matmatmatty's Reviews (128)

What a story. My god.

Please make sure you check out CWs but this is such a brilliant book, I do think everyone who can read it, should.

Not enjoying it, and have a lot to focus on right now. Will try again later!

This was such a treat to read.

A true queer homage to Jane Austen - if you're a fan of her work, I would recommend giving this a read. 

Lots of thoughts on queer people of the past, and black people in Britain's history and I think this was represented wonderfully. All tied up in a feel good story about love - love between friends, love between family, and romantic love.

I think this is easily going to be a future comfort read for me.

(Note: I received an ARC sampler - the first 88 pages - from Netgalley, but loved it so much, I bought the book myself.)

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would.

The start was a bit slow and dark, and felt a bit dragging. But after finishing it, I understand why it was like that.

This was a really interesting story, and showed what it was like to live under a colonising force really well.

I think a lot of people calling this a "coloniser romance" either aren't reading the whole book, or aren't engaging with the story. As a daughter of the commonwealth, I can feel for Ruying and understand her actions.

I can see why some people might not like this, but this isn't a romance and if you take what you read in reviews as being the plot of this book, you may miss out on a good piece of literature.

EDIT: I wanted to take some time to actually get my thoughts down properly. But spoilers ahead:

This story started quite dark for me - I felt that our MC was only really talking about how her life sucks now, and when I compare this to a dystopian like The Hunger Games, it felt a bit whiny. I understand that the start was setting the scene, though I still think tht could have been done a bit better.

In terms of people calling this a coloniser romance, I saw this as more a discussion about privilege and race in relationships and love. Ruying is kind of forced to be with Anthony (in the sense, she is literally put before him without her agency and doesn't really have a choice in deciding whether or. not she should be his assassin). Regardless of if she knew everything about him, there is still a power imbalance and she is at his mercy. BUT ALSO he is saying everything she wants to hear. Is it a lie, or does he really want to do right by her people? I felt that this part of the story was the strongest, and as a Black British woman, who is reminding everyday of the atrocities my country committed to my ancestors and people who look like me, I really resonated with it. Of course Ruying would fall for the powerful man who wants to and has the power to set things right for her people - I probably would. And when we find out the truth, everything has been torn from herand I thought that was really powerful. Instead of realising she has been played and everything is hopeless, she takes matters into her own hands. I'm actually quite interested in the next book.

Do I think this was a perfect book? No. Do I think this was awful? No. I would say the good parts outshine the bad parts, but also get others may disagree. Do I think this deserves a lot of the hate it gets? Also no.

The final few chapters were the strongest part of the book in my opinion, but I do think that if you have to tell someone to keep reading because 'it stops being bad soon' something hasn't quite gone right.
That being said, I enjoyed this overall, and would encourage others to give it a try.

Struggling a little with this - maybe would work as an audiobook, but since they are speeches and some are speeches given days from each other and feel very similar. May try again later.

This was a lovely story - as someone who studied Latin for a while and is Black, it is really nice to hear about people like me living in Roman Britain (because we've been here since then!)

This story is set in Roman Britain, but is not completely accurate - there are references to the modern day but I think it works well to put things in perspective for a modern audience (for example, some gladiators are referred to with the names of famous wrestlers, to compare how they were treated - being extremely famous for doing acts of violence). If you're looking for a truly historically accurate tale, maybe don't pick this one up.

A surprisingly emotional end -

I wish there had been a little more time spent on Zuleika's grief, but I really liked the last few chapters - it added to the tragedy of the story.

This is the story of four black women who are all best friends.

The story focuses on their lives through the lens of their wash days - the days that they wash their hair or otherwise get their hair ready.

As someone with textured hair, I really loved seeing these women in situations I know only too well. This is the kind of representation I love - showing something that is so normal but using it as a lens for wider conversation 

I would have loved for it to be longer or even to have more books in a series (but I understand how much it takes to make a graphic novel)

This is the story of two elven sisters, Yeeran and Lettle. Yeeran is a colonel in the army and Lettle is training to become a diviner (someone who can read the future). When Yeeran disobeys orders and ends up causing a huge defeat, she is exiled, leaving her sister to follow her (along with Yeeran's captain, Rayan). The three of them reunite, only to be discovered by a group of fae (who are thought to be fairytales) after committing a huge crime in the eyes of the fae.
Now they need to manage the politics of a new place, while trying to figure out a way to get home. And without getting executed ideally.

I really liked parts of this story, and others I found a bit annoying. Overall, this was an interesting fantasy with a lot of cool worldbuilding.

Things I enjoyed:

Things I didn't enjoy:

Overall, I didn't hate this. I will probably read the next one, as I am a bit invested in this story. 

Note on CV: talk of executions and capital punishment.