Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

Vraja Corbilor by Margaret Rogerson

2 reviews

magicshop's review against another edition

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

2.75

I wanted that smell more than anything I had ever wanted before. I wanted it with a terrifying thirst. Not him, exactly, but rather whatever great, mysterious change it represented—a promise that somewhere, the world was different.

you should read this book if... 
  • you put a lot of stock into the unique atmosphere of a book/story
  • you want a short, easy-to-read autumn vibes plot with beautiful prose

the good 
  • a likable main character. very heavy on the ymmv here as she's genuinely not that different from most ya heroines, but i liked her practicality and reliance on brains rather than her heart in most situations. it provided a good contrast to the male love interest, who's all heart, and served as a bit of an interesting genre bend.
  • to me the appeal of the story relied mainly on the worldbuilding and atmospheric qualities, both things it did especially well. it felt almost like a fairytale to read, in a pleasant way, especially
    the ending sequence with all the tidbits about every character we'd met moving on with their lives
    .
  • i really enjoyed the inclusion of "Craft" in the story, which means literally any activity humans perform that turns one thing into another, no matter how minimal (art, cooking, etc). fae, on the other hand, are incapable of change, metaphorically as well as literally, and require humans to perform these tasks for them. i kind of wish the book had either been longer or part one of a series, though, because i wanted to see much more of this aspect than we ended up with.
  • as an artist myself, i loved the pivotal role isobel's skills had on the plot. it wasn't a one-off mention or relagated strictly to the prologue, but in fact rather important, multiple times, in the course of the story.
  • gruesome monstrous fae creatures? sign me up!

the bad
  • the romance is very instalovey, and though it's further developed later on in the story, it never really manages to grow beyond that, in my opinion. i can almost see why isobel would be fascinated by rook, with him being the only fae to ever display emotion so openly. on top of that, being only 17, she's liable to be very easily impressionable despite all her carefulness to be responsible and measured in every aspect of her life. rook, on the other hand, is a centuries-old magical creature, who's certainly met and made friends with enough humans in his long life to not be so taken by a random 17 year old... right?? when relationships happen between immortals and mortals i usually need more interesting and far deeper reasons for the immortal to be so taken with the human, because one of the most interesting things about immortals is that they've lived so long that many things have lost their initial magic to them. what was it about isobel that sparked that flame again in rook's heart? we have no idea! and that's boring!
  • the author tries so hard to sell the romance as "forbidden" that she leaps across to the other side into nearly comical heternormative insensitivity. there's one passage later on in the book that sums up what i mean: "I had no way to prove that the love Rook and I felt for each other was real and that we deserved every desperate, foolhardy inch of it, and I was already tired, so tired, of bearing its weight as a failure. A crime." this would've been a banger had it been written about a queer couple, but alas, rogerson had no such excuse.
  • again, everyone's straight. everyone's white. worst of all, everyone's straight and white immortal beings. my dude, you cannot convince me in a million years that every immortal race wouldn't be queer as fuck as a rule after a couple centuries of existence to explore every aspect of sexuality and romance. anyway, in my head rook is brown, but he was only described as "tanned" i believe, which can be taken either way. so i'm not giving this any points on that front.
  • the plot structure is kind of a mess the more you think about it. they just
    wander back and forth in a forest for 90% of the first half in various states of undress and injury, then some more for the 2nd half until they finally get to an Important Place, and then rook decides to do a fakeout a challenge @ the alder king and run away (?????). i'm no proper writer myself but even i know a little polish and less meandering would've done this book a lot of favors.

the complicated
  • i don't really know what to think of gadfly
    literally playing chess with 99% of the plot and winning. he turned out to be a bit of a walking deus ex machina and took away a lot of my interest in the actual story after the reveal (i'd suspected it since isobel found out he was the reason rook met her, but i'd hoped against it the whole time lol).
  • rook is boring to me, period. this doesn't go in the bad section because it almost gave him a manic pixie dream boy quality when compared to isobel, who was far more appealing as a character, and that's a little bit of a positive in the end. i do love reversals of that trope.
  • i shipped isobel more with a character she met twice but had more in common with and better scenes with than with rook (
    aster
    ). i rest my case
  • too much romance focus. i deserved more creepy fairy worldbuilding instead 😞

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emily_mh's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-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? No

3.5

I had high expectations for this book and sadly I was let down. Having read Sorcery of Thorns back in January and LOVING it, I thought it would be a similar experience here. In reality, this book was really underwhelming. The plot was incredibly weak, relying on the romance to carry it. But I couldn't get behind the romance, either, as it's an Edward-Bella situation where the guy, Rook, is at least a centenarian, and the girl Isobel is only 17. It was also instalove, which I really don't like. Finally, there were also unresolved elements once the book had ended.
While Rook and Isobel end up being "legally" together as the Good Law no longer exists, Isobel is still a mortal who will age and die and this was never really addressed. Also, nothing was really done with the storyline relating to painting the Fair Folk with human emotions, and how they responded to that.


However, this book had some redeeming qualities. It was relatively enjoyable, and very easy to read. I also liked Rogerson's writing style. Rook and Isobel as characters were entertaining and felt real, though they weren't quite loveable (although March and May were). Finally, the world building was unique and fascinating, as it was in Sorcery of Thorns. 

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