It probably doesn't help that I read an earlier version of this first, but I think my fundamental problems with this would have been the same regardleIt probably doesn't help that I read an earlier version of this first, but I think my fundamental problems with this would have been the same regardless. This book suffers from stakes issues and worldbuilding problems, and the combination made it hard for me to enjoy what was (in its original form) a fun romance story.
So, first, the stakes issues. There are two sets of stakes running through this book: one is Will These Two Find Love and one is (basically) Saving the World. As a reader, if saving the world is on the table, I find myself struggling to care about finding love. There's a point in the book (view spoiler)[Where Kiem is going hell for leather trying to save Jainan and uncovers a plot to start a war that will end with, at minimum, billions of deaths. And then he keeps trying to save Jainan. I found myself completely unable to care about saving Jainan in the face of, you know. The deaths (hide spoiler)]. When you elevate the stakes to the biggest ones possible, you need to be really careful about keeping readers engaged with any smaller issues, and if that smaller issue is a romance between two people who have known each other less than a month, you are writing on hard mode for sure. Smaller stakes actually work better in many, many plots, and this book is maybe the perfect example of why.
Then there's the worldbuilding, which is largely vibes and auctorial convenience. And that is FINE in a romance novel where the romance is the only plot there is! It is less fine when you have two plots of simultaneous importance running side by side and one of them is a space opera plot. Suddenly I, as a reader, need to know a lot of things I didn't before, including the all-important "are we the baddies?" Like. I got that the baddies in this book were bad. I just didn't get enough evidence to feel great about any of the factions in here, which is especially problematic given that the main characters represent one of them. But that's only part of it. My real problem is that the entire world and everything in it felt like sets in a high school production of Wicked: you have some interesting sketches of beasts and hints of special abilities, but you can tell you're still in Edmonton. There's no believability or existence beyond the page for any of this.
And now I'm going to talk about the difference between the earlier version and this one, because I can't not. The earlier version built on Maxwell's strengths, which are about writing emotion and relationships. This book has a lot more plot, and the plot REALLY suffered from first novel problems. (view spoiler)[I spent the first half of the book gritting my teeth because the main characters KEPT ON TRUSTING a dude who was so, so obviously the bad guy. (hide spoiler)] The pacing was weird, the whole thing was obvious, and, worst of all, BOTH main problems kept not being resolved because people didn't talk to each other.
I'm confident that Maxwell can fix all these problems, and I look forward to trying her again in a few books. But, man, this was not the happiest reading experience for me....more
There was a lot I really enjoyed here: the gothic elements, the horrible family getting what's coming, the characters. And I am super relieved that I There was a lot I really enjoyed here: the gothic elements, the horrible family getting what's coming, the characters. And I am super relieved that I enjoyed this book, because after the last one I thought maybe my time of reading KJ Charles was coming to an end. For me, the whole book was a pleasant stroll through gothic romance tropes, but the epilogue felt totally unnecessary and like it kind of undermined the entire book. (view spoiler)[Luke, buddy, you've got to stop lying to your partner. Didn't we discover this already? (hide spoiler)]...more
Connie Willis managed to make Aliens Made Them Do It, Fake Marriage, and First Contact boring.
Since I was bIt's hard for me even to type these words.
Connie Willis managed to make Aliens Made Them Do It, Fake Marriage, and First Contact boring.
Since I was bored as shit reading this, I've had a lot of time to think about why this book is so bad, and I've made a little list.
1. For these tropes to work, you have to care about the characters.
Ideally, they would be three-dimensional or likable in some way. Unfortunately, Francie is just a faint carbon copy of Briddey from Crosstalk: a woman with no boundaries (seriously, Connie, you seem to think that’s cute and it is NOT CUTE) and minimal personality (“mom friend” is a role, not a personality) who seems to have no existence beyond the pages of the book. (Does she have family? Friends aside from Serena? What does she do for a living or for fun? What did she major in? You’ve gotta give me something). She also has no thought for anything but what the plot needs her to do. ((view spoiler)[Why did she decide the alien who abducted her was her friend who she needed to help? It is, like so many other reasons for her choices, never made clear. (hide spoiler)])
Wade is even worse -- I cannot think of one interesting thing he did or said. (view spoiler)[If he'd been the con man he claimed to be, at least that would have been something (hide spoiler)]. You could replace him with a cardboard cutout of Charlie Chaplin and the book would actually get significantly more interesting. (view spoiler)[He is a literal Man in Black and he is still supremely bland. How is this POSSIBLE? (hide spoiler)]
Connie Willis mentions her husband and daughter in the afterword. She does not mention that many human relationships for any character in the book, unless you count the two random guys from work that Francie mentions twice. That’s just. That’s weird. That’s something that needs explaining, and Willis doesn’t.
It is very, very hard to care about the textual equivalent of two pegs from the board game Life getting fake married because an alien they just met forced them to.
2. For these tropes to work, you have to understand them, and Willis clearly doesn’t.
For one thing, two of those tropes rely on chemistry between the characters, and unfortunately Willis comes from the Here’s a Guy, Here’s a Girl, You Do the Math school of romance, where characters fall in love without knowing anything about each other or having any chemistry. (The entire last quarter of the novel, I had Kristoff from Frozen saying “You got engaged to someone you just met that day?” in my head. They know nothing about each other! (view spoiler)[Francie doesn’t even know Wade’s real name! (hide spoiler)] I don’t care about their marriage except to want it not to happen because it is a terrible idea!)
For another thing, all three of those tropes rely on stakes, and this is where the novel falls apart completely. The only stakes we know about for the first 75% of the book are Francie’s, and the only thing she cares about is missing Serena’s wedding. And. Look. That’s just not enough. Once she got abducted by an alien, the wedding ceased to matter. (“I got abducted and was tied up in a car at the time” is a fully acceptable reason for missing your own wedding, never mind a friend’s.) She’s not even scared of the alien for that long! For me to care about the stakes as written in this book, I would need to understand why they matter so much to Francie, and of course I don’t, because I don’t know much about her background or personality or anything beyond “she’s hideously overinvested because she’s the mom friend.”
It is very very hard to care about a book where the stakes are “a peg from the board game Life might miss a wedding.”
3. The humans in a first contact book should not be just as alien as the alien.
Every human here has at most two personality traits (Francie’s are mom friend and talkative; Joseph’s are rich and likes Westerns a lot) and not one of them acts like an average human, so they’re just as weird and unrelatable as the alien is.
Also, authors have two choices when they’re writing a story where the character’s ability to meet their basic bodily needs is limited, as in a story about being tied up in a car with an alien who abducted you. They can either pretend no one ever needs to pee or drink water, in which case polite readers will pretend along with them. (I am not that polite; I’m always the reader going “they’ve been locked in this room for more than a day, so it fully smells like old pee at this point.”) Or they can acknowledge them and then meet the needs or discuss what happens when you don’t. Willis chooses the path that never works: mention the needs from time to time, never or rarely meet them, and it’s fine and doesn’t affect the characters at all. I tell you what: a human who can be without anything to drink for at least 20 hours in a desert on a road trip and still function normally and talk constantly isn’t human to me.
Look. I could continue. I could mention the plot twists (100% predictable and obvious to the point where it’s actively irritating when the characters don’t figure it out). I could mention Willis’s incredible commitment to reciting destinations and distances, like some kind of textual Google Maps. I could mention so many things wrong with this book, but it all comes down to this: you’re going to need to bring your own characterizations and reasons to care, because this book doesn’t provide its readers with any of the above....more
Man. This did not work for me. I got it out of the library, read as far as the first time Gareth is definitely going to do something he shouldn't do, Man. This did not work for me. I got it out of the library, read as far as the first time Gareth is definitely going to do something he shouldn't do, and turned it back in. I've never done that with a Charles before, so I figured maybe it was me -- it just wasn't the right time. But I waited a few months and tried again, and while I did finish it this time, I had all the same objections. (And there were several more times when I said out loud, "Please don't do the dumb thing you're definitely about to do" to a character.)
I'm going to be thinking for a while about why it didn't work, but I do know that much of the plot seemed formulaic rather than new or interesting, and the emotional arc didn't line up with the B plot very well. Basically, the book seemed to be constructed of big scenes not sufficiently connected and contained by plot and character integument, without Charles's usual flair for characterization and emotion.
I don't know. At the end of the day, this just wasn't for me....more
First of all: FULL points for being a witchy romance with a f/f central relationship! I liked that very much. This was a very cute, cozy, sweet romancFirst of all: FULL points for being a witchy romance with a f/f central relationship! I liked that very much. This was a very cute, cozy, sweet romance (note: not using that as a term to describe the sex content, just the tone), with a b-plot that is kind of -- Tri-Wizard Tournament, but make it less deadly, less child-y, and less transphobic.
Basically, if you're looking for a sweet, warm, witch-subgenre f/f book, this is pretty much what you want. ...more
I absolutely loved most of this. It's kind, it's gentle, it's got a ton of epistolary elements, and it does the work of establishing the relationship.I absolutely loved most of this. It's kind, it's gentle, it's got a ton of epistolary elements, and it does the work of establishing the relationship. I liked the characters, and I loved the way the author took a faintly silly setup absolutely seriously and made it work. I did not love the events at the 75% mark, which hit my embarrassment button HARD and seemed totally unnecessary besides, but I still very much enjoyed the book. ...more
This is an intensely sweet found family romance with bonus kids -- honestly too sweet for my tastes. It's het, but I'd recommend it to people who wantThis is an intensely sweet found family romance with bonus kids -- honestly too sweet for my tastes. It's het, but I'd recommend it to people who want something like House in the Cerulean Sea without the racism and appropriation. ...more
Okay, look, there was definitely a point where I just wanted to force the two main characters to speak meaningful words to each other, and instead theOkay, look, there was definitely a point where I just wanted to force the two main characters to speak meaningful words to each other, and instead they kept talking at cross-purposes for like another chapter. BUT. (view spoiler)[Everyone in this book is queer except the two main characters, who are failboats, so it does sort of come off like every queer person in society is just impatiently waiting for the two token hets to figure their shit out. (hide spoiler)] And I loved that.
(I also loved the ending, which is the opposite of One Lone Hero Saves The Day.)...more
Oh man, I didn't expect KJ Charles to do me dirty like this! Totally no fault of her own, but in the first half, this story repeatedly punched my own Oh man, I didn't expect KJ Charles to do me dirty like this! Totally no fault of her own, but in the first half, this story repeatedly punched my own personal cringe buttons, and I could not settle into it at all. ...more
If you're looking for a het romance with a lot of found family, well, here it is. The worldbuilding is tissue paper thin, so unfortunately this wasn'tIf you're looking for a het romance with a lot of found family, well, here it is. The worldbuilding is tissue paper thin, so unfortunately this wasn't ideal for me, but if you can sort of -- not think about it and just enjoy the feels, this would be an entertaining and soothing read in these troubled times. ...more
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