Member Reviews
thank you netgalley. thank you peachtree. oh boy.
i’m too online. i know i am. and this book came to my attention From The On Line, specifically a a blog post by the author about her publishing journey. it’s irregular.
TL;DR kiana krystle (KK) accidentally contacted an editor who requested her full. 20 beta readers had read her MS and had almost nothing but praise. after receiving rejections while querying- which were attributed to the MS being too literary, off-trend and not commercial, she sent it to the editor. the editor said the book needed a full rewrite but made an offer anyway, which lead to multiple offers of representation from agents. the editor acquired it and then presumably, revisions began. to reiterate, this book was sold on proposal which is, to my knowledge, uncommon for fiction.
given the novelty of this road to publication, i took an interest in what final product would emerge from the process. i’m aware that the book was rewritten from the bottom up with the guidance of an editor and agent, and gosh! compelling! what could that look like?? i’m a mess, i love to seek out uncommon cases, observe the discourse like i’m a birdwatcher, etc.
saying at the sort-of top, there’s nothing that thematically links this story with hades and persephone OR phantom of the opera. the phantom-y vibes are extremely superficial and hades persephone amounts to a pomegranate and a name-drop.
i did not think this book was good. i didn’t think it was good at all. i think the prose was overwritten in the same way that dough can be overworked, rendering it tough and unable to digest. we’re treated to hundreds of words of description that are meant to enhance the setting and atmosphere but felt to me like wasted space. the luster of the moonstone, the sweetness of the honey, it didn’t add anything to my experience reading.
man... i’m simply not a woman who’s susceptible to the fairycore flower girl coquette hyperfemme visual melange. maybe it’s my pollen allergy. and make no mistake, even though i am a spry 22, i do consider myself a woman, with complex thoughts in my head and ambitions and insecurities and a fully drawn inner world. i am appreciative of my independence and understand that other people have needs and souls and minds, that we all have responsibilities and desires. when i read, i will accept characters with even an iota of the complexity i see in other people. but there’s nothing in this book.
lila’s emotions were all over the place, oscillating wildly- sometimes from paragraph to paragraph without any time or care spent developing them. she goes from trusting and lovestruck to profoundly betrayed in mere sentences. she has a perspective on the nature of love and actions and redemption that i think i just fundamentally disagree with. her monologue is repetitive and long and is far too similar to her spoken dialogue. there is no distinguishing quality between the two, rendering it confusing in many places.
damien. how to describe damien when he is but a gossamer thin facsimile of a person, an automation to insert quarters into in exchange for words of affirmation. there is no depth inside of him. no desires beyond a strained relationship with his parents and their expectations. he falls in love instantly for seemingly no reason, ceaselessly reaffirming his devotion which seems to have sprung from nothing. what do these characters like and admire about each other beyond how the other reflects themself? you've never met anyone else with a complicated family life? it’s such a shallow, indulgent version of love and loving.
lila’s aunt laina exists solely to bolster her niece, to be endlessly patient with her emotions and to encourage her into situations of some danger. despite some implied history with her own siblings leaving their home, she never comes to terms with the twisted sort of life she’s made to live on luna island.
and there Is a Twist regarding the idyllic, pinterest-perfect luna island, one that ought to have ramifications for everyone who lives there. but it doesn’t. or at least we don’t see it.
and ah roisin. you should have been the love interest girlie pop. but then again what is there beyond her tacit desire to know what happened to her ex girlfriend from the previous pageant and her immediate and unfailing loyalty to lila? roisin suffers from not really wanting anything enough to act upon it, beyond managing lila’s ever-changing moods. we’re told everything about her, never shown.
now bear with me for this detour.
aesthetic goals to me are emblematic of a search for identity and sense of self. but instead of identity and selfhood being something internal and personal and sacred, the act of aestheticizing transforms it into an external signal for others to consume. someone builds a visual identity through the acquisition of goods, inhabitance of places, exhibition of attire etc.
as the social media age has forced authors to become the primary marketing force behind their books, they’re also forced on some level to become brands, which are inherently for consumption. and when you’ve already aestheticized your life, it becomes easier to lose any real texture of who you are for the sake of maintaining an image, an idea (or of course, to sell a product).
when looking at KK’s social media promotion of her book, there are types of images that recur. pastel fabrics, rolling tides, soft feathers and flower arrangements, delicate porcelain, strands of pearls. it’s all very sensory. imagine how soft this dress is, how these roses smell. the taste of these meringues, the feeling of gentle water on your feet. it makes me wonder about the performance and effort of it all.
would you post such looks into your life, your work, if you hadn’t already put in the work cultivating a certain look, with soft photo filters, a cohesive color palette and flawless makeup?
if those visual conventions weren’t already upon you, would you post the same way? as much? do you post to signal your aesthetic or do you maintain your aesthetic so you have material to post?
my life doesn’t often fit into acceptable and expected parameters of “what’s posted”, even in mundane ways, so i don’t feel the desire to share it- who would want to look? i just think that so much of modern, online life is tied to capitalism, commodity consumption, consumerism; it erodes my sense of self and i truthfully cannot imagine a world in which such things are able to help me construct my inner life and self.
with that slight (ha) digression, i’m going to talk a little about the portrayal of girlhood in the novel. i think KK sees girlhood as aesthetic rather than experience. girlhood as decoration rather than feeling. when we enshrine and idolize something so that’s so arbitrary yet universal, assign to it specific images and experiences, it becomes almost exclusionary and reductive. girlhood in this book is being amongst other beautiful girls in beautiful gowns, eating delicious food, exchanging little tokens and soft gifts. there’s seemingly no place for anything truly deviant.
i know that the fetishization of youth and femininity has always been around, but it still makes me pretty sad. you are worth more beyond your girlhood. you don’t have to dance for the patriarchy to feel liked. limiting yourself, even if you believe you’re making the choice to, is still limiting.
that is to say nothing about other things that are still rattling in my brain, the strange portrayal of representation politics that drops midway through, the relationship between cottagecore and white supremacy that goes unchallenged, my thoughts on the nature of love, the execution and tone of the entire final 15%. but we move!
there is a version of this book where a young woman arrives on a hyper-stylized island, so pristine and beautiful it becomes uncanny, cultish. she competes with and against a group of girls in a mystical pageant that has something to say on the nature of patriarchy, youth fetishization, beauty culture. she helps deprogram their ways of thinking, and they become close, perhaps even more intimate. at the same time she experiences the seductive nature of the island, the lifestyle, the ease of living, perhaps manifested in the form of a boy, tempting her away from her convictions, her sense of self, her new relationships. the temptation of this uncomplicated adoration and acceptance is so potent, so ingrained into what young women are expected to want. but eventually, perhaps, she and the other girls expose the truth of the island, the culture, the people, and dismantle it. from the difficult rejection of the simple, pastel, feminine grotesque comes the emergence of a more complete, complex and curious society. idk. whatever
Okay... There's potential here, but... it still needs a lot of work, which makes sense with how the author has said that she's rewritten this book from scratch multiple times in just the past couple of years, rather than editing what she already had. So, it doesn't seem like this draft has gotten much in the way of developmental edits. I don't think it's ready for an August publication date, but with some deep edits, I do think this could be wonderful. In its current state though... if it wasn't an ARC, I would have DNF'd in the first chapter. And I wanted to DNF at multiple other points after. I started skimming because I just wanted it over with. They should have pushed the publication date back again so that they could have more time making this work.
The Good
I love the concept of ballet magic. It's very Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses.
The idea of a beautiful island with a cultish vibe and dark secret is great.
Some (key word: some) of the descriptions are lovely.
The Bad
Like other reviews have said, the descriptions are way too much in this book. I love a good description, but this had so much purple prose, and repetitive purple prose at that, that I started skimming and got super annoyed. The editor should have really reined this in. With how there are still a few months before publication, there is still time to cut the descriptions down to a reasonable amount. There was such focus on description that the characters, plot, and world as a whole suffered immensely.
This is YA, but it feels kiddish in certain areas, like how one character kept giggling and going like, "it's for the angels, silly!" and how the pageant girls behave. I saw the animated Barbie movies were an influence for the author, which might be why this is, but it's jarring having moments like that in a story where the main character strangled her mom. And not jarring in a good way, like this lovely angel scene where then a girl gets turned into a monster. Jarring in a "this takes me out of the story" way.
Other reviews said this too, but there's a good way to keep a secret from the reader and there's a bad way. There's nothing wrong with wanting to keep what Lila did secret for effect - but how it was done didn't make me intrigued, it pissed me off. It felt like the author was taunting me with: "I know something you don't know!" And I was like, yeah, yeah, the character did a bad thing - either spill or get on with it.
The characters also feel very one-dimensional and like a lot of them have the same personality. I feel like you could swap a lot of Laina and Roisin's dialogue, and you wouldn't know the difference, that's how similar they are. No one had any depth aside from Lila.
Also, this is such a pet peeve, but I did ballet for over a decade. It really irks me when writers drop random ballet terms into their story to try to show that they did their research. I've only seen two books incorporate ballet terminology well, and they were written by people who had extensive experience in the ballet world. I always get so excited when I see ballet in books, but then I'm always let down because I'm like, ah. You don't know what you're talking about. I also think it's very ill-advised to use ballet terms in a story that isn't centered on a ballet school or professional company. The average reader isn't going to have any idea what those words mean, which will take them out of the story.
There's weird disjointedness in the story telling, too. It doesn't flow, or it will be flowing and then there will be a scene that throws it out of sync, like Lila remembering her time in ballet while on sitting outside with Roisin. I get what the author was trying to do, but it didn't work. And her rant to Roisin about ballet... no one talks like that, bodies going into cyclones and all this. It felt so unnatural.
The romance... there wasn't any chemistry. I could buy them as friends, but I didn't ship them at any point. It's meant to be soft and sweet, it's YA after all. But instead, I was bored and didn't see any reason to root for them. The "I love you" was an eyebrow raising moment. You can still make the reader swoon with soft and sweet - Jenny Han does it all the time. But you need chemistry for there to be swooning, and there was no chemistry here.
The plot with the Devil and everything... I don't know, man. Maybe it's that I was raised Catholic, so using the Devil like that always feels offensive to me (which is actually why I stopped reading Laini Taylor's books, which this is comped to. Loved her writing, but hated what she did with angels and demons.) But yeah, this felt overwrought and sure, with fantasy, you need to suspend the disbelief, but what happens still needs to be believable. A lot of what happened in this book was just like... ok... I guess that happened....
Yeah. This book sounded magical, and with a lot more work, it could be. But as it is... I did not have a good time.
SOOOO SOOOO SOOOOO GOOD! Loved the story line, the plot was fantastic, I gave it 4 stars but my heart is giving 5 so......
Alright, so firstly, I want to thank NetGalley for providing me with a digital arc of this book. I'm not going to lie, this is one of those instances where you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover (or description, or title). I haven't even downloaded this book, because I saw how poorly rated this was by almost everyone who read it. I know I should and could read this to form my own opinion, but I'm also a firm believer that you shouldn't waste your time reading books you don't like. I'm sad to see this book receive so many DNFs and negative reviews, because the premise seems awesome, the cover and the title are absolutely beautiful. I don't want to rate it 1 star if I haven't read it, so I'm just giving a neutral 3 stars to submit my feedback.
DNF @ 15%, for several reasons.
1. The writing was, to say the least, chaotic. The narrative tone shifted constantly, so no real sense of the stakes (as seen through the protagonist's eyes) could be had. I think the "by way of Laini Taylor" bit in the blurb refers to how both books are written with very purple prose, but the writing here showed no control; it was florid, filled with constant similes/metaphors, and awkwardly phrased.
2. The worldbuilding was non-existent. Granted this is a contemporary setting, so the technological levels made sense, but Luna Island itself did not. A super-twee village off the east coast where everything is covered in roses and everyone is beautiful and kind and cheerful, and that somehow turns away most people who try to visit? Great concept! But the execution had no depth, and Laina's immediate acceptance of her surroundings felt so jarring and false.
3. Laina is...not much of a character. No one is given much depth, but Laina spends most of her time wallowing over a great disaster in her past, and how that's made her monstrous and hate-able -- and all of this is information we're just told, while Laina plays coy about telling us exactly what happened. Which would have been fine -- a slow reveal works in many stories -- but this was just...hamfisted.
4. We're not given much context for the plot. Granted, we don't need much, but we're not anchored in the story from the beginning because all we get are overblown descriptions of the island and not, say, Laina's interior thoughts about it beyond "how can I, a monster, live in such a beautiful place?".
5. I think there's the start of a good story here, in how parental expectations and love being withheld/the child being punished when those expectations aren't met, and if that had been centered more, the plot and Laina's emotional journey would have more weight and more energy as the story moved forward.
6. A total pet peeve: why do we need to know so much about her nails? Are they plot relevant? Unfortunately, I will not be reading further to find out.
I really wanted to get into this book, but sadly had to DNF this at 9% through. Right from the beginning things are chaotic and the writing is all over the place with nowhere to go. The FMC’s head voice is too whiny for my taste and I couldn’t really follow the insane amount of descriptions of where she was and what she was doing, it was information overload with no purpose. Just not an author for me. But I want to thank the publisher for allowing me to receive this book before being published.
✰
I saw Phantom of the Opera, paranormal mystery and mythology, and I was immediately interested. Unfortunately, I almost dnf this book several times, which is so disappointing :(
From the first page, I already knew this wouldn't be my kind of book. Normally, I can get past overly elaborate descriptions like this book has, but something about the writing didn't connect with me. I also felt like there were way too many similes/metaphors used to the point where it almost felt tiring to read. This isn't an exaggeration, I'm pretty sure there were at least 1-2 unnecessary comparisons per page.
I was also confused by the setting. I thought this took place in a fantasy world, so I when I realized that it didn't, it definitely took me out of the story. The plot and the romance didn't really manage to capture me at all either. It's honestly a shame, the premise had potential!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The descriptions inside the book are SO PRETTY. It's very pastel ocean beach vibes. Like planet earth but an alternate version where everything tastes like rose macarons. There IS a horror element though, and I don't want to spoiler.
Best read this book while eating something sweet with ballet music or ocean waves in the background, or pretty scented candles, at least.
Please note : the rating is not valid because I DNF this book.
I will not be finishing this story. I stopped this book because it feels all over the place and chaotic in the worst way.
The main character is very much “woe is me” and I don’t fit in and I’ll never have friends. Frankly, there isn’t anything about her that makes me connect or want to like her. If I don’t like the main character, that ruins a huge chunk of the book.
The writing is both overly descriptive and yet very bland. It gives too much descriptive on the buildings and items within the world and yet you are left confused about what’s actually going on. Honestly, it gives of AI vibes (sorry to the author if you didn’t use AI)
This book lost me at the “cult” of angel’s /the devil with human sacrifice every seven years. I thought I was reading about a Phantom of the Opera retelling? Not whatever this is. The cover and blurb pulled me but the actual book pushed me out.
Not to mention that the entire time, our FMC keeps whining about “the deed” and how she’s a monster. Because she flubbed an audition, her parents got mad which set her off to strangle her mom? What?!
I will not be sharing this review on any of my platforms out of respect of the publisher/author.
I like to thank the publisher and NetGalley for saving me some cash on this one.
I was after this book because Phantom of the Opera was referenced.... and the cover. Getting the arc, I dove right in. I don't hate read books, I absolutely dislike DNF'ing, too. But this book. This book was probably one of the worst reading experiences. Ever.
Lets start the with cover: with a cover like that, I thought it would take place in a fantasy world, or a world with fantasy vibes. Wrong. This takes place in the United States. On a fantasy island somewhere on the east coast called Luna Island. Now, the strange thing about this island is ... I think it's a cult. Everyone has shops that are called really sweet and saccharine names. Names that would belong with Barbie land. Our main character ends up there, and boy... man, lets get into HOW she ends up there. (You wanna know how EXTRA this town is, check this quote out: The spray tans on Luna Island are different than the ones I'm used to. Instead of bronzing my skin the machine coats me in a veil of golden glitter, like I'm an angel myself.)
Our main character is eighteen (well, 17, she turns 18 in the book). You find out that she LOVES to dance, and that she is gunning to be a ballerina. A professional one. Her parents I guess (from her viewpoint) are stage mom and dad and expect the best. (They are also Asian, so cue a lot of focused social commentary about honor, etc. etc.) Well, one day, she wipes out at an audition. Her mother goes off on her and ... ladies and gentleman, she strangles her mother.
I am not making this up. She strangles her mom, and she is shipped off to this island to live with her aunt. Cue a whole bunch of 'I don't fit in' moments of looking at white girls with cupcake dresses and what not. It's at one of these outings she overhears the girls talking about 'angels' You find out that they are 100% talking about angels. This island / town is a cult that worships some angels and do some crazy stuff to get their attention and become their prized winner of the island.
Our boy of this, well, he is one of the angels. His name? Damien. Damien ... which is the name of the antichrist, made popular from the film and book The Omen, and every thing known about the anticrhrist. Well, he is an angel that fell from heaven after the 'Devil' fell from heaven. The devil rescued Damien, his sister, and his pals and force them to find pretty girls to, and I quote, "If the devil has to be trapped in hell, then we will make it beautiful for him". All because the devil saved the angels from the sea.
Excuse me, what?
The romance is really strange, its basically a lot of 'I can't tell you' repeated over and over, and then when she finds out what's going on, he goes "I was trying to save you!"... My dude, your name is DAMIEN. I expect nothing good from you, esp. since you're working for the Devil. (I also got some gay vibes, or sensitive vibes at the least when he took her to his hideaway which has fairylights and pictures of sunflowers, which reminded me of Betsey Johnson's spring catalog.)
There is a lot of strange stuff in this book, which has me wondering if the author is okay. I don't know if it was a self insert, or if it was just a case of things she wanted to say / write but came off badly, but the social commentary was there sometimes in this book and it came on WAY too strong. But, I think the hardest part was: this was a girl who tried strangling her mother over ballet dancing. It was truly bizarre and once finding that out I couldn't her seriously.
Then, there is magic aspect. Since the author REALLY wants to hound home the whole 'ballet' knowledge, the character would act like that type of girl who likes to show off her knowledge by dropping various ballet poses and movements into the book. Okay. Random again. At one point the angel is seriously wounded and she heals him by pirouetting around him. Her rage helps fuel this, and by the end of the book, she gets so angry that she makes this cult island burst into flames and sends a tsunami too. I thought everyone died on this island, but she and Damien clean / heal up the islanders by dancing ballet down the street.
The writing is also very purple prose but it's another level of purple prose that I call 'technicolor' or 'plaid'. There is also an obsession of giving this girl stiletto nails, and the author cannot seem to keep you from forgetting about these nails. At one point, I wanted her to poke her eye out because I got so fed up with her mentioning these nails. Her heart and breath had a lot of stops and sputters that made you wonder if a heart-attack would happen. There is also an obsession with seafoam. Everything was seafoam this, seafoam that, and I've been to beach towns on the westcoast. You are not going to find an obsession of sea foam. But this is cult land so I guess it makes sense they have an obsession with seafoam.
The plot is just really, really, lackluster and the whole event / why these girls are trying to win the coveted spot of chosen girl is for reasons unknown to them - it's more like a popularity thing. Never-mind girls are MISSING from the island (including her new friend's girlfriend). But you come to find out the girls are getting sacrificed and that the Devil needs our female character's powers to stabilize his kingdom under the sea, and the other girls didn't have hate in their hearts to channel the magic to do so, so they would turn into sirens.
The end of the book was absolutely an accumulation of everything I went over and our lead guy saying 'PEACE' after she ballet danced turning him into a real boy. She also gets a letter from LE PALAIS GARNIER asking her to audition for them since they saw her audition video (you know, the one she fucked up on and led to her choking her mom). I was like, WHAT to both the audition request from the Palais Garnier asking her to audition (another fantasy notion) and her angel (now a real boy) leaving her to see the world.
Finishing the book, I think the quote is misleading. There is no Phantom of the Opera vibes from this - unless you mean 'Angel of Music', but none of the angels play music. There is no Hades and Persephone vibes, since nobody is 'stealing' any one away and falling in love / defying family, etc. Lani Taylor's writing is purple prosey, but not like this.
Overall, this has to be a self insert for the author or a creative writing class project. I really don't think this book is going to go over well. The writing, the plot does not match the somewhat pretty cover. You can paint a piece of turd to look like an easter egg but it still is shit.