Is The Secret World of Briar Rose any good? (Not really, it's complicated)

[00:00:00]Hi guys, welcome to a review of The Secret World of Brier Rose by Cindy Fam.

[00:00:06]This is a book by a YouTuber. She is a book review YouTuber. Sometimes she does movies, I think, um, called Read with Cindy. And I knew she was publishing this. This book was definitely in my radar. It was published in June of 2026, but I just got around to reading it. And um you know I don't really have a lot of expectations when it comes to books published nowadays especially booktuber booktuber books but um I think I'll go through my non-spoiler thoughts first.

[00:00:42]Uh in the beginning of the book I was sort of pleasantly surprised uh and kind of hopeful cuz it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Uh, some of the beginning scenes were pretty impactful and I really appreciated that Cindy was trying to write a character that wasn't perfect because a lot of the times in books nowadays, people are kind of hesitant to write uh good, morally gray characters. So, I could see some attempt there that was making me hopeful in the beginning. Uh, but in the middle of the book, I was starting to wonder where the story was heading because as far as I was concerned, I couldn't really see what was going to happen in the entire plot. Uh, and then in the end of the book, I was sadly disappointed but not surprised. I think that the book kind of suffers from uh the author wants to do too many things and doesn't really do any of them very well, which is an issue that a lot of authors do. But I'm kind of lenient because this is a debut novel and I think a lot of debut debut novels aren't good. So it's it's not like I'm going to be [ __ ] on her for that. So in general, my big issues, my non-spoiler big issues with the book was that it's a really weak retelling of Sleeping Beauty. Uh I think throughout the book, you kind of just don't really get the feeling that this is about a fairy tale at all. Uh the writing style is okay. you know, it's it tries to be poetic, but it it it doesn't really work. Um, the world building is a little odd, but honestly, this is a minor point. I don't really care about world building too much. Uh, and the biggest problem is probably like the plot and character work. The characters are pretty mediocre. Uh, they don't feel very developed. They kind of have serviceable relationships when it's convenient. Um, and the plot itself is very nonsensical. But my overall thoughts when I finish this book, I think there is a good story here at the heart of the book. But the execution is just kind of poor. But I will say that I am kind of hopeful for Cindy's future books. I think that the issues I see aren't huge issues where I'm like I don't believe that they could write a better book in the future. I definitely think they can write like some banger books if they just, you know, kept kept working on their craft, kept publishing books.

[00:03:04]So, the story of the book is split into two different timelines. And the way it's presented to us, the reader, is that every other chapter alternates between these two timelines. It would be way too confusing for me to uh recall the events of the book. If I followed the chapter organization, so I just split it I split the plot into past and present. And uh we're going to go through the past first because that is a little less confusing. So in the past about like a 100red years ago, we follow Amelia and she's the princess of a kingdom called Gilden. As a baby, she was cursed to fall into a eternal sleep on her 18th birthday after uh pricking her finger on a spindle. So her father, King Victor, recently married Lilith, who is just a woman from a neighboring kingdom called Zillar. Uh, and the whole reason is cuz he really wants an heir because we all know Amelia is going to fall asleep uh when she's 18. So Lilith, her secret mission is that she wants to unite Gilden and Zillar through this marriage. But then Victor um finds out that Lilith is low-key infertile and wants to banish her. But Amelia at this point has sort of grown grown fond of Lilith and bargains with her father basically saying that I'll marry a prince and I'll produce an heir only if you allow Lilith to stay. So Victor agrees and he's like I guess whatever.

[00:04:32]So a few days later Victor will take Amelia hunting but she can't bring herself to kill any of the animals in the forest. uh and he's hella disappointed and she'll overhear his her father saying that um he's super disappointed in her and her fairy godmothers are all around listening to that as well. The timeline shifts again and then we're meeting a different character called Melisine who's a demon that is responsible for Amelia's curse.

[00:04:58]We basically learn that Melisine was mistreated by Amelia's fairy godmothers years ago and they were seeking revenge so they crashed Amelia's birth party to curse her. We're back in the I guess current past timeline and a few days later Amelia buys this dollhouse that she really likes and the the palace servants discover it contains like a miniature spindle and they're all terrified. So they they destroy the dollhouse behind her back and she gets hella sad again. So after that, Amelia disappears into the forest for a while and she meets Ezren, this guy from Zillar. I have no clue if he's a prince.

[00:05:38]Um, the book doesn't really make that clear to me or maybe I just read over that, but I have no idea who he is. He's just a dude. Um, and Lilith warns Amelia not to trust him. Uh, but obviously Amelia doesn't listen and Ezren tries to win her over with like the typical prince charming act, but that doesn't work. So, he admits that he knows Amelia has feelings for Lilith and blackmails her into accepting an engagement with him. Just a caveat here, uh, or not caveat, but like a little pointer. At this point, Amelia is like 15 or yeah, 15 years old, and her mom is 18. So, the age difference is a bit weird, but it's whatever. So, after that, Amelia overhears her dad, Victor, admitting that he doesn't really care about her, and she gets super sad about that. So, she stumbles upon documents. I genuinely, she just stumbles upon it.

[00:06:30]It's not that she goes looking for it.

[00:06:32]She just stumbles upon a bunch of documents that reveal the founders of Gilden, who are King Seo, I think is how you say his name, and his twink fay Oleander may not actually be dead as everyone believes. So, she wants to figure out where the hell they went. So, Amelia seeks out Meline in the forest, and together they open this portal to a mysterious dream world where they do eventually find Oleander. That's when Oleander reveals that he's actually Melisine's dad. He also explains that the kingdom's history is false. He and Sam, the king, the previous king, they weren't friends at all. And his real goal in life is to have power. And he wants to sacrifice Melisine to use their blood to fuel some kind of ritual and like open another portal. I don't really know why, but that's what he wants to do. So, Melisine defeats Oleander in this dream battle and decides to revoke Amelia's curse because at this point they're kind of friends. Um, and then the timeline skips again where we're in Lilith and Ezren's bedroom where we find out that they've been lovers. They've been secretly lovers for years, long before Lilith came to Gilden to marry Victor. Lilith then sends Ezren out to find Amelia because at this point she's still missing in the dream world. and uh she tells him to keep her safe because Amelia possesses her quote unquote treasure. Ezren disappears into the forest. He finds Amelia coming out of the dream portal and uh preparations for their wedding more or less begin. But before the wedding can actually take place. Victor discovers that Lilith has betrayed him. Um I'm kind of unclear what he discovered. I think it's both her plan to unite the kingdoms and the fact that she has a lover, which is Ezren, and just straight up kills her.

[00:08:23]He kills her and captures Ezren and tries to kill him, but Ezren escapes and kills Victor in turn. And during this entire chaos, Ezren also tries to kill Amelia, but she runs away to Melisine in the forest. So, at Milliscene's home, Amelia purposely pricks her finger on a spinning wheel because she does not want to be in this world anymore. And Milliscine has to restore the curse at the last second so that Amelia just falls into eternal slumber and doesn't die. So, after revoking the curse, Melisine performs the exact same ritual that Oleander tried to do, which allows them to enter the dream world to find Amelia. They do find Amelia there, but then they both chose or they both choose to remain in the dream world because it's better than the real world. And that concludes the past timeline, which was a lot. [sighs] But now we have to go to the present timeline. So in the present timeline, we follow Corin, whose younger sister Ellie has just gone missing. So Corin learns that Ellie went into tunnels that were carved out a long time ago by Zillar refugees. And rumors say that Princess Amelia, you know, the princess who is cursed to sleep forever, is somehow hidden underneath these tunnels. And Ellie always believed in fairy tales. So Corin kind of assumes that that's where she went. So they go uh she goes down into the tunnels. She follows the path or whatever and she stumbles upon a bunch of dead bodies. Basically, all the previous travelers who have gone down here trying to find the princess. Um, she panics. She starts hallucinating all of her dead friends who at this point in the story, we don't know how they died, but we just know that she feels really guilty about it. So, she gets her [ __ ] together after a while and discovers the castle beneath the tunnel somehow. Uh, and she overhears Ezren and the fairy godmothers who are still alive a hundred years later talking about Amelia and her mysterious treasure that Ezren pro promised Lilith that he was, you know, going to protect. Uh, Corin gets caught eavesdropping by Ezin and he nearly kills her. But before he can, a giant portal opens up above her head and Corin hears Ellie calling out to her like, "Come and jump onto the other side." So Corin does. She does jump into the other side and she enters the dream world. So in the dream world, Corin and Ellie reunite, but then they just immediately begin arguing about like sisterly things like why did you run away and you hated me blah blah blah. But before they can resolve anything, a giant dragon shows up and Corin defeats it with a magical sword only to discover later that the dragon was actually Millisine in disguise. So, Melisine, who at this point they haven't really had any visitors, uh, gets a bit spooked and brings the both of them back for questioning. So, during their little interrogation, Melisine learns that Ezin and the fairy godmothers are somehow still alive after all these years. And, you know, they're low-key a little bit mad. Um, so Corin offers a deal. She'll bring Ezin this mysterious treasure that he's been searching for so that he'll never enter the dream world to look for it. And that allows Melisine and Amelia to stay safe in their dream world. Uh Melisine agrees, but only if Amelia agrees too. So they have to travel to Amelia's uh dollhouse house to ask if she's down with the whole idea. So they travel through the dream world. Uh and during this whole travel sequence, Corin is reliving memories of her past. And we learned that in the aftermath of the war, in the current timeline, Corin betrayed her closest friends by selling them out to the enemy in exchange for shelter and like money for her and Ellie. And that is a huge guilt of hers because all of her friends ended up getting killed. And when Ellie found out, Ellie essentially hated Corin and told her that, you know, you did it for yourself and you're selfish and I was happy with with our friends. Why did you have to kill them? Uh that whole sequence ends when they reach Amelia's house and uh Amelia somehow just decides to agree to find them to help them find the treasure. Uh but then the treasure turns out to be like a painting and Corin is really mad because she believes Amelia lied to her cuz she was like, "I thought you said it was a treasure. Why is it just a painting?" But Amelia explains that in the dream world, uh, the treasure adapts, I guess, to what the person who is seeking it wants or would treasure the most. And to Corin, that painting is her treasure because it reminds her of her parents uh, and her childhood because her parents were artists. Corin is still really mad, though, because she was like, "I thought I was going to get like a a bar of gold or something." So, she throws herself off a cliff. I'm not even joking. She genuinely just throws herself off a cliff and swims towards the nearest island, which happens to be Autumn Land.

[00:13:22]So, Autumnland is where all of the bad memories and nightmares go in this dream world. And um in this island, Corin has to confront her deepest, darkest guilts and memories. And we learn that Ellie actually died in the tunnels before Corin even entered the dream world. So this is a huge shame I guess of hers. Her huge her her biggest guilt in life that she let Ellie die thinking that Corin hated her. Uh but Melisine comes to rescue Corin from the Autumn.

[00:13:55]And throughout this process, Melisine because they are in the Autumn, they also have to face their darkest fears, which was the whole memory about Oleander trying to kill them for the ritual. Uh they do end up to escaping anyway. and Melisine realizes they left their magical amulet behind in uh in Autumnland. So, they turn back to retrieve it and send Corin back to Amelia and Ellie. So, Corin does end up going back, but Melisine doesn't return for like what seems like either an hour or week. The time is iffy because it's a dream world. Corin eventually decides to go after them. Uh but before leaving, she tells Amelia to stay hidden because Ezren could appear at any moment. It's also around this time that Corin somehow realizes she's begun to care about Amelia and there's like romance between them, but you know, whatever. And Corin eventually finds Melisine in the autumn land, but somehow Ezren's already there and they're fighting. Um, so Melisine gives Corin the amulet and sacrifices himself so that Corin can flee and deliver the amulet to Amelia. So Corin travels back and while she's traveling back, Ellie's dream self begins fading away and by the time Corin reaches Amelia, Ellie is completely gone. Um, but then also by the time Corin returns to Amelia, Ezren is somehow already there. So Corin throws herself in between Amelia and Ezren so that he doesn't kill her cuz he was intending to stab her. Um, and Amelia reveals that the truth between or the truth behind Lilith's treasure is that it wasn't an object, but the whole kingdom of Gilden itself. Uh, in the aftermath of this fight, Corin and Amelia, kiss and make a wish, and the story kind of ends there.

[00:15:44]It ends with the two girls, Amelia and Corin, waking up in their own timelines and living their lives differently and making the decisions that they were scared to make before this whole journey started. So yeah, that's the end of the plot. Um, and you know, I try to keep my personal opinions out of the plot summary as much as possible, but I think if you were listening to it, you can kind of tell that it's very messy uh, and nonlinear to an almost offensive degree. [laughter] I mean, there are just times where the plot pacing gets killed because you're just like, "Wow, what is happening in these two plot lines?

[00:16:26]I I have I have uh sectioned my my spoiler thoughts into three main categories which is plot, writing, and characters. I think those are the biggest issues in this book and the biggest biggest issues in most books that I read. Um so I'll start with the biggest one which is plot.

[00:16:43]The first thing I think that I just kept getting as I read this book, this overwhelming feeling was that this book should have been an Alice in Wonderland retelling and not Sleeping Beauty. The only Sleeping Beauty part, I guess, is that Amelia sleeps forever. I don't think it plays to the story, the story strengths by making it a Sleeping Beauty retelling because it's clear to me that the dream world is supposed to be nonsensical. it's supposed to be confusing uh and sort of ridiculous. And I just think if the author had played into that like 10 times more and just made this an Alice and Wonderland retelling, this would be so much more fun to read because then you wouldn't really be expecting much in terms of like linearity or understanding of what is happening in that plotline because like it's Alice and Wonderland.

[00:17:33]Everything's supposed to be stupid and scary. Um, and I think the plot could still hold true. Like it could still be the same plot because in Alice and Wonderland, you could just make the allegory that depression and suicidal ideiation is like um the characters escaping into this weird dream world, which is where, you know, Alice and Wonderland takes place. You know, they're escaping into Wonderland. Um, and they're doing this to escape reality, which is essentially the same kind of plot that that the author is trying to tell in this story. Um, and I just think that Alice in Wonderland is works a lot better with the story that she, the author, is trying to tell because in my humble opinion with Sleeping Beauty, it does sort of um the crux of a Sleeping Beauty retelling is sort of about romance, the character work and the romance work has to really pull through because I can't really think of a retelling of Sleeping Beauty without much romance because then it would just be someone falls asleep and then wakes up. But in Alice and Wonderland, you don't need to have a very strong romance plot because the whole intrigue or the whole point you're reading in Alice and Wonderland retelling is to to see a different sort of Wonderland that a different author is telling, right? You're not going to get like playing card soldiers and the Queen of Hearts, but you could get like something else and and that's fresh and unique and could still play to the plot of the story. So yeah, that was like my biggest feeling when I was reading the book is that this should have been an Alice in Wonderland retelling and not Sleeping Beauty. Another thing that I realized was I was reading through this book and I was like, "Wow, there are a lot of cringy moments." But I kept telling myself that it's sort of okay because this is a fairy tale retelling.

[00:19:11]Um, and sometimes I was wondering like, you know, is the author doing it on purpose? is she writing these characters in a really weird way to kind of replicate how fairy tales are typically written. But then it it got to a point where I was like, "Okay, this is too much. Like [laughter] I don't know the intention." And I think that's the problem is that I'm not sure if it's intentional or not. And so it's leaving me as the reader to be really confused as to like whether this is you're doing this on purpose. Like are you purposely making all the characters talk in a really weird way, act in really weird ways? Um, is it is it on purpose? And I can't tell because if it is supposed to be a bit like a satire, it's not playing into it nearly enough to make me not doubtful. And just like the biggest thing, the biggest thing that I'm probably going to spend the longest time in this section talking about is the plot. The plot is nonsensical. I mean, you can really tell, especially when I wrote the summary, you can tell that things are happening in the plot just because they're supposed to be happening. Um, this is a really good example of the plot driving the characters and not the characters driving the plot. What I mean by this is that every single time something happens or we learn something in the story, it is the story telling us and not that the characters or any of their actions have resulted in this happening. So, like for example, if I were trying to just think of like an example, it might be something as simple as when we find out that Lilith and Ezren has been have been lovers for years. Instead of maybe like Amelia finding it out or something that Amelia did reveals this to us. the way it's presented presented to us is that it's just a whole chapter on its own where we are in uh Lilith's bedroom and we just find it out because we are like a fly on the wall. Another example could be when Corin throws herself off the cliff and swims towards Autumnland. Uh she accidentally finds Autumn, right? It's not like she purposely went there. I think it would have been a lot more interesting if Corin knew that Autumn Land existed uh was warned not to go and yet still uh you know wants to go there to to see what's up or whatever. But the way it's written is very not intentional. A lot of things happen seemingly by accident. you know, things are just happening because the author's hand is moving the characters. And not that at any point do I really know what is driving the characters to do the things that they want to do. And that's like a huge issue. It's just a lot of unclear motivations. I don't really know why Amelia wanted to help Corin find the treasure initially. I remember reading that and I was like so confused because they just met like 5 minutes ago. Why why is Amelia suddenly helping Corin find this treasure? And you know, even if Amelia knew that this treasure wasn't real, why did that not make Corin a bit sused out? Because then then from Corin's point of view, she'd be like, "Wow, you I just met you and you're already helping me find this treasure.

[00:22:14]That's weird." So, it just it doesn't make sense. I can think of so many other things. When Ezin finds out that Amelia liked Lilith, how does he know that?

[00:22:24]They just met in the forest. They barely know each other. Amelia's own dad doesn't know that Amelia likes Lilith.

[00:22:31]No one in the book knows that Amelia had a crush on Lilith. So, how the hell did Ezra know that? And you could, I guess, argue that maybe Lilith told Ezin or something, but it it's presented in such an odd way that it it genuinely just feels like how the hell did he know that? How do I explain this in a like succinct way? But I think the main issue is that you're leaving a lot of things that should be guessed to the reader that shouldn't be guessed to the reader.

[00:22:59]Does that make sense? Um, if I could try to give like an example, it would be like you're leaving the reader to guess on character motivations when they shouldn't be guessing character motivations. What we should be guessing is like the mysteries of the story like maybe um who really killed the previous king. That could be a mystery. That could be something that we don't know.

[00:23:22]It could be um how did Amelia end up sleeping forever? We don't know. You know, it's the mystery that keeps us going, keeps us reading to find out how she ever ended up sleeping if the curse was revoked. But what we shouldn't be questioning is why characters are doing what they're doing. Especially not all every single character, cuz that is the case in this book. Every single character, you don't know what their motivations are. you maybe know that, okay, well, Corin roughly wants to save her sister, but then once she discovers her sister is dead, it's kind of like what is your motivation after that? It's very shaky. And that's like a huge issue is like the the romance plot. It's it feels very shoehorned in. It feels like I don't know if it was always in the book or if it was just added in afterwards or or what, but it it really is very jarring when Corin suddenly likes Amelia in the last like 10% of the book because up until that point they're barely friends. I mean, they're always fighting and arguing. Um, and I was kind of getting the feeling that Melised and Amelia were much better suited for each other than Amelia and Corin. But then all of a sudden, in the last 10% of the book, uh, Corin likes Amelia. And it it comes off very weird because it's like up until this point, you do you haven't really shown us much. And if you have shown us, it's not nearly enough because there are so many things happening in this book. I mean, Corin is dealing with with her trauma. She's dealing with the war. She's dealing with her sister.

[00:24:53]She's dealing with her friends. She's dealing with her own sort of depression.

[00:24:57]She's dealing with her parents dying.

[00:24:59]She's dealing with with the dream world.

[00:25:01]She's dealing about with with trying to find a treasure. She's dealing with melisine. She's dealing with all these things. And then you want to also add a romance that doesn't really work because it doesn't have the space to develop properly. So that's why I felt like was this just kind of added afterwards like after the after like an afterthought? I don't know. But that's how it reads. And I don't think that's intentional. But sometimes intention doesn't matter. It's about how the reader receives whatever you've decided to write. And it it I've received it in not a very good way. It it comes off a bit like uh you just wrote it in because you thought it would be fun, but then you didn't really think about it. And there's also too much going on in terms of like like it's not really the plot, but it's more of like we're getting too many details that I think just don't work for the story.

[00:25:51]There's no reason why we should be knowing the intricacies of things that don't really matter. The one huge example that I can give is just the whole portal stuff. The whole portal opening into the dream world, the like the logistics behind it is so overexplained and unclear and honestly unnecessary to the story. Um like I don't know to this I finished the book yesterday. I still don't know how the portals work because the book mentions that the portal needs blood. The portal needs royal blood and demon blood. the bloodlines matter to open these portals.

[00:26:26]But then also somehow the portals are are related to moon flowers. They're also related to the amulet that Melisine holds. Uh also like a magical book. So I don't even know what the point of the portal is. I think it would have been so much clearer to the reader if you just got rid of all of that and just been like, "Yeah, it opens sometimes and we don't know why because it's a dream world." It wouldn't really change the story. It wouldn't change much. it would make things a lot clearer for me uh as a reader. So, I think it just it there's a lot of things like that which just don't make sense why you're adding it into the story. And the last point I guess I have about the plot is like I really don't like the ending. I think it's kind of insane that the the ending is just a copout where essentially everything was a dream and the two characters go back to their worlds and get to fix all their mistakes. I think that is a very odd ending to do because it's kind of like prolifically known among readers and people who watch movies that no one likes an ending where everything was all a dream. So to purposely make that your ending is a very odd choice. Um, and I'm not saying that these kind of these type of endings can't work, but I do think it takes a certain skill level that I don't think that this author has to pull it off. Because I remember I read the last like three chapters, the ending essentially and I was like what is going on. I read it again. I read it one I read it three times before I like it settled and I realized that this is the copout ending and that this was just all a dream. I didn't like it. It felt like, you know, one of the things that you shouldn't do, I guess, as as an author or a movie maker or anyone is just make me sit through like 380 pages of characters suffering and dealing with the consequences of their actions only to have the last 20 pages be like, "Okay, but then they get to go back and none of this happened." It's not It's not the angle I think that should have worked. I think it would have been a lot better if maybe I guess maybe another issue is that this is a YA book. So maybe there the author is constrained by the the genre that they've decided to write in. But it would have been better if the ending was about Corin going back into the real world and nothing has changed. But they have a new renewed purpose to life, right? Their new purpose in life is not to be the thief that they always were. They always were not to like steal and hurt people, but maybe to be the, you know, they they they want to become the leader of like a rebellion or the leader of their community or to give back and start drawing again. Like something like that would have been a lot better, I think, than having a copout ending. It just felt very not great. So, the next section is writing. I think that the writing is kind of bad, but also not that bad. It's bad in a different way. A lot of books published nowadays, I would say like in the last two to three years, are almost too simplistic in the way that they write. It's there's like an issue I guess recently where all the books kind of sound the same and authors don't experiment with language. They don't experiment with sentence structure. They don't they don't really they all read like movie scripts. So, I want to give this book like a cookie, I guess, because the author does try to write in a more poetic style, but it doesn't work. Despite the fact that they are trying to do something good, it doesn't work because the writing is overly reliant on simileies and metaphors. when you're trying to write in a poetic way, you know, po poetry is more than just simileies and metaphors, but then the author only uses similes or metaphors. So, it just it's like um I don't like using the word purple pros because I think that's not what's happening here, but it's the only example that I can think of. Um, and it's really just it it it works against the reader when you're reading. Uh there were a lot of times when I was reading the book, I'm just like, "What is going on?" Like, "This makes no sense. The descriptions she's using work against me when I'm reading it because it's not helping me imagine anything or it's just straight up nonsensical. So, I'm reading it wondering what the hell's going on."

[00:30:52]In my book, I mean, I have a bunch of highlighted sentences where I just put a question mark next to it because I genuinely did not know what was the point, what was what was being added by all of these examples. And I remember I read some review online where someone um on their Kindle I think they like searched up the word like in this book to see what was going on. Like how many times were they using similes and metaphors and I think they said that they saw 660 instances of like being used in a 400page book. That is almost like a 1.5. So, like every page you're using about two metaphors, which is a lot because that's it feels like every sentence. Um, I'm pulling up my copy right now and I'm going to just go through some of my highlighted sections to give some examples because I think that would be the easiest way for you guys to understand what I mean by a really odd writing style. So, um, for example, we have in chapter in chapter 2, we have this sentence, only a pastel dream of a girl to soothe people's ideas of what beauty should look like. Not the worst sentence, but also, what was the point of that? I feel like there was a better way to phrase that entire idea. Um, there was this sentence where Oleander was the only fairy who possessed the ability to create gold, but he limited his magic to one family so that their exclusivity would hold power. A very clunky sentence. I feel like there should be a better way to write that. There was also this where she describes um a bruise on Corin's face as fat bruises the size of berries bloomed on her cheeks. This made me confused cuz I was like, what is a fat bruise? And fat bruise the size of berries. I'm thinking fat bruise is huge, but then berries are pretty small.

[00:32:42]So, it just works against you. It works against you. There was another one. The wind whispered around the the rocks like a secret. Uh I don't think like a secret is necessary here. I think this the sentence would just be as good if you just put the wind whispered around the rocks. I can imagine that. I can think of it. But then I you add like a secret.

[00:33:01]So now I'm like what does that mean? Why are you telling me it's like a secret?

[00:33:04]Are the winds supposed to be doing something secretive? It's a bit like um you know, not great. There was another one where she wrote bitter, it tasted full stop. And this is the only instance I think in the entire book where where the the writer writes like Yoda. So, it just and there are so many of these there are so many of these. I'm not going to go and pick through all of them, but there are so many of these instances where the writing just doesn't service the plot or the book at all. And for me, my philosophy when it comes to writing is it doesn't matter what writing style you want. Whether you want to write in a very simplistic way, in a very abstract way, in a very poetic way, you know, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you do it well and that the way that you write it doesn't um affect my reading experience. Once your writing style starts to work against the reading experience, work against the story, that's when it becomes becomes an issue because now I'm I'm not only reading your story, I'm also having to stop every few sentences and wonder what do you mean by that? But once again, I think that this is an issue that can probably get fixed in in future books, you know, when the author gets their their skills honed and things like that.

[00:34:16]Like I mentioned in the beginning very briefly, I think that the timeline switches every other chapter is a really bad pacing mistake to make. Uh because I mean like even the best books, right?

[00:34:27]Even the best books that I can think of like A Song of Ice and Fire, that entire series, there are a big chunk, a huge chunk of uh fans that read that those books and complain every time they reach like a Catelyn chapter or a Bran chapter or an Arya chapter. like when they reach a chapter of a character they don't like. I'm not that I'm saying that those chapters are bad. I think every single chapter ever that George RR Martin has written is amazing. But I'm saying that from an average reader's point of view, even the best authors, their biggest um mistakes, I guess you could say, and I say mistake in air quotes, is that they decide to have different characters for every chapter because you're putting you're betting on the fact that readers will like every single chap uh every single character, which isn't going to be the case, right? And so this author does the same exact mistake where you're you're not only splitting it into like three about three POVs, the Melisine, Corin, and Amelia, but you're also messing up the timeline, you're messing up the pacing. Um, so there were scenes where it's like maybe it ends with like a cliffhanger, but then the next chapter is in a different timeline and it's not really relevant to the plot, and then by the time you reach the next chapter, it's like, oh, the the cliffhanger has been resolved or something. So, it's a very big pacing killer, which it really just does disservice to the story.

[00:35:45]Another and last thing, the last point I have for writing is I think that the dialogue is both good and bad. I think that the dialogue, the biggest issue is that it's very on the nose and it's very heavy-handed. I think that the strength of dialogue is meant to show a few things about a character. It's either to show the type of character. is supposed to lend uh a mirror or like a like an inpoint into the the minds of our characters or it's supposed to allude to something else, right? Like dialogue is supposed to um clue the reader in into certain things that aren't in the text.

[00:36:24]So just like a very simple way to put it, dialogue is supposed to sometimes say in what is not said. So the strength of dialogue comes from what isn't said rather than what is said. But in this book, the dialogue is so on the nose.

[00:36:40]Everyone explains everything so verbosely.

[00:36:45]And there unfortunately most of the characters all sound the same, which is something that, you know, it's kind of hard to to expect a debut novel to to get all of these things right. But I did make some I did make some highlights [clears throat] because I thought it was a little weird. So, for example, uh Ellie, who I think is supposed to be like 12 years old, says, "I didn't interact with them. Only heard them talking to each other." There was a man with them. They called him Ezren. I highlighted I didn't interact with him because I could not think of a time when anyone would talk like that. Like, I'm just trying to think like the last time I heard someone in person say I didn't interact with them. I think like a more natural way would be like, "I didn't talk to them or or something like that."

[00:37:29]It just felt very off. And a lot of the dialogue there's just really weird uh vocabulary choices. Here's like a a ch an instance of like what I thought could have been a really good dialogue. Uh quote, "Do you?" Brier asks, "Do you even know what makes you happy?" I think that could have been a really good dialogue point, you know, if that was maybe the only time that kind of dialogue showed up in a chapter. every single thing is like this. I mean, it's like too much. Um, there's also another thing that I quoted where Amelia is talking to her dad when her dad kills Lilith and she says, "No, she betrayed you, but you do not represent Gilden."

[00:38:11]Once again, very weird. It's not the worst dialogue, and that's why I think that this is my last point. It's It's not the worst. I've definitely read dialogue worse than this, but I feel like that sentence could have been done a lot different, right? No, she betrayed you, but you do not represent Gilden. It was like there's it's a very weird sentence. I feel like couldn't she just say, "No, she didn't betray Gilden, she betrayed you." Like, that makes more sense. That make that flows off the tongue better. Um, but you know, maybe there are people who talk like this. And so that's why I don't really want to hark on this for too long. And also, uh, why I'm moving on to the next one, which is characters. This is probably my smallest point in the spoiler section. I think that I kind of talked about this in the previous point, so I'll keep it concise. I think that the character work is really weak in this book. I think my belief as a reader is that you can have a bad plot, a bad writing style, bad everything. But if your characters are good, people will stick through. People will stick through the shittiest plots if your characters are good. People will read books they've never read before in genres that they hate if the characters are good. I think that the characters are really weak in this book, but it's not something that I'm going to really blame the author for because I think it's hard to expect once again a debut novel to do characters really well. It would be almost impressive if the characters were the best part of this book. So, my biggest issue is that a lot of the characters are just very cardboard paper thin. They they they talk and act in ways that you would expect a stereot stereotyped character to act. So like if you think of Corin and I tell you that Corin is this um older sister who's a thief and she's like hardened by life, you could already start thinking of like certain dialogues and quips that she would say like stereotypically and then just imagine that that's the that's a book. It's very cliche unfort.

[00:40:06]like all the characters are very cliched and there's nothing human about them unfortunately. And I think a lot of that stands in the fact that the author puts everything on the page. It the author doesn't allow you to think because unfortunately everything is spelled out for you. And when you do that, it does kind of come out a bit cliche because then the reader doesn't really need to think about why characters are doing what they're doing because everything is just on the page. Like Corin is doing this because she she misses her sister.

[00:40:34]That's it. Full stop. And honestly, the character relationships between all the characters are really weirdly paper thin, but then the the narrative treats it like very heavy, which isn't how you're reading it. Um, and I guess like the only relationship in this entire book that I could see being salvaged was the relationship between Corin and Ellie, who are those typical siblings who hate each other but then still love each other as siblings. Um, when I was reading the book, I kept thinking of Jinx and Vi from Arcane. And I don't like Arcane. Uh, I that's a whole other video I can make. I absolutely hate how the direction of Arcane in season 2 and some of season 1. But in terms of like a comparison, I was really thinking of Corin and Ellie as Vi and Jinx. And the difference between the two of them, I think, is that with Corin and Ellie, whenever they're talking to each other, it's always about how they hate each other as siblings. And it's a very like um not natural in the sense that like Corin will always be like, "Well, I never wanted you and you know, I'm always responsible for you and you're a pain in my ass." And then Ellie will be like, "Well, I didn't ask for you to be my sister and I didn't ask to be born and I also hate you." And it's like there's never any normal moment between of them where you can see the dynamics between the two characters play out in a in a subtle way. Everything is not subtle. Everything is in your face. But when I think of Jinx and Vi, there's a lot between them that is subtle. You can see a lot of the way that they maybe fight with each other, the way that they argue with each other. They really hate each other and yet they're still considerate of each other as siblings.

[00:42:17]They still um protect each other when supposedly they hate each other. So there's a lot more subtlety, a lot more complexity in that relationship as a as a compared to Korin and Ellie. Corin and Ellie feel like a first draft of a sibling relationship. And that's a lot of the characters. They all feel like first drafts of themselves. It doesn't feel like the author ever put themselves in each individual character's POV and thought, well, is this accurate to the portrayal that I'm trying to say? like is is the way that these characters act is it accurate to how how I'm trying to portray them? And I think that is the biggest issue is that a lot of the times I was like they're all doing things that don't really fit what I think someone in that mind state should be doing. And just like one other thing I guess for my character points and the last point I have is that the romance was dead on arrival. The the romance was really bad.

[00:43:12]I think Corin and Em Amelia, sorry, Corin and Amelia had like no chemistry at all and their relationship was not developed at all. I think if if a if a romance really needed to be in this book, it should have been between Melisine and Amelia because Corin was not was not was not okay. She was not doing anything. Amelia wasn't doing it.

[00:43:34]It was like two wet cardboards being slapped together. It was really bad. But yeah, I think that kind of concludes I this is a long video, but this kind of concludes all of my feelings with this book. I think in general, despite the fact that I've only been talking about the bad things in this book, I think that this book didn't actually make me as angry as other bad books I read. This isn't bad in the sense that it's offensive. It's just bad because it almost could have been good. But there are just too many things that are wrong in this book that unfortunately it's not a good book. But it does have potential to be good. And that's why I do think that this author definitely has a bright future ahead of them if they just keep writing more books. They keep practicing their craft. They start doing other um ideas, other plots. I I think that there's a lot of potential here because nothing in this book was too blatantly egregious where I was like, "Oh, I'm so mad. I'm going to rip my hair out. I just kind of like sped through this book and at the end I was like, "Okay, yeah, this is a book, but it's like sort of disappointing." Like, I'm just disappointed. I'm not mad. I'm not angry. I'm not going to like pull my hair out. I'm just disappointed. So, that concludes, I guess, my review. Um, and yeah, I would love to hear what you guys think if you guys read it. I know that uh a lot of people didn't like it, a lot of people liked it, and I just really want to see if other people agree or disagree. I would love to just, you know, see what other people think. And um yeah, I'll see you in the next one.

[00:45:06]Bye, guys.