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A review by fms2000
Rose in Chains by Julie Soto

4.0

fun and very fanfic-y IF you know what you’re getting yourself into. read the content warnings, kids, they’re no joke.
I know this started out as a fanfic, so I feel like it tempers some of my criticisms for sure. I wish briony was more knowable, it really feels like we’re supposed to depend on the context of herminone, but herminone was more interesting bc she was given more time and attention. I wish she had had more anger, more inquisitiveness, more conversations w Toven (the lack of direct dialogue between the two of them was a major problem — I’m guessing in an attempt to pull the book out into a trilogy but as the 1 person who reads my storygraph reviews would know (hi em) that I really hate when authors draw out a story to make a series longer, but I digress) because at times she felt like a passive character in a storyline where she is supposed to be the most important political character???? her acceptance to life w toven was also just kinda passive like that? idk. Didn’t love it. I wish there had been a little more world building, again a failing of this originating from a fanfic and maybe not getting the rigorous editing it needed (no tea no shade to great stories that started off as fanfics, it just needs more to stand alone in a universe of its own) and I really feel like we should have gotten more out of the toven x briony dynamic and briony x the hearsts more generally — again, that that’s being pulled out for big “surprises” in book two throws of the pacing and takes me as a reader out of the story bc I get irked that I spent 400+ pages waiting for Orion, or Larissa, or (Godforbid) toven to make even an inking of a confession instead of just hinting at it. and it wasn’t like that build up that we’ll have to wait a year+ for was surpassed by good tension/dynamics/yearning/politics but again!!!! I! Digress!
anyways yes again it was fun will read book 2 & need to hear a @baskinsuns review on this ASAP also also two things: not the best slow burn I’ve ever seen (thank you Sara Hashem for destroying me for life) and also I don’t have the same critiques/hang ups about dramonie inspired romances bc I find Draco to be such a pathetic, deeply uninteresting villain in the original series (and his whole family tbh) that when a Draco inspired character is written in a plausibly interesting way it’s so easy to separate that romance from the origins. if that makes sense. 
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