Beautiful French-Inspired Fantasy with Iffy Plotting

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It took me a while to get into The Brilliant Death, and it’s hard to explain why. I think I just wasn’t in the mood for it when I originally started it, but at the same time, it started off weird. You’re introduced to Theo with her power, and her relationship to her father–which ends up being imperative to the storyline. The reader gets the feeling that Theo’s relationship to her father is important, even though the father himself may not be important. It was an odd feeling, but it worked really well.

The strongest part of The Brilliant Death was probably the characters. You meet Theo and her father right away, just as I mentioned above. I really enjoyed Theo, and actually related a lot to her. Something about her just felt so, so like me, and I loved reading the story in her eyes. I loved when Cielo was introduced. Cielo was all over the place, but they were so expressive and once you got to know them well, including their backstory, I couldn’t help but love them. I also really enjoyed Theo’s brother Luca, and the antagonist. Every character was well developed–the reader was given characters, and you got to see their motivations and their loves and hates, and it just felt so intimate.

Despite loving the characters, I couldn’t really tell where the plot was going. At one point the goal was to find the poison antidote and to save her father, another moment the goal was to kill the Capo, and another moment the goal changed again. And it wasn’t like these other goals were to achieve the first one–no, after a certain point, the characters just suddenly start focusing to do this one thing for no reason, and completely ignore the previous goal when they have an opportunity to achieve it. While I enjoyed reading where the story was going, it was difficult to keep track of the ‘why’.

I at first didn’t see where the queerness came into this story. However, it comes in fairly quickly after Cielo is introduced. Cielo’s pronouns and presentation change whenever they want them to, and they use their magic to give themself a body that fits their mood. It was really interesting, and though I recognize that lots of people’s gender may be like this, I thought it was interesting that the genderfluidity never once mentioned the possibility of never falling within the binary. Though I use they/them pronouns for Cielo in this review, they only use he or she pronouns during the novel. Since they’re constantly changing back and forth, I chose to keep it neutral for them. Theo’s gender is similar, though she is more questioning rather than fluid. She spends chunks of the book as male or female, but generally identifies as female or female-aligned. I kind of wish that this discussion of gender brought up being neither male or female, but these two characters only switched between these two genders. I personally don’t see this as a big problem, especially because Capetta identifies as a demigirl (correct me if I’m wrong).

Final Rating: ★★★★☆
Overall?
I was told I would probably like this book, and the friend who said that was correct. I loved the characters, even though I struggled with the plot, and found the representation of gender interesting. I can’t wait for the second book, The Storm of Life, especially because of how the first book ended.

Would I Recommend?
If you prefer plot-driven books, then maybe skip this one. This book was largely character-driven, and if you don’t expect that then it may come as a disappointment. However, I did greatly enjoy the characters, and the representation that this book provided.