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A review by jassmine
This Fatal Kiss by Alicia Jasinska
emotional
funny
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
This was quite enjoyable read but I wanted to love it even more than I did.
I think the main problem - and this is mostly a hunch, but I feel like I'm right - is that the author started to write this book as a stadalone, but as she was nearing the end, she realised that she couldn't possibly wrap up everything in the amount of space and as a result this book has a semi-open ending, especially where the romance is concerned. So I really hope that the second book (that she is apparently working on) will come out and will come out as soon as possible!
The reason why I picked this book up was the polyamorous romance. I honestly didn't know much else about it, apart from water nymphs also being involved and so I was a little surprised when it turned out that this book was slavic / Polish inspired. As a person from a country that's also slavic and that has super complicated relationship with it's slavic-ness (Czech Republic), slavic books can be hit or miss for me (mostly miss though). I mostly liked how it was done here, some things were a little... not weird exactly, but I thought I would personally deal with the material a little differently (like naming the little lights lead people of the roads and make them lost "ogniki" (which literaly means little fires) instead of something like "błędniki" (which accents the "getting lost" part) but I might be also influenced by my own culture here, I am not Polish afterwards and can't know the full context, but from what I researched it seemed pretty similar, but I won't bore you with that!
Before I got distracted I was meaning to say that the slavic features are always distracting to me for this exact reason. And here that was helped by the fact that I was buddy reading this book with someone from very different culture, so I kept thinking about those kind of things even more.
On the other hand, I think it also gives me some advantage to appreciate some of the aspects of the book and wordlbuilding even more. Rusałki and wodniki for example is something that is very present in local folklore and fairy tales which meant I had more referential pictures, memories and stuff than most of the readers of this book, I imagine.
It also lead me through research rabbit hole, looking for some of the stuff I heard about, but which I didn't actually fully experince before. One of those is the Czech opera that is internationally the best known Rusalka. I'm not the biggest opera fan, so I never actually heard anything from it before (I think?) but I listened to bits from it now and the music is really lovely and just water-y.
You can listen to the most famous song out of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WrXt...
And, I am not like 100% sure about this, but I actually think that This Fatal Kiss is in some sort of conversation with Rusalka. It's hard to tell though, because Rusalka is a bit of a rip off of The Little Mermaid and other mermaid stories, so it could be just that they are working with similar sources. Either way, in my mind they are linked now and as I was finishing the book, this aria repeatedly played in my mind.
Anyway, this book is really quite great. It has a very distinct dark underline which is coming from the rusałki folklorerusałki are spirits of youngish girls/women who died by drowning, which means a lot of the characters were murdered, sexually assaulted and at least one of them comitted suicide but this stuff is mostly in the backstories and just mentioned (doesn't go into specific details. (I'm clearly unable to finish the sentence in a way I planned when I started writing it! One more try...) This Fatal Kiss combines darkness with humour in a really great way. This book isn't a Little Mermaid retelling, but close enough... and those are usually very melancholy sad books. This book does have that (after all the MC died when she was 16) but it also have hilarious laugh out loud humour. Gisela is a shameless flirt and her banter with Kazik is everything.
You should also know that this book is extremely bi, all three of the MCs are bisexual and most of the characters in general seem to be queer. Which, what a delight. This is also a polyamorous romance and at the beginning I really loved how there was no real jelausy and that the way Gisela and Aleksey bonded was through both of them finding Kazik attractive.
I think the main problem - and this is mostly a hunch, but I feel like I'm right - is that the author started to write this book as a stadalone, but as she was nearing the end, she realised that she couldn't possibly wrap up everything in the amount of space and as a result this book has a semi-open ending, especially where the romance is concerned. So I really hope that the second book (that she is apparently working on) will come out and will come out as soon as possible!
The reason why I picked this book up was the polyamorous romance. I honestly didn't know much else about it, apart from water nymphs also being involved and so I was a little surprised when it turned out that this book was slavic / Polish inspired. As a person from a country that's also slavic and that has super complicated relationship with it's slavic-ness (Czech Republic), slavic books can be hit or miss for me (mostly miss though). I mostly liked how it was done here, some things were a little... not weird exactly, but I thought I would personally deal with the material a little differently (like naming the little lights lead people of the roads and make them lost "ogniki" (which literaly means little fires) instead of something like "błędniki" (which accents the "getting lost" part) but I might be also influenced by my own culture here, I am not Polish afterwards and can't know the full context, but from what I researched it seemed pretty similar, but I won't bore you with that!
Before I got distracted I was meaning to say that the slavic features are always distracting to me for this exact reason. And here that was helped by the fact that I was buddy reading this book with someone from very different culture, so I kept thinking about those kind of things even more.
On the other hand, I think it also gives me some advantage to appreciate some of the aspects of the book and wordlbuilding even more. Rusałki and wodniki for example is something that is very present in local folklore and fairy tales which meant I had more referential pictures, memories and stuff than most of the readers of this book, I imagine.
It also lead me through research rabbit hole, looking for some of the stuff I heard about, but which I didn't actually fully experince before. One of those is the Czech opera that is internationally the best known Rusalka. I'm not the biggest opera fan, so I never actually heard anything from it before (I think?) but I listened to bits from it now and the music is really lovely and just water-y.
You can listen to the most famous song out of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WrXt...
And, I am not like 100% sure about this, but I actually think that This Fatal Kiss is in some sort of conversation with Rusalka. It's hard to tell though, because Rusalka is a bit of a rip off of The Little Mermaid and other mermaid stories, so it could be just that they are working with similar sources. Either way, in my mind they are linked now and as I was finishing the book, this aria repeatedly played in my mind.
Anyway, this book is really quite great. It has a very distinct dark underline which is coming from the rusałki folklore
You should also know that this book is extremely bi, all three of the MCs are bisexual and most of the characters in general seem to be queer. Which, what a delight. This is also a polyamorous romance and at the beginning I really loved how there was no real jelausy and that the way Gisela and Aleksey bonded was through both of them finding Kazik attractive.
"I'm not interrupting somethig, am I?" Mismatched eyes flicked back and forth between them.
"What? No! God no!" Gisela and Kazik chorused, springing apart in horror. Kazik started to tear the flower crown off his head.
"Aw, but it looks so cute!" The words were out of Gisela's mouth before she could stop herself. "Don't you think he looks cute?" She cast a playful glance sidways, testing the waters.
Aleksey - his name was Aleksey! - didn't miss a beat. His eyes gleamed with mischief. A dimple appeared in his cheek. "Very cute, you just want to gobble him up."
Sadly, we still got a bit of drama later on in the book because it didn't really occur to two out of three characters that all of them being together was actually an option. But it wasn't prolonged or anything, just a little disappointing considering how their interactions started.
Also, because of the nature of the plot, not that much actually happens between them and it's very much "they get together at the end" kind of romance. Which again, oh my god, I hope we'll get that second book soon!
Anyway, this was lovely, but the book is lacking symetry in some aspects and some important story lines are left unresolved which is frustrating to me. I feel like this could have been even better book, if the author wrote the entirety of the story first and then decided whether to make it into one or two books, but I understand that that might not be practical and financially viable option for her. I would recommend this, it is quite delightful read, just... don't expect ending-ending.
BRed at WBtM: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Content Warnings
Minor: Biphobia, Death, Sexual violence, Violence