**spoiler alert** Edit 13/3 Welp I may as well say I finished it, even if I haven't yet. The ending is dragging on so long that I'm just going to start**spoiler alert** Edit 13/3 Welp I may as well say I finished it, even if I haven't yet. The ending is dragging on so long that I'm just going to start another book. Yannick makes me want to punch something and the Tansy plot twist was really stupid.
Og review: Technically I’m still reading this book, but a plot point has come to my attention recently and it has been really bugging me so I’m writing a review before I finish.
Spoilers ahead.
I feel like there’s a really big problem with the character Nettle in this book. Like, it stood out to me in the first few chapters. She’s obviously gone through some trauma after her curse, and that leads to some more than obvious flaws in her personality.
her expression was usually rather blank, in an attentive, slightly worried sort of way. She appeared diluted, colourless, as if she were waiting for somebody else to give her an opinion to hold.
This is real, she thought. This is me, this lumpy body taller than the one I remember from four years ago. This unfamiliar, half-woman thing that bleeds once a month. This face with expressions I’ve forgotten how to use. Why doesn’t this body feel like home? Why is it so exhausting, hobbling along the ground on these soft feet? Why is it a strain being around people, and pretending to be one of them? I used to be able to fly, and now I can’t.
I get that this is character building, but Nettle seemed really, really unrealistic. Obviously, none of us are ever going to know what it’s like to turn into a crane, but I would be happy if I returned to a human body. She even talks about how she wasn’t herself when she was a crane. so why does she spend hours whinging and moping about being human while at the same time acknowledging that the crane wasn’t really her?
Then you’ve got Yannick, her older/younger (?) brother, who decides to remain as a gull and not become human. Fair enough. But his explanation? Because turning back into a human is “too painful”. You’re not the one who killed Iris, Yannick. What could you possibly suffer from? Cole is the only sibling that should have realistic trauma, not Yannick or Nettle. But somehow he’s fine? After ~five years??? And meanwhile he’s talking about the future and looking ahead, fucking Nettle sits there whining about how awful it is to be human again. there’s literally a chapter where she and Kellen are running from Gall and his horse and all Nettle is thinking about how hard it is to run and how weird her human legs are (???) get over yourself, for gods sake.
Than the twist. Putting spoilers here. (view spoiler)[ This whole time, Nettle has been harbouring a curse inside her. The moment I saw this I put the book down and had to stare at the ceiling for a few minutes. The sheet hipocrisy of this is unbelievable. take a look at this quote:
we’re all children when it comes to our own cursers. They’re our bogeymen. They’re our nightmares bound in flesh.
To Nettle, cursers are horrible. Yet she, and this woman called Tansy, end up being cursers themselves. Because Nettle and Tansy don’t end up cursing anyone, they’re good. While those who have cursed are baaaad. They also end up joining the Salvation or something?? After Nettle dreading the idea of an organisation of cursers running free?????
There is another issue to this. This presents the idea that abuse victims end up being abusers. That no matter what, they are no better than their abusers and that the trauma will warp them into awful people. I could go into this in more detail but you get the idea.
The fact that Nettle ends up being an (albeit dormant) curser herself, it contradicts these points put forward earlier in the book:
a) cursers are bad people. This is rewritten into only a select are bad people. Make up your mind, please. b) the cursed will likely become cursers, (i.e. Nettle and Tansy) and there is somehow nothing wrong with that.
Besides these issues, the book was okay. Kellen was good, I’m eager to see how his curse turns out. And Leona being a bat is adorable. Not to mention Gall and his horse. And the lore of the Wilds! This would be a five star read, but Nettle made me bump it down to three so far. Actual rating to come when I finish the book....more
This was a great sequel! A nice expansion to the worlds explored in the first book, with two different types being explored this time.
I noticed that EThis was a great sequel! A nice expansion to the worlds explored in the first book, with two different types being explored this time.
I noticed that Esme and Celeste’s arguments were toned down quite a lot and were a lot fewer in this book, which was nice to see, but made it feel quite different from the first.
Was quite sad about Logan doubting himself. I’m eager to see what happens to Pan in the next book too!...more
Cockatiel Forger
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