Lau's Reviews > Belladonna

Sincerely, no ❤️
Anyone who says this is good is straight up lying. This book singlehandedly cured my “surely if the cover is drop dead gorgeous it can’t be that bad” delusion.

Had I read this as a physical book instead of an ebook i would’ve ran out of post-it notes tabbing all the red flags. Let’s not beat around the bush, this book is about an old ancient immortal being Death grooming a young girl until she’s legal and then gets with her.

This whole novel is so predatory and creepy considering Death meets our main character Signa as a two month old BABY, i repeat a TWO MONTH OLD INFANT. He’s fascinated by her and visits her throughout her childhood. There’s this incredibly messed up power dynamic between them. The mc keeps telling him to stay away but he doesnt.
He is ALWAYS described in a menacing way looming and towering over the mc. Read these following quotes knowing this is a grown man talking to a barely legal naive orphaned girl who he met when she was an actual infant and watched her growing up and then ends up as her love interest (including rather graphic sexual acts):
- “Your name is no curse, Little bird. I just like the taste of it”
- “For she was stuck in the garden gate, her front half inside the garden and her back half still with Death. It felt like there was something hard inside her. Cold, biting metal that grated against her insides. Her hands trembled at the wrongness of it all”
- “Why is it you are so polite to others? So demure and soft yet so bullish when we speak? Ask me kindly, Signa”
- “You’ve been watching me?" she asked. (Death:)“I find that you make the time pass quicker. Otherwise, I grow bored and weary”
- “Death bent so his shadowed face hovered before hers, only a breath between them. “I’ve never seen you so demure, and so sickeningly stifled”
- Signa: “All my life I have wanted nothing more than to be rid of you. (…) I begged, night after night, death after death, for you to leave me alone.(…)I hate you, and I hate everything you’ve done to me.” to which Death reacts the following: “Death grew larger, his anger so palpable that it suffocated the room. (…)”You no longer have a choice in this (…) I tire of these games. I know you better than you think, just as I know you will never rid yourseld of me, Little Bird. As I will never rid myself of you”
- Death isolates Signa from all her guardians and bonds by killing them. Signa points out he’s the reason she’s been isolated all her life and would’ve loved some company every now then. To which he’s just like blah blah I was protecting you (ignoring he also took her grandmother and mother who she loved very much). Also on that note at the beginning of the book it’s said Death only comes when he’s called and it’s not his choice who he takes away but now he’s saying he chose to take her guardians away from her. Make it make sense
- “Death spoke as though Signa were a child. As though she were a small, fragile thing that needed to be coddled”
- “I have waited for you for a very long time, Signa” Yes since she was an infant, creep
- “I have waited an eternity to meet you”
- “I have waited for you for millennia”
- “There was a silky husk to his voice now, too pleased for his own good. “Since the dawn of this earth, I have waited, You are mine, and I am yours” and this is where i threw up

You have an innately fascinating character like Death and instead of playing with all the lore and world-building that comes with turning an abstract concept like death into a character you decide the best course of action is… to turn him into a perv who grooms a girl from birth until she’s barely legal and then shadow fucks her (please don’t ask, i still don’t understand the mechanics of it nor do i want to)?? Every single one of their interactions gave me the ick, it's like this was written for the male gaze and to have a young girl at this powerful man's mercy and putting her in unpleasant situations. If the mc was an actual person or friend the entire city would be blaring with warning sirens and shrouded in red flags screaming these are telltale signs of abusive relationships. Imagine dying only for death to be an insufferable creepy man. Can’t even escape them in the afterlife. Not to mention he’s as bland as a stale piece of unsalted unbuttered bread that’s gathering dust on the floor. If you want fleshed out takes on death as a character pick up Mrs Death Misses Death or Death in the The Sandman #8: The Sound of Her Wings Sandman Comics by Neil Gaiman. If you're only intrigued by the enemies to lovers period piece aspect of this book do yourself a favour and just stick with Pride and Prejudice

The writing is bad. There's so many things that just make no sense at all and had me???? while reading. Also literally every single man in this book is tall. So tall. It has to be pointed out the entire time. Here’s some of these ravishing descriptions
“He was as tall as a willow and broad as an oak”, “He was far too tall for such a space”, “(…) with a tall willowy frame”, “he was exceedingly tall and alarmingly thin”, “he was as alarmingly tall as ever”, “(…) noticing again how large he was. Like a walking tree trunk, really. A tree trunk with muscles”I'm sorry but this reads like trashy erotica . “(…)given his hulking size”.
We get it, the author likes her men tall. Funnily enough she also likes her women as tiny things. Dainty. Petite. The perfect counterpart to all the men being hunks (or sorry, tree trunks). Honorary ridiculous writing mention for “Her hair was pale as butter”

Our mc Signa. The author is trying very hard to make her into a feisty girl who’s so not like the other girls (she’s got one blue and one gold eye after all) but at the end of the day Signa is nothing but a damsel in distress pick-me-girl. She’s always going on about her “Lady’s Guide to Beauty and Etiquette” and how she can’t stand Death and Sylas yet spends 80% of this book lusting after both and getting hot and bothered about everything they do and don’t do. Don’t pretend you’re writing a strong and independent female character when she always needs a man to swoop in and get her out of every bad situation or to patronise her because she’s oh so helpless. For a couple of pages she wants to take matters into her own hand and learn to control powers and take lessons but that's literally never mentioned again. Just throw every single man in this story away and give Signa some actual depth and character that goes beyond craving male validation and being horny.

Next on the itinerary: Sylas. Some of his charming qualities include:
- he is tall as a willow and broad as an oak
- has no regard for Signa’s personal space. Women LOVE manspreading after all (yes the author literally felt it necessary to include scenes of him manspreading)
- he’s constantly using a patronising tone while speaking to Signa
- male character A hits female character B in the face. Signa is shocked and exclaims as such to Sylas. His reaction (and I quote): “To be frank, I think it’s wise to fear more for character A’s well-being than for miss character B. I find that nothing is as terrifying as a woman scorned. And did you see her face? Positively murderous. Now enough of that”. Excusing and belittling violence against women? check. Victim blaming? check. Misogyny? Check. THIS is the man y’all are praising and lusting after??

I don’t care if people cry “this is fiction”. Society needs to stop normalising grooming and inappropriate relationships with minors under the guise of uwu but she’s 19 and legal. He meets her as a baby and waits it out until she’s finally old enough. Literally grooming. This leads to one of my main points. This book is YA. Target audience 12-18. Had this been written as adult fiction it would be one thing but to market this towards teens who presumably do not have the emotional maturity to realise the dangerous implications of glamourising grooming and predatory tropes is never ok. Let’s not teach young girls that’s normal and not concerning behaviour. If your reaction is to roll your eyes and say it’s not that serious - i hope you realise you’re part of the problem.

With that out of the way: Sconegate. Listen. I know some authors use certain words more than others, but there’s a line and this book crossed it. Signa eats scones the ENTIRE time. Scones get more screen time that the supposed murder mystery in this book. 27. She eats twenty-seven scones in this book. Yes this is petty and yes I kept a scone tally. In any given scene there’s a scone present. Death feeds her scones. Death throws scones at her (“A scone flew at her then, landing hard on her chest. She barely caught it before it hit the floor. “You wanted this, didnt you?”). Death CHOKES her with scones. I think this is just about the most ridiculous scene I've ever read (“The moment she opened her mouth to speak, a scone flew from the table and into her mouth, choking off the protest Death refused to hear.”) This has to be a kink.

I almost forgot to talk about the murder mystery of this book but don’t fret, so did the author. After all we’ve got hunky men to lust after and dinner etiquette to learn. The last 10% of this book we have some semblance of a plot. Imagine you’re a first grade teacher and you’re trying to explain the concept of a murder mystery to a classroom full of kids. To make it age appropriate and easy for them to grasp you present a small cast of characters and a setting. You’re an empathetic teacher so you make sure your kids feel a sense of achievement and lift in morale for solving it so you lay out the most obvious and cliché motive and suspect. It’s all so clear cut they have no trouble figuring it out and thus learn the very basic concept of a murder mystery. The readers are the kids in the classroom in this book. I don’t read a ton of murder mystery books nor am i particularly gifted in predicting plots yet i predicted the entire plot down to the smallest details. This is just lazy writing. Other than the mystery there’s also a “twist”. A twist that is so obvious I had it figured out by chapter three. If you’re the kind of person that gasps in shock when Hannah Montana reveals herself to be Miley Stewart or Clark Kent to be Superman you might be impressed though.

This book reads like the author has some sort of power play/size difference/predatory/scone feeding fetish or kink and decided to turn it into a book. Which you do you but do everyone a favour and write it as adult erotica with consenting adults instead of packaging it as a ya murder mystery (which in actuality is just trashy erotica with no plot)

Let's end this rant with this: A bonus scene written by yours truly - or: If you read this you know everything you need to know about this book.

A scone falling on Signa’s petite little head wakes her from her dream about glistening large dark stallions that make the heat in her belly rise. “Oh no what a shame I was rather enjoying that” she thinks and picks up Lady’s Guide to Beauty and Etiquette to read a chapter. By now she knows the book by heart but Signa takes comfort in absorbing the words, after all a lady can always improve oneself. A sudden chill creeps up her dainty little toes and she recoils as she notices dark shadows and a towering presence in her bed. Death is lying next to her, smirking. He is way too tall for her small bed and it’s only now she notices his knees spreading out and touching her to make room for himself. Flashes of red cross her vision and anger coils up in her chest. Signa hates him. She lets him know by glaring at his face which is mere centimetres from her. “Do tell, have you been watching me?” she gasps, ready to pummel him. Death’s menacing grin widens and Signa notices his muscular male physique. He’s so tall. So so tall. He’s a tree trunk. Tall as a willow, broad like an oak, really. “I’ve been watching you since the minute you’ve been born, little bird” he says, stretching out his large hand and revealing a scone. She feels her resolve crumble. It’s lemon. Her favourite.

special thanks to this superstar for holding my hand while rage reading and dissecting this dumpster fire of a book with me and making it a million times more bearable.