A review by the_chaotic_witch
Elysium Girls by Kate Pentecost

adventurous mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

0.75

This cover is beautiful, isn't it? It was the first thing that pulled Me towards this book. Then the premise. A Game between the Goddesses of Life and Death where your everyday life is the playboard. A reality that has been removed from the world you knew, leaving you to fend for yourselves in a deadly desert with strange creatures and an army of dark soldiers to decide your fate. A lovable crew of girls who stand up for what they believe in, who make a living for themselves in this deadly world of theirs. A friendship forged by survival, injustice, and companionship. A sapphic relationship. Mechanical horses.

What more could you ask of a book?

Well, apparently, it was too much to ask because it was all for nothing. But let's try to get a structure into this mess of a review, don't worry, it'll stay spoiler-free.

I think I'll go along with the CAWPILE evaluation system. For those of you who haven't heard of it, CAWPILE is a rating system developed by The Book Roast on YouTube that is just more user-friendly than the 5 star-rating system; for many people, that is.

CAWPILE is an acronym meaning character - atmosphere - world-building - plot - intrigue - logic - enjoyment. You can rate all these on a scale of 1-10, and then the sheet automatically calculates your rating, 10 being the best. As you can see from the very top, I didn't like it (1.57).

Overall that I will say coming up, I want to give the author the benefit of the doubt: this was their debut. And it shows. Can they grow and become a better writer? 100%. Does this make this book any better? No. Can you disagree with Me? 100%! Am I still going to say what I'm going to say? 100%. So I'm going to refer to the book and not the author/writer.

So, let's start with the characters. There are 2(.5x2) Main characters and about a dozen main characters. The main crew of girls consists of six, if I remember them all, and combining them with the Mains makes it eight characters to keep in almost every scene. And that is just too much for this book. Besides the book not being sure who its villain is for 93% of the plot and then giving the change a very poor excuse (which actually is a trope many dislike (not going further into it for spoiler reasons)), the book also doesn't know it's own characters. There is a slight characteristic with the Mains, but they aren't consistent either. In fact, the Mains have the worse character building because they flip-flop all over the place, going from one emotional extreme to another ideological extreme. Having made up their mind and being absolutely sure of themselves and their decisions, but then in the next paragraph, they have their fifth existential crisis this chapter. The main characters, aka the rest of the girls and some people in the settlement, seemed to be there to give emotional leverage but had no character themselves (backstory - yes. character and emotional importance - no.) We don't even have a proper love-interest.

You may have heard that this book is sapphic. I disagree. I think the most we got was queerbaiting. Some hand-holding, one (1) peck on the cheek, and party 1 of the potential pairing ignoring party 2 for 80% of the time. And the most romantic thoughts we got were "so beautiful" and "Odd. I want to hug her".

And something that goes for all the characters, not just the potential couples, the "found-family," or the Main characters: there was no relationship building and zero chemistry. Not even in the girl group. No chemistry because no character. No relationship building because no character. I will excuse the awkward fight scenes and the weak plot points but at least give your main characters some significance to the reader. When the reader doesn't care about the characters during the final show-off, then something has gone wrong.

As for the atmosphere and world-building ( - for Me, they kind of go hand in hand). It was there. I definitely had an image and a feeling in mind, but then the distinct parts of the plot (the different places in the town, other places in the desert, the crews hide-out) were so... singular that I struggled to connect them all to one world in my mind. While one or two places feel familiar most of the time, I had no idea where we were or what it was supposed to look and feel like. As for the magic. Oh, btw. There is magic. It was ... eh? There was a system to it, but honestly, we are never told or even shown how it works. We never learn it with the characters, and there is no internal logic or consistency to it. Or there is, right up until the end when it's broken yet again.

To the plot. As I said at the very beginning, the premise is fantastic. It sounds absolutely amazing!

But you can guess: it wasn't. The plot being partially fuelled by the characters and their actions was inconsistent at best and random at worst. It felt like there was an idea, but the book didn't know how to get from point A to point B. The rules of the Game changed on a whim. The reader had to suspend their disbelief so much to get over significant plot points. And would the characters have consistency, intelligence, or strategic thinking, we would have lost the plot halfway through the book.

As for intrigue. To be frank, I would have DNF-ed this if it hadn't been for the fact that it was a buddy read with a friend of mine. Yes, I finished it almost a month late, I'm sorry, but I still wanted to complete it. So I read less for enjoyment and more for that friend. The intrigue was there, though. With certain parts. Mainly one of the Mains background, and though we got an interestingly well-developed world-building into that, it had no consequence on the story whatsoever. And because the reader doesn't care for the characters or the world, there are no stakes, nothing to make us worry about how the next chapter is going to end.

So I will not say much about the topic of logic. There hardly was any. Not within the characters, nor their interactions, nor the magic (mainly how to obtain the things), nor the town (because yes, it is set in 19-something, but that doesn't mean that people back then had no own willpower or ability to think), nor in the plot, nor in the strategy.

Also, this book is set out to be YA; I want to give clear trigger warnings of the not so mild though short discussions of sexual abuse, rape, murder, blood, bullying, severe and terminal illness, as well as physical and mental abuse.

Enjoyment wasn't there clearly. Though I like to be back in YA, 80% of the time, I was rolling my eyes, pinch the bridge of my nose, or simply closing the book.

Before we get to the plot's biggest issue, let Me quickly talk about equality and empowerment. The whole shebang - without going too deep into it - for the town is trying to be as equal as possible, no matter "the color, the gender, the money," or whatever. Do we see that? No. May it be that some of the main characters are POC? Yes, some are. Does it matter or contribute in any way to the plot? Absolutely not. Does it have to? Not necessarily, but we definitely shouldn't forget about it as soon as it isn't mentioned anymore.

And empowerment. A group of girls surviving the desert about to save the day. Sounds good. It's floppily done but okay. The thing that infuriates Me is that the most "rebellious and feminine" character - remember they all live in a single town trying their darndest to win the Game, aka proof themselves "worthy" - is running an underground make-up empire. The most empowering the book could come up with was "running an underground make-up empire"? So, that place where we try to be "our best selves" (as at the time) seems to be okay with girls wearing make-up they had to smuggle? While there is nothing wrong with enjoying wearing make-up, it is a necessity easily gone without in times like these, and it is illogically obtained, too. And at the very end, there is another scene where the crew gets their hands on some make-up and, okay, to distract themselves in the last few pages whatever. But when one says no, their reaction isn't.... pleasant, let's say. They don't bully her! But the undercurrent is iffy.

As promised, the biggest issue. Tell no show. All the missing development, all the inconsistencies could have been at least partially forgiven if we had seen anything of the plot actually happen. As it is, we didn't not even the final battle really, not even the training to learn magic, not even the performing of magic; there were prophetic dreams, did we see those? No! Did we see the emotional trauma? No. I could go on and on and on, but we would come to the same conclusion.

All in all, do I recommend this book? I mean.... sure... if you don't care about character depth, relationship development, logic, consistency, or internal coherence, you might like it. I didn't. But I think it might have gotten Me closer to reading more YA again. So that is good. I guess?

This is Me signing off, be kind, especially to yourselves. Bye ♥. 
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