Take a photo of a barcode or cover
raynorn 's review for:
The Betrayals
by Bridget Collins
Thanks to the publisher HarperCollins and Netgalley for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review!!
Collins' first novel, The Binding was one of my favourite reads this year after picking it up without knowing anything about it and immediately falling in love with the world and characters she created. When I heard she would be releasing her second adult novel, The Betrayals, I knew I had to pick it up. The novel is set in a sort of pseudo-1930's Britain, with 'The Party', a seemingly fascist government in control, a Ministry of Culture that seeks to kill off the arts and Montverre, a school-university style setting where the students are all male (a point which is given really no context apart from the fact it's meant to be set around the early 20th century) and study the art of the 'grand jeu'. If you asked me what a 'grand jeu' was, I'd honestly not be able to tell you, apart from understanding it's a vague performance of music, drama and sciences together.
Thankfully, it didn't seem to matter too much, similar to some of the ideas she presented about books in The Binding, and I find that Collins creates these concepts as vehicles for everything else and luckily, it works well.
The protagonist, Leo Martin, is a former Montverre student, newly (and forceably) 'resigned' from his job at 'The Party's' Ministry of Culture for sharing views against them and sent back to the school to study the grand jeu once more. There he meets Claire, the Magister Ludi of the school, a headmistress of sorts who knows more about Leo than she lets on. The book flickers between the present, with Leo as a thirty-two year old back at Montverre to diary entries of his second year at Montverre, aged twenty. There we meet Carfax, a genius writer of 'grand jeu' and his rival in study.
The dynamics between Leo and Carfax and then Leo and Claire are beautifully handled however I felt a lot of the tension came too far in to the plot, and the gripping content took place about three quarters of the way though. The diary entry chapters were my favourite to read over the present day ones, as I felt more of Leo's character was explored then, and was interesting to compare his attitudes and character changes to how he interacted with Claire and how he interaction with Carfax. However, I felt the tension and misogyny in the society they live in was never truly given a reason why and the almost 'forbidden' aspect to some parts of the novel felt confusing over trying to understand where a society that openly persecutes Christians stood on women's rights, and same-sex relationships.
Aside from the characters, it's the way Collins envelops magical concepts with characters that have real believable feelings and flaws that keeps drawing me into her writing. The Betrayals captured me less than her previous novel, The Binding however after reading it in one sitting on a rainy morning, I realised how much I felt involved in the novel, specifically towards the end. Overall, I give it four stars and look forward to future writing from Collins, and hope it will capture me just as much as her two adult novels so far have.
Collins' first novel, The Binding was one of my favourite reads this year after picking it up without knowing anything about it and immediately falling in love with the world and characters she created. When I heard she would be releasing her second adult novel, The Betrayals, I knew I had to pick it up. The novel is set in a sort of pseudo-1930's Britain, with 'The Party', a seemingly fascist government in control, a Ministry of Culture that seeks to kill off the arts and Montverre, a school-university style setting where the students are all male (a point which is given really no context apart from the fact it's meant to be set around the early 20th century) and study the art of the 'grand jeu'. If you asked me what a 'grand jeu' was, I'd honestly not be able to tell you, apart from understanding it's a vague performance of music, drama and sciences together.
Thankfully, it didn't seem to matter too much, similar to some of the ideas she presented about books in The Binding, and I find that Collins creates these concepts as vehicles for everything else and luckily, it works well.
The protagonist, Leo Martin, is a former Montverre student, newly (and forceably) 'resigned' from his job at 'The Party's' Ministry of Culture for sharing views against them and sent back to the school to study the grand jeu once more. There he meets Claire, the Magister Ludi of the school, a headmistress of sorts who knows more about Leo than she lets on. The book flickers between the present, with Leo as a thirty-two year old back at Montverre to diary entries of his second year at Montverre, aged twenty. There we meet Carfax, a genius writer of 'grand jeu' and his rival in study.
The dynamics between Leo and Carfax and then Leo and Claire are beautifully handled however I felt a lot of the tension came too far in to the plot, and the gripping content took place about three quarters of the way though. The diary entry chapters were my favourite to read over the present day ones, as I felt more of Leo's character was explored then, and was interesting to compare his attitudes and character changes to how he interacted with Claire and how he interaction with Carfax. However, I felt the tension and misogyny in the society they live in was never truly given a reason why and the almost 'forbidden' aspect to some parts of the novel felt confusing over trying to understand where a society that openly persecutes Christians stood on women's rights, and same-sex relationships.
Aside from the characters, it's the way Collins envelops magical concepts with characters that have real believable feelings and flaws that keeps drawing me into her writing. The Betrayals captured me less than her previous novel, The Binding however after reading it in one sitting on a rainy morning, I realised how much I felt involved in the novel, specifically towards the end. Overall, I give it four stars and look forward to future writing from Collins, and hope it will capture me just as much as her two adult novels so far have.