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A review by tessa_grayreading
The Cerulean by Amy Ewing
1.0
Okay, I made it through! Where is my award? (jk, I forced myself through this, so.. Someone slap me)
In case it wasn't clear from that intro: Rant ahead
Okay, so, not only is this book extremely boring and everyone worships the MC for... I don't even know. Breathing, I guess? Being pretty? I don't know, because she doesn't do anything that warrants everyone and everything going like "omg she's so brave and amazing and beautiful and lovely and literally perfect and I've known her for three minutes but I'd die for her". Yet that is the reaction she got constantly.
But my main complaint is the queer baiting and the aphobia. If you're going to write a book about a Sapphic poly society and include at least one wlw main character (lbh I'm like 85% sure she's planning on doing some weird stuff with Leela so I'm not exactly counting her), then why would you make the MC straight and even give her a "oh thank God I'm not actually broken (read: thank God I'm not on the a-spectrum), I'm just straight!" moment (she even almost cried in relief! How about you don't give your straight characters a literal coming out moment, that's just rude?!) There are so many identities Ewing could have gone with and that was the worst possible choice. Like seriously, what is up with authors/publishers and editors? No one thought this might be a bad decision? Like I could have maybe cut her some slack if she was like "well I'm straight so I don't want to write a queer MC", but then why would you write this book in the first place and have a lesbian woman as another MC?!
The fact that she's the only straight woman, the only woman apparently not wlw in her entire society, is simply ridiculous. Just straight up unbelievable.
The internalized aphobia was also a gem, like I said. Every time an YA author writes the words "incapable of love" in the context of romantic love and how broken and screwed up their MC would be if they actually were like that, everyone on the aromantic spectrum should get like a thousand dollars. Or maybe simply some respect, acceptance and representation. It's getting really, really old.
Let's move on to the questionable decision of making the darker skinned people extremely homophobic, sexist and overall pretty bad people. I mean? This is pretty much the same shit that went down with The Black Witch, only apparently no one with a HUGE online following got an Arc (I wonder why..).
But seriously, this society is so sexist the women need their father's/husband's permit to do anything, even remove their own money from a bank account. Forced marriage is also a thing.
And the lesbian MC is literally worried she'd get killed if people found out that she's a lesbian.
Also the male MC suddenly sees the light once he can talk to the Cerulean MC and does a 180 within minutes of being able to understand her. I can't tell you why, because she surely didn't do anything in that scene to inspire him to change, except maybe being a person, which he ignored before. That kind of issue doesn't change within ten minutes though if you ask me.
The writing so awkward and cringey. Only an American can come up with so many, unending really, self affirming bullshit. I can't tell you how often the sentence "she was a Cerulean and her blood was magic" is repeated in the book. By the MC, the Cerulean herself. I mean does anyone else constantly assure themselves they're human? No? Don't know anyone either.
And even up there in the city where literally only Ceruleans live they constantly refer to themselves as such. I mean, yes, who freaking else?!
Kinda spoiler but honestly if you've read this far and are STILL considering reading the book I can't help you: if I got just one Euro for every time a high priestess turned out to be shady I could literally pay people not to include this bullshit trope in their books. It's getting old, people, we know what is coming as soon as you mention a high priestess! So please stop making your MCs literally too dumb to see what is right in front of their eyes, it's annoying as hell.
Which brings me to the absolute idiocy of most of the characters. I mean I kind of wasn't listening in the middle but towards the end NO ONE GOT ANYTHING when it was so freaking obvious and like. Come on! No one will be surprised by the plot of this book, absolutely no one who's ever picked up a book before! I mean aside from the queer baiting, that was a really rotten surprise.
As I said before the plot was extremely... Not interesting. Nothing much happened aside from useless drama, character worship, the later parts include a """mystery""" where you won't see anything coming!! At all!! (that was sarcasm) and the MC telling us she's Cerulean and her blood is magic.
Let's end this by coming to the shocking conclusion that I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone and I can't believe it has some positive reviews. Have those people read the book??
(also can I get that cover as a poster because it's absolutely beautiful but I definitely won't buy this book (I didn't steal it, it's on Bookbeat, the audio book service I use, okay, don't @ me)).
In case it wasn't clear from that intro: Rant ahead
Okay, so, not only is this book extremely boring and everyone worships the MC for... I don't even know. Breathing, I guess? Being pretty? I don't know, because she doesn't do anything that warrants everyone and everything going like "omg she's so brave and amazing and beautiful and lovely and literally perfect and I've known her for three minutes but I'd die for her". Yet that is the reaction she got constantly.
But my main complaint is the queer baiting and the aphobia. If you're going to write a book about a Sapphic poly society and include at least one wlw main character (lbh I'm like 85% sure she's planning on doing some weird stuff with Leela so I'm not exactly counting her), then why would you make the MC straight and even give her a "oh thank God I'm not actually broken (read: thank God I'm not on the a-spectrum), I'm just straight!" moment (she even almost cried in relief! How about you don't give your straight characters a literal coming out moment, that's just rude?!) There are so many identities Ewing could have gone with and that was the worst possible choice. Like seriously, what is up with authors/publishers and editors? No one thought this might be a bad decision? Like I could have maybe cut her some slack if she was like "well I'm straight so I don't want to write a queer MC", but then why would you write this book in the first place and have a lesbian woman as another MC?!
The fact that she's the only straight woman, the only woman apparently not wlw in her entire society, is simply ridiculous. Just straight up unbelievable.
The internalized aphobia was also a gem, like I said. Every time an YA author writes the words "incapable of love" in the context of romantic love and how broken and screwed up their MC would be if they actually were like that, everyone on the aromantic spectrum should get like a thousand dollars. Or maybe simply some respect, acceptance and representation. It's getting really, really old.
Let's move on to the questionable decision of making the darker skinned people extremely homophobic, sexist and overall pretty bad people. I mean? This is pretty much the same shit that went down with The Black Witch, only apparently no one with a HUGE online following got an Arc (I wonder why..).
But seriously, this society is so sexist the women need their father's/husband's permit to do anything, even remove their own money from a bank account. Forced marriage is also a thing.
And the lesbian MC is literally worried she'd get killed if people found out that she's a lesbian.
Also the male MC suddenly sees the light once he can talk to the Cerulean MC and does a 180 within minutes of being able to understand her. I can't tell you why, because she surely didn't do anything in that scene to inspire him to change, except maybe being a person, which he ignored before. That kind of issue doesn't change within ten minutes though if you ask me.
The writing so awkward and cringey. Only an American can come up with so many, unending really, self affirming bullshit. I can't tell you how often the sentence "she was a Cerulean and her blood was magic" is repeated in the book. By the MC, the Cerulean herself. I mean does anyone else constantly assure themselves they're human? No? Don't know anyone either.
And even up there in the city where literally only Ceruleans live they constantly refer to themselves as such. I mean, yes, who freaking else?!
Kinda spoiler but honestly if you've read this far and are STILL considering reading the book I can't help you: if I got just one Euro for every time a high priestess turned out to be shady I could literally pay people not to include this bullshit trope in their books. It's getting old, people, we know what is coming as soon as you mention a high priestess! So please stop making your MCs literally too dumb to see what is right in front of their eyes, it's annoying as hell.
Which brings me to the absolute idiocy of most of the characters. I mean I kind of wasn't listening in the middle but towards the end NO ONE GOT ANYTHING when it was so freaking obvious and like. Come on! No one will be surprised by the plot of this book, absolutely no one who's ever picked up a book before! I mean aside from the queer baiting, that was a really rotten surprise.
As I said before the plot was extremely... Not interesting. Nothing much happened aside from useless drama, character worship, the later parts include a """mystery""" where you won't see anything coming!! At all!! (that was sarcasm) and the MC telling us she's Cerulean and her blood is magic.
Let's end this by coming to the shocking conclusion that I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone and I can't believe it has some positive reviews. Have those people read the book??
(also can I get that cover as a poster because it's absolutely beautiful but I definitely won't buy this book (I didn't steal it, it's on Bookbeat, the audio book service I use, okay, don't @ me)).