A February wrap-up in end-of-March, part 2: baby can’t stop reading romances and being disappointed

After reading my first romantic comedy in the beginning of the month, I was on a roll. I began to go through other novels mentioned by Cari can read, looking for premises that were appealing to me. That is when I found The Entanglement of Rival Wizards and Romancing the Duke.

The Entanglement of Rival Wizards (2025)

This is exactly what’s on the tin: there are rival wizards and they are entangled.

Two postgrad from rival branches of magic studies are competing for a research grant and are forced to tolerate each other when it is announced that they will have to share it. It had a bit of a Pride and Prejudice vibe, Sebastian being prejudiced against Elethior’s family’s unsavoury reputation, and Elethior being too proud to clear the air. I enjoyed reading them bicker, then find common ground, enjoy each others’ personality and fall in love.

There was one thing I did not understand though. The main characters are postgrad students conducting their own independent research, not working for a professor’s projec. Shouldn’ they be PhD students…? Or postdocs ? I am in the Humanities, so maybe I just don’t know how master degrees work in STEM, but it did confuse me. Well, now that I think about it, they were both 24 years old and that’s about the age you would be at the start of a PhD program if you didn’t have to repeat a year, so maybe I also just don’t understand how degrees work in the US.

In short, it was not particularly well-written. It was not particularly deep. I had a good time. I felt seen by the characters’ struggles with their research (though their relationships with their advisors is markedly better than mine in the sense that it exists). The story was pretty cute though, and it has a good heart, so if you like that sort of thing you should definitely try it, I just don’t think I will be reading the other novels set in the same universe.

However, it didn’t turn me off from reading romance!

Romancing the Duke (2014)

This novel made me feel like maybe the straights do deserve love.

I read this book in one seating. While this might be a common occurence for some, it sure isn’t for me. I have stuff to do. But in that case, I was stuck in an airplane for about 12 hours and my partner was asleep, so I decided to take another page from Cari can read‘s book and try reading a romance on the plane. Welp, that’s just genius.

It made the hours pass like minutes. I always have trouble working on a plane because I usually can’t sleep the night before, and then there’s always too much noise and not enough room to spread all of my mess. So I either power through it or numb my brain by watching all of the movies available onboard. This time, I didn’t have that issue. I don’t think I even opened my computer. I just read and slept and ate. Cari can read (yes, again, what about it?) reviewed it in one of her wrap-up video, along with several other Tessa Dare novels that she described as stupid and fun.

Well, sold. Apparently it is my new favourite kind of books (I’m a bit scared for my sanity). And how it delivered. I loved how stupid it was, sure, with the Comic Con level of fandom in regency era, the quips between the duke and the main character, the feral ferret (yes), but I especially loved how earnest it was in embracing the stupid. Contrarily to the last book of today’s article, it felt incredibly honest, like it was a story that meant something to the author and that she had fun writing

He just wants to be left alone. She has nowhere to go and nothing better to do. She unilaterally decide that she will stay until their lawyers can make sense of this mess. In the meantime, they have to survive each others, yes, but also piss-poor self-esteem issues, a hord of her late father’s rabid fans invading their home, shady lawyer businesses (what other kind is there?), and the unbearable attraction they feel for each other.

The banter was great. The side characters were hilarious. I was obsessed with the setting of a ruined but inhabited castle full of drafts and leaks and skeletons (?). The only flaw, really, came at the climax (sic) during which everything happened a little too fast, which seems to be a theme in a lot of novels I’ve read lately.

What Moves the Dead (2022)

Sadly, this is a great exemple of huge expectations ruining a book… I had heard so much praise for T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon’s novels, how they were amazing, funny, original, and so on, that I thought this book was going to change my life.

Well.

It really didn’t. It wasn’t bad by any means. It just was… underwhelming. I guessed what the mystery was before even cracking it open. Not that I am a genius, the cover and the back cover just made it really, really obvious, and it definitely impacted my experience with this novel as I was just waiting for the characters to catch up. It’s a bit like when you watch a movie trailer that looks amazing but then you watch the movie and all of the best scenes were in the trailer, including the climax. It doesn’t mean that it’s a shitty movie, but it does not make for a great experience.

Alex is a sworn soldier, a concept unique to their country which allows women to join the army against the price of their womanhood: they thus adopt a sort of third gender with its own set of pronouns. While in the army, years ago, they were reunited with another of their childhood friend, Roderick Usher, Madeline’s twin brother. Both are now only shadows of themselves, already haunting the halls of the dilapidated manor that sits near a lake of dark, stagnant water, in the middle of a forest taken over by zombie-like hares. Along with a useless Unitedstatian doctor, an English mycologist named Eugenia Potter, and Alex’s loyal batman (not actually anything like Christian Bale), Alex must try to solve the mystery of this house and of the strange illness that has taken possession of their friends.

Cool concept, no? It was. The main issue was, as I’ve said, that the publishing house should have maybe made a bit more of an effort to hide the reveal rather than plaster it on the cover… That way, it would have been less obvious, and would have made the characters appear less stupid for not knowing the truth as soon as they set foot in the manor. I also wished this book was longer. I think it would have helped establishing the atmosphere and the mystery. As it was, the creepiness only worked towards the end.

I liked the concept of sworn soldier, which I think Kingfisher took from the sworn maidens of Albania, as well as the work done on pronouns. It reminded me of Ursula K. LeGuin’s work in The Left Hand of Darkness, and I am always appreciative of authors who try to create new social rules in their fantasy worlds, rather than reuse Middle Age England ad nauseam.

I have one last thing to nitpick. A word of warning, it is petty, even to me. I had an issue with the mycologist character, Eugenia Potter. I liked her just fine right until the point we learn that she is actually Beatrix Potter’s aunt. Like, the author or Peter Rabbit and actual mycologist. Until then, I only thought that it was a cool reference to her and that reveal felt cheap to me, almost a bit insulting, because it implied that in this world Beatrix Potter became a mycologist through the influence of her trailblazing aunt rather than being the trailblazer herself, which she was in reality, having to fight to be taken seriously. This felt like an erasure of her real struggles in favour of creating a cool character. I warned you, it is petty, and should not be taken too seriously.

The House in the Cerulean Sea (2020)

I don’t know what to say about this book. No, that’s not true, I have a lot to say, but you might not want to read a 10-page essay on the issue. Let me just say that I disliked it so much that upon DNRing it, I went back to the bookstore and gave it back for their used shelf, because I did not want to waste the space in my luggage.

So what’s it about?

Linus is a caseworker for the government tasked with inspecting orphanages that care for magical children. One day, he is sent to a secret orphanage where really dangerous kids live to devise if they are properly cared for by the headmaster and if he is not preparing a little revolt on his own. Linus goes there, falls in love with the kids, falls in love with the headmaster. They challenge the evil government that wants to make sure the antechrist does not destroy the world. The end.

It was not that bad at first. I was not a fan of the style, which felt reminiscent of Pratchett without the wit , but I really wanted what it was selling so I read on, thinking that a lot of novels didn’t have the best start anyway. But the longer I read, the worst it was. After a few dozen pages, I went to the Goodreads – my mortal flaw – to see if anyone else had issues similar to mine with the writing and the story, and that’s when I got ticked off. What do you mean a rating of 4,36 out of 5? For this bullshit?

I felt like I wasn’t reading the same book as everyone else. Everyone was going on over the warm, gushy feelings the story gave them, how amazing it was, how cute, and I thought I was having a stroke. Sure the premise is cute. But what about the execution?? Like, am I really the ONLY one who felt like it was artificial?? insincere?? That it read like it had been cooked in a lab with what was trending at the moment on booktok #cosyfantasy #gayromance #foundfamily and served on a carton platter?

The books treats us like we’re five. I am not kidding, I have read kid’s books with more depth. In fact, I would argue that most kid’s books are deeper than this one. Don’t believe me? Here is an extract from The Little Prince by Saint Exupéry:

« I am looking for friends. What does that mean–‘tame’? »
« It is an act too often neglected, » said the fox. It means to establish ties. »
« ‘To establish ties’? »
« Just that, » said the fox. « To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred
thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . . »
[…]
« My life is very monotonous, » the fox said. « I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . . »
[…]
So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near–
« Ah, » said the fox, « I shall cry. »
« It is your own fault, » said the little prince. « I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . . »
« Yes, that is so, » said the fox.
« But now you are going to cry! » said the little prince.
« Yes, that is so, » said the fox.
« Then it has done you no good at all! »
« It has done me good, » said the fox, « because of the color of the wheat fields. »

Great, isn’t? I am tearing up at this very moment.

Now, let’s take a look at the quotes that made me lose all hope about The House in the Cerulean Sea being any good. Mind you, he is speaking to and about his cat:

“All right,” Linus said. “Let’s review, shall we? I can either do what I was sent here to do, or I can sit here and hope a better idea comes to me, preferably where I keep all my bits and bobs as they are.”
Calliope dug her claws into his thighs.
He winced. “Yes, yes. I suppose you’re right. It is cowardly, but it also means we stay alive.”
She licked her paw slowly before brushing it over her face.
“No need to be rude,” he muttered. “Fine. If I must.” He reached for the door handle. “I can do this. I will do this. You stay here, and I’ll—”
He didn’t have time to react. He opened the door, and Calliope leapt from his lap. She hit the ground and took off running toward the garden.
“Of all the— You stupid cat! I will leave you here!”
He would do no such thing, but empty threats were better than no threats at all. Calliope disappeared beyond a line of perfectly maintained bushes. He thought he saw a flash of her tail, but then she was gone.
Linus Baker was not a fool. He prided himself in that regard. He was well aware of his limitations as a human being. When it was dark, he preferred to be locked safely inside his house, wearing his monogrammed pajamas, a record playing on the Victrola, holding a warm drink in his hands.
That being said, Calliope was essentially his only friend in the entire world.
So when he climbed out of the car, rocks crunching under his feet in the driveway, it was because he understood that sometimes, one had to do unsavory things for those one cared about.

Thank you for spelling it out loud for me. It is true that I am five years old and needed help understanding why someone might get out of a car, especially if they were afraid of what was outside their car, to retrieve their pet. I might never have understood it if the author had not mentioned that it was because Linus loves his cat! And people who love things do things that scare themsometimes! WHoa! Never knew.

Am I bitter? Certainly. I am also right.

Anyway, I only pushed through one more chapter, but that was the one where he met the children of the orphanage and they were all written like the author had never met a child before, so I gave up.

“Are you Mr. Baker? If you are, we’ve been expecting you. If not, you’re trespassing, and you should leave before I bury you here in my garden. No one would ever know because the roots would eat your entrails and bones.” She frowned again. “I think. I’ve never buried anyone before. It would be a learning experience for the both of us.”

Yes, that’s a totally normal way of speaking for a ten year old.

And if the quality of the novel was not enough, I found its postulate really weird. We are supposed to be rooting against the government and to think that it’s really unfair that they monitor kids that are different. Klune was inspired by the Canadian policies regarding First Nation children from the 1950s to the 1980s, especially residential schoold and the Sixties Scoop (https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/sixties_scoop/). Sure. Why not. Except that the parallel does not work. The children in this orphanage pose very real risks. One of them is literally the Antechrist. It is not prejudiced to be afraid of someone who has the power to destroy the planet in a second. First Nation children were… well absolutely regular shmegular children who just had the misfortune of being Native in a racist country.

Furthermore, the children in the novel are not mentioned to have been taken. They seem to be orphans put into homes and monitored for the risk they present, not trafficked into non-magical families. First Nation children were kidnapped, trafficked or horribly abused in residential schools, leading to more than 4,000 deaths (https://www.macewan.ca/campus-life/news/2023/09/news-conversation-cardinal-23/). So you see, it does not quite work.

I will say, I DNRed this book after about 50 pages and I would not have known about the Sixties Scoop connection if I had not done some research, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. It might be your thing. It definitely was not mine. I might try Klune’s other books later, as I saw in the Goodreads reviews that even some of his hardcore fans were disappointed by this novel, but I am not in a hurry. A disappointing end of the month.

On that note…

Until next time!

You have noticed that there was no token-thesis-book-of-the-month (or ttbotm) this month. Well, there was. It is so big that I just could not finish it in February. In fact, as I write these lines, I still have not finished it, but I have good hopes to be done by the end of March! So see you next time!