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A review by trywii
Spells, Strings, and Forgotten Things by Breanne Randall
2.0
*This book was received for free as a part of a Goodread’s Giveaway*
I was pretty excited to receive an ARC, as I enjoy modern fantasy and fictional takes on some real-world paganism. Unfortunately, I was left pretty disappointed.
For one, the romance was boring. I’m not typically one to read romance, but I do have an appreciation for romantic subplots and budding relationships. The book advertises its ‘enemies-to-lovers’ trope pretty heavily, but it’s not fleshed out.
Lucien, our love interest, is understood by the other characters to be cruel, including but not limited to leveling a village in Egypt. The reader later learns, through Lucien’s perspective, that the incident in Egypt was actually an accident caused by a creature that Lucien was trying to stop. We, the readers, know at that point that Lucien isn’t all that bad of a person- *But the other characters don’t know that.*
So instead of treating Lucien like a magical terrorist, or being terrified shitless for a while, Calliope (our protagonist) is just huffing and folding her arms the whole time like “Ugh he’s SO annoying and SO handsome…” Huh???
Lucien as a love interest has a lot of potential, and I find his motives of trying to save his little sister by any means necessary both fascinating and endearing. His sudden love-afflicted attraction towards Calliope, however, feels completely out of left field given how much he’s already sacrificed to get this far.
Calliope being flippant about sacrificing her memories to use her magic for stupid, mundane things like lighting candles or stirring tea while making her sisters worry about Calliope losing herself makes for an interesting foil for Lucien. Calliope and Lucien’s attraction would’ve made for an interesting relationship, but they were attracted to each other way too soon and started getting handsy even sooner; Mind you they had only a few conversations before starting to grope on each other. It’s boring, and the romance feels unearned. What’s the point in building character foils if they aren’t going to be clashing like ones? Yeah, sure, they argue and scowl at each other, but it’s so generic to their situation. They don’t feel like people when they’re interacting, they feel like tropes with human-shaped bodies.
Side note, but there’s a line that goes “He muttered a contraceptive spell”, and I laughed really hard and had to tell my friends about it. Unintentional, but I will give points for comedy.
Another is the magic system. I don’t mind having a magic system that’s not entirely understood or having parts of it that the characters can cheese with in certain moments, but it’s unclear what the parameters are. Lightcrafters (Calliope’s family’s go-to magic) draw magic from the earth, and Shadowcrafters (Lucien’s family’s go-to magic) draw magic from their own being. Okay, cool, understood. It’s unclear if this is the only magic binary, or if there’s other kinds of ‘crafters’, but I can let it pass.
The issue is there are so many forms of magic that is utilized that I’m not entirely sure what makes a spell a spell. Sometimes spells are in English but utilize a rhyming scheme, sometimes spells are in Greek or French or Arabic but not rhyming. Spells can be used with just flicking your wrists and using your hands, but sometimes spells can be used with tarot cards. Why use some of these forms but not others? Why are English rhyming spells used in critical moments but not Greek? I don’t know. Again, I don’t mind if there’s an expansive list to things magic can do, but I don’t know what the limitations are, and I don’t think the characters know either.
There’s a part in the book where it’s revealed Calliope’s sentient grimoire that she inherited from her missing mother was actually her aunt that had been turned into the book, revealed by the grimoire herself saying something along the lines of ‘Oh I remember now, I used to be your aunt! Hi, nieces.’
I had to put the book down and close my eyes.
The ‘big reveals’ in the story feel unearned and convoluted. They just kind of spring up suddenly in a ‘Oh, I remember now’ fashion, and it’s kind of a bummer that the main characters didn’t have to put in work to discover these things on their own; They had to be told.
Third, and this is more of my own preferences speaking, but I really wish the story stayed focused on Calliope and her sisters instead of extended family. The beginning portions did well to lay out their family dynamics and I was looking forward to see it played out, but it felt like it wasn’t as explored as it could’ve been. Thalia and Eurydice are introduced as being differing but complimentary personalities don’t feel like two different characters by the end. They felt very interchangeable outside of a few scenes, and given how important their sisterhood is to the plot, I wish the story gave as much attention to fleshing out the three sisters’ relationship as it is currently with each other as it did to Calliope’s outfit of the day.
This is a little nitpick but I also want to mention Eurydice is called ‘Dissy’ in the third person limited narrative, and I didn’t mind the narrative calling a different character by her nickname because everyone called her ‘Roz’. However, three sisters refer to each other by nicknames, but only Eurydice is called by her nickname in the narrative, and it threw me off a little.
I do appreciate that the protagonist is bisexual, and that there are a few queer characters throughout, but I don’t want to toss flowers for simply having a character who is LGBT when the story itself doesn’t carry much. Calliope’s sexuality is demonstrated smoothly and I was honestly impressed that a fantasy/romance with a male/female couple portrayed a protagonist’s bisexuality in a realistic way, and not just used a tool for sex. So I’ll toss a flower for that, you won me over in that department.
Overall, I feel like the seeds for an interesting story are there, but it seems like it didn’t come to fruition. Something that felt like the beginning of a fun story quickly veers into comfortable tropes. The potential of exploring grey morality and complex characters just dissolves into a bad guys vs good guys final battle.
Final note; there’s some pages on the back that holds some recipes of the food discussed in the story. How cute! I haven’t tried them yet but if/when I do I’ll come back and update this review with my thoughts.
I was pretty excited to receive an ARC, as I enjoy modern fantasy and fictional takes on some real-world paganism. Unfortunately, I was left pretty disappointed.
For one, the romance was boring. I’m not typically one to read romance, but I do have an appreciation for romantic subplots and budding relationships. The book advertises its ‘enemies-to-lovers’ trope pretty heavily, but it’s not fleshed out.
Lucien, our love interest, is understood by the other characters to be cruel, including but not limited to leveling a village in Egypt. The reader later learns, through Lucien’s perspective, that the incident in Egypt was actually an accident caused by a creature that Lucien was trying to stop. We, the readers, know at that point that Lucien isn’t all that bad of a person- *But the other characters don’t know that.*
So instead of treating Lucien like a magical terrorist, or being terrified shitless for a while, Calliope (our protagonist) is just huffing and folding her arms the whole time like “Ugh he’s SO annoying and SO handsome…” Huh???
Lucien as a love interest has a lot of potential, and I find his motives of trying to save his little sister by any means necessary both fascinating and endearing. His sudden love-afflicted attraction towards Calliope, however, feels completely out of left field given how much he’s already sacrificed to get this far.
Calliope being flippant about sacrificing her memories to use her magic for stupid, mundane things like lighting candles or stirring tea while making her sisters worry about Calliope losing herself makes for an interesting foil for Lucien. Calliope and Lucien’s attraction would’ve made for an interesting relationship, but they were attracted to each other way too soon and started getting handsy even sooner; Mind you they had only a few conversations before starting to grope on each other. It’s boring, and the romance feels unearned. What’s the point in building character foils if they aren’t going to be clashing like ones? Yeah, sure, they argue and scowl at each other, but it’s so generic to their situation. They don’t feel like people when they’re interacting, they feel like tropes with human-shaped bodies.
Side note, but there’s a line that goes “He muttered a contraceptive spell”, and I laughed really hard and had to tell my friends about it. Unintentional, but I will give points for comedy.
Another is the magic system. I don’t mind having a magic system that’s not entirely understood or having parts of it that the characters can cheese with in certain moments, but it’s unclear what the parameters are. Lightcrafters (Calliope’s family’s go-to magic) draw magic from the earth, and Shadowcrafters (Lucien’s family’s go-to magic) draw magic from their own being. Okay, cool, understood. It’s unclear if this is the only magic binary, or if there’s other kinds of ‘crafters’, but I can let it pass.
The issue is there are so many forms of magic that is utilized that I’m not entirely sure what makes a spell a spell. Sometimes spells are in English but utilize a rhyming scheme, sometimes spells are in Greek or French or Arabic but not rhyming. Spells can be used with just flicking your wrists and using your hands, but sometimes spells can be used with tarot cards. Why use some of these forms but not others? Why are English rhyming spells used in critical moments but not Greek? I don’t know. Again, I don’t mind if there’s an expansive list to things magic can do, but I don’t know what the limitations are, and I don’t think the characters know either.
There’s a part in the book where it’s revealed Calliope’s sentient grimoire that she inherited from her missing mother was actually her aunt that had been turned into the book, revealed by the grimoire herself saying something along the lines of ‘Oh I remember now, I used to be your aunt! Hi, nieces.’
I had to put the book down and close my eyes.
The ‘big reveals’ in the story feel unearned and convoluted. They just kind of spring up suddenly in a ‘Oh, I remember now’ fashion, and it’s kind of a bummer that the main characters didn’t have to put in work to discover these things on their own; They had to be told.
Third, and this is more of my own preferences speaking, but I really wish the story stayed focused on Calliope and her sisters instead of extended family. The beginning portions did well to lay out their family dynamics and I was looking forward to see it played out, but it felt like it wasn’t as explored as it could’ve been. Thalia and Eurydice are introduced as being differing but complimentary personalities don’t feel like two different characters by the end. They felt very interchangeable outside of a few scenes, and given how important their sisterhood is to the plot, I wish the story gave as much attention to fleshing out the three sisters’ relationship as it is currently with each other as it did to Calliope’s outfit of the day.
This is a little nitpick but I also want to mention Eurydice is called ‘Dissy’ in the third person limited narrative, and I didn’t mind the narrative calling a different character by her nickname because everyone called her ‘Roz’. However, three sisters refer to each other by nicknames, but only Eurydice is called by her nickname in the narrative, and it threw me off a little.
I do appreciate that the protagonist is bisexual, and that there are a few queer characters throughout, but I don’t want to toss flowers for simply having a character who is LGBT when the story itself doesn’t carry much. Calliope’s sexuality is demonstrated smoothly and I was honestly impressed that a fantasy/romance with a male/female couple portrayed a protagonist’s bisexuality in a realistic way, and not just used a tool for sex. So I’ll toss a flower for that, you won me over in that department.
Overall, I feel like the seeds for an interesting story are there, but it seems like it didn’t come to fruition. Something that felt like the beginning of a fun story quickly veers into comfortable tropes. The potential of exploring grey morality and complex characters just dissolves into a bad guys vs good guys final battle.
Final note; there’s some pages on the back that holds some recipes of the food discussed in the story. How cute! I haven’t tried them yet but if/when I do I’ll come back and update this review with my thoughts.