Book review: backlog edition
Feb. 14th, 2021 01:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkI realized I haven't posted any book reviews in a while, since I mostly post my reviews on Goodreads now, so I'm trying to "catch up" by posting a small backlog of reviews.
Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell
Genre: Sci-fi, Adult, gay romance
My problem with books like this and Red, White & Royal Blue is not that they’re written like fanfic—it’s that they’re not particularly good examples of fanfic-like writing. I have read so many fanfics that were way better written, not just technically, but also in terms of romantic narrative.
The comp to RWRB is fitting; Kiem’s constant quipping reminded me of RWRB’s dialogue. For me, that’s a negative. I find “witty banter” that exists for no other purpose than to demonstrate how quirky and charming and funny the main character is to get tiresome pretty quickly.
The first half of this book was very slow and incredibly dull. There is slow burn (which I love), and then there’s no burn, which is Winter’s Orbit. Even in the later half of the book, I never felt any romantic chemistry between Kiem and Jainan. Maybe that’s in part because both come off as one-dimensional characters. Kiem has literally no character arc; he starts off as a kind, laidback, quippy reformed troublemaker and ends the book the same way. Jainan should have been interesting (spoilers under the cut), yet something about the writing wasn’t quite there for me.
*spoilers below*
At first, Jainan's mindset as a survivor of emotional and physical domestic abuse seemed pretty believable, but the problem was—again—character development. He and Kiem have an argument when Kiem inadvertently learns about his history of abuse, and Jainan gets mad at the invasion of his privacy (however unintentional), but my question is...if Jainan had internalized Taam's abuse to the point at which he truly believed he was worthless and deserved ill treatment, why would he be mad at Kiem for learning about how Taam treated him? Doesn't Jainan essentially believe Taam's treatment of him was right/justified?
Jainan's angry reaction only makes sense if he was ashamed that Taam abused him (and/or that Jainan never stood up to him), but he didn't seem to have that attitude. More likely, his angry reaction was manufactured by the author because she needed a "couple argues and temporarily breaks up" beat in her romance.
This problem is symptomatic of another issue, which is that Jainan's "character development" arc—in which he realizes that Taam abused him and goes public with his story—doesn't make sense. Yes, Kiem does challenge Jainan's internalized thinking, but always so gently that it's hard to see when Jainan ever had an epiphany (if he actually had one), and so Jainan's decision to go public seems mostly like a decision of convenience, to salvage Kiem's reputation from lies, rather than genuine character development.
While we're on the topic of spoilers, I just want to say—I'm the wrong person to really comment on this since I'm ace, but I found it slightly odd that Kiem and Jainan's relationship did not change at all after the first time they had sex. Like, the sex might as well have not had happened considering the lack of relationship development. I'm not sure why the fade-to-black sex scene was there at all since it seemed to serve no real purpose.
*end spoilers*
Finally, the book’s handling of imperialism was so clumsy that I was constantly cringing with secondhand embarrassment throughout.
The Last Sun by KD Edwards
Genre: Fantasy, Adult
(Trigger warning: This book contains graphic descriptions of sexual assault of a minor.)
I have such mixed feelings about this book.
On one hand, I loved the magic system and the particular powers for each Arcana. I loved Rune’s hilarious narrating voice.
On the other hand...it’s impossible to discuss this book without mentioning that Rune’s rape plays a significant role in his emotions and motivations and how other people treat him.
And on that note, I felt like he had more of “Hollywood PTSD” than realistic PTSD. (I guess he could just be fairly well-adjusted, but there’s no indication that he ever had any kind of treatment or therapy, especially given victim-blaming attitudes in New Atlantis…?)
Plus, if the story were constructed so that Rune was traumatized/motivated merely by the murder of his family and violent attack on his home instead of by being raped, his motivations and the story would remain substantially the same.
So if there’s no nuanced portrayal of surviving sexual assault and the event could be swapped without impact on the story, is there a point to having sexual assault in the story other than for shock factor?
That’s the question I keep coming back to in my mind.
Breaking News by Ella Frank
Genre: Contemporary romance, Adult, gay romance
My review for the first book.
Somehow, I wrote the review for this sequel after I read it, but then deleted it for some reason...? So I'm operating a bit on 8-month-old memory at this point.
I enjoyed Inside Affair, despite some misgivings, and Breaking News confirmed those misgivings. Inside Affair at least had an interesting romantic suspense angle with the stalking plot and provided an intriguing look at Xander's job; Breaking News turned into coping fluff with no plot.
Don't get me wrong; I love books about coping with trauma if they're done well. Rule of Thirds by Aidan Wayne is one of my favorite books, and it's entirely a quiet book about how the main character copes with his PTSD. But Breaking News was essentially about Sean (the "hetero-male-coded" guy in the relationship, so to speak) taking care of Xander, who has a complete breakdown after his stalker is caught and Sean has a near-death experience, by...having a lot of sex with him. And there's no other plot.
Not to mention, there was still absolutely no mention of how Sean identifies now (the words bisexuality/pansexuality never show up), so yeah, this reads as a pretty typical example of the Gay For You trope, and unfortunately that's soured the entire series for me. I'm not reading the last book in the series.
Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell
Genre: Sci-fi, Adult, gay romance
My problem with books like this and Red, White & Royal Blue is not that they’re written like fanfic—it’s that they’re not particularly good examples of fanfic-like writing. I have read so many fanfics that were way better written, not just technically, but also in terms of romantic narrative.
The comp to RWRB is fitting; Kiem’s constant quipping reminded me of RWRB’s dialogue. For me, that’s a negative. I find “witty banter” that exists for no other purpose than to demonstrate how quirky and charming and funny the main character is to get tiresome pretty quickly.
The first half of this book was very slow and incredibly dull. There is slow burn (which I love), and then there’s no burn, which is Winter’s Orbit. Even in the later half of the book, I never felt any romantic chemistry between Kiem and Jainan. Maybe that’s in part because both come off as one-dimensional characters. Kiem has literally no character arc; he starts off as a kind, laidback, quippy reformed troublemaker and ends the book the same way. Jainan should have been interesting (spoilers under the cut), yet something about the writing wasn’t quite there for me.
*spoilers below*
At first, Jainan's mindset as a survivor of emotional and physical domestic abuse seemed pretty believable, but the problem was—again—character development. He and Kiem have an argument when Kiem inadvertently learns about his history of abuse, and Jainan gets mad at the invasion of his privacy (however unintentional), but my question is...if Jainan had internalized Taam's abuse to the point at which he truly believed he was worthless and deserved ill treatment, why would he be mad at Kiem for learning about how Taam treated him? Doesn't Jainan essentially believe Taam's treatment of him was right/justified?
Jainan's angry reaction only makes sense if he was ashamed that Taam abused him (and/or that Jainan never stood up to him), but he didn't seem to have that attitude. More likely, his angry reaction was manufactured by the author because she needed a "couple argues and temporarily breaks up" beat in her romance.
This problem is symptomatic of another issue, which is that Jainan's "character development" arc—in which he realizes that Taam abused him and goes public with his story—doesn't make sense. Yes, Kiem does challenge Jainan's internalized thinking, but always so gently that it's hard to see when Jainan ever had an epiphany (if he actually had one), and so Jainan's decision to go public seems mostly like a decision of convenience, to salvage Kiem's reputation from lies, rather than genuine character development.
While we're on the topic of spoilers, I just want to say—I'm the wrong person to really comment on this since I'm ace, but I found it slightly odd that Kiem and Jainan's relationship did not change at all after the first time they had sex. Like, the sex might as well have not had happened considering the lack of relationship development. I'm not sure why the fade-to-black sex scene was there at all since it seemed to serve no real purpose.
*end spoilers*
Finally, the book’s handling of imperialism was so clumsy that I was constantly cringing with secondhand embarrassment throughout.
The Last Sun by KD Edwards
Genre: Fantasy, Adult
(Trigger warning: This book contains graphic descriptions of sexual assault of a minor.)
I have such mixed feelings about this book.
On one hand, I loved the magic system and the particular powers for each Arcana. I loved Rune’s hilarious narrating voice.
On the other hand...it’s impossible to discuss this book without mentioning that Rune’s rape plays a significant role in his emotions and motivations and how other people treat him.
And on that note, I felt like he had more of “Hollywood PTSD” than realistic PTSD. (I guess he could just be fairly well-adjusted, but there’s no indication that he ever had any kind of treatment or therapy, especially given victim-blaming attitudes in New Atlantis…?)
Plus, if the story were constructed so that Rune was traumatized/motivated merely by the murder of his family and violent attack on his home instead of by being raped, his motivations and the story would remain substantially the same.
So if there’s no nuanced portrayal of surviving sexual assault and the event could be swapped without impact on the story, is there a point to having sexual assault in the story other than for shock factor?
That’s the question I keep coming back to in my mind.
Breaking News by Ella Frank
Genre: Contemporary romance, Adult, gay romance
My review for the first book.
Somehow, I wrote the review for this sequel after I read it, but then deleted it for some reason...? So I'm operating a bit on 8-month-old memory at this point.
I enjoyed Inside Affair, despite some misgivings, and Breaking News confirmed those misgivings. Inside Affair at least had an interesting romantic suspense angle with the stalking plot and provided an intriguing look at Xander's job; Breaking News turned into coping fluff with no plot.
Don't get me wrong; I love books about coping with trauma if they're done well. Rule of Thirds by Aidan Wayne is one of my favorite books, and it's entirely a quiet book about how the main character copes with his PTSD. But Breaking News was essentially about Sean (the "hetero-male-coded" guy in the relationship, so to speak) taking care of Xander, who has a complete breakdown after his stalker is caught and Sean has a near-death experience, by...having a lot of sex with him. And there's no other plot.
Not to mention, there was still absolutely no mention of how Sean identifies now (the words bisexuality/pansexuality never show up), so yeah, this reads as a pretty typical example of the Gay For You trope, and unfortunately that's soured the entire series for me. I'm not reading the last book in the series.
