Especially now that she, at barely sixteen, has risen to the position of ladies’ maid. Clever, rich, and beautiful, Ada Averley treats Rose as an equal.
#Cinders and sapphires series#
A better comparison might have been the Luxe series (which left me with similar complaints).Summary: " Rose Cliffe has never met a young lady like her new mistress. As it was, I couldn't stop making comparisons, and Cinders & Sapphires never once came out ahead. If I had never seen Gossip Girl or Downton Abbey, then Cinders & Sapphires might have been more appealing. I don't want to read a book and think, "Oh look, that's O'Brian, but less devious" or "Oh, that's Thomas (in C&S's case, the "token gay romance"), but without any character nuance" or "That's Chuck, but he's more like a flimsy shadow" or "That's Blair, without any depth, skill, or flair." Most characters and events beg direct comparisons from either source material.and pretty much every trope in the genre. Even if he is a revolutionary (just like Tom from Downton!)Īnd the comparisons don't stop there. So when Mary (spoiler for Downton Abbey season 1) has such phenomenally fantastic unwedded sex with a Turkish man leading him to DROP DEAD IN HER DEVIRGINIZING BED, I'm not going to be very impressed with a few forbidden kisses with a boy from India. If we're drawing on Downton Abbey then the sprawling period details need to be just as rich (they're barely even there) and, again, the scandals need to be even more shocking (yawn). If we're pulling from Gossip Girl, then the scandals had better be way jucier than those in GG. Except, instead of being "inspired by" or "in the genre of" or some other allusion like that, Cinders & Sapphires reads more like unoriginal fan fiction.Īnd if you're going to write fan fiction, you'd better offer up something inspired. I've heard Cinders & Sapphires described as Gossip Girl meets Downton Abbey, and, yeah, I totally see that comparison. I know comparisons can be great marketing tools (hey, tell me something is the next Crown Duel and I'll be all over that in a heartbeat), but it can also cause massive eyerolling and lots of disappointment (which is why I pretty much refuse to read anything billed as "The Next Harry Potter" or "The Next Hunger Games"). Strike two came about because of comparisons. They just didn't make any sense.ĭon't sell me on Buffy and then give me Dawn I didn't even have a believable basis for how the characters' background and experience would ever lead them to act the way they did. This goes double when the characters are little more than cardboard cutouts with nothing but ridiculously unrealistic thoughts and actions. I can't get lost in a book when I'm being constantly torn out of the time period by anachronisms. If I wanted contemporary characters, then I would read contemporary novels. The characters felt entirely too modern in their values, thoughts, and approach to life. So that was strike number one against Cinders & Sapphires. If I'm reading about some old timey setting, I don't want the characters spouting off modern ideas that no character in that time period would ever even think about let alone righteously endorse. Ruby and I were talking one night about what makes a historical fiction book something we like and we both agreed that character realism was a must. Lay back and think of England, not Oxfordįirst, this is not a historically accurate book.
DNF Explanation: Cinders & Sapphires by Leila Rasheed.
Book Review: The Nightmare Affair by Mindee Arnett.
0 kommentar(er)
