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tshepiso 's review for:
The Vanishing Throne
by Elizabeth May
DID NOT FINISH
DNF'd on: January 26th, 2020
DNF'd on: Page 242 (53%)
I knew going into The Vanishing Throne that I likely wasn’t going to love it. My reread of The Falconer wasn’t a good one, but I hoped the elements I loved in the story would persist into ints sequel. Unfortunately, they didn’t.
Firstly, I really disliked Elizabeth May’s writing style. She employed repetition excessively to emphasize Aileana’s emotions or to call back to significant moments within the story. May never trusted the audience to infer the emotions felt by our protagonist at any moment. Not only was this incredibly annoying but it lessened the impact of significant emotional moments.
The amount of melodrama May used in her narrative had undercut the dramatic tension of the story. I fully acknowledge that this is just a style preference rather than a mark of quality, but I found it very hard to invest myself in this story when every emotion felt overwrought and plasticy. I wish May pulled back a bit because I feel there could have been more power in things left unsaid for the reader to piece together.
The emotional arc of this series didn’t work for me. Vengeance was a major theme in the first book and it felt as if those same emotional beats were recycled in this one. On top of that, I didn’t like the way May tackled these themes. In the story, Aileana holds vengeance as the ultimate way to solve all of her problems, she sees it as the only way to absolve herself of her perceived sins. The narrative did nothing to correct this mindset or even suggests that this would be addressed in the future.
May dealt with trauma in a similarly clunky way. It’s clear to the audience (through tedious repetition) that Aileana is suffering through some sort of post-traumatic stress and the framing of it all, rubbed me the wrong way. At the start of this novel, Aileana is captured and brutalized for weeks. The language used to discuss this, as well as similar trauma faced by another character, frames it with a severity akin to rape, however, the narrative never treats this torture with the seriousness I felt it was due. For example, Aileana is put in a similar situation later in the story yet instead of meditating on this moment it shifts jarringly to a makeout scene between Aileana and her love interest.
Finally, this book treads heavily in well worn YA fantasy tropes which can be fun when in the right mood but I wasn’t. We had a brooding possessive violent love interest, a “badass’ protagonist who’s role in the narrative seemed to be being tortured and kidnapped. I can have fun with melodramatic, romance heavy YA fair when I’m in the mood for it but when I picked this one up I had I hard time sinking into the story.
I ultimately decided to DNF this book because I had no interest in finding out what would happen next in the story. I didn’t like the characters, the romance. or the plot of this story and life’s too short to read books you don’t like.
DNF'd on: Page 242 (53%)
I knew going into The Vanishing Throne that I likely wasn’t going to love it. My reread of The Falconer wasn’t a good one, but I hoped the elements I loved in the story would persist into ints sequel. Unfortunately, they didn’t.
Firstly, I really disliked Elizabeth May’s writing style. She employed repetition excessively to emphasize Aileana’s emotions or to call back to significant moments within the story. May never trusted the audience to infer the emotions felt by our protagonist at any moment. Not only was this incredibly annoying but it lessened the impact of significant emotional moments.
The amount of melodrama May used in her narrative had undercut the dramatic tension of the story. I fully acknowledge that this is just a style preference rather than a mark of quality, but I found it very hard to invest myself in this story when every emotion felt overwrought and plasticy. I wish May pulled back a bit because I feel there could have been more power in things left unsaid for the reader to piece together.
The emotional arc of this series didn’t work for me. Vengeance was a major theme in the first book and it felt as if those same emotional beats were recycled in this one. On top of that, I didn’t like the way May tackled these themes. In the story, Aileana holds vengeance as the ultimate way to solve all of her problems, she sees it as the only way to absolve herself of her perceived sins. The narrative did nothing to correct this mindset or even suggests that this would be addressed in the future.
May dealt with trauma in a similarly clunky way. It’s clear to the audience (through tedious repetition) that Aileana is suffering through some sort of post-traumatic stress and the framing of it all, rubbed me the wrong way. At the start of this novel, Aileana is captured and brutalized for weeks. The language used to discuss this, as well as similar trauma faced by another character, frames it with a severity akin to rape, however, the narrative never treats this torture with the seriousness I felt it was due. For example, Aileana is put in a similar situation later in the story yet instead of meditating on this moment it shifts jarringly to a makeout scene between Aileana and her love interest.
Finally, this book treads heavily in well worn YA fantasy tropes which can be fun when in the right mood but I wasn’t. We had a brooding possessive violent love interest, a “badass’ protagonist who’s role in the narrative seemed to be being tortured and kidnapped. I can have fun with melodramatic, romance heavy YA fair when I’m in the mood for it but when I picked this one up I had I hard time sinking into the story.
I ultimately decided to DNF this book because I had no interest in finding out what would happen next in the story. I didn’t like the characters, the romance. or the plot of this story and life’s too short to read books you don’t like.