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A review by wodime
Illusions by Madeline J. Reynolds
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
So this was pitched to me as "The Prestige but gay", and I have... kind of mixed feelings about that. Not only is The Prestige a film I adore, but I also read it at an impressionable age, so the novel version in particular has an enduring place in my brain. And I definitely think Illusions is, like... fine? (As critical as I might sound, "this was a less good, more gay version of a piece of media that was really seminal for me" is still not a bad sell.) But it pretty openly invites comparisons with The Prestige anyway, even if that hadn't been what got me to pick it up in the first place, and those comparisons are definitely not super favourable.
For one, a couple of major parts of this book are kind of suspiciously similar. Not only is Wighton's illusion basically the same trick as the "New Transported Man" which forms the centrepiece of The Prestige's rivalry, but the epistolary thing is also implemented really similarly, right down toa "dead" man's false death being revealed through clues in his journal . (Side note: I also think that, uh, the "man fakes his own death thing" reads very differently in the context of Bury Your Gays , in a way it doesn't feel like the author has fully considered the ramifications of.) There are other smaller similarities too, but that stuff definitely snagged at me.
But I think a bigger issue is the fact that The Prestige is just really... messy? In a way Illusions never really is, or even aspires to. Maybe this is a little unfair, since Illusions is a YA romance and The Prestige is definitely neither of those things. But I still think YA has the scope to be thornier than this. The characters and their arcs were pretty stock, so it was difficult for me to get really invested, and it felt like the plot never really went anywhere really gripping or emotional. I think The Prestige is defined not only by being a book/film about Victorian stage magicians, but also by the fact it's about bad people doing bad things; and that, even once Borden and Angier have lost so much to their stupid rivalry, they're both too obsessed to even think about burying the hatchet. And I know Reynolds isn't trying to recreate The Prestige, and a more Borden/Angier kind of dynamic definitely isn't to everyone's taste anyway. But again, it seems like it's deliberately inviting those comparisons, and then only handling them pretty superficially.
I don't know. Regardless of my status as an unfortunate The Prestige tragic, I think I'm probably being harsh on Illusions in a way I'd be able to dismiss if it was M/F; because I want my M/M romance arcs to be complicated, in a way it feels like I rarely ever get. (Yes, even in the romance genre, which just about necessitates happy endings.) I don't know! I don't know.
For one, a couple of major parts of this book are kind of suspiciously similar. Not only is Wighton's illusion basically the same trick as the "New Transported Man" which forms the centrepiece of The Prestige's rivalry, but the epistolary thing is also implemented really similarly, right down to
But I think a bigger issue is the fact that The Prestige is just really... messy? In a way Illusions never really is, or even aspires to. Maybe this is a little unfair, since Illusions is a YA romance and The Prestige is definitely neither of those things. But I still think YA has the scope to be thornier than this. The characters and their arcs were pretty stock, so it was difficult for me to get really invested, and it felt like the plot never really went anywhere really gripping or emotional. I think The Prestige is defined not only by being a book/film about Victorian stage magicians, but also by the fact it's about bad people doing bad things; and that, even once Borden and Angier have lost so much to their stupid rivalry, they're both too obsessed to even think about burying the hatchet. And I know Reynolds isn't trying to recreate The Prestige, and a more Borden/Angier kind of dynamic definitely isn't to everyone's taste anyway. But again, it seems like it's deliberately inviting those comparisons, and then only handling them pretty superficially.
I don't know. Regardless of my status as an unfortunate The Prestige tragic, I think I'm probably being harsh on Illusions in a way I'd be able to dismiss if it was M/F; because I want my M/M romance arcs to be complicated, in a way it feels like I rarely ever get. (Yes, even in the romance genre, which just about necessitates happy endings.) I don't know! I don't know.