Quick Stats
Age Rating: 14+
Over All: 4.5 stars
Plot: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Setting: 5/5
Writing: 5/5
This book is the perfect blend of magic and mystery, perfect for fans of Kerri Maniscalco. It has utterly unique and enthralling world building and magic, and it has a compelling mystery that had me desperate to know what was going to go down.
Not to mention—the characters! I absolutely loved Catrin, and her POV was engaging and easy to relate to, but Simon has my whole heart. I was obsessed with his character. Brooding, of course (I’m a sucker for the broody LI trope), but wholly unique and motivated.
I have never read a book that so perfectly straddled the line of a genre mash-up (in this case, fantasy and mystery). If you took out all of the fantasy aspects, you’d still have an amazing and compelling mystery story. If you took out the murder mystery plot, you’d still have an addicting fantasy novel. Often times, in mystery-fantasies, one aspect is focused on more than the other in terms of development, and the other feels slightly lacking, not as compelling. Beaty, however, expertly balances both, Neither storyline usurps the other, neither lacks in development, neither leaves the reading feeling vaguely unfulfilled.
This book has all the best tropes—orphan of mysterious (…perhaps…magical?) origins, broody love interest with secrets of his own, a hint of found family, and more, but it never falls into the cliches.
There is also mental health & disability representation in the book, which I’m honestly not sure how to feel about. There were aspects that could be construed as problematic. Stories of characters who have a certain mental illness (who are dead by the time the book starts) doing atrocious things. However, the book juxtaposes this with a character who has the same mental illness, who is nothing like that, and does address the fact that some people are good and some people are bad, mental illness or otherwise. In the end, I personally wasn’t upset by that portrayal of mental illness, since there were more genuinely good characters with mental illness than bad.
There’s one more aspect of the rep that I feel conflicted about and want to adress, but it contains spoilers, so I’ll put it at the very end, clearly marked.
Lastly, before addressing that final potential issue, I want to mention the author’s note at the end of the book. In the author’s note, Beaty addresses her representation of schizophrenia. She adresses the fact that her portrayal is somewhat colored by the way in which such a condition would be seen and treated in the time and era that the story is inspired by. She also speaks about the personal aspects of schizophrenia with herself. She is very vague, in order to respect her own and others’ privacy, but she talks about someone very close to her, whom she loves, as having schizophrenia. She simply says that the character’s delusions are “very close to what [she] has seen up close and personal” and “that is all [she] will say on that.”
In conclusion, the book itself was incredible, but I’m somewhat unsure of the rep. I personally didn’t find it outright harmful, and though I have a history of delusion, I am not schizophrenic, and you should definitely listen to the voices of #ownvoices reviewers over mine.
Now, you may scroll down for the last bit of information, but please be warned, it contains pretty major spoilers.
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Seriously, you’ve been warned. If you continue past this point, I do not want to hear any complaints about being spoiled. That’s on you.
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One of the major side characters, Juliane, is portrayed as having some kind of schizoaffective disorder, which is then confirmed as schizophrenia by Beaty in the author’s note. As far as I can tell, there is nothing harmful in the way that her hallucinations and delusions are portrayed.
Then, about 3/4 of the way into the book, she dies. Specifically, she is murdered by the serial killer which she is helping to hunt.
Now, this is a murder mystery about a serial killer. Obviously, lots of people get murdered. However, killing off the only living disabled character in the book definitely falls into the “bury your [minority character]” stereotype, which is pretty harmful. And under any other circumstances, even in a murder mystery, I would have been like, no, that’s shitty.
Except, based on the role Juliane played in the book, she kind of had to die. Like, if you took out all the aspects of her schizophrenia, and only made her Simon’s sidekick and cousin, she almost had to die for the plot to wholly work. It sort of wouldn’t have made sense to leave her alive.
But again, however she is disabled, and that lends a subtext to this even if it isn’t intended by the author. Like playing into the killing off your minorities trope, but also, the fact that her death could easily be interpreted to be necessary to “free” Simon from his “stifling” role as a caregiver, as if he couldn’t have ever had his happily ever after if she were alive. And again, I don’t believe Beaty intended for that implication at all, however, in killing Juliane off, it is there, intentionally or not. And that doesn’t quite sit right with me. Yet, as I said, I don’t know how Juliane could have been left alive under the circumstances, and I truly believe any potential harm was unintentional, and so I am left loving the book but feeling somewhat unsettled on this aspect of the disability representation.
Age Rating: 14+
Over All: 4.5 stars
Plot: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Setting: 5/5
Writing: 5/5
This book is the perfect blend of magic and mystery, perfect for fans of Kerri Maniscalco. It has utterly unique and enthralling world building and magic, and it has a compelling mystery that had me desperate to know what was going to go down.
Not to mention—the characters! I absolutely loved Catrin, and her POV was engaging and easy to relate to, but Simon has my whole heart. I was obsessed with his character. Brooding, of course (I’m a sucker for the broody LI trope), but wholly unique and motivated.
I have never read a book that so perfectly straddled the line of a genre mash-up (in this case, fantasy and mystery). If you took out all of the fantasy aspects, you’d still have an amazing and compelling mystery story. If you took out the murder mystery plot, you’d still have an addicting fantasy novel. Often times, in mystery-fantasies, one aspect is focused on more than the other in terms of development, and the other feels slightly lacking, not as compelling. Beaty, however, expertly balances both, Neither storyline usurps the other, neither lacks in development, neither leaves the reading feeling vaguely unfulfilled.
This book has all the best tropes—orphan of mysterious (…perhaps…magical?) origins, broody love interest with secrets of his own, a hint of found family, and more, but it never falls into the cliches.
There is also mental health & disability representation in the book, which I’m honestly not sure how to feel about. There were aspects that could be construed as problematic. Stories of characters who have a certain mental illness (who are dead by the time the book starts) doing atrocious things. However, the book juxtaposes this with a character who has the same mental illness, who is nothing like that, and does address the fact that some people are good and some people are bad, mental illness or otherwise. In the end, I personally wasn’t upset by that portrayal of mental illness, since there were more genuinely good characters with mental illness than bad.
There’s one more aspect of the rep that I feel conflicted about and want to adress, but it contains spoilers, so I’ll put it at the very end, clearly marked.
Lastly, before addressing that final potential issue, I want to mention the author’s note at the end of the book. In the author’s note, Beaty addresses her representation of schizophrenia. She adresses the fact that her portrayal is somewhat colored by the way in which such a condition would be seen and treated in the time and era that the story is inspired by. She also speaks about the personal aspects of schizophrenia with herself. She is very vague, in order to respect her own and others’ privacy, but she talks about someone very close to her, whom she loves, as having schizophrenia. She simply says that the character’s delusions are “very close to what [she] has seen up close and personal” and “that is all [she] will say on that.”
In conclusion, the book itself was incredible, but I’m somewhat unsure of the rep. I personally didn’t find it outright harmful, and though I have a history of delusion, I am not schizophrenic, and you should definitely listen to the voices of #ownvoices reviewers over mine.
Now, you may scroll down for the last bit of information, but please be warned, it contains pretty major spoilers.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Seriously, you’ve been warned. If you continue past this point, I do not want to hear any complaints about being spoiled. That’s on you.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
One of the major side characters, Juliane, is portrayed as having some kind of schizoaffective disorder, which is then confirmed as schizophrenia by Beaty in the author’s note. As far as I can tell, there is nothing harmful in the way that her hallucinations and delusions are portrayed.
Then, about 3/4 of the way into the book, she dies. Specifically, she is murdered by the serial killer which she is helping to hunt.
Now, this is a murder mystery about a serial killer. Obviously, lots of people get murdered. However, killing off the only living disabled character in the book definitely falls into the “bury your [minority character]” stereotype, which is pretty harmful. And under any other circumstances, even in a murder mystery, I would have been like, no, that’s shitty.
Except, based on the role Juliane played in the book, she kind of had to die. Like, if you took out all the aspects of her schizophrenia, and only made her Simon’s sidekick and cousin, she almost had to die for the plot to wholly work. It sort of wouldn’t have made sense to leave her alive.
But again, however she is disabled, and that lends a subtext to this even if it isn’t intended by the author. Like playing into the killing off your minorities trope, but also, the fact that her death could easily be interpreted to be necessary to “free” Simon from his “stifling” role as a caregiver, as if he couldn’t have ever had his happily ever after if she were alive. And again, I don’t believe Beaty intended for that implication at all, however, in killing Juliane off, it is there, intentionally or not. And that doesn’t quite sit right with me. Yet, as I said, I don’t know how Juliane could have been left alive under the circumstances, and I truly believe any potential harm was unintentional, and so I am left loving the book but feeling somewhat unsettled on this aspect of the disability representation.