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zephyrstar 's review for:
Behooved
by M. Stevenson
adventurous
lighthearted
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
This started out really strong in my opinion.
We're introduced to Bianca, a younger sister who has celiac disease. She's getting arrange married to the neighboring King. The treatment she's sent is also vaguely threatening. Interestingly, the world (or at least Bianca's country) is queernormative, which is normally a huge plus for me but this was mentioned in the beginning and then forgotten about until the end.
Anyway Bianca goes to Gildenheim and she has a rough time. This was my favorite part of the book. She falls into the water, seems to have a contentious relationship with everyone, and her betrothed is icy to her. The get married with a magic ritual, but they get interrupted before they can consummate their marriage. By an assassin.
Here is where things started to decrease in quality fin my opinion: Bianca saves them from the assassin, who was specifically targeting Aric, by using a protection charm her sister gave her. She also turns Aric into a horse. Aric thinks she was behind the assassination attempt, and we also find out that he was strongarmed into their marriage.
Once Bianca starts actually speaking to some other characters, the dialogue is not that great. The characters don't say things that are very believable. Bianca straddles this weird line of acting like a royal and also being very immature, so she she has a lot of very clear thoughts and then she'll say something like "Well I didn't know that." And then Aric will just seem to know all of her thoughts and sympathize with her, even though he has good reason to think she or her country is trying to usurp his throne.
Overall I liked the writing style, I think some of the attempts at imagery were misplaced. "The innkeeper's accent, by comparison to Aric's, was like pond water to melted ice." I read this line a few times because I had nonidea what was being said, but the next line tells us that Aric was speaker "crisper", and I guess colder? There was some imagery issues throughout. This overly flowery imagery continued through the most of the book, and then when the action picked up the author stopped doing it so much. This quirk alone made the first half of the book slow to get through for me.
The book tried its best to put in some popular tropes. There was an "only one bed" scene, which was honestly silly to me because the characters are literally married. You are very aware of this because when they call each other husband or wife the word gets italicized. But in this only one bed scene, Bianca says "Oh." in her internal narration four times. Two times it's italicized. There's even an "Oh. Oh." When a character says "oh" so many times, I expect them to be having some kind of revelation. I'm honestly not sure what she was realizing here, because she's still very childish with Aric after this.
Miscommunication was used so heavily throughout the book, it got frustrating very quickly. Bianca kept assuming she knew everything going on and never asked any questions to make sure she was right. I wish instead of repeating the same things over and over, like "I'm so weak" "It's okay I love you anyway" that more time was spent developing their relationship. It seemed like Bianca went from being a snob to being in love without much in between, which ja confusing because the book is from her POV so I should've experienced that with her.
All that said, I really liked the last 60 or so pages of this book. It was fun, the writing was much better than the rest of the book in my opinion, and while it was nothing new it was satisfying to read. The ending made me bump this from a 3 star to a 3.5 star. I'd read more Romantasy from M Stevenson, I think most of the issues I had with this book are from inexperience. I also really liked the world, and while there isn't much left to explore without changing the setting, I'd like a novella about Tatianna or even her mean parents.
One last critique that I don't necessarily think is a big deal: I think this would've been better as a YA novel. The concept was very YA, the characters were very immature, honestly the spicy scenes didn't seem very well-placed. I didn't mind them, but I think this book was very YA.
We're introduced to Bianca, a younger sister who has celiac disease. She's getting arrange married to the neighboring King. The treatment she's sent is also vaguely threatening. Interestingly, the world (or at least Bianca's country) is queernormative, which is normally a huge plus for me but this was mentioned in the beginning and then forgotten about until the end.
Anyway Bianca goes to Gildenheim and she has a rough time. This was my favorite part of the book. She falls into the water, seems to have a contentious relationship with everyone, and her betrothed is icy to her. The get married with a magic ritual, but they get interrupted before they can consummate their marriage. By an assassin.
Here is where things started to decrease in quality fin my opinion: Bianca saves them from the assassin, who was specifically targeting Aric, by using a protection charm her sister gave her. She also turns Aric into a horse. Aric thinks she was behind the assassination attempt, and we also find out that he was strongarmed into their marriage.
Once Bianca starts actually speaking to some other characters, the dialogue is not that great. The characters don't say things that are very believable. Bianca straddles this weird line of acting like a royal and also being very immature, so she she has a lot of very clear thoughts and then she'll say something like "Well I didn't know that." And then Aric will just seem to know all of her thoughts and sympathize with her, even though he has good reason to think she or her country is trying to usurp his throne.
Overall I liked the writing style, I think some of the attempts at imagery were misplaced. "The innkeeper's accent, by comparison to Aric's, was like pond water to melted ice." I read this line a few times because I had nonidea what was being said, but the next line tells us that Aric was speaker "crisper", and I guess colder? There was some imagery issues throughout. This overly flowery imagery continued through the most of the book, and then when the action picked up the author stopped doing it so much. This quirk alone made the first half of the book slow to get through for me.
The book tried its best to put in some popular tropes. There was an "only one bed" scene, which was honestly silly to me because the characters are literally married. You are very aware of this because when they call each other husband or wife the word gets italicized. But in this only one bed scene, Bianca says "Oh." in her internal narration four times. Two times it's italicized. There's even an "Oh. Oh." When a character says "oh" so many times, I expect them to be having some kind of revelation. I'm honestly not sure what she was realizing here, because she's still very childish with Aric after this.
Miscommunication was used so heavily throughout the book, it got frustrating very quickly. Bianca kept assuming she knew everything going on and never asked any questions to make sure she was right. I wish instead of repeating the same things over and over, like "I'm so weak" "It's okay I love you anyway" that more time was spent developing their relationship. It seemed like Bianca went from being a snob to being in love without much in between, which ja confusing because the book is from her POV so I should've experienced that with her.
All that said, I really liked the last 60 or so pages of this book. It was fun, the writing was much better than the rest of the book in my opinion, and while it was nothing new it was satisfying to read. The ending made me bump this from a 3 star to a 3.5 star. I'd read more Romantasy from M Stevenson, I think most of the issues I had with this book are from inexperience. I also really liked the world, and while there isn't much left to explore without changing the setting, I'd like a novella about Tatianna or even her mean parents.
One last critique that I don't necessarily think is a big deal: I think this would've been better as a YA novel. The concept was very YA, the characters were very immature, honestly the spicy scenes didn't seem very well-placed. I didn't mind them, but I think this book was very YA.