Take a photo of a barcode or cover
zaung 's review for:
I'm a Gay Wizard
by V.S. Santoni
ARC from Netgalley with thanks
I think this will be an enjoyable read for a particular type of audience, unfortunately I am not it.
I come from the era of Fictionpress and this novel reminded me of far too many of the original slash fiction one might have found on there. The thing is, this had the trappings of everything I love: magical school, dark secrets, cute gays but they never came together in a way that worked for me. There were glimpses of brilliance in some of the passages and the plot itself is good but I found myself skimming more often than not. I suspect part of the problem is that this was very much a serial published as a novel. Serials have a different pace compared to completed novels and it showed. When read from start to end in one go, it dragged. I found myself skipping entire scenes and at one point a chapter because I was losing interest.
Now, the writing itself...well it felt uneven. As I stated previously there were passages that were brilliant, but there were also passages that felt really clunky. In particular the one and only sex scene where the orgasm is signified through a single page with the word "boom." It just felt very twee? And some of the banter had a forced feel, like the joke were put in because they were funny, not because it's something that worked for the conversation or the character.
Another issue I found myself struggling with was the whole Asuras, Devas and Maras thing. I'm buddhist, so those names and concepts are not new to me but they felt more like window trappings than anything substantial. The mythos of the novel's world didn't match with the mythos of the asuras, devas or maras that we find in real life. And I felt this was really a missed opportunity, because I would have loved to read a YA fantasy novel with hindu cosmology. Instead, it really felt more like the thought process was "oh those names sound cool and mystical, let's use them." I honestly would have preferred made up names to a religion being co-opted.
All in all, this needed someone to edit it as a novel and not a published serial and I foresee this being a problem for many wattpad published novels.
I think this will be an enjoyable read for a particular type of audience, unfortunately I am not it.
I come from the era of Fictionpress and this novel reminded me of far too many of the original slash fiction one might have found on there. The thing is, this had the trappings of everything I love: magical school, dark secrets, cute gays but they never came together in a way that worked for me. There were glimpses of brilliance in some of the passages and the plot itself is good but I found myself skimming more often than not. I suspect part of the problem is that this was very much a serial published as a novel. Serials have a different pace compared to completed novels and it showed. When read from start to end in one go, it dragged. I found myself skipping entire scenes and at one point a chapter because I was losing interest.
Now, the writing itself...well it felt uneven. As I stated previously there were passages that were brilliant, but there were also passages that felt really clunky. In particular the one and only sex scene where the orgasm is signified through a single page with the word "boom." It just felt very twee? And some of the banter had a forced feel, like the joke were put in because they were funny, not because it's something that worked for the conversation or the character.
Another issue I found myself struggling with was the whole Asuras, Devas and Maras thing. I'm buddhist, so those names and concepts are not new to me but they felt more like window trappings than anything substantial. The mythos of the novel's world didn't match with the mythos of the asuras, devas or maras that we find in real life. And I felt this was really a missed opportunity, because I would have loved to read a YA fantasy novel with hindu cosmology. Instead, it really felt more like the thought process was "oh those names sound cool and mystical, let's use them." I honestly would have preferred made up names to a religion being co-opted.
All in all, this needed someone to edit it as a novel and not a published serial and I foresee this being a problem for many wattpad published novels.