Later there’s a “romantic” (ymmv) scene between Bree and Sel and the author drops like a half-page of Sel therapyspeaking in the middle of it. And then she just goes and apologizes like: Sorry I did a bad thing, it was not good. There’s a point where Bree accidentally breaks someone’s hand with her Magical Arthurstrength and another character admonishes her out loud like: That was a bad thing you did, and it was not good, and you should apologize. I’m sick of it! They will say or think “Oh, that’s why you did this thing, because you felt x and thought y.” You shouldn’t be telling me that sort of stuff-you should be showing it with context. This is becoming really common not only in YA fiction but in like, zillion-dollar Hollywood movies and big-name TV shows, so forgive me if I seem annoyed. And this is in book 2!!!Ĭharacters also drop paragraphs of therapyspeak any time anything happens. Every! Single! Page! is full of explanation and infodumping. There are so many characters but they’re all totally indistinguishable because they’ve been relegated to being Information Conduits for the main character and the reader. There is genuinely no reason for it to be Arthurian themed at all-it’s just an excuse to use the names and drop in random Welsh words. Its magic system is convoluted and overstuffed every page introduces a zillion new Capitalized Terms for ranks or magic types that honestly have no bearing on what happens in the story. I think that this lack of focus is, ultimately, this series’ downfall. But it takes real talent and experience to write a Fun Urban Fantasy that is also a Meaningful Exploration of, much less all three of them at once. I think they can and should and quite often do a good job of it.
Now I’m not saying fantasy books can’t tackle complex topics. That is what Legendborn/Bloodmarked is on a surface level, but it’s also trying to be a commentary on grief and generational trauma and racism.
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