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A review by mordicant
A Winter's Promise by Christelle Dabos
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
The best way to describe this book would be to say that it's a story chock full of potential that gets bogged down by weirdly backwards (sexist) depictions of women and uneven characterization of our main character, Ophelia.
Oooh, where to begin.
So to start off, we're introduced to Ophelia who is immediately described as a girl who is often dismissed by many as being meek, unassuming, and quiet, but that in reality she has a strength to her if anyone would bother looking closer. Unfortunately, although the book says she has this "quiet strength," Ophelia for the majority of the book spends her time getting literally abused by people, only to forgive them and then get abused again. That's not an exaggeration. I will say that there are moments in which the audience is able to see her defiance, but those are mainly just her being sassy to Thorn, which I appreciated nonetheless. Her interactions with Thorn are a strong part of the book, because once again we are able to see this defiance in Ophelia and how it goes on to shape Thorn's character as the book progresses. These moments in my opinion are far too few in between.
Bafflingly, this "strength of character" in Ophelia doesn't extend to any of her other character interactions. We see her get physically abused by Thorn's sister to the point where she's stuck in a neck brace for a while. Similarly, we see Berenilde (Thorn's aunt) both physically AND emotionally abuse her by using her "claws" on Ophelia, by shutting her in their house for days without letting her go out and generally controlling her and isolating her from Aunt Rosaline, and by finally forcing her to act as her valet and abusing her position of power over Ophelia when Ophelia is a valet. I should note that for the last two (being shut in the house and being forced to act as a valet), that Thorn was complicit in this too.
I should stop here and say that depictions of abuse in a book don't make a book "bad." What frustrates me is that this book seems to shove all the abuse under the rug, as if to say that it's not a big deal and that it doesn't matter, and that it's okay that every time Ophelia forgives Berenilde (I can think of twice where she explicitly thinks or says this) that it's okay that Berenilde's behaviour towards Ophelia keeps being abusive. And further, when Ophelia keeps acting like a doormat to all these people who are constantly shitting on her, it really doesn't make me think that Ophelia is strong, as the narrative initially suggested. As a side note, I could totally see myself getting the wrong idea idea about healthy relationships (platonic and otherwise) if I had read this when I was a teenager.
For the vast majority of the story, Ophelia is relegated to mainly being a silent observer (literally, when she's forced to act as a mute valet for the latter half of the book), and this robs her character of any agency that was promised at the beginning of the book. As a result, this book is mainly plot driven and not character action driven, as Ophelia is always forced to react to situations in a passive way, and rarely is allowed to make decisions for herself. Ophelia eventually starts to grow a backbone at the end of the story (like the last 50-100 pages), but it really felt at that point that she started enforcing her own sort of agency because the plot needed to get moving, and not necessarily because she had any sort of character growth that might've warranted it. Because of this, although I started out really liking Ophelia's character (even though she seemed a little judgey of other women and had a "not like the other girls" type vibe), by the end I was completely frustrated with her.
Speaking of which, the women. Oof.
There is so much slut-shaming going on in this book (even by our very own Ophelia, which was quite off-putting and made her seem holier than thou at points), that it really left a sour taste in my mouth. Sex is something in the book that is given by women, and taken by men. Men are allowed to casually go around being rapey - Ophelia is threatened with rape at some point by a character, and she later goes on to trust this character at the end not because of character development, but just cause this dude kept her secret. Berenilde's whole character revolves around her looking good for a man and, later it's explicitly stated that her purpose in life is to have a baby. All the women are concerned with frivolous, material things, and Ophelia is the only one who has any practical sense about her. The problem with women being depicted like this isn't so much that they're depicted like that as much as it is that there isn't any sort of commentary being made about why they're depicted like that. It's all surface level. If you squint maybe you could say that maybe the book is trying to say something about the court's frivolities, but then why would the women outside of the court (on Anima) be written in a similar shallow manner?
But it wasn't all bad. Like I said, I liked Thorn and Ophelia's push and pull, and the descriptions in the book were quite captivating. This, and the world-building seemed incredibly well-thought out and the magic system seemed unique. I know people have compared this to Harry Potter, but to me the atmosphere evoked by this book is closer to that of the His Dark Materials trilogy, especially with the steampunk elements/the arctic setting. I feel like this would've been a 4 star read if it weren't for the sexism and for Ophelia's mainly passive character.
With that being said, yeah, I'm probably going to take the plunge into the next book and see if it gets any better. Mainly because I want to see what will happen between Thorn and Ophelia.
Oooh, where to begin.
So to start off, we're introduced to Ophelia who is immediately described as a girl who is often dismissed by many as being meek, unassuming, and quiet, but that in reality she has a strength to her if anyone would bother looking closer. Unfortunately, although the book says she has this "quiet strength," Ophelia for the majority of the book spends her time getting literally abused by people, only to forgive them and then get abused again. That's not an exaggeration. I will say that there are moments in which the audience is able to see her defiance, but those are mainly just her being sassy to Thorn, which I appreciated nonetheless. Her interactions with Thorn are a strong part of the book, because once again we are able to see this defiance in Ophelia and how it goes on to shape Thorn's character as the book progresses. These moments in my opinion are far too few in between.
Bafflingly, this "strength of character" in Ophelia doesn't extend to any of her other character interactions. We see her get physically abused by Thorn's sister to the point where she's stuck in a neck brace for a while. Similarly, we see Berenilde (Thorn's aunt) both physically AND emotionally abuse her by using her "claws" on Ophelia, by shutting her in their house for days without letting her go out and generally controlling her and isolating her from Aunt Rosaline, and by finally forcing her to act as her valet and abusing her position of power over Ophelia when Ophelia is a valet. I should note that for the last two (being shut in the house and being forced to act as a valet), that Thorn was complicit in this too.
I should stop here and say that depictions of abuse in a book don't make a book "bad." What frustrates me is that this book seems to shove all the abuse under the rug, as if to say that it's not a big deal and that it doesn't matter, and that it's okay that every time Ophelia forgives Berenilde (I can think of twice where she explicitly thinks or says this) that it's okay that Berenilde's behaviour towards Ophelia keeps being abusive. And further, when Ophelia keeps acting like a doormat to all these people who are constantly shitting on her, it really doesn't make me think that Ophelia is strong, as the narrative initially suggested. As a side note, I could totally see myself getting the wrong idea idea about healthy relationships (platonic and otherwise) if I had read this when I was a teenager.
For the vast majority of the story, Ophelia is relegated to mainly being a silent observer (literally, when she's forced to act as a mute valet for the latter half of the book), and this robs her character of any agency that was promised at the beginning of the book. As a result, this book is mainly plot driven and not character action driven, as Ophelia is always forced to react to situations in a passive way, and rarely is allowed to make decisions for herself. Ophelia eventually starts to grow a backbone at the end of the story (like the last 50-100 pages), but it really felt at that point that she started enforcing her own sort of agency because the plot needed to get moving, and not necessarily because she had any sort of character growth that might've warranted it. Because of this, although I started out really liking Ophelia's character (even though she seemed a little judgey of other women and had a "not like the other girls" type vibe), by the end I was completely frustrated with her.
Speaking of which, the women. Oof.
There is so much slut-shaming going on in this book (even by our very own Ophelia, which was quite off-putting and made her seem holier than thou at points), that it really left a sour taste in my mouth. Sex is something in the book that is given by women, and taken by men. Men are allowed to casually go around being rapey - Ophelia is threatened with rape at some point by a character, and she later goes on to trust this character at the end not because of character development, but just cause this dude kept her secret. Berenilde's whole character revolves around her looking good for a man and, later it's explicitly stated that her purpose in life is to have a baby. All the women are concerned with frivolous, material things, and Ophelia is the only one who has any practical sense about her. The problem with women being depicted like this isn't so much that they're depicted like that as much as it is that there isn't any sort of commentary being made about why they're depicted like that. It's all surface level. If you squint maybe you could say that maybe the book is trying to say something about the court's frivolities, but then why would the women outside of the court (on Anima) be written in a similar shallow manner?
But it wasn't all bad. Like I said, I liked Thorn and Ophelia's push and pull, and the descriptions in the book were quite captivating. This, and the world-building seemed incredibly well-thought out and the magic system seemed unique. I know people have compared this to Harry Potter, but to me the atmosphere evoked by this book is closer to that of the His Dark Materials trilogy, especially with the steampunk elements/the arctic setting. I feel like this would've been a 4 star read if it weren't for the sexism and for Ophelia's mainly passive character.
With that being said, yeah, I'm probably going to take the plunge into the next book and see if it gets any better. Mainly because I want to see what will happen between Thorn and Ophelia.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual harassment