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gorgonine 's review for:
Heaven's Queen
by Rachel Bach
Plot: Deviana Morris the hardass soldier is in love with Rupert Charkov the supersoldier. Oh, and I guess there's also some weird apocalypse stuff happening in the background?
1. Well. That was a disappointment, not gonna lie.
2. I feel mildly guilty about rating this book two stars because I'm probably going to rate [b:Queen of Air and Darkness|13541056|Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices, #3)|Cassandra Clare|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1510447136l/13541056._SY75_.jpg|19104298] three stars. This is because qoaad has the same problem this book does; unnecessary romance all over the place. So part of me feels like I should be judging them on the same level.
On the other hand, qoaad didn't let me down because I came into it with abject skepticism. Heaven's Queen took all my expectations from the last two books (and I had plenty! they were good books!) and said "we know you came here for the hardass bitch trying to survive a secret inter-species inter-government task force, so we're going to give you a compassion-focused plot brimming with romance instead." I think I'm allowed to be a little angry here.
3. Deviana was (and in some ways still is, I grudgingly concede) a wonderful character from the first book onwards, and a large part of my affection for her lies in the fact that she is an unapologetic hardass. She has big dick energy for miles. She shoots first and asks questions never. Insert heart eyes here.
But see the thing is, if Devi's character traits were inserted into a male character, I would like him a lot less. This is because that's playing into type, and I don't like playing into type. So the progression of the story, where Devi goes from being the hardass to being the action survivor who mostly survives because her supersoldier boyfriend cannot conceivably imagine a world without her and will do anything to keep her safe? Where said supersoldier boyfriend cannot go for half a chapter without telling her how she's everything he has to live for? Where her most important actions are mostly about how compassionate she is? It kind of wore me down.
4. And okay- the compassion plot? Definitely not the worst thing ever. I think I may have actively liked it if it weren't for the romance corrupting it. This book has one fo the absolute worst romance cliches coming into play again and again; the one where two people sex up with their brand new SOs and promptly forget every person and every relationship they ever had and delegates them to second place.
It's also a little harder to buy into Devi's ~compassion~ when we look at her actions during the pivotal choice climax. She can save bunch of traumatized women and children who have been actively helping her reach her goals and save literal millions of lives and possibly all of the known universe AND save a bunch of alien beings who decimated themselves while begging her to help them go home while also saving her life AND flip off the fuckers who are directly responsible for all of that suffering (what she has been fighting about for the last two books). The very same things she shot Rupert over (man I miss those days) multiple times. And what snaps her out of that daze is thinking about how much she loves fucking Rupert? Fucking seriously? You can't just shove off two books worth of character construction aside for the power of constantly professed love. Just... No. Stop. Pick a consistent narrative goddammit.
5. And this entire book tried SO HARD to make Devi more feminine and cutesy. So hard. For the first time ever Devi addresses her hair and says she keeps it long because otherwise her face looks too babyish and nobody takes her seriously. Which okay. Whatever. I mean I've been imagining her with short hair for the past couple of books because she never used to give a crap but that's mostly just me being terrible at keeping track of visual descriptions. And then a few chapters later Rupert puts her hair in pigtails- fucking pigtails- and she's okay with that? Really? Again; consistency, goddammit. And I know this is a tiny thing I should not be paying so much attention to but I'm disappointed okay?
6. There is a lot is weird character consistency stuff in this book, really. It's that thing you get where you know you need X characters in Y positions for the plot to work but these positions are reached because the characters have to be there, not because the characters, as characters would be likely to do it. Caldswell is such a heel face revolving door, for example. Maat, who spend the last couple of books mostly being a pitiable antgonist who hates everyone, is suddenly a reliable ally.
7. And. Okay. Most of that is part of the bits I did like (the actual plot, when it could you know- be bothered to show up when fucking Rupert isn't around) and if I squint and shift my brain around and bend myself backwards I can justify (hrrrrgh my head hurts just thinking about it) the characters' actions. Because bending over backwards does that. But I will not, because that defeats the whole purpose of reading a story in the first place and I'm not here to make an author's character progressions for them.
8. I'm disgruntled. It could have been so good, goddammit.
1. Well. That was a disappointment, not gonna lie.
2. I feel mildly guilty about rating this book two stars because I'm probably going to rate [b:Queen of Air and Darkness|13541056|Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices, #3)|Cassandra Clare|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1510447136l/13541056._SY75_.jpg|19104298] three stars. This is because qoaad has the same problem this book does; unnecessary romance all over the place. So part of me feels like I should be judging them on the same level.
On the other hand, qoaad didn't let me down because I came into it with abject skepticism. Heaven's Queen took all my expectations from the last two books (and I had plenty! they were good books!) and said "we know you came here for the hardass bitch trying to survive a secret inter-species inter-government task force, so we're going to give you a compassion-focused plot brimming with romance instead." I think I'm allowed to be a little angry here.
3. Deviana was (and in some ways still is, I grudgingly concede) a wonderful character from the first book onwards, and a large part of my affection for her lies in the fact that she is an unapologetic hardass. She has big dick energy for miles. She shoots first and asks questions never. Insert heart eyes here.
But see the thing is, if Devi's character traits were inserted into a male character, I would like him a lot less. This is because that's playing into type, and I don't like playing into type. So the progression of the story, where Devi goes from being the hardass to being the action survivor who mostly survives because her supersoldier boyfriend cannot conceivably imagine a world without her and will do anything to keep her safe? Where said supersoldier boyfriend cannot go for half a chapter without telling her how she's everything he has to live for? Where her most important actions are mostly about how compassionate she is? It kind of wore me down.
4. And okay- the compassion plot? Definitely not the worst thing ever. I think I may have actively liked it if it weren't for the romance corrupting it. This book has one fo the absolute worst romance cliches coming into play again and again; the one where two people sex up with their brand new SOs and promptly forget every person and every relationship they ever had and delegates them to second place.
5. And this entire book tried SO HARD to make Devi more feminine and cutesy. So hard. For the first time ever Devi addresses her hair and says she keeps it long because otherwise her face looks too babyish and nobody takes her seriously. Which okay. Whatever. I mean I've been imagining her with short hair for the past couple of books because she never used to give a crap but that's mostly just me being terrible at keeping track of visual descriptions. And then a few chapters later Rupert puts her hair in pigtails- fucking pigtails- and she's okay with that? Really? Again; consistency, goddammit. And I know this is a tiny thing I should not be paying so much attention to but I'm disappointed okay?
6. There is a lot is weird character consistency stuff in this book, really. It's that thing you get where you know you need X characters in Y positions for the plot to work but these positions are reached because the characters have to be there, not because the characters, as characters would be likely to do it. Caldswell is such a heel face revolving door, for example. Maat, who spend the last couple of books mostly being a pitiable antgonist who hates everyone, is suddenly a reliable ally.
7. And. Okay. Most of that is part of the bits I did like (the actual plot, when it could you know- be bothered to show up when fucking Rupert isn't around) and if I squint and shift my brain around and bend myself backwards I can justify (hrrrrgh my head hurts just thinking about it) the characters' actions. Because bending over backwards does that. But I will not, because that defeats the whole purpose of reading a story in the first place and I'm not here to make an author's character progressions for them.
8. I'm disgruntled. It could have been so good, goddammit.