Take a photo of a barcode or cover
endlessmidnight 's review for:
The Beholder
by Anna Bright
Beautiful cover, but the plot was nonsensical. It wasn't even remotely intriguing and well, the plot happens to Selah. While she is supposed to rule, I would actually be worried if she did rule. Because the basis of her alliance is finding someone who is trying to be everything she wants it to be.
Which in real life wasn't the case. And there was seriously no pragmatic considerations about anything of the story, and it was just throwing random cultures into here without actually making an effort to integrate them or just using it to add a nice touch. The names are right, but I found that the plot had no cohesion.
And no way to make her choose hard choices, kingdom, love, power or anything that would matter for someone like her. She has a country to eventually rule, and that is only impossible should her stepmother have actual children (she's pregnant but I don't see anything to suggest that the healthcare of this world is probably 21st century, and even then, women died in childbirth, miscarriages happen. Most would place the odds on Selah, because she is actually alive and nearing adulthood, rather than an unborn baby. If it was a child, a stepsibling, then yes I could see it. But before it's even out of the womb, unlikely.)
As it doesn't see her having to get used to the idea that marriage even in these times are one thing, money and power. It didn't matter, and she being able to see her own groom that was lucky. And some courtship, I'm just surprised that it didn't end. Although her stepmother wanting her away that was fair enough. But I found the whole plot ridiculous, the blatant random throwing of a smattering of countries names which are all legitimate countries, without really expanding on it. And just slotting Potomac into perhaps the early modern world. Without an explanation of even where it is, and even by the end, I still barely know anything about the country.
And the ending was almost bizarre, and I felt that the whole premise just wasn't right with a lot of gaps just to get the story going. And even more just to make it to the end.
Overall, a disappointment.
Which in real life wasn't the case. And there was seriously no pragmatic considerations about anything of the story, and it was just throwing random cultures into here without actually making an effort to integrate them or just using it to add a nice touch. The names are right, but I found that the plot had no cohesion.
And no way to make her choose hard choices, kingdom, love, power or anything that would matter for someone like her. She has a country to eventually rule, and that is only impossible should her stepmother have actual children (she's pregnant but I don't see anything to suggest that the healthcare of this world is probably 21st century, and even then, women died in childbirth, miscarriages happen. Most would place the odds on Selah, because she is actually alive and nearing adulthood, rather than an unborn baby. If it was a child, a stepsibling, then yes I could see it. But before it's even out of the womb, unlikely.)
As it doesn't see her having to get used to the idea that marriage even in these times are one thing, money and power. It didn't matter, and she being able to see her own groom that was lucky. And some courtship, I'm just surprised that it didn't end. Although her stepmother wanting her away that was fair enough. But I found the whole plot ridiculous, the blatant random throwing of a smattering of countries names which are all legitimate countries, without really expanding on it. And just slotting Potomac into perhaps the early modern world. Without an explanation of even where it is, and even by the end, I still barely know anything about the country.
And the ending was almost bizarre, and I felt that the whole premise just wasn't right with a lot of gaps just to get the story going. And even more just to make it to the end.
Overall, a disappointment.