I know I've said it before but while in general I am a fan of the fact that romantasy as a genre exists, and popular culture is finally acknowledging that women get horny and like sex, I wish it didn't mean formulaic heterosmut now has to be shoehorned...
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In the first point in his favour in over 200 pages he's having none of it and persists in trying to rescue her. "Refusing to have sex with someone incapable of consenting due to actively tripping balls" should be the basic standard of human decency rather than a characteristic of a romantic hero, but at this point it's one step ahead of poncing around in a frock coat while taking ownership of all her achievements so I am now Team Chonk.
So a couple of people have asked for the name of the book, but I'm not going to share it here because I'd feel horrible if the author then found all the mean (if entirely deserved) things I'd said about it and it turned out she had poured her heart and soul into it and all the money from sales was going to fund her dying grandmother's adorable cat's splenectomy or something.
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So a couple of people have asked for the name of the book, but I'm not going to share it here because I'd feel horrible if the author then found all the mean (if entirely deserved) things I'd said about it and it turned out she had poured her heart and soul into it and all the money from sales was going to fund her dying grandmother's adorable cat's splenectomy or something.
That's why I've deliberately omitted some features of the curse, and also avoided giving the names of the characters, although while writing this toot I realised I've actually forgotten Thighs McAbsoluteUnit's real name, which I think is a measure of how invested I am in his character arc
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That's why I've deliberately omitted some features of the curse, and also avoided giving the names of the characters, although while writing this toot I realised I've actually forgotten Thighs McAbsoluteUnit's real name, which I think is a measure of how invested I am in his character arc
I've also deliberately avoided mentioning the most distinctive features of the magic system, which is how the blasted thing was sold to me in the first place by someone who's fortunately not on the Fedi to see how I feel about her recommendation. "It's spells cast using [thing you're into] powered by [other thing you're into]!" she said, neglecting to mention that it also contains huge amounts of things I'm very much not Into Like That.
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I've also deliberately avoided mentioning the most distinctive features of the magic system, which is how the blasted thing was sold to me in the first place by someone who's fortunately not on the Fedi to see how I feel about her recommendation. "It's spells cast using [thing you're into] powered by [other thing you're into]!" she said, neglecting to mention that it also contains huge amounts of things I'm very much not Into Like That.
So something utterly bizarre and wholly unexpected happens around 60% of the way through the book: the plot actually starts making sense. Several incidents that had seemed like random occurrences that simply happened to allow our heroine to be sexily rescued in fact turn out to be part of a broader narrative. I'm as shocked as you are.
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So something utterly bizarre and wholly unexpected happens around 60% of the way through the book: the plot actually starts making sense. Several incidents that had seemed like random occurrences that simply happened to allow our heroine to be sexily rescued in fact turn out to be part of a broader narrative. I'm as shocked as you are.
Things also suddenly start moving a lot faster, almost as if we've got past the part where an editor said "Okay this is fine but can you maybe pad out the first half a bit with fanfiction tropes 3, 6, 8 and 14 through 19?".
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Things also suddenly start moving a lot faster, almost as if we've got past the part where an editor said "Okay this is fine but can you maybe pad out the first half a bit with fanfiction tropes 3, 6, 8 and 14 through 19?".
We learn a lot about our dour and brooding hero (he's still muscular by the way, in case anyone had forgotten) and his behaviour starts to make narrative sense.
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We learn a lot about our dour and brooding hero (he's still muscular by the way, in case anyone had forgotten) and his behaviour starts to make narrative sense.
In terms of communicating like an emotionally mature human it would of course have made much more sense to lead with "Magic has utterly fucked up my life and I am understandably resentful of it in consequence, but I understand that you as an unconnected magical practitioner are not in any way responsible for this fact. I do not wish for my sister to fall under the same magical obligations as me so after discussing it fully with her we have agreed she will not learn magic, but we will of course
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In terms of communicating like an emotionally mature human it would of course have made much more sense to lead with "Magic has utterly fucked up my life and I am understandably resentful of it in consequence, but I understand that you as an unconnected magical practitioner are not in any way responsible for this fact. I do not wish for my sister to fall under the same magical obligations as me so after discussing it fully with her we have agreed she will not learn magic, but we will of course
revisit this decision periodically as she ages and should she change her mind while in possession of all the facts I will of course respect that decision as hers to make." instead of just glowering in an inexplicably alluring fashion, but narratively it makes sense.
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revisit this decision periodically as she ages and should she change her mind while in possession of all the facts I will of course respect that decision as hers to make." instead of just glowering in an inexplicably alluring fashion, but narratively it makes sense.
The Machiavellian puppet master behind this newly coherent chain of events is revealed to be Potential Love Interest The First, he of the piercing gaze, whose eye colour is now soft and deadly like snow. I'm still not sure whether his eyes change colour because
magic or whether the author doesn't know that aquamarine is a shade of blue not grey. -
The Machiavellian puppet master behind this newly coherent chain of events is revealed to be Potential Love Interest The First, he of the piercing gaze, whose eye colour is now soft and deadly like snow. I'm still not sure whether his eyes change colour because
magic or whether the author doesn't know that aquamarine is a shade of blue not grey.With these revelations he goes from being Sexily Evil to Actively Irredeemably Evil, and while I would like to hope this finally stops her from lusting after him, given that this conversation happens after she encounters him emerging from an icy moorland lake starkers like Daniel Craig with more goosebumps I'm not optimistic.
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With these revelations he goes from being Sexily Evil to Actively Irredeemably Evil, and while I would like to hope this finally stops her from lusting after him, given that this conversation happens after she encounters him emerging from an icy moorland lake starkers like Daniel Craig with more goosebumps I'm not optimistic.
(Our other romantic lead has tiger eyes by the way, which I'm assuming means he has amber coloured irises and not that he is in possession of a copy of the young adult novel by Judy Blume)
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(Our other romantic lead has tiger eyes by the way, which I'm assuming means he has amber coloured irises and not that he is in possession of a copy of the young adult novel by Judy Blume)
It transpires that Love Interest The First deliberately set her up to cross paths with Love Interest The Second and gain his trust. She is now offered a terrible choice: walk away now and lose her magic, or work together in manipulating LI2 in their shared interests and destroying him utterly in the process.
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It transpires that Love Interest The First deliberately set her up to cross paths with Love Interest The Second and gain his trust. She is now offered a terrible choice: walk away now and lose her magic, or work together in manipulating LI2 in their shared interests and destroying him utterly in the process.
Faced with this decision our heroine decides she will be bold, she will be brave, she will play LI1 at his own game of deceit and destroy him at it. She will no longer be manipulated by any man but will instead seize control of her own destiny and make her own choices, crafting her own path instead of following one of the ones set out for her. And she will accomplish this...by offering to do some housework.
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Faced with this decision our heroine decides she will be bold, she will be brave, she will play LI1 at his own game of deceit and destroy him at it. She will no longer be manipulated by any man but will instead seize control of her own destiny and make her own choices, crafting her own path instead of following one of the ones set out for her. And she will accomplish this...by offering to do some housework.
As the moor echoes with the agonised wailing of the entire massed second wave of feminists, she and little sister grab mops and buckets and clean Muscles McPertArse's house from top to bottom. This is definitely not a tradwife style servitude fantasy but a cunning ruse you see, as it allows her to find several family portraits revealing more backstory, a poorly concealed important plot device and Chekhov's Dead Mum's Shawl.
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As the moor echoes with the agonised wailing of the entire massed second wave of feminists, she and little sister grab mops and buckets and clean Muscles McPertArse's house from top to bottom. This is definitely not a tradwife style servitude fantasy but a cunning ruse you see, as it allows her to find several family portraits revealing more backstory, a poorly concealed important plot device and Chekhov's Dead Mum's Shawl.
This was secreted in her wash basket for later study. It will presumably turn out to have some sort of informative note or crucial clue or magical berry snagged in the weave somehow and thus allow stealing sentimental mementos of your crush's dead parents to be presented as a completely sane and normal thing to do.
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This was secreted in her wash basket for later study. It will presumably turn out to have some sort of informative note or crucial clue or magical berry snagged in the weave somehow and thus allow stealing sentimental mementos of your crush's dead parents to be presented as a completely sane and normal thing to do.
While scrubbing away little sister also informed her that she liked her because she made her brother happy. If glowering, brooding, grunting and snapping is how he expresses being happy I can't imagine what an utter delight he must be to be around when he isn't.
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While scrubbing away little sister also informed her that she liked her because she made her brother happy. If glowering, brooding, grunting and snapping is how he expresses being happy I can't imagine what an utter delight he must be to be around when he isn't.
I have actually learned something by reading this book by the way, after learning that literally no one has a common eye colour (little sister's eyes are emerald) I looked it up and it turns out 79% of people worldwide have brown eyes. 5% of people have amber eyes, 3% have grey, 2% have green. So now you know that too and didn't have to read the book to be motivated to look it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_color
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I have actually learned something by reading this book by the way, after learning that literally no one has a common eye colour (little sister's eyes are emerald) I looked it up and it turns out 79% of people worldwide have brown eyes. 5% of people have amber eyes, 3% have grey, 2% have green. So now you know that too and didn't have to read the book to be motivated to look it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_color
I don't actually know what colour eyes our heroine has. At this rate they're probably purple with orange spots.
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I don't actually know what colour eyes our heroine has. At this rate they're probably purple with orange spots.
So. Lunchbreak. The bloody book is still in my bag, still unfinished. This thing has cost me my DuoLingo streak and a good chunk of my sanity Mastodon, I hope you're grateful.
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So. Lunchbreak. The bloody book is still in my bag, still unfinished. This thing has cost me my DuoLingo streak and a good chunk of my sanity Mastodon, I hope you're grateful.
They go riding together, and she catches herself ogling his bum in tight riding trousers and feels herself to be "no better than a wanton maid in a public house" and I mean seriously? We all know why everyone's here reading this (well apart from me, I'm still not sure why I'm doing this to myself). It's 2025, women are allowed to want sex, the readers want them to fuck like two moderately attractive male British actors in an AO3 fic written by a teenager. Can we just not with the slut shaming?
