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silver_ethereal 's review for:
A River of Golden Bones
by A. K. Mulford
DID NOT FINISH: 57%
DNF @ 60%
I wanted to love this book. I even preordered the physical copy despite reading almost exclusively on a kindle.
I was sooo excited for enby rep and gender exploration, and I love a lot of the tropes - fated mates, shifters, fairytale retellings, etc. But everything just fell flat for me. The whole thing ended up feeling really shallow, and everything was told with very little showing.
So many things made no sense to me:
- Calla and Briar were raised for their entire 20 years by their faery godmother, and then she just... Essentially died?? And neither of them seemed upset about it? That was basically their Mom ceasing to exist and Briar didn't even watch her turn into faery dust, and Calla only watched our of the carriage window. What???
- How did Calla and Briar know so much about city life? If they'd grown up sheltered in the forest and only ever visited the tiny town a few times, why didn't they have major culture shock fitting into city life? For example Calla describes seeing townhouses... How do they even know what those are? It felt like a missed moment to deepen their character by describing it all through the eyes of someone who had never seen a city before.
- Why is there this weird hatred between wolves and humans? The concept never seemed very fleshed out and made me wonder what the point even was.
- Calla's character seemed so disjointed - a hardened warrior but making the silliest most impulsive decisions? I kept saying "why would you do that??" out loud.
I am all for the gender exploration plot thread, and did enjoy that. Ora was great and said some really insightful and helpful things that struck true to me as someone who is an enby myself.
Unfortunately, this whole thing just wasn't for me.
I wanted to love this book. I even preordered the physical copy despite reading almost exclusively on a kindle.
I was sooo excited for enby rep and gender exploration, and I love a lot of the tropes - fated mates, shifters, fairytale retellings, etc. But everything just fell flat for me. The whole thing ended up feeling really shallow, and everything was told with very little showing.
- Calla and Briar were raised for their entire 20 years by their faery godmother, and then she just... Essentially died?? And neither of them seemed upset about it? That was basically their Mom ceasing to exist and Briar didn't even watch her turn into faery dust, and Calla only watched our of the carriage window. What???
- How did Calla and Briar know so much about city life? If they'd grown up sheltered in the forest and only ever visited the tiny town a few times, why didn't they have major culture shock fitting into city life? For example Calla describes seeing townhouses... How do they even know what those are? It felt like a missed moment to deepen their character by describing it all through the eyes of someone who had never seen a city before.
- Why is there this weird hatred between wolves and humans? The concept never seemed very fleshed out and made me wonder what the point even was.
- Calla's character seemed so disjointed - a hardened warrior but making the silliest most impulsive decisions? I kept saying "why would you do that??" out loud.
I am all for the gender exploration plot thread, and did enjoy that. Ora was great and said some really insightful and helpful things that struck true to me as someone who is an enby myself.
Unfortunately, this whole thing just wasn't for me.