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gorgonine 's review for:
Scavenge the Stars
by Tara Sim
DNF@ 50%
Plot: I've been told this is a gender-flipped Count of Monte Cristo, but I think most of the similarities are supeficial (caveat: I could be wrong; it's been a while since I read Monte Cristo). It's really more multiple mysteries with a dash of romance than it is a vengence narrative?
1. It's possible I might have expected too much from this book. I love a good vengence narrative, but only if the character is gleefully controlling everything- or at the very least enough things to make the people around them scramble to keep up. (I had a lovely time with The Third Mrs. Durst, for example.) So Amaya being more pawn than puppetmaster really cut into my enjoyment, because that isn't idk- true to the spirit of Edmund Dantes? A character being a pawn isn't inherently a bad thing, but neither should it be a central point of a Monte Cristo retelling.
2. I think the story started out really well- I got attached to both Amaya and Cayo and their conflicts within the first few chapters. We got to the finding of the treasure and I got a little concerned about the smuggler conclave because that's a whole different dynamic from the original untold riches no obligations thing, but I decided to shrug and roll with it. Then we got to the whole dresses and parties and high society thing and I felt both my interest and my patience dropping like a rock.
3. Cayo's plotline is still interesting! He's absolutely not in control of anything either, but I wasn't expecting him to be Dantes so it didn't bother me as much. His aims and motives are far more sympathetic and immediate than Amaya's, and fine so he's digging himself into a deeper hole with every new chapter but at least I know he's trying his best. He's sympathetic! He's proactive! So what if he's not particularly competent I can cut the guy some slack. But the thing is, he's sharing a lot of screentime with Amaya and there are plot overlaps and Amaya's storyline is... ehhh.
4. Amaya says she wants vengence, but she's mostly just henching (facing?) for the smuggler conclave, who I'm starting to suspect are the real bad guys here. Her vengence narrative has so far been pushed aside in order to establish her as being more sympathetic, which I frankly thought was unnecessary. She fails in her primary objective of murdering this one irredeemably evil guy and then spends time being lectured (and I do mean lectured, not told or advised- Amaya come off very much like a thwarted child here) about how she doesn't want to cross the line into being a murderer. Which is, for the record, perfectly fine under most circumstances that aren't being the Edmund Dantes expy in a Monte Cristo retelling.
5. Another personal disappointment: The high society scenes aren't about social Kung Fu or passive aggressive combat. They are about how the disillusioned love interest can observe how different and non-shallow Amaya is while everyone else entrenches themselves into the "disposable corrupt people" archetype.
6. There are just... too many plot elements in this story that suffer from being underdeveloped. We spend too little time in the smuggler conclave and vice city- we get only the most cursory interactions with the major players from both of these places; and that greatly influences how much I care about the plot. Amaya and Cayo (yes Cayo, being the better of the two options does not mean you're off the hook) simply aren't interesting enough to carry me through the story by themselves, not when I know next to nothing about the things/places/people they are wrapped up in.
7. There was this one TV series called Revenge which I didn't fully watch because I have the attention span of a gnat when it comes to video stuff but I did watch one season and I think that probably did the genderflipped Monte Cristo thing a lot better? Just a thought.
Plot: I've been told this is a gender-flipped Count of Monte Cristo, but I think most of the similarities are supeficial (caveat: I could be wrong; it's been a while since I read Monte Cristo). It's really more multiple mysteries with a dash of romance than it is a vengence narrative?
1. It's possible I might have expected too much from this book. I love a good vengence narrative, but only if the character is gleefully controlling everything- or at the very least enough things to make the people around them scramble to keep up. (I had a lovely time with The Third Mrs. Durst, for example.) So Amaya being more pawn than puppetmaster really cut into my enjoyment, because that isn't idk- true to the spirit of Edmund Dantes? A character being a pawn isn't inherently a bad thing, but neither should it be a central point of a Monte Cristo retelling.
2. I think the story started out really well- I got attached to both Amaya and Cayo and their conflicts within the first few chapters. We got to the finding of the treasure and I got a little concerned about the smuggler conclave because that's a whole different dynamic from the original untold riches no obligations thing, but I decided to shrug and roll with it. Then we got to the whole dresses and parties and high society thing and I felt both my interest and my patience dropping like a rock.
3. Cayo's plotline is still interesting! He's absolutely not in control of anything either, but I wasn't expecting him to be Dantes so it didn't bother me as much. His aims and motives are far more sympathetic and immediate than Amaya's, and fine so he's digging himself into a deeper hole with every new chapter but at least I know he's trying his best. He's sympathetic! He's proactive! So what if he's not particularly competent I can cut the guy some slack. But the thing is, he's sharing a lot of screentime with Amaya and there are plot overlaps and Amaya's storyline is... ehhh.
4. Amaya says she wants vengence, but she's mostly just henching (facing?) for the smuggler conclave, who I'm starting to suspect are the real bad guys here. Her vengence narrative has so far been pushed aside in order to establish her as being more sympathetic, which I frankly thought was unnecessary. She fails in her primary objective of murdering this one irredeemably evil guy and then spends time being lectured (and I do mean lectured, not told or advised- Amaya come off very much like a thwarted child here) about how she doesn't want to cross the line into being a murderer. Which is, for the record, perfectly fine under most circumstances that aren't being the Edmund Dantes expy in a Monte Cristo retelling.
5. Another personal disappointment: The high society scenes aren't about social Kung Fu or passive aggressive combat. They are about how the disillusioned love interest can observe how different and non-shallow Amaya is while everyone else entrenches themselves into the "disposable corrupt people" archetype.
6. There are just... too many plot elements in this story that suffer from being underdeveloped. We spend too little time in the smuggler conclave and vice city- we get only the most cursory interactions with the major players from both of these places; and that greatly influences how much I care about the plot. Amaya and Cayo (yes Cayo, being the better of the two options does not mean you're off the hook) simply aren't interesting enough to carry me through the story by themselves, not when I know next to nothing about the things/places/people they are wrapped up in.
7. There was this one TV series called Revenge which I didn't fully watch because I have the attention span of a gnat when it comes to video stuff but I did watch one season and I think that probably did the genderflipped Monte Cristo thing a lot better? Just a thought.