Incredible world-building and complex characters (& dragons) really blew me away! You can tell that so much thought and detail was put into even the smallest things, and I loved gathering pieces along the way to get a bigger picture. A fantasy world (with its own fully laid out language), millennia of princesses, a dragon, and sacrifice is what makes up Damsel. If you like fantasy adventures with a strong female lead, you’ll love it!

“Sometimes it’s better not to think too hard. You will understand when you are older. Life in Aurea is like a pond at sunrise, serene and reflecting golden light. You’ll break it if you throw rocks in the water.”

Wow, Damsel is amazing. I flew through this book! All of the characters were written perfectly, the plot was fresh, the atmosphere perfect. This is a great example of a book that does not have wasted space, every chapter adds to the story and helps build to one of the best book endings I have read in awhile. I also teared up a few times, which is always a plus. And we get a Netflix adaptation?? Perfection.

This book took every YA trope known to man and shoved it into one book, hoping it would make up for the lack of world-building and help us overlook the gaping plot holes throughout it.

First, some things I liked about the book. I loved Elodie and Floria's relationship. I love sibling bonds and the dynamic between them was really sweet. Elodie's love for her people was inspiring. She was very selfless in how much she cared for them, even if they did not always like her.

This book started off fairly well. Elodie is from a poor duchy and just wants to help her people. When she is arranged to be married to the prince of Aurea, in exchange for crops and water for her duchy, she accepts. She is thrilled to have a chance at love and save her people at the same time, but something terrifying is waiting for Elodie to fall into its trap.

I love a good story about a girl who saves herself, but this one was not it. This read so much like a script. We are always told and not shown how characters feel, especially Elodie, making it hard to truly care. When books are written this way, the characters are not given any room to be nuanced or grow into themselves. Elodie's actions seemed at odds with each other at times. If the book had taken more time to truly delve into Elodie's personality, her decisions would not have seemed so ludicrous. The villain was almost comical in their evilness since we did not have the chance to get to see their motives in different lights. Everything, from the characters to the world-building, has just enough details to be readable, but flat and uninteresting.

Elodie was hard to read about. Several times it is pointed out how unlike other girls she is, all because she climbs trees and lost her virginity before marrying. Several times characters comment on how unique she is, or how no one else would do such a thing. Damsel has fallen into the classic trap of trying to prove how strong the main female character is by tearing all other women down. In an effort to make her more relatable, it is often mentioned how awkward she can be, and how she says the wrong things. The wrong things were not even that terrible, and her speech was not consistent. Sometimes she was so eloquent with her words, only to say something jarring in the next conversation.

The plot had so many holes. I will not go into detail to avoid spoilers, but so many things happened that were just too convenient to be believable. The biggest plot hole though, is how does Aurea keep their monstrous activities a secret? It is widely known throughout the kingdom, among the royals and the commoners. In fact, it is actively encouraged to tell your children from a young age so they can be grateful for what the royals sacrifice. However, trade abounds in this kingdom. People are allowed to come and go as they please. The fact that one person would not have let slip what awful things the royals do, is ridiculous and made the book even harder to enjoy.

I think this would be a book that twelve to thirteen-year-old girls would like, but there were things mentioned that I think would make it inappropriate for that age group as well. It lacked good writing and plot that would keep older teenagers engaged yet had some disturbing things that younger girls might not be prepared for.

I think this will make a good movie. This book just needed several more rounds of editing to form a plausible story and a likable heroine.

Review will post to Goodreads now, but reshared closer to release date of Damsel. This review will also be posted to Amazon in March of 2023.

If this is the book based on a screen play, then I expect the movie to be phenomenal because the book was just that. The show has some pretty big shoes to fill following what Ms Evelyn Skye was able to expand upon.

If you are looking for a nice romantic love story where our villain has a complete 180 and redeems himself, this isn't that type of story. This is a story of survival, of not giving up even when all the odds are stacked against you, of righting the wrongs of the past and forging a new future.

When we first meet our protagonist Elodie ann awkward young woman, but who cares about the subjects of the small land locked and poor duchy her father rules over. Her arranged marriage to the prince of Aurea will give her a chance to help save her people from chronic starvation and poverty. But all is not as it seems in the paradise that Aurea paints itself to be. And on her wedding night, the dream Elodie thought she was going to live, turns into a nightmare.

A definite five star read for me. I was able to see myself in that labyrnin along with Elodie. Waiting in line at Disneyland for the Rise of the Resistance ride (which has a lot of cave like areas in its queue) really added realism as I read the novel. The ending was something I did not see coming.

This book was an interesting/AHMAZING ROLLERCOASTER!!!💕I do love the characters and world building and the love and sacrifice throughout the story. A minor thing that I did not like would be the bits and pieces of the dragon language explanations. I felt it was highly irrelevant. Towards the middle and end of the story I do feel the pacing was quite fast and things happening way faster in succession than in the beginning. Elodie and her little sister have such a strong bond and save each other and are not “average” in their royalty and status. They love fiercely and the world truly needs more stories where sisters can save each other instead of a valiant knight or prince. Truly 10 whole ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It was good once you get past the bit of dragging the first part does. But afterwards it quickly jumps into action. I just wish there was a bit more that happened. It felt so long for so little to happen.

I have nothing positive to say about this book, that started so promising but soon became a chore to read, so I'll be brief and to the point: it's very YA, and traditional and tropey at that.

This is about a duke's daughter from a drought-stricken duchy called Inophe that is married off to the crown prince of Aurea to save her people from famine and worse hardships, but that, on arriving to the isle and marrying the charming prince, finds out there's a dark secret she was not expecting. As a consequence of decisions taken long ago, the Aurean kingdom owes its prosperity to questionable practices that will have Elodie facing a dragon. She's supposed to kiss life goodbye then but manages to do what no damsel has done before, saving the day for herself and everyone.

So far, so good, doesn't it sound so? But where is the difference, the uniqueness and the breaking of new ground the blurb promised, I have to ask? Elodie is a typical YA heroine, and a special snowflake that does everything right where no man can do right, including her stupid father. She acts and talks like your average YA heroine, with cringey lines such as an all-caps "BURN ME, BITCH!" and is generally so superficially written she is a cardboard cutout of every single YA heroine you've seen everywhere; she reacts to the plot, the plot doesn't move because of her but the reverse, and she has such a generic personality she's easy to forget and hard to relate.

Not even her "taking on" of the dragon is really anything unique or groundbreaking. Maybe it would have decades ago when damsels in distress were all the rage, but now that every YA heroine acts like she doesn't need anyone in the world to save her sorry hide from scrapes she gets into, this is the default trope, actually. I can remember a number of books with this Dragon Sacrifice trope in which the damsel "takes on" the dragon in ways that are really just twists in which it's revealed the dragon isn't really a bad fellow or, like here, resorting to a trick a male dragonslayer has used and writing a female in his place. If you think Elodie's solution to the dragon is so unique, you need to read more mythology. Perseus and Medusa, anyone?

And if it weren't enough, the revelation on how she "takes on" the dragon (I don't think this is a fair way to put it, since Elodie didn't go for the dragon and was forced to) is so very convenient, done at the last moment with little build-up, and melodramatically executed so it interrupts a wedding, allows Elodie to give some dramatic speech, and crowns her as this overpowered saviour of a world that's so poorly built it's not even developed as a place that feels lived in and rich but a Fantasy copypasta of several European countries, mostly England. And don't even let me started on the 800 uninterrupted years of dragon sacrifice that didn't lead to rebellions or trouble and that somehow stayed a mystery for near a millennia until Princess Special Snowflake could break the streak with the help of, you know, magic, because magic is the new Deus ex Machina.

But the thing that really bothered me early on was the invented language. I appreciate the creativity that goes into inventing a fictional language, it's truly a work of art, and there's fictional languages out there that have a deserved cult following, such as Tolkien's Elvish. But this? The language used here is incredibly crude to the point it's likely to sound laughable to a speaker of any of the languages it's based on. To me, it was so like a butchered amalgamation of French, Italian, and Latin with some nonsensical sounds that when I sounded them out loud they rang like a drowning Dothraki. It's so crudely done it's annoying, and also very childish. If they thought we'd not notice how lazy it is, too, then they underestimated the audience. To a native speaker of any of these languages, it'll be obvious that it's merely changing some letters and calling it a "new" language. As if writing "merdú" and "vorrai" would fool anyone that it's anything but merda and vorrei (in Italian).

Chopping up words from a given language and giving it new vowels and endings doesn't make a new language. Stringing together grating sounds and slapping the grammar rules of a existing language on them doesn't make a new language. It's simply letting your child play Scramble while pretending it's somehow as genius as Tolkien. And I'm sorry, but this isn't Quenya, isn't Klingon, isn't Valyrian, and isn't Dothraki. It's an amorphous blob and the creator is not the new Tolkien. Leave the creation of fictional languages to people who actually know how to create them, and don't drag your child's hobby into a novel because you think it's cute.

I'd imagine Netflix want to hop into the dragon bandwagon started by GOT and House of the Dragon, but they could've done better than this. Not recommended.

I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

2 likes

I love a book with a strong, independent female lead, and this book fit that bill. I wasn't quite sure where the book would end up, and I was pleasantly surprised by the end. I enjoyed how the author set out the different characters motives and developed them throughout the story. I am intrigued to see what happens with the film.

Thanks Netgalley and publishers for the free e-arc.

I was absolutely intrigued by Damsel as soon as I first read the book description - I knew I just HAD TO get my hands on it. Thank you Random House Publishing Group Ballantine for a digital ARC!

Skye is such a great craftswoman at building mythical worlds and illustrating their settings, that as the reader, you really feel pulled in right from the start. The main character, Elodie, is genuinely brave and bold and makes for a great heroine to root for and follow. I will say that the target age group for this book in my opinion is very young adult, as in no older than 17 0r 18. As someone older than that reading Damsel, I felt there were just a few parts of the story I couldn't 100% connect with just because certain moments felt a bit too "young" or adolescent.

However, I cannot wait to see how Netflix develops this wonderful story!

I always struggle with third person pov but this story didn’t stand out to me compared to any other young adult fantasies I’ve read.

4.5 stars

That was an intriguing read that will check a lot of boxes for a lot of people.
The MC was likable and made sense as a character.
The villains had understandable reasons and dimensions.
Definitely interested in seeing this once it comes to Netflix.
Recommended.

BEYOND PHENOMENAL! Damsel by Evely Skyes is a perfect example of why I so rarely give 5 stars. This book is easily my favorite YA of the year, hands down. I can not wait to get my hands on a physical copy this coming March.

"A damsel in distress takes on the dragon herself in this epic twist on classic fantasy"

Get ready to who you believe the villain is over and over again, and yet still find yourself not quite sure by the end.
Elodie sacrifices the choice of husband and life on her lands by agreeing to marry the prince of a far-off unknown land in exchange for ending the starvation that is plaguing her desert home. Little does Elodie know, wording is always key and some sacrifices are too monsters for one to imagine.

Overall 6/5 stars
Character detail and development 4/5
Fluidity of timeline and character pov:5/5
Writing style 5/5
Spice: 0/5

Trigger warnings: one mention of purity and lack there and there is mention of death and violence throughout but both are written in a very respectable manner that is appropriate for a YA book.

I received an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Elodie isn’t your typical damsel in distress. Even if she’s married to a stranger to save her hungry kingdom. She’s smart. Fierce. And doesn’t give up on herself or on others. No spoilers, but she’s a clever princess who can save herself. Elodie is just the sort of do-it-yourself, latrine-digging-royalty that YA fantasy needed.