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A review by elwyn_k
A Lake of Feathers and Moonbeams by Dax Murray
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
I go back and forth on whether or not I'm unfairly biased against this book. To be clear, I originally picked this up when I was really hoping for something else (a different retelling of Swan Lake) and also, I only got around to reading it when I was in the middle of Hurricane Helene, so my power was out and I couldn't just download something else. My mood was also rather bad because, you know, I was in the middle of a hurricane. It's been a few days since then, and my irritation with the book has only faded somewhat.
As a rule, I don't have any interest in disparaging fanfiction. I write and read it happily. So, when I compare this work to a fanfiction, to be clear, it's not intended to slight fanfiction as a whole. But this work is remarkably poorly written. The spelling, grammar, etc. are horrendous. I edit my fanfiction more closely than anyone edited this piece, which is just an embarrassment. Half of the fanfic I've encountered, though clearly written by authors who are running on caffeine and a prayer with no traditional education in writing, sometimes with no traditional education in the language they're writing in, even, is written with more care than this. If it was a fanfiction, I would just go on to a different work. But I paid money for this. Even if it's published independently, I find it remarkable how poorly this was looked over, considering how many indie books I've read that have been just fine.
For some godforsaken reason, the author is allergic to any sort of contraction, which is bizarre, and also makes the dialogue even more flat and unappealing than it already is. Everything is just flat and lifeless.
The characters have promise, but they feel like paper dolls going through the motions. I was hopeful for the romance, but the most intriguing thing there is what's going on betweenKatya and Ivan, which feels like it really doesn't fit with the book. It was a bizarre choice when it would have made, I think, much more sense for Ivan to have a parental role in Katya's life to extend themes of living up to or failing to meet the expectations of one's parents, and what that means.
Before I get into that too much, I might should discuss Swan Lake more, as it feels like the author really had no care to actually interact with the original material and a lot of the audience is unfamiliar with the original story. I don't think this is inherently a bad thing, but I often found myself wondering what drew the author to Swan Lake at all, and why they didn't just write something else like they seemed to want to. In the end, all that remains of Swan Lake are swans and maybe a vague aesthetic leaning. Well, also useless dance sequences that feel quite vapid.
Swan Lake tells the story of Odette who is a princess transformed into a white swan by the evil wizard, Baron Von Rothbart. Prince Siegfried is Odette's love interest. Odile is the daughter of Von Rothbart and the iconic black swan. Honestly, if you've ever seen the Barbie movie, you'll have a pretty good understanding of what's going on.
In this work, Yi Zhen is our Odette, Katya is our Odile, Ivan is Von Rothbart, and Alexis takes the place of Siegfried. As mentioned before, however,Katya is not made Ivan's daughter, but rather, his romantic partner. I don't think this is a bad change, because it was the most interesting thing in the book to me, but it did make it feel as if the author was writing what wanted to be two different stories: One about Katya and Ivan, and one that would have benefited more from Katya and Ivan having a father-daughter relationship rather than a romantic one.
The idea of taking this story and turning it into a queer romance is very appealing, as is the poly aspect. But a lot of the choices made just don't make sense to me. Like theKatya/Ivan romance, it's as if the author couldn't decide what ideas to keep and what ideas to throw away, meaning there's a whole lot of nothing here.
I feel similarly about the representation in the book. To be clear, I love stories that take time to tell us about people who have historically been pushed out of the spotlight, but I don't like when this rings hollow. I think true representation means treating these characters with care. That doesn't mean a book has to be too serious or spend a million pages discussing the identities of said characters, but here, it really feels like the author just kept throwing anything they could thinl of into the mix without really considering why they were doing it, what it added to the story, etc. In the end, it feels as if they're patting themselves on the back for including everything they could think of, but they've put no actual care into most of this representation. It doesn't have to "add" to the story, but it feels pretty incoherent in the end. Once again, there's a clear lack of direction or editing.
I feel like Yi Zhen is given the most care overall, as far as representation of her culture, but in the end, I was mostly just sad that we got the story we did and not a story that delved deeper into Zhen's life.
The magic system seen here, if it even deserves to be called that, also shows the same issues. Everything is there, so nothing is meaningful. The author at the last minute also throws in some nonsense about science and magic, which is entirely unneeded and adds nothing. It seems to connect to some other book they wrote, which only makes it more obnoxious to me, to be quite honest. Convince us to read your other work by writing a good book, not by advertising an entirely unrelated story in this one.
All in all, I'm just not impressed with this.
As a rule, I don't have any interest in disparaging fanfiction. I write and read it happily. So, when I compare this work to a fanfiction, to be clear, it's not intended to slight fanfiction as a whole. But this work is remarkably poorly written. The spelling, grammar, etc. are horrendous. I edit my fanfiction more closely than anyone edited this piece, which is just an embarrassment. Half of the fanfic I've encountered, though clearly written by authors who are running on caffeine and a prayer with no traditional education in writing, sometimes with no traditional education in the language they're writing in, even, is written with more care than this. If it was a fanfiction, I would just go on to a different work. But I paid money for this. Even if it's published independently, I find it remarkable how poorly this was looked over, considering how many indie books I've read that have been just fine.
For some godforsaken reason, the author is allergic to any sort of contraction, which is bizarre, and also makes the dialogue even more flat and unappealing than it already is. Everything is just flat and lifeless.
The characters have promise, but they feel like paper dolls going through the motions. I was hopeful for the romance, but the most intriguing thing there is what's going on between
Before I get into that too much, I might should discuss Swan Lake more, as it feels like the author really had no care to actually interact with the original material and a lot of the audience is unfamiliar with the original story. I don't think this is inherently a bad thing, but I often found myself wondering what drew the author to Swan Lake at all, and why they didn't just write something else like they seemed to want to. In the end, all that remains of Swan Lake are swans and maybe a vague aesthetic leaning. Well, also useless dance sequences that feel quite vapid.
Swan Lake tells the story of Odette who is a princess transformed into a white swan by the evil wizard, Baron Von Rothbart. Prince Siegfried is Odette's love interest. Odile is the daughter of Von Rothbart and the iconic black swan. Honestly, if you've ever seen the Barbie movie, you'll have a pretty good understanding of what's going on.
In this work, Yi Zhen is our Odette, Katya is our Odile, Ivan is Von Rothbart, and Alexis takes the place of Siegfried. As mentioned before, however,
The idea of taking this story and turning it into a queer romance is very appealing, as is the poly aspect. But a lot of the choices made just don't make sense to me. Like the
I feel similarly about the representation in the book. To be clear, I love stories that take time to tell us about people who have historically been pushed out of the spotlight, but I don't like when this rings hollow. I think true representation means treating these characters with care. That doesn't mean a book has to be too serious or spend a million pages discussing the identities of said characters, but here, it really feels like the author just kept throwing anything they could thinl of into the mix without really considering why they were doing it, what it added to the story, etc. In the end, it feels as if they're patting themselves on the back for including everything they could think of, but they've put no actual care into most of this representation. It doesn't have to "add" to the story, but it feels pretty incoherent in the end. Once again, there's a clear lack of direction or editing.
I feel like Yi Zhen is given the most care overall, as far as representation of her culture, but in the end, I was mostly just sad that we got the story we did and not a story that delved deeper into Zhen's life.
The magic system seen here, if it even deserves to be called that, also shows the same issues. Everything is there, so nothing is meaningful. The author at the last minute also throws in some nonsense about science and magic, which is entirely unneeded and adds nothing. It seems to connect to some other book they wrote, which only makes it more obnoxious to me, to be quite honest. Convince us to read your other work by writing a good book, not by advertising an entirely unrelated story in this one.
All in all, I'm just not impressed with this.