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A review by sparksofember
Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai
2.0
I really wanted to like this book and there were elements I really enjoyed - especially the big fight scene in the middle that felt straight out of a wuxia. And I loved the concept of this world and it's magic. But unfortunately, that's all we ever got - a rough idea of the concept. And then some of the banter was fun. But other than that, this book was a bit of a hot mess.
1) World Building - nothing was explained. Bits and pieces were randomly dropped but without any explanation, it was impossible to understand. Half the time is seems like all the magical beings work for one giant agency but then other times, it seems they do not. Are normal people aware of magic in this world or not? It seemed like they weren't but no one ever seemed to behave like they didn't. Why is Oberon seemingly not accountable to ANYONE for his actions? Or Elle and Tony's brother for that matter? Laes did not make a lot of sense to me - if one cannot live without it, how did they get them in the first place? It's not like they came out of the womb holding a laes in their hand. And if they are issued at birth, why can't they be issued again later if broken? And Luc's half-elveness had zero to do with the plot other than the very odd event at the end of the book so it feels like he was only half-elven because he needed to be for that event.
2) Romance - this book tried but there wasn't a lot of foundation to the relationship so the romance was severely lacking. Luc & Elle were cute but we start the book after a year of them flirting and then suddenly they are together but since there was no build-up, the stakes and investment in their relationship weren't really there. It was basically insta-love and there were also two random explicit scenes dropped in the book that served no purpose other than filling pages.
3) Plot - what I thought was supposed to be the plot was rushed and basically over halfway through the book. And then the story never picked back up or returned to anything relevant. The two main characters spent the rest of the book whining about people pushing them around and their solution was anticlimactic and sad/pathetic. Characters were one-dimensional with not a lot to define them (Oberon, Tony almost was developed but the story stopped short of explaining his past actions, Lira sounded too awesome but I barely knew who she was, The Wrecking crew had interesting potential but they were caricatures I couldn't keep straight, etc.)
There was also a lengthy list of lgbtq characters, none of which had anything to do with actual story, character-development, or plot development, so it felt like they were there merely to check a box.
1) World Building - nothing was explained. Bits and pieces were randomly dropped but without any explanation, it was impossible to understand. Half the time is seems like all the magical beings work for one giant agency but then other times, it seems they do not. Are normal people aware of magic in this world or not? It seemed like they weren't but no one ever seemed to behave like they didn't. Why is Oberon seemingly not accountable to ANYONE for his actions? Or Elle and Tony's brother for that matter? Laes did not make a lot of sense to me - if one cannot live without it, how did they get them in the first place? It's not like they came out of the womb holding a laes in their hand. And if they are issued at birth, why can't they be issued again later if broken? And Luc's half-elveness had zero to do with the plot other than the very odd event at the end of the book so it feels like he was only half-elven because he needed to be for that event.
Spoiler
Also, I was really expecting it to turn out that Oberon was his father. Why else would he possibly be SO invested in Luc taking over the agency/bureau some day? And why did Elle destroy Tony's laes in the first place? Was it a random accident?2) Romance - this book tried but there wasn't a lot of foundation to the relationship so the romance was severely lacking. Luc & Elle were cute but we start the book after a year of them flirting and then suddenly they are together but since there was no build-up, the stakes and investment in their relationship weren't really there. It was basically insta-love and there were also two random explicit scenes dropped in the book that served no purpose other than filling pages.
3) Plot - what I thought was supposed to be the plot was rushed and basically over halfway through the book. And then the story never picked back up or returned to anything relevant. The two main characters spent the rest of the book whining about people pushing them around and their solution was anticlimactic and sad/pathetic.
Spoiler
Do they really expect Oberon to just walk away now that they are defenseless? Is Elle's brother really supposed to just happily sit under house-arrest forever after explicitly trying to kill both his siblings more than once? Is Tony going to finally start being a responsible member of society instead of running away to play while letting people die? And if so, why now instead of earlier?There was also a lengthy list of lgbtq characters, none of which had anything to do with actual story, character-development, or plot development, so it felt like they were there merely to check a box.