House of Marionne

DNF at 40%

No.

This is what happens when you try to fling all the trends of TikTok fantasy at a book and see what sticks. The result is a hot mess. It ticks off all the worst aspects of every single trope I hate. There were moments in this first part of the book where it could of leaned into some interesting ideas but it always swerved in the dumbest and most annoying direction. Debutant balls? Bleaurgh. Weird diadems signifying magic? Yuck. Characters with zero depth?

The central premise seems to be around some kind of finishing school specializing in magic and etiquette. If this was done slightly tongue in cheek it might have worked but it takes itself so deadly seriously. The earnestness contrasts horribly with the weirdly dumb ideas thrown up all over the place. It certainly not the dark academia the blurb promised. The pacing is all over the place. The world building is a confused mess with random terms and ideas thrown around without any explanation. There appears to be some kind of magic system but I can make neither head not tail of it - less than ideal when it is the central part of the plot!

I pride myself on being able to finish the vast majority of books I start but I just could not force myself further with this one - it is my first DNF in quite a while. The earnest inanity of it was just more than I could bear.

2.5 Stars

House of Marionne was one of my most anticipated reads of 2023. That said, this book was... a bit disappointing.

I went into House of Marionne expecting a complex historical fantasy romance novel with Bridgerton and the Grishaverse vibes. What I got was something similar to Harry Potter mixed with The Belles or Rebel Belle in an urban setting. Not only that, but the magic system was explained so poorly that by the end of the book I still didn't completely understand certain terms. Certain roles like Tracer or Shifter were never explained properly. All that was explained about “toushana” was that it was a dark magic that made skin cold to the touch, and in four-hundred pages it was never properly explained what exactly the main character's magic actually does. Though my copy was an Advance Reader's copy, it still desperately needed a glossary.

As for our main character, Quell Marionne, I felt as though the author didn't know who she wanted her to be. In the beginning of the novel, Quell felt like a badass genius. By the end of the novel, I felt as though Quell wasn't a very intelligent main character, constantly making the wrong choices and asking the wrong questions— or simply not asking questions at all. This left some plot gaps that I hope to see resolved in the next novel. The romance was also pretty subpar. It didn't seem to be a major focus of the book as the author focused more on the plot and magic, which I wasn't expecting. This, however, is not a bad thing. Just a note that this book has a lot less romance than to be expected from its description.

My final complaint would be the number of typos, grammatical and punctuation errors in this book. Again, my copy was an uncorrected proof, but I think this wins the award for most typos in any Advance Reader's copy that I've ever received. That said, I don't fault this novel for any of that and only hope to see them fixed in the finalized copies.

All in all, I did not hate this book. In fact, it's quite the opposite. My review may have been mainly complaints, but my overall feelings of this book are towards the positive end of the spectrum. I had a lot of fun reading this novel and to me personally that's what matters the most.