Rating: 1.25 of 5 / Advanced Reader Copy received from NetGalley ⭐️

DNF @ 45%

Book summary

lowkey i couldn’t even tell you. they have to get a treasure from somewhere but i truly have no grasp of why this was a plot point :/

Criticism

it seems like this book wanted to subvert the typical tropes, as this is a fairytale retelling, and while i 1) am neutral to fairy tales 2) don’t care about retellings and 3) am no longer in the YA demographic, i know i’m 100% not the audience for this book but i can still appreciate a good book if it’s good

that being said, pham relied too heavily on these tropes existing in this fantasy world and the characters being self-aware that they fit these exact tropes—i don’t know if pham intended to break the fourth wall on this or if it just came to be a theme within the chapters

Amelia: Even in fairy tales, princesses merely existed in stories that others wanted to tell.

Corin: […] this is how fairy tales were supposed to end.

i’m sure if i made it to the end, the tropes would be somewhat subverted but how they get there is confusing in tone

also the way i cannot get a grip on any solid description—there’s no real direction, no physical location to hold on to. i get that the fluidity of movement in the dream realm is supposed to represent this fairytale fantasy but i couldn’t get my foothold to sink deep enough to understandably consume what in the world was even happening and why the characters were expressing these emotions. i would say the book lacked spatial awareness but i can’t even tell if that’s what i mean in regards to how nondescript the “world building” is with a few purple proses to decorate the edges so it doesn’t seem like anything is lacking.

even while i describe certain parts as nondescript, i still feel like every other second, the writing brought something up to make sure i knew what Big Feelings were happening in the moment, even if we don’t have to reach that conclusion yet if that makes sense? it was like i’m driving down a long stretch of road and every 2 miles there’s a sign that says “gas station to your left” except there’s no left? the road is straight and the sign keeps appearing on the road in the next 2 miles “gas station to your left” BABY THERE IS NO LEFT?? STOP THREATENING ME !!

Underdevelopment

aside from the world building being all over the place and not concrete enough, the characters were not that interesting to me from the beginning. they are immediately depressed and unshakeable when we meet them so it seemed to drag during their separate chapters before they met up with each other

the titular character and her love interest have so little chemistry, if one of them became a pet, neither of them would care to adopt 😭 like it’s sad brah lmfao i came for the sapphic romance but all i got was a depression mug

and i love a good story that involves very broken, imperfect, and suffering characters, but i don’t feel like there was an opportunity to really dive into their mental health. and from what i’ve read from spoiler reviews, it seems it doesn’t really have good progress on that front in the end anyway…

malicine had a few good moments with their pov chapters and then they seemed to disappear into the background, forgotten and unrelated to the plot until called upon by either main characters. they could’ve been the cuntiest if they had an ounce of description given to them, but even their appearance in the story didn’t move me

especially corin’s sister elly who felt very one-dimensional—it seemed she was just there to give corin a reason to feel any type of emotion, carefree and simple-minded because of course her big sister has to handle all of the emotional responsibility of the world’s cruelty right

Ending Thoughts

all in all, i really wanted to like this book. i enjoy some of pham’s content though i am not a regular patron of it on social media or youtube, but i was excited for her to be telling a story of her own bc i think she’s funny and cool

i will say i would still tune in for pham’s second or third book. i think there is potential there, and if she can fine tune her skills then she could tell a great story, hopefully one that doesn’t rely on an existing story to carry the weight of it

the one thing i regret was not reading this sooner bc now i have no choice but to DNF during AAPI month or pride month and i am deeply sorry for that i have failed both my communities 😔

I bought this at a local library sale.

Yes, with that cover. Yes, at an innocent library branch.

Mostly I just wanted to make the old lady volunteer at the checkout table laugh. (She did.) But nowadays I’m trying to read more of my physical collection, and hey, it was 200 pages. Why not?

It was 200 pages of porn.

With a cover like that, I could have expected as much, but seriously, it was cover-to-cover orgies. I dare you to find a single page without explicit content. When they weren’t having sex, they were thinking or talking about sex.

Moreover, it was 200 pages of bad porn. So bad. It gave me the ick a million times over. I skimmed 80% of the book.

The worldbuilding though cracked me up.

These Viken aliens—a term used loosely, since Vikens are indistinguishable from humans—live on a planet divided into three sectors. The difference between these sectors? Well. There’s a scene where one of the heroes is eating out the FMC, and she comments that he’s really good at it, and another guy (remember, it’s all orgies) explains that “he’s from Sector One, where eating pussy is revered. But I’m from Sector Two, so I’m into exhibitionism.”

A society organized around kinks??? lmao???

There’s another planet where all the men are “dominant” (I will punch any man who describes his personality as “dominant”, do not fucking test me on this) and make their girlfriends wear collars and call them “Master”. Not just as a kink but as a constant rule. Like, they do this in front of their friends and relatives. And allegedly the human women there are happy with this. That’s so fucking uncomfortable I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.

On these various alien planets, time moves at different speeds. One day on Earth is two months on Viken or something. Are these planets all in an orbit around different black holes? Are they traveling close to the speed of light relative to each other? Wtf is going on here?

And yeah I know it’s a mistake to invest time in questioning the astrophysics of a porno, but the way it’s explained in this exchange from the epilogue is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read:

”It’s physics,” Mindy said. “Like that movie we saw a few years ago, Interstellar. Remember? Ten minutes for the people on the planet was like twenty-five years for that guy up on the ship.” “That movie was weird, too. And that’s impossible, right?” “It’s science.” Violet sighed. “My least favorite subject.”

(Immediately following this exchange they’re back to talking about her nipples)

I love that the author clearly watched Interstellar years ago, thought to herself, “Should I rewatch that movie? Or, like, Google relativity even once before including it in my book?” and then went with “Nope!” which honestly seems about right for the literary level this work is operating on.

Advanced Reader Copy received from NetGalley 1.5 ⭐/ 5

To preface this review, I have been a casual fan of Cindy Pham’s YouTube channel for a few years at this point, mostly drawn to her honest critiques of other books and authors, some I’d never even heard of before watching her videos. I went into this read as someone who likes her, enjoys her content, her wit, and narrative voice, and as someone who desperately wanted to like this book. Unfortunately, I fear it missed the mark for me. I’m not sure if that speaks more on the fact that I am not the target audience of a YA fantasy / fairytale retelling more broadly, or whether it is a fault of the writing itself? It started off intriguing but grew to be a bit of a slog for me to get through the more I read.

The idea of a queer retelling of Sleeping Beauty had a lot of potential and I was excited for such a unique take on a familiar classic. Some elements were really original, and others felt a bit trite.

Firstly, there are some really beautiful sentences of prose here that I enjoyed. Pham employs a lot of flowery language to describe the setting, and some of it is genuinely so beautifully written. There were a few grammatical errors I caught as I read, but most of which I assume are accidental and will be adjusted in final edits before it is sent to print. The dreamworld is painted in a very ethereal way, and I think she succeeded in establishing such a surreal vibe through her prose. Unfortunately at times it felt as if she spent more time crafting sentences that sounded beautiful rather than building up the lore / setting more viscerally? At early points of my read, I struggled to envision what exactly she was trying to portray through this language. I wanted to be able to see the scene unfolding before my eyes, but struggled to do so, which made it confusing and hard to follow. Because of this, I didn’t necessarily feel as immersed as I wanted to be. Some sentences do utilize a lot of similar, repetitive words which also bogged down my reading experience, as a few other reviewers have made note of.

Secondly, I felt as if there was a remarkable lack of necessary worldbuilding that I yearned for here. The bones for something interesting were there, but I desperately wanted to understand the why behind Gyldan’s ruin. What time period did Amelia live in? What are the political forces at play here? Why is Corin struggling so much in her “present-day” time period? This could be because the book is intended for a younger audience, which would make sense, but it left me wanting more understanding of the world we’re occupying. It felt like we were thrown into this universe with very little explanation behind it. Worldbuilding is something so foundational to fantasy and it just felt abandoned here.

I found Amelia to be the more compelling main character of the two. I tended to prefer the chapters that centered on her, especially in the past timeline. Corin was incredibly unlikable at times - which is fine, and not something I particularly hated? Not every main character needs to be likable. But it never felt like she was truly redeemed through the story at all either. She was downright mean to her sister, in ways that made her unrelatable. I also felt like the connection between Amelia and Corin was not properly established or explained. At one moment, Corin is treating Amelia poorly and seems to dislike everyone around her, and then after learning more about her sister’s fate, she feels drawn to Amelia and compelled to protect her? In my view, the necessary chemistry was not properly established for them to have a romantic connection. Overall, Corin’s arc didn’t make much sense to me and I think we needed her inner conflict to be developed further for the romance between the two characters to actually make sense.

I found Malicine to be one of the more interesting characters and wished we got to experience more of their perspective and backstory compared to our two main characters. They felt like the only character that truly experienced growth throughout the story.

By the time I reached the plot twist, I had already felt like I was in such a slump with this book due to some issues with pacing in the first 60%. It definitely dragged and was not an easy read to get through. Some aspects were not properly delved into until the very end of the book, which left a lot to be desired and did not help with my early criticisms.

Overall, I really wanted to like this book and I think Cindy had an ambitious concept for a debut, but ultimately, it left a lot to be desired.