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shinku 's review for:
A Forgery of Fate
by Elizabeth Lim
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
This could’ve been a solid retelling of Beauty and the Beast, if only the protagonist wasn’t such a dumb, judgmental, stubborn brat with the inability to listen to others. Belle would never.
At least Yargui and Renhai are human. My family can escape them.
Girl. You literally cannot. They caught and nearly killed you and your family, and the only reason you got to escape was because of Elang. What are you talking about? It’s okay to be bold and spunky, but at least be aware of your own situation. In addition to her tendency to run on assumptions, Tru’s actions also have zero logic in them. Like she’s the one at fault, and yet she’d accuse the other party of manipulating her even though the situation happened because of something she did. She often spouts stupid remarks about things she doesn’t actually know too, like saying she wouldn’t drown for skipping sangi even though she’s literally at the bottom of the sea. She also jumps into danger without thinking. I found it impossible to like her after the way she handled a certain revelation in chapter 31, and that obviously affected my enjoyment of the book.
The writing is a bit repetitive. It often goes over things that we already know, which happened only a chapter or two ago so it can’t even serve as a reminder. It’s just redundant, and the same can be said for the dialogue. It’s also not very descriptive when it comes to places, which makes it hard to envision the world and settings. A shame, really, because Ai’long could’ve been a truly magical place if only it were properly brought to life. Similarly, Tru’s affection for Yonsar was never fully explored either. We’re only told that it grew on her, but not really shown how. All she did there was argue with Elang and everything else is just glossed over, so please excuse my disbelief when she suddenly claims that Yonsar means something to her. Seeing that Tru and Elang do have great banter at times, it feels like the story has all sorts of brilliant ideas that weren’t executed nicely.
Not sure if I liked the ending either. While it might be a happy one, it is also super rushed. I did like Tru’s relationship with her sisters though, and I also liked Elang’s grumpy character even if I’m not a fan of the romance. The characters have charm, but the lack of depth for most of them made it difficult to form any emotional attachment. Oh well, at least we got to see Seryu again.