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A review by pixiecircle
A Sweet Sting of Salt by Rose Sutherland
slow-paced
1.5
to the author if you make it to this review somehow: do not read this
this book took me over a week to get through, and when i tell you i'm so relieved to be done with it, i'm not joking. when i reached about 1/4 of the way through this book, i just knew the author learned how to write by writing fanfic. in their acknowledgments they thank the les mis fandom on tumblr which gave me whiplash but also proved me right. i thought this made a lot of sense, though, since their characters are very flat and inconsistent, and the way they speak is so fanfic-y. jean does whatever the narrative needs, it's so inconsistent. i didn't understand why muirin liked her, other than that she was nice to her. this book is also heavily telling and not showing, which adds to the fanfic feeling of it.
don't get me started on the depiction of language acquisition girl omg. maybe it's different for people learning english from other languages, but as someone who works with japanese --> english efl, the things muirin picked up and her sentence structure was... not it.
there's also an author's note in which the author stresses multiple times that they do not care about historical accuracy and it's like yeah man... we can tell. the characters speak with such a modern tone (and frequently, modern diction), it's hard not to assume the author didn't care about historical accuracy. just because your novel is about mythical creatures does not mean the other aspects shouldn't be given the proper amount of care.
also way too many similies, too many descriptions of the weather as an attempt to set the vibe (overdone), and just straight-up goofiness in naming the good goat "honey" and the bad goat that kicks "kicker".
honestly really disappointed here since i was looking forward to this for quite a while. i will not be reading from this author again.
this book took me over a week to get through, and when i tell you i'm so relieved to be done with it, i'm not joking. when i reached about 1/4 of the way through this book, i just knew the author learned how to write by writing fanfic. in their acknowledgments they thank the les mis fandom on tumblr which gave me whiplash but also proved me right. i thought this made a lot of sense, though, since their characters are very flat and inconsistent, and the way they speak is so fanfic-y. jean does whatever the narrative needs, it's so inconsistent. i didn't understand why muirin liked her, other than that she was nice to her. this book is also heavily telling and not showing, which adds to the fanfic feeling of it.
don't get me started on the depiction of language acquisition girl omg. maybe it's different for people learning english from other languages, but as someone who works with japanese --> english efl, the things muirin picked up and her sentence structure was... not it.
there's also an author's note in which the author stresses multiple times that they do not care about historical accuracy and it's like yeah man... we can tell. the characters speak with such a modern tone (and frequently, modern diction), it's hard not to assume the author didn't care about historical accuracy. just because your novel is about mythical creatures does not mean the other aspects shouldn't be given the proper amount of care.
also way too many similies, too many descriptions of the weather as an attempt to set the vibe (overdone), and just straight-up goofiness in naming the good goat "honey" and the bad goat that kicks "kicker".
honestly really disappointed here since i was looking forward to this for quite a while. i will not be reading from this author again.