Kat

I was really looking forward to reading Strands of Bronze and Gold. I am a sucker for fairy tale retellings and historical fiction and Southern Gothics. How could it miss?

By a mile actually, and then some. Firstly, it was less Southern Gothic and more Plantation Romance. If you're going to set your novel in Antebellum American South there are approximately ten million ways to be racist. Nickerson found just about all them and polished it all off with an actual literal magical negro character. I can't roll my eyes hard enough.

The book doesn't even the literary merit of Heart of Darkness of good prose and decent storyline. The book is slow moving often to the point of dullness right until the character arc is completed lightning fast with no development.

terrible all around.

Born Wicked is in many ways somewhat typical of the current Supernatural YA. There's a sort of love triangle. Family relationships are heavily emphasized. There's an autocratic government making the lives of the protagonist and her loved ones difficult. However, the smart setting is enough to make me press people to give this novel a chance before they write it off as just another color by numbers YA. However, it's not a book that I'd beg anyone to read or give a chance to.

The premise is simple. A theocratic government in New England persecutes witches, and Cate is the eldest of three who promised her dying mother to protect her sisters at all costs. However, as Cate's intention day (the day where she will be forced to declare her intent to marry or join the sisterhood) things begin to become more complicated especially when it seems that the Cahill sisters might be the subject of a prophecy.

And maybe that is the largest fault of Born Wicked. For the most part it is engaging, enjoyable read and maybe could have continued to be so if the book had been maybe eighty pages shorter. The same scenes seem to repeat themselves several time with the slightest variations. Cate fights with her sister Maura or Elena. Cate worries about the prophecy. Cate moons over boyfriend. Cate worries about future prospects. It wears very thin, and unfortunately my patience tapped out near the end and I skimmed the last forty pages, where clearly the climax was supposed to be emotionally heavy hitting but by that time I didn't have it in me to care much more.

The setting is well thought out and surprisingly refreshing in many ways. (People of color in a historical novel? The non-demonization of Arabic world? Differing sexualities touched upon? Oh book you do know how to pander to me sometimes!) Unfortunately, the bland plot and the frustrated tension of waiting for something anything to happen could make it all too much to bear.

There were also several plot threads that didn't seem to go anywhere. For example, original suitor and former best friend Paul seems to disappear about three-quarters of the way through the book and is never brought up again.

This could have been a great book, but it falls short of the high standard that I would have expected given the flashes of brilliance displayed in certain corners of the book. A tighter narrative, some better developed characters, and I would have happily given it five stars.

So, full disclosure: Once Upon a Time, I read the original Throne of Glass on Fictionpress. All the cool (and even the not cool kids!) were doing it! I'd wait for updates and eagerly phone a friend who also read, and we would eagerly discuss the newest developments and debate the pros and cons of love interests. She was Team proto-Dorian, and I was Team proto-Chaol but figured she'd probably end up with Dorian.

Even if I had not known Queen of Glass, however, I think there is no way that I would have been surprised to learn that this was a fictionpress original. Mostly because it has pretty much all the greatest hits of Fictionpress Fantasy Cliche. Throne of Glass ft. Corset Hate* (I'd Much Rather Wear Pants), Evil Tyrant Who is Evil, Heroine with Unusual Eyes, I'm Not Like the Rest of These Airheaded Twits (The Casual Misogyny Song), and In Your Dreams (Destiny Is Bossing You Around).

Okay, here's the thing about Calaena. I like her-she's flawed in unusual and interesting ways. I like that she's vain because I'm tired of plain heroines who complain about being plain and beautiful heroines who are convinced they are plain and beautiful heroines who act like it's a curse. You go, girl. Make it work for you. She's fiercely proud. Now, these would be great if the book would just let them stand on their own instead of beating you over the head with them with oh she's stunning, oh she's so talented. Worse, it does this without usually not by showing but explicitly telling. Yawn.

So like I said I like Calaena, but I could have liked her a whole lot more. The major problem is that I find it hard to root for her and hold my breath in suspense because her flaws and faults have so little weight. Sure, they pop up all the time, but it's easily brushed away either by the narrative or by other characters. Go to the ball that you're not supposed–a few cross words and then all is forgiven. There's never a lack of surety to her or the narrative. It never seems like a struggle. Sure, in most narratives it's a fairly safe bet that the protag is going to succeed, but still watching them snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat is exhilarating! There is none of that as Calaena sails through test after test.

Even more annoying during possibly the only tense moment, the day is saved not by our heroine or cleverness from one of our heroes but rather by a rather deus ex machina apperance.

There's also a strange discrepancy between her history and some of personality traits. Like, okay, she's been trained to be an assassin since she was eight, but despite this, she's pretty street dumb. Yeah, you eat that candy that randomly showed up in your bed despite the fact that you know an ancient evil is lurking somewhere in the palace and killing your competitors. Despite there being an explicit discussion of there being no honor among assassins, trust pretty much every random person who offers you assistance.

There's also some minor continuity issues. For example, Calaena complains that Chaol never laughs and jokes with her like Dorian does even though there are literally a dozen scenes of them doing just that.

There's some sloppy editing. Maas has a weird penchant for adding comma, and there is an appalling amount of sentences that start with And.

Mostly, the thing I find most distressing is that Throne of Glass is distressing shallow compared to the Fictionpress Queen of Glass. Really! I don't know if Throne of Glass was dumbed down for the YA market, but it really lost a lot of the things that made it great, leaving you with a shallow, fluffy read that isn't even fun to read.

A tepid two and a half stars out of five