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A review by soartfullydone
Defiance by C.J. Redwine
Did not finish book.
1.0
Normally, I would never review a book I didn't read in its entirety. It's unquestionably unfair to do so. But for Defiance, I'm making an exception, partly because I read past the halfway mark and partly because I know how the book ends. And let's just say, I'm glad I stopped.
So plot summary: Our main character, Rachel Adams, is the daughter of the town of Baalboden's most skilled couriers, Jared Adams. But he has gone into the Wasteland to make a delivery and has been missing for quite some time. Despite the laws of the town declaring him dead, Rachel knows he's alive and is determined to find him by braving the dangers of the Wasteland, where a dragon-like creature that is not a dragon called the Cursed One lies in waiting beneath the earth to attack at random. The Commander, the evil, megalomaniacal ruler of Baalboden, believes that Jared is also alive and that he has stolen a mysterious package that is very important to him, and he wants it back. Instead of assigning family-friend Oliver to be Rachel's Male Protector in Jared's absence, the Commander appoints the task to Logan McEntire, an inventor who apprenticed under Jared and who Rachel confessed her love to two years ago and was subsequently rejected. Together, they are expected to deal with each other, travel the Wasteland to find Jared and the package, defy the Commander, and bring change to their world.
At least that's what the book promises. What it delivers is remarkably different.
First, let's talk about the characters. Bland cardboard. Caricatures, really. The book cycles between Rachel's point of view and Logan's, and because of the book being written in first-person--or perhaps, despite it--both of these characters sound exactly the same. There's no remarkable distinction between their voices whatsoever. I can't tell you how many times I had to flip back to the beginning of the chapter to relearn whose POV I was reading. Rachel is the stereotypical Strong Female Protagonist that I'm starting to loathe, and we're told constantly that she's a strong female protagonist because she hate a dress and know a sword and can feisty. Logan, meanwhile, is supposed to be the book's heartthrob, the desired male hero. Really all he is a misogynistic jackass. And the Commander, God, I've seen more convincing villains on cereal boxes.
This brings me to the setting of Defiance. It markets itself as a traditional fantasy story when in reality it's a post-apocalyptic fantasy. Which makes no sense. The world building and history help this nonsensical thing by being as vague as possible. We're told there were cities with buildings that scraped the sky, but then we drilled down too far into the earth's core and awoke the Cursed One, and it destroyed most of society. Now the world has regressed into small outposts with weird medieval cues in dress and culture but still hosts smatterings of modern technology, like tracers. Another thing the medieval setting brought with it was some good, ol' fashioned misogyny, which the book does take steps to condemn. The problem is our main characters buy into the misogyny so the condemnation rings completely hollow.
For instance, though Rachel is defiant and rages against how Baalboden society treats women--as second-class citizens who cannot be escorted without a Male Protector because rape--she also sees herself as being better than most women just because her dad taught her how to defend herself instead of how to cook and sew. Logan, for all his supposed honor, also says and thinks some highly problematic things. The worst example of this comes early on in the novel:
Also, the insta-love between Logan and Rachel was nauseating. It makes sense that, even though she claims to hate him for rejecting her, Rachel obviously still has feelings for him. What didn't make sense was that all it seemed to take for Logan to start lusting after her was being made her Protector. Literally gag me with a spoon.
Even without these problems, the plot just seems to drag on and on. I read almost half the book, and both Rachel and Logan were still in the town. No Wasteland in sight. Granted, the first half of the book is packed with events. The problem is that these events are repetitive and distinctly underwhelming. In fact, repetition seems to be one of Defiance's main problem. I can't tell you how many times both characters thought they were going to "prove the Commander wrong" or "make him pay," and then they got made fools of by this same Commander. This cackling, mustache-twirling mistake of a bad guy got the best of both of these idiots, but I honestly think no one is the winner here. Even the death of an important character in Rachel and Logan's lives was boring, especially when it was presented so obviously and seemed to be the death of the Token Black Guy. At least his skin is described as dark, but we know how indicative that is of a person's skin color in a media where whitewashing is a constant. All of the grief that followed his death, all of the vows of revenge just reeked of melodramatic drivel.
But even despite all of this, despite all of this book's failings for me, the one thing that's worse is Redwine's obsession and misuse of the word "scrape." It has driven me insane and brought so much attention to the writing with how much she's used it and in some of the strangest ways, particularly with how eyes "scrape" over things: buildings, people. That is a diction problem at its finest. Eyes do not scrape. Scraping implies feeling, dragging, it's an ugly word meant for ugly things. Knees, for example, get scraped against something; they do not do the scraping. It's the same with eyes. Eyes slide, they dart, they sear, they bore, but they do not scrape. Not unless they're carrying a shovel.
All in all, I will be glad to put Defiance behind me. I enjoy purchasing books on faith alone, and usually my instincts pay off. I'm sorry to see this wasn't one of those times. If you've made it through this books and enjoyed it, I commend you. It's more than I've been able to do.
So plot summary: Our main character, Rachel Adams, is the daughter of the town of Baalboden's most skilled couriers, Jared Adams. But he has gone into the Wasteland to make a delivery and has been missing for quite some time. Despite the laws of the town declaring him dead, Rachel knows he's alive and is determined to find him by braving the dangers of the Wasteland, where a dragon-like creature that is not a dragon called the Cursed One lies in waiting beneath the earth to attack at random. The Commander, the evil, megalomaniacal ruler of Baalboden, believes that Jared is also alive and that he has stolen a mysterious package that is very important to him, and he wants it back. Instead of assigning family-friend Oliver to be Rachel's Male Protector in Jared's absence, the Commander appoints the task to Logan McEntire, an inventor who apprenticed under Jared and who Rachel confessed her love to two years ago and was subsequently rejected. Together, they are expected to deal with each other, travel the Wasteland to find Jared and the package, defy the Commander, and bring change to their world.
At least that's what the book promises. What it delivers is remarkably different.
First, let's talk about the characters. Bland cardboard. Caricatures, really. The book cycles between Rachel's point of view and Logan's, and because of the book being written in first-person--or perhaps, despite it--both of these characters sound exactly the same. There's no remarkable distinction between their voices whatsoever. I can't tell you how many times I had to flip back to the beginning of the chapter to relearn whose POV I was reading. Rachel is the stereotypical Strong Female Protagonist that I'm starting to loathe, and we're told constantly that she's a strong female protagonist because she hate a dress and know a sword and can feisty. Logan, meanwhile, is supposed to be the book's heartthrob, the desired male hero. Really all he is a misogynistic jackass. And the Commander, God, I've seen more convincing villains on cereal boxes.
This brings me to the setting of Defiance. It markets itself as a traditional fantasy story when in reality it's a post-apocalyptic fantasy. Which makes no sense. The world building and history help this nonsensical thing by being as vague as possible. We're told there were cities with buildings that scraped the sky, but then we drilled down too far into the earth's core and awoke the Cursed One, and it destroyed most of society. Now the world has regressed into small outposts with weird medieval cues in dress and culture but still hosts smatterings of modern technology, like tracers. Another thing the medieval setting brought with it was some good, ol' fashioned misogyny, which the book does take steps to condemn. The problem is our main characters buy into the misogyny so the condemnation rings completely hollow.
For instance, though Rachel is defiant and rages against how Baalboden society treats women--as second-class citizens who cannot be escorted without a Male Protector because rape--she also sees herself as being better than most women just because her dad taught her how to defend herself instead of how to cook and sew. Logan, for all his supposed honor, also says and thinks some highly problematic things. The worst example of this comes early on in the novel:
"The driving sheets of rain make it hard to be certain, but I'm pretty sure [Rachel] just dropped her skirt to the ground and started up the ladder in a pair of skintight pants. Fury overtakes my panic and fuels me. If a guard sees her dressed like that, he won't hesitate to take what he thinks she's freely offering, and then I'll have to kill him."Good on Logan for being committed enough to kill a would-be rapist. Bad on Logan to even imply a woman freely offers herself up to anybody based on how she's dressed. Saying that that's what the guard would think hardly excuses him. And then there's the Claiming ceremony, where every of-age woman is offered up like a piece of meat by her Protector to the bachelors of the city to be Claimed as a wife. This is one of those things that fanfiction does best at and where it needs to stay, if I'm being quite honest.
Also, the insta-love between Logan and Rachel was nauseating. It makes sense that, even though she claims to hate him for rejecting her, Rachel obviously still has feelings for him. What didn't make sense was that all it seemed to take for Logan to start lusting after her was being made her Protector. Literally gag me with a spoon.
Even without these problems, the plot just seems to drag on and on. I read almost half the book, and both Rachel and Logan were still in the town. No Wasteland in sight. Granted, the first half of the book is packed with events. The problem is that these events are repetitive and distinctly underwhelming. In fact, repetition seems to be one of Defiance's main problem. I can't tell you how many times both characters thought they were going to "prove the Commander wrong" or "make him pay," and then they got made fools of by this same Commander. This cackling, mustache-twirling mistake of a bad guy got the best of both of these idiots, but I honestly think no one is the winner here. Even the death of an important character in Rachel and Logan's lives was boring, especially when it was presented so obviously and seemed to be the death of the Token Black Guy. At least his skin is described as dark, but we know how indicative that is of a person's skin color in a media where whitewashing is a constant. All of the grief that followed his death, all of the vows of revenge just reeked of melodramatic drivel.
But even despite all of this, despite all of this book's failings for me, the one thing that's worse is Redwine's obsession and misuse of the word "scrape." It has driven me insane and brought so much attention to the writing with how much she's used it and in some of the strangest ways, particularly with how eyes "scrape" over things: buildings, people. That is a diction problem at its finest. Eyes do not scrape. Scraping implies feeling, dragging, it's an ugly word meant for ugly things. Knees, for example, get scraped against something; they do not do the scraping. It's the same with eyes. Eyes slide, they dart, they sear, they bore, but they do not scrape. Not unless they're carrying a shovel.
All in all, I will be glad to put Defiance behind me. I enjoy purchasing books on faith alone, and usually my instincts pay off. I'm sorry to see this wasn't one of those times. If you've made it through this books and enjoyed it, I commend you. It's more than I've been able to do.