If I could sum up my thoughts on House of Marionne, it’s this: ✨confusion✨. This book, mining from enduring YA tropes and conventions, had so much potential that could have been focused into some thoughtful genre innovation, but alas, it just felt confused about what it should be. A Bridgerton-esque romantic social drama? A Game of Thrones-style political fight? A classic girl-has-magic-must-save-the-world YA fantasy in the vein of Shadow and Bone? An atmospheric fantasy reminiscent of Stephanie Garber’s books? With the sheer amount of marketing, hype, and comps thrown out there about this book, I expected it to deliver on at least one aspect, and somehow it fell flat with all of them.
The beginning started off strong, with just the right amount of accessible worldbuilding and mystery to keep me intrigued as the main character, Quell, fell into the magical, polite societal world of the Order. J.Elle handled the urban fantasy genre well, blending modern-day with an interesting undercurrent of magic. But once Quell arrived at her grandmother’s chateau/magic school, it all fell downhill. The magic school felt oddly like Hogwarts, the explanations for the sociocultural structure of the Order were flimsy at best, and the characters were all bland. All aspects had thematic potential but were glossed over in favor of stuffing as many familiar/marketable elements as possible. In particular, I wish the implications of the debut culture were explored more, either as a way of reclaiming power or commenting on the exclusive and discriminatory nature of such traditions.
Unfortunately, every element of the book, from plot to characters to atmosphere, suffers from this inability to commit to an idea or trope. It lurched indecisively between romance, magic school, politcking, and self-discovery, and couldn’t even decide if it wanted to be plot-driven (stakes arising from magic) or character-driven (stakes arising from Quell’s need to belong). Quell herself was a cookie-cutter protagonist that I couldn’t bring myself to invest in because she felt like an amalgamation of every other popular YA FMC. Her evolving romantic relationship with Jordan (MMC) is limited to physical proximity until halfway through they start spending time together because the book is marketed as having a swoony romance; their love confessions felt unearned and for the sake of delivering on the pitch. The side characters were all forgettable because they only served to help Quell and had no clear motivations of their own. And, just when I thought House was going to commit to a pure character-driven plot, a big bad villain pops up with little foreshadowing.
Another thing that really bothered me was what an absolute slog it was to get through this. I knew at about 15% that I would have DNF’d if not for it being an ARC, so I planned on speed-reading the rest. I’m normally a pretty good speed-reader, but this one just dragged. It’s nearly 100 pages too long and full of dialogue that should have been cut, including entire transition scenes that could be handled in a few sentences. The dialogue almost reminded me of a transcription–it was as if Elle was merely transcribing the characters speaking. The pacing was also really slow, though the last 25% picks up and is definitely the strongest part of this book. And lastly, the writing skewed younger YA or upper middle grade, which felt like a strange choice given the somewhat more mature and nuanced talk about privilege and nepotism in the last 25%.
Ultimately, this book wasn’t for me and I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re in the mood for a familiar hodge-podge of YA tropes. I can see why this book is getting marketed so heavily as it contains every up-market, high-concept YA element that sells good enough to get on the NYT bestseller list. Unfortunately, in an ever-competitive YA fantasy field that demands new takes or refreshing spins on familiar elements, House of Marionne reads more like a teen Netflix series: all vibes and little substance.
2/5 stars
Thank you to NetGalley and Razorbill (Penguin Young Readers) for the e-ARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.
The beginning started off strong, with just the right amount of accessible worldbuilding and mystery to keep me intrigued as the main character, Quell, fell into the magical, polite societal world of the Order. J.Elle handled the urban fantasy genre well, blending modern-day with an interesting undercurrent of magic. But once Quell arrived at her grandmother’s chateau/magic school, it all fell downhill. The magic school felt oddly like Hogwarts, the explanations for the sociocultural structure of the Order were flimsy at best, and the characters were all bland. All aspects had thematic potential but were glossed over in favor of stuffing as many familiar/marketable elements as possible. In particular, I wish the implications of the debut culture were explored more, either as a way of reclaiming power or commenting on the exclusive and discriminatory nature of such traditions.
Unfortunately, every element of the book, from plot to characters to atmosphere, suffers from this inability to commit to an idea or trope. It lurched indecisively between romance, magic school, politcking, and self-discovery, and couldn’t even decide if it wanted to be plot-driven (stakes arising from magic) or character-driven (stakes arising from Quell’s need to belong). Quell herself was a cookie-cutter protagonist that I couldn’t bring myself to invest in because she felt like an amalgamation of every other popular YA FMC. Her evolving romantic relationship with Jordan (MMC) is limited to physical proximity until halfway through they start spending time together because the book is marketed as having a swoony romance; their love confessions felt unearned and for the sake of delivering on the pitch. The side characters were all forgettable because they only served to help Quell and had no clear motivations of their own. And, just when I thought House was going to commit to a pure character-driven plot, a big bad villain pops up with little foreshadowing.
Another thing that really bothered me was what an absolute slog it was to get through this. I knew at about 15% that I would have DNF’d if not for it being an ARC, so I planned on speed-reading the rest. I’m normally a pretty good speed-reader, but this one just dragged. It’s nearly 100 pages too long and full of dialogue that should have been cut, including entire transition scenes that could be handled in a few sentences. The dialogue almost reminded me of a transcription–it was as if Elle was merely transcribing the characters speaking. The pacing was also really slow, though the last 25% picks up and is definitely the strongest part of this book. And lastly, the writing skewed younger YA or upper middle grade, which felt like a strange choice given the somewhat more mature and nuanced talk about privilege and nepotism in the last 25%.
Ultimately, this book wasn’t for me and I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re in the mood for a familiar hodge-podge of YA tropes. I can see why this book is getting marketed so heavily as it contains every up-market, high-concept YA element that sells good enough to get on the NYT bestseller list. Unfortunately, in an ever-competitive YA fantasy field that demands new takes or refreshing spins on familiar elements, House of Marionne reads more like a teen Netflix series: all vibes and little substance.
2/5 stars
Thank you to NetGalley and Razorbill (Penguin Young Readers) for the e-ARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.