I have mixed feelings about this novel. We follow our main character, Stella, on a journey of self-discovery through the streets of Paris. She meets fI have mixed feelings about this novel. We follow our main character, Stella, on a journey of self-discovery through the streets of Paris. She meets famous people, tries a lot of fancy food, and indulges herself in a life of adventure and luxury.
There was a plot, but it felt like filler. When I was reading the book, it felt like the author just wanted to write descriptions of delicious food and beautiful clothes, and decided to make that a story. I later found out it was actually exactly the truth--an editor had read a previous novel of Ruth Reichl's and fixated on a paragraph about her trying on a dress and wanted her to make a novel with more just like it.
And I'm not going to lie, she delivered on that front. The prose WAS good. I was mostly reading this on an empty stomach and there were at least seven different pages-long eating experiences that were written deliciously well. I also loved all the descriptions of art, literature, fashion, and French culture. The writing was so good, I was completely immersed in all of those scenes and it honestly kind of made me long for a trip to Paris.
But the rest of it....
The characters were meh. Stella was honestly a pretty good character and I loved her development from a rigid wallflower who always has a plan for everything to confident, ambitious, and free. But she was also, unfortunately, written as a complete Mary Sue.
She'd never cared about food before in her life, but suddenly she's discovered to be a food connoisseur who can identify every ingredient in a dish with a taste and all of the fancy high-class French people think she's the shit! She's never cooked before, but suddenly she's the best chef in the world and even people raised on caviar and escargot say she's fucking amazing, a prodigy. And why does everyone around her love her or say she's special immediately after meeting her? The woman in the boutique. Jules. George Whitman. All of the chefs, artists, writers, and famous celebrities that the author name-dropped throughout the novel that Stella met.
Everything about her personal life either resolves too quickly or is left with loose ends. The romance at the end came out of nowhere. Daddy issues brought up and resolved immediately in the last 20 pages. And let's not forget the extremely graphic childhood trauma written in at the very beginning of the story that served NO purpose for the rest of the book and was only referenced once. Why, why???? At least the mommy issues were handled somewhat okay, but like. Stella felt more like a lens for the readers to view the story through than an actual character.
So yeah. Food was definitely the highlight of this story, and it was good. And I DID learn a lot about art history, cuisine, literature, and France in general which was really interesting. Definitely still going to plan that trip....more
For the first half of this book I was so sure I was going to give it 5/5 stars and that it was going to be my favorite boo3.5/5 really, spoilers ahead
For the first half of this book I was so sure I was going to give it 5/5 stars and that it was going to be my favorite book of the year. Things that I loved: the dragons, the academic setting, the characters (at first). A lot of people seem to dislike the writing style but I liked it. I was absolutely HOOKED and stayed up late into the night reading that first half, completely invested in Violet's journey to discover herself, her powers, and her bond with her dragons.
I loved the worldbuilding, the mysteries, the plot twists. The action was thrilling--from the Parapet to the Gauntlet to the sparring matches and Violet's powers. There were so many moments in the book that were so fucking hype to read, it was a struggle to put the book down. I loved Violet's characterization and growth as a rider, and I loved Xaden's history, motivations, and the complexity of his character. I also genuinely enjoyed the rest of the cast, but they unfortunately weren't given much screen time.
But then we get to the bad parts.
The big thing I didn't like: the romance. And considering most YA fantasy books (including this one) unfortunately tend to revolve everything around a central romance, that's kind of bad. It didn't bother me that much at first because there was very little romance for the initial half of the book, and I loved both the FMC and ML as characters individually.
But then the romance started to really take the center stage in the second half and that's where things got uninteresting for me. I wasn't super invested in Violet and Xaden being together, because I don't know where their feelings even came from. Violet's always lusting after him, talking about how beautiful he is, yada yada yada (really annoying to read those descriptions over and over again btw), but that's all the insight we get into her feelings for him. Their entire relationship revolves around physical attraction, and at the end somehow it turns into love but we don't really see how they got to that point. We just have them confess and that's that. We're supposed to believe that they have feelings deeper than the superficial because they say it to each other. What happened to show not tell?
Also, something that really took away from the book for me was the ending, where Violet gets angry at Xaden and breaks up with him for not trusting her with his secrets. Xaden explains that he couldn't tell her because there's a mind reader among them, and Violet insists that they would have figured it out and that Dain wouldn't do that (surprise surprise, he DID do that). Either way, it was a dumbass reason to break up and have a whole dramatic conversation over. Love and trust are important but just because you're in a relationship (and one that's only days old, btw) doesn't mean you're privy to all of his secrets, especially ones that aren't his to tell. Aretia being rebuilt, if it was revealed to leadership through Dain, wouldn't just have affected Xaden.
But Violet throws a huge tantrum about how she trusted him with everything (hilarious argument because she didn't have any big secrets to divulge anyway) and he didn't trust her back. After all that, this is how you're ending it?
I know what this is because I see it in every other YA book. I fucking hate when authors pull this trope where they find some inane reason for the MC to be mad at the ML so they can have their angst arc in the second book. I don't want an angst arc. I don't want this whole "we have to rebuild our trust from the start" thing to be a...thing. And I know I'm going to fucking hate the beginning of the second book for it. It's gonna be them being dramatic, angsty, casting longing looks at each other but they "have to stay away from each other" because Violet still doesn't trust him or whatever, all over a stupid ass argument that shouldn't have been an argument in the first place. Why do authors do this? It feels out of character for Violet and I'm not going to lie, ruined her for me even though I loved her so much.
I'm going to get the second book because I love the world and I'm invested and I loved this book so much in the beginning. But if my prediction is right I'm putting it down. I'm done with that bullshit...more
Loading...
