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4.6 AVERAGE
4.6 AVERAGE
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3.75)
Alchemised is a beautifully written story with the same powerful, immersive style I’ve come to love from SenLinYu. The writing quality is impeccable and perfectly suited to my reading tastes. That said, while I knew it would be different and reworked from Manacled, the loss of the original character ties and the shifts in certain plotlines changed how the story resonated with me. The impact wasn’t quite the same, and I found myself missing those connections.
I still believe this is a book worth recommending, and I plan to revisit it again at a different time with fresh eyes and no expectations. For readers coming to it as a standalone fantasy, the world-building and prose will shine. For those who loved Manacled, just know going in that it will feel familiar yet very different.
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
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:
Yes
5 fat fucking stars ・❥・I don't think a book has ever given me physical symptoms of anxiety, but there's a first to everything. The sheer audacity of this author to break our hearts twice (and i will say thank you everytime)
(Also I want to CASTRATE the people making the articles dumbing this book down because it used to be a dramione ff; I'm gonna fucking throw hands)
(Also I want to CASTRATE the people making the articles dumbing this book down because it used to be a dramione ff; I'm gonna fucking throw hands)
He’d loved her, even though he never expected them to be anything but doomed. He’d loved her all the same.
I have over 300 annotations for Alchemised. 300. Let that sink in. Reading this story is like giving birth— not in the aspect of pain— in the sense that, when women give birth it's so painful and traumatic, who would want to relive it knowing what it's like? But after a few months evolution has made it that, the mother forgets the pain she endured making her more inclined to say yes to another. SenLinYu's story is exactly that— I forgot the EXTENT of the pain Manacled caused me and then BAM retraumatised again.
This book was... utterly magnificent— from the incredibly complex magical system, societal foundations, themes of religious hypocrisy and the ultimate story of love. I finished this at 5am. Earlier this month, I also read Manacled, and god, reading both in one month is emotionally damaging. SenLinYu is a bloody psychopath 💔 because since when has an ending where they both live become even sadder than an ending where they both die?
This review is going to be a long one — with spoilers— buckle up or stop reading and go read Alchemised first then come back!!!
╰► The Magic & World Building
Safe to say I was thoroughly confused but I kind of got the hang of it. I loved the route SenLinYu took with Necromancy, it gave them such an opportunity to maximise the dark themes gruesomeness of this book. Honestly, the concept of it all was so interesting but my mind kept dragging me back to Manacled so I don't think I mentally had the chance to genuinely appreciate it. Basically, magic is referred to as Resonance and I think mostly everyone has it, but then there are other rarer forms of resonance like Vivimancy which is looked down upon because I think they are thapparent reason for the Necromancy, which the resistance despises because like raising bodies from the dead defies the will of God. My mind has decided to go blank because there was so much information on this meticulous as fuck new world. What really piqued my interest was the Principate politics (I can't wait to get itno Luc's character 😓). There was an ornate history around the Principates, that was also related to the festering racism & prejudice. I liked the world+magic, it was rather complex and confusing ngl, probably the hardest I've ever read so I don't know if I have much commentary on it. There was like small philosophical comments about God+ religion and even a bit which links to 'The Problem of Evil' kind of but I would have loved more philosophical discussion in relation to God+Religion since the resistance originates from a religious regime.
╰► Healer Helena Marino & High Reeve Kaine Ferron
I wanna cry thinking about them. They are both so traumatised and flawed yet still found it effortless to love eachother. My loves. Alot of my annotations of them involve me calling them 'my love' because they just are. I want to love and take care of them, The way they loved eachother so much just haunts me— ESPECIALLY Kaine. Now as for individual characters, I feel like Helena's loneliness could have been depicted. I don't want to compare to Manacled but that's the only prime example I have. I knew of Helena's loneliness but in Manacled, I was painfully aware of Hermione's mistreatment + soul crushing loneliness. In otherwords, the loneliness didn't reach the maximum potential it had and one thing that could have added to it is a bigger focus on her mistreatment by racist folks like Mathias. But there was a reason I think (which I will arrive at later). On the other hand for Kaine, oh god, I think this was his book. My emotions were rubbed raw with him because, my love, he has endured so much and I hate it. All that for him to get *that' shite written about him. I think it hurts more than Hermione's GUT WRENCHINGLY SMALL and UNTRUE segment. God, Kaine loved to a fault, his dragon-like depiction was so spot on with Helena, how he selflessly, yet so selfishly loved her. This man never thought to give himself a chance to live, but at every waking possibilty, all her desired was for Helena to live. He cared more about her than himself, to an extent that when they had finally excaped, he was so lost because he had never imagined lvivng after the war. He had saw himself nothing more than a necessary collateral damage.
╰► Part 1
My initial reaction to the book was how SenLinYu had softened Kaine's character, which at first I was like 'oh :(' but after I think I appreciated the decision. When I finished part two, all I could think about is part one, Kaine finally knowing Helena was alive all this time despite not being the one to find her, only to realise the only person he loved and had loved him had forgotten the true him. My fucking heart. I typically do not like the amnesia trope but SenLinYu seems to surpass anything I think I know about myself. I am so freaking glad we got the New Years Party scene— I was giggling so hard, shittttt.
At zero, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against Aurelia’s. A camera flashed. The room exploded with cheers, and kissing, and clinking glassware. Ferron’s lips remained pressed against Aurelia’s, but as he kissed her, he raised his eyes, and his gaze locked onto Helena’s face.
*i die* , it's the fact he just sensed Helena was there, I know he knew she was there the whole time. And I just know he was desperate for her to remember everything, maybe thinking this would re-ignite some form of long lost jealousy to trigger her recollection.
And shit. Shit. Shit. The parallels. I want to die.
“Well, you—you have a natural talent for it. In another life, you could be a healer.”
My love, this was torture.
“What kind of ring is that?” she asked.
He looked down. “This?” he asked, as if there were any other rings she could have been referring to. He turned his hand. “Just an old piece.”
Just an old piece he says! Just! An! Old! Piece! Oh Kaine, my poor baby.
“Why all this sudden interest in me?” he asked.
She shrugged. “You don’t make sense.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, is that all? And here I was hoping you were plotting to seduce me.”
I've just realised the significance of this quote when flicking through my annotations and I'm dying.
Now, if you've read Manacled, you know The Handmaids Tale heavily inspired it. Of course with rewriting there were legal issues and stuff so in Alchemised it was no longer a main plot, but it was reintroduced to us nearer to the end of Part 1 as a 'repopulation programme'. Suffice to say I felt awful and horrified to realise that Doctor Stroud, reversed Helena's sterilisation just so she could be a participant. I fucking hate that doctor. I wasn't expecting this subplot, but then we were introduced to it and well I'm still not okay. I feel like it was introduced a little bit late though because after that the time it took for Helena to get pregnant felt slightly rushed. The scenes weren't graphic but you could tell how much it hurt Helena and how much Kaine didn't want to do it. 😭 Kaine thought she was safe from it but then he was forced to do it and didn't know how he could ever reverse his actions.
When she did get pregnant though, and he would tend to her gently I wanted to bawl.
When they’d gone, Ferron would sit on the edge of the bed and smooth her hair. Sometimes he would take her hand, his fingers moving absently against hers. The first time he did it, she thought he was playing with her fingers; then she realised he was massaging them.
He always started at her palms, careful not to bend her wrists or bump the manacles, working slowly to her fingertips, knuckle by knuckle. It made them spasm less, so she let him, but she told herself she didn’t like it.
I had a theory that she taight him that and when I was right I cried. And then when part 1 ended I felt so physically stressed and unwell i procrastinated life for 2 hours, didn't eat dinner til midnight, and THEN after eating, began it.
╰► Part 2
Initial thoughts: Luc's character arc is so tragic. He was lied to and died believing that lie, living with this insurmountable pressure to receive a non-existent miracle which of course never came, faulting him into thinking how unworthy he was. And then the next worst thing is that his memory was ruined by reanimation. The double plot twist of Luc being an Animancer + Cetus, shook me to my core. I was shaking, terrified because I knew the mass scale massacre that was coming. Helena being sold off and doing what no-one else could, yet still being undervalued and treated like scum because she's a Vivimancer will forever piss me the fuck off. They literally use her powers too!! It was sorta poetic that the Principate bloodline had Animancy, forever rejected it because of discrimation against those sort of people (vivimancers), which lead to their loss. Kaine was so mistreated by the resistance I simply cannot. When Helena kept going to lengths to manipulate him I was like my love WHY, WHY. I understood why but I hated it. Then when made Crowther made Kaine beg I was so heart broken & angry. I hated Crowther mor than Mathias in that moment. When she finally gave into her feelings and kissed etc Kaine (I loved how triumphant he felt) I was so fucking glad because she deserved it more than anyone but also because Kaine needed someone as much as her. Then his possessive, paranoid, desperate self emerged and suddenly he became a volatile risk for the Order. I don't really care about possessiveness that much in books, but I feel like this had layers, this had depth, reasoning that wasn't just the shallow reasoning of him being an 'alpha male' which Kaine is not.
He was suddenly ice-cold, and his eyes gleamed so silver that they were almost white. “Because I have warned you, if something happens to you, I will personally raze the entire Order of the Eternal Flame. That isn’t a threat, it’s a promise. Consider your survival as much a necessity to the Resistance as Holdfast’s. If you die, I will kill every single one of them. Given that the risk to their lives is the only way to make you value your own.”
Idk if I've read such a character before. Such a DYNAMIC.
Then the end when Helena blew up the facility for him 😭 I don't know if I will ever see a better display of love from a female character. This scene is so treasured in my mind— in both versions. So tragic, desperate, selfless, showing who Helena was at her core. The Manacled one will always be engraved in my mind. Mind alteringly beautiful.
╰► Part 3
Alas, now Helena has her memories and has come face to face with what has happpened recently in the past few months. There are now tensions between her and Kaine but it's so sorrowful and heart twisting. Through out the book I felt like chapters were kind of getting prematurely cropped but in part 3 I could tell the most that the chapters were getting cropped, not allowing for that slow, careful fix, if ygm. What SenLinYu did serve with however is when Helena finally said she loved him. I loved that scene because everything Kaine was forced to do to Helena was being brought up and it was a painful conversation. I bawled my fucking eyes out till I couldn't breathe when it was acknowledged that they were both victims, I don't think we got that in Manacled so when I read it in Alchemised I was in so much happy pain. Had to take a break after that. Part 3 is where we saw resigned Kaine the MOST. And I hated it. He went along with everything Helena wanted because he thought he was going to die anyway. But then... then there was hope. Basically Kaine is one of the Undying- someone who gave his soul in exchange for immortality. Kaine was forced to become one and has hated it since, but to escape he can't be an Undying. And that would mean getting his soul back which Helena discovers how to do. Helena gives Kaine his soul back :( I've never reach such profound acts of love in a book before. The way this happened had me crying my eyes out again btw because it involved Kaine and the poor relationship he had with his father.
“Kaine …” he said.
Kaine lifted his head just enough to look at what remained of his father. Kaine’s face was exhausted, and pained, but the malice and hatred was gone as he stared at Atreus.
“Father …”
Atreus’s whole face seemed to soften. He started to reach out, but Amaris snarled in warning, and his long fingers curled away.
“Your mother was always so proud of you. She said you were the best thing we ever made.” Then Atreus looked at Helena. “Save him.”
I felt like I'd been punched in the gut.
╰► The ending
Never has a happy ending fucked me up like this— seeing the PTSD affecting them like this, what the fuck. I felt like I'd just been in a WWE match with how swollen my eyes were.
“I thought that we could suffer enough to earn each other.”
This was said in part 3, when Helena thought Kaine was going to die but they didn't. And some how this fucked up thing became true. The ending was so bittersweet and heartwarming. While I wish the chapters weren't that cropped I still loved it. Kaine and Enid's relationship makes me emotional every fucking time.
Kaine talked to Enid more than he talked to anyone, even Helena. He would monologue to her about everything: the trees, the sea, the tide and moons, alchemy techniques and array theories, what the weather might be, and Enid listened to him intently, fretting if he got distracted or fell silent for too long.
My love, you have overcome so much <3 Kaine feared Enid, when she was born. He had still not yet come to terms with his actions nor the fact that he had no choice. Seeing that, then seeing this paragraph later, God, SenLinYu, what did I ever do to you 😭🙏 (Also I HATE the name Enid help, it gives Arachnid vibes too much)
Then the epilogue came, following Enid when she's older, off to attend School, reuniting with her Aunt Lila and her childhood best friend Apollo and hey if you thought Manacled was bad, SenLinYu decided to double down and include a text section about KAINE !!! I'm not putting it in my review because it just makes me so mad 😀😀😀😀😀
So, that was my review, SenLinYu, thank you for destroying me again 🖤 I love you so much.
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
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
I didn’t read Manacled, so I came into this book fairly blind— it ended up being one of my favorite books of the year. Though it was hard to read at times; traumatic and dark dark themes. I thought I was going to have a heart attack a couple of times. Lots of feelings during this one.
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This book exceeded my expectations in almost every way. I read this story in its original iteration and I would give anything to have read Alchemised without that influence. It’s a masterpiece—dare I say better than the fanfiction. Sen is an incredible author and I will buy anything she writes.
I’m breaking this review into two parts, starting with Alchemised as a review in itself, and then in relation to Manacled for those who read the fanfic because I think questions about the origins, and comparison is inevitable. (And I have opinions.)
I’ll start with the romantic subplot cause I know that’s what most people have immediate questions about. It’s dark, not for everyone, and extremely nuanced. It features sexual assault between two of the main characters. If you can’t stomach it, fine. But this isn’t idolizing abuse and it’s impossible to have a discussion about this in good faith unless you read the entire book.
The world Sen created is fantastic. Her alchemy system HEAVILY parallels the magic system in the show Full Metal Alchemist. She hasn’t quite mastered the art of more naturally feeding the magic system mechanics to her readers, but I hardly consider that a critique as it’s something most fantasy authors struggle with.
Sen’s use of gothic imagery, death, and purity was the perfect backdrop to explore how religious trauma impacts people. Luc’s character being imprisoned by the “higher ideals” he is expected to uphold alongside Helena’s taboos restraining her choices in life was beautifully executed.
It’s hard to explain all the ways this book matters to me specifically. It isn’t for everyone, but as someone who loves gothic literature, horror, romance, and war stories, it’s everything I wanted.
ALCHEMISED vs MANACLED
(Spoilers ahead)
In short, Alchemised is better. In almost every way. These differences stood out most, for better or worse:
Manacled’s premise made it hard for me to suspend my disbelief, and I had serious structural issues with the story. Which is fine because it’s fanfiction and that’s okay. But “magical pregnancy can bring back suppressed memories” never sat right with me. Alchemised however, utilized the concepts behind the memory loss, restoration, and the repopulation program in a way that made much more sense to me as a reader.
In general, this story belongs in SenLinYu’s dark world of alchemists far better than it ever fit in the constraints of the HP world.
I really didn’t like Harry’s character in Manacled, and hated Ron. But Alchemised made them tragically well rounded characters. Luc (Harry) is held hostage by the expectations given to him by the religious organization he inherited after his father’s death. He is such a beautifully compelling character this time around. She could have written him to be a self righteous asshat, but he wasn’t. Ironically the hardest I cried in Alchemised was Luc’s death, which is insane because I frankly didn’t care when Harry died in manacled (sorry).
The only character change / loss I was disappointed by was Severus. I think the intimate moments between Hermione and Severus were important to the story, and one of the most significant scenes was given to the Crowther (Kingsley/Moody) and it felt really out of place. I think that moment and a few others needed to come from an advisor that cared for Helena (Hermione) in a non platonic way. (Sen has confirmed that it wasn’t platonic for Severus so don’t come for me).
There’s also a line of dialogue in part three in that was added to Alchemised that was jarring to me, where Helena tells Kaine that “We were both raped.” In Manacled, Sen trusted the reader more to understand how the sexual abuse in part one impacted both of them. The addition of this line was jarring because it wasn’t a nuanced enough depiction of Kaine’s side of things. He was cornered into it, yes. But it’s disingenuous to equate their experience when he had the context of knowing there was no other option, and she had no memories for that context.
Anyway, Alchemised is a better story overall and is now one of my favorite books of all time. Thank you Sen for everything you’ve created and for sharing it with the rest of us. 💕💕💕
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
⭐️5
🌶️ 2
Beautiful, dark and tragic. The book hangover is real. I finished this book hours ago and am still in shock. I loved so many things about this book. The world building, magic, and political landscape is expertly done. I would say this is a real and true enemies to lovers. Pay attention to triggers! Part one is a little challenging to get through but the Easter eggs are placed with precision. The relationship building in part two will leave you with a gaping hole in your chest. Part 3 has you on the edge of your seat. I loved how twisty this book was and the found family. This has become my #1 read of 2025.
🌶️ 2
Beautiful, dark and tragic. The book hangover is real. I finished this book hours ago and am still in shock. I loved so many things about this book. The world building, magic, and political landscape is expertly done. I would say this is a real and true enemies to lovers. Pay attention to triggers! Part one is a little challenging to get through but the Easter eggs are placed with precision. The relationship building in part two will leave you with a gaping hole in your chest. Part 3 has you on the edge of your seat. I loved how twisty this book was and the found family. This has become my #1 read of 2025.