A review by khnleesi
Foul Lady Fortune by Chloe Gong

adventurous slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

i love love love the work Chloe did with ‘These Violent Delights’ and ‘Our Violent Ends’ and will never stop talking about how well-written and awesome those two novels are, but sadly i won’t be able to talk about her third child, ‘Foul Lady Fortune’ , with the same passion. 

let’s start with the protagonist : Rosalind. 
i think it’s safe to say that i was more infuriated by her acting the opposite as a (good) spy and revealing her real identity every 3 seconds to strangers she encounters than her betraying her family and gang in OVE ! 
i know that she has been trained as an assassin and not as a spy like Orion (we’ll talk about him later..) , but i didn’t even feel like she made any efforts to prove to her surroundings that she was worthy of the title, which she should’ve !! 🤷🏻‍♀️ 
there was a passage where coworkers of hers told her that they were going to a party that took place in the club that she used to work in, and she apparently needed to go to that party because ‘she and Orion needed information about those said coworkers’ BUT going to that party would most certainly ruin her cover since people would recognize her! and guess what? SHE WENT TO THAT PARTY ANYWAY , ruined her cover and had to kill someone because of it AND didn’t discover a-ny-thing suspicious about her coworkers! 
so what was the point of this scene except confirm me that Rosalind is the biggest idiot of her family? 

since i mentioned Orion earlier , as i liked most of the male characters from ‘TVD’ and ‘OVE’ i , therefore , expected him to be an interesting and fresh new character , but oh my should i have lowered my expectations because i found him more personalityless than a 10 months old baby and annoying in the worst sense of the word! 
he kept saying ‘beloved’ like it was a ponctuation mark like-.. SIR how can you expect me to take you seriously if you’re talking like that?? is your vocabulary seriously that smal???? urgh. 
what is there to know about him except that he is a pretentious philanderer who has a terrible relationship with his parents and who can’t stop teasing Phoebe ? i’m genuinely asking! 
i will die on a hill saying that the ‘don’t touch my wife’ and ‘who did this to you? i’ll make them pay’ tropes are terrible and unnecessary ; i thought Chloe knew better than to use them but whatever.. 

one thing i enjoyed was seeing Alisa and Celia again! especially because we got to see them both 4 years older and so at a total different point in their lifes from where we left them in ‘OVE’ BUT it’s the same thing than with Orion : they lacked some depth that would have made their choices and position in the communist party much more coherent! 

lastly i thought the plot to be quite predictable (apart from that final plot twist that i didn’t see coming at all) and the build-up waaaaay too slow. 
and about the entire political side : i’m just going to leave this review here ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5073269827 ) because it perfectly summarizes my thoughts! 

conclusion : i still intend on picking the sequel up next year because i care about this world and it’s characters (or at least the majority of them) but that’s the only reason.. 
i’m not mad because i know a lot of people liked this book , i’m just greatly disappointed :/ 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings