’t be thinking about and they suddenly go “no.” before continuing on. she gets better about it as the books goes on, at least.
mostly fairly flowery sex scenes that didn’t really do much for me in any way
what happened to william? why was he sending lucien all his belongings at the end of the book? a way to care for lucien even though he’d stopped visiting as much? a way to coax/bribe lucien into visiting more? how can there be no resolution to one of lucien’s most influential relationships in his life, for good or bad? DID THEY SERIOUSLY NEVER AIR OUT THEIR GRIEVANCES TO EACH OTHER? AM I SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE THERE WAS NO REAL FRIENDSHIP BEHIND ALL OF IT?
where did ultra-romantic true-el-o-vee lucien/ben come from? HELLO????? i do think the family stuff introduced by lucien’s relationship with ben’s wife and kids is super cute, don’t get me wrong, but there was absolutely no buildup to any of this. i was laughing my ass off when it happened because i didn’t know how else to react. i needed way more development between lucien and ben than what we got to even begin believing that — hell, we got more interaction between lucien and ben’s wife in the end. if you wanted to make lucien poly so badly (very welcome but not strictly necessary imo), william’s right there. ymmv on this and some people would hate it, but honestly it’s fucked up, it’s like the opposite of lucien/aubrey in terms of how viable and healthy it is so it provides a foil, and it had a LOT of interesting, bone-deep resentment and mutual emotional constipation to unpack. would’ve been way more interesting and rewarding to me. also i know they grew up together and that might gross out some people but from what i understood it was clearly not an equal, sibling relationship — lucien was trained to serve william in the future at the end of the day. i’m not saying developing the relationship more would’ve been easy or that it would’ve ended well, hell very probably not, but i do believe it was worth trying over shoving some random epiphany about a character we see twice 90% of the way through the book. (i do realize there’s a prequel story about ben and cath but i shouldn’t be required to read that to at least understand where lucien’s coming from, if not necessarily enjoy/agree with it.)
aubrey gets everything fixed for him financially at the end and never has to work or do anything to support himself. that was a major lost opportunity in my opinion — he could’ve been forced (or better, chosen) to work for a living at least for a while and consequently start understanding lucien’s life and struggles a bit more.
rupert should have apologized for stonewalling and making life-changing decisions for both aubrey and henrietta without their consent. period.

the complicated

this book was well-written and well-researched for the most part but imma be honest, i just… really didn’t care as much as i wanted to about the characters. i maybe cared a good amount about lucien? and the female characters? both lucien and aubrey are super kind and well-meaning people but they didn’t tickle anything in me in terms of how interesting they are. there was nothing really pulling me in to the extent that i wish it would’ve. most of my reactions were to general queerness and asexuality relatability through the characters than the characters themselves. this only started changing about 70-80% of the way through as the plot actually started moving forward, which is way too late for both things.
some (too many) scenes felt less like they were organic situations happening between the characters than something constructed for the purpose of educating the reader about x topic (suffrage, polyamory especially), with characterization as a secondary priority. it often felt like characters were reading off an informative script about whatever the Complex Issue Du Jour was. this may sound too harsh (the scenes weren’t bad by any means) but i don’t really know how better to put it. way too much tell/exposition, not enough letting the story flow in a way that allows characters come to conclusions by themselves.
i know i talked about lucien/william before and how it was shafted despite deserving a more through resolution (for lucien’s peace of mind, if nothing else), but i really do like the idea of lucien/ben as a different type of foil to lucien/aubrey, an easy relationship with less power imbalances to deal with and a family to take care of, which lucien clearly appreciates in some form. it was just really, really poorly executed.
the suffrage plot was well-represented and full of real life figures and references, but ultimately pointless within the book itself. and it rings a little hollow when
the main female character herself isn’t even allowed to help fix her own relationship directly at the end of her book, instead having to rely on her male lovers to solve everything for her. i know the situation required her to be discreet at that time, but it should have been written differently in that case, in my opinion. or at least the book should’ve had an extra scene of some sort where henrietta got to say her piece about it all.

like another review on goodreads says which i think is really well-put, if nothing else, this book is worth reading. take that statement by itself, and go for it — you might come to entirely different conclusions than i did. personally, it was worth my time despite everything, and that's the most important part to me in the end.

Content Warnings

More...