 Hey guys, it's Liana and I'm here today to talk about Serpent and Dove. So this is gonna be a reading vlog. I am currently Future Me and I have already read it and I have vlogged my reading of it. So I will touch base with you after you've watched me read it and will reconvene so I can kind of sum up the feelings that you'll see experienced in real time. So it's even a bit. I probably did an intro for this already, but I don't know because I just decided to do this. It's a reading vlog for Serpent and Dove. This is one of the books I picked for the Getshit Done Readathon. The either a book that was given to you for review or as a gift. This is an Advanced Readers Edition. So it's kind of like it was given to me for review slash Amanda gave it to me as a gift. But kind of like for review I feel like because I think she just wants to know what I think of it. And I'm pretty sure. I'm not sure about Shana, but I know Amanda, Mara, and Bethany have all read this and they are my co-hosts. And they all love this. So I'm feeling a little bit of peer pressure, which I probably said on my intro if I did one. But anyway, I've decided to vlog my experience reading this and we'll see how this goes. Okay, so I've gone into this place, whatever it doesn't matter, they've just gone inside and it says blinking I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness of this new narrower corridor. 12 windows, rectangular large and space at regular intervals along one wall, let in a subtle glow of light. Upon closer inspection, however, I realized they weren't windows at all but portraits. So are they glowing? How did you confuse portraits with windows? And how are they letting in light? Right? Okay, I'm kind of bewildering them because it's so Serpent and Dove is like witches versus witch hunters in not France, like very specifically not France. There's like a ton of French words already. They have been eating pastries and observing other pastries and that's been the bulk of the first 20 pages is French words and eclairs and cinnamon rolls and misuse and whatever. But the witches are referred to as the damn blanche and that just means the white women. So I'm like a little puzzled at the naming. All I can think of is in Outlander, she because she's from the future or from the present, then her knowledge of medicine seems like witchcraft. So then she claims that it's it's white magic. And so she refers to herself and gets other people to refer to her as Madame Blanche because it's white magic. Here witches just generally, and it is considered bad like a demonic are called damn blanche, which is white women. I don't I don't get it. The damn blanche or the deadly witches who haunted Belterra small minded prejudices like why would they call them like white being literal mean everyone here is presumably white or white ish because it's France ish. But if it's white as in symbolic white tends to be good. Oh God, I know that sounds racist. But you know what I mean? Like it's usually like white magic is considered benign or good. I don't get it. This is annoying me. I am a feminist and I very, very, very much believe in the equality of human beings and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I am very annoyed when books overtly and explicitly just soap box about things like, well, I'm honestly annoyed when books soap box about anything, whether it's feminism, religion, anti-religion. I just don't like my book soap boxing or taking making excuses or finding excuses to just pepper in sentences that are just there to do that, you know, aren't really moving the plot along. For example, inhaling deeply, I forced myself to remain calm. He presented no danger to me in my current disguise. I've done nothing wrong. I smelled of cinnamon, you know, because of all this mineral she ain't not magic. Besides, didn't all men share some sort of unspoken camaraderie, the mutual understanding of their own collective importance? Was that necessary? I don't think so. I really don't. And if this flipped, if it was some dude saying that about women, I think we can be OK with it. So I don't like it. I don't. If he was like treating her in a way that was already misogynist and then she was thinking about how a typical dude being a misogynist, then you're like, OK, maybe. But this was just uncalled for. Oh, and great. Like in the next paragraph, she is like, he's really hot, though. Like, are you fucking kidding me? Oh, my God. Her internal monologue is like, dudes, aren't they? I'll just like the fucking worst. And the next paragraph, she is like, hi. Oh, my God, I can't do this. Can't also getting annoyed with the French, but it's only sometimes. So she's climbed to a roof to escape. She's observing there are vendors hocking food at every corner. Despite the mouthwatering smell of their italicized frites and sausages and cheese croissants. So I mean, like, why don't we say croissant fromage? Why is it that potatoes have to be in French? But then we have sausages, not saucisson. The city's still a week to fish. Why not Poisson? When are we being French and when are we not? OK, I have so many questions about this world. So like, it's obviously like not actually France because there's magic and whatever. But it is witches and witch hunters and Christianity. But without being named, which I did here would be in here. But it's so weird. So our shadow hunter, our witch hunter's perspective is like in all action. But now his mentor, the Archbishop is trying to go, don't you know all witches are bad? You did a good job today. The kids saw this hag turn into a beautiful, pregnant woman and then back into a hag. And so he's like, but she was this beautiful woman who was pregnant and his Archbishop is like the mother. He's like, sir. And what he tells us right here as like expository explanation is something that I feel like our main character dude who's a witch hunter would know already. Like he wouldn't be like, what? Because the guy says, have you forgotten the sacrilegious teachings of the witches read? I mean, he really shouldn't. If this is like a basic tent of what they believe if he's a witch hunter, like it's literally his job. But OK. I shook my head currently, ears burning and remembered the stern deacons of my childhood. The sparse classroom by the sanctuary, the faded Bible in a capitalized in my hands. Why not just make it historical fiction? Witches do not worship our Lord and savior nor did they acknowledge the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They glorify another Trinity and idolatrous Trinity, the triple goddess. Every chasseur learned the witch's evil ideology before taking his vows. Maiden, mother and crone, I murmured. Right. So like he seems like a total like nincompoop for having to have this explained to him. He saw a pregnant woman and like a crone who turned into a pregnant woman. I feel like that should have been his first thought. And instead he comes back to his like leader and is like explaining this. And the leader is like, oh yes, the mother. And he's like, the what? All right, the thing that I know so much about that I'm currently thinking about it for half a page to explain it to my audience. You know what I mean? Like I understand that exposition and info about world building stuff is kind of tricky to place in a narrative because your characters already know it. So to find an organic way to let the audience know it can be tricky. But this is so clumsy. Honestly, he should have come back and told his archbishop, oh man, you know how they believe explains he will guess what I saw instead of I saw this thing that I did not understand. He's like, well, it's this thing that we all know they believe in. Oh, yes, this thing that I know so much about that I knew before I took my vows because it's like kind of critical. Oh, yikes. And his leader guy now, we are human. From the dawn of time, this has been men's plight to be tempted by women. Even within the perfection of the Garden of Eden, Eve seduced Adam into sin. Is this an alternate universe? I'll, uh, his dark material. So it's like exactly like our universe, but with small differences like magic exists. Cause this is an inspired by, this is literally Christianity and French words. Well, this is an odd departure from Catholic church. As if sensing my thoughts, the archbishop continued warily, I needn't remind you of your previous transgressions. You know very well the church cannot force any man to vow celibacy. Why are we changing that one? They cannot control themselves, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. What? Of all things to change about this very obviously Catholic church. Okay, so I finished the first three chapters. I'm on page 44, but of an arc, so I don't know what that translates to in the published version. So far I'm not liking it. That said, it's really readable, which is more than I could say for Sorcery of Thorns or one of your deception. Those books were a struggle because they were just so mind numbing. This is like, it's bad, but it's keeping my attention. I'm reading it like fully immersed, going that's dumb, that's silly, what is this? But like I'm paying attention. So I mean, I'm gonna read it unless something drastic occurs. I will read it all the way through you. But I am feeling about it kind of exactly the way that I expected it to. Which is that the world building, the poor quality of the world building is too egregious for me to be able to forgive. If this was historical fiction, that just played fast and loose with historical detail, I'd be better pleased. But it's not historical fiction, it's a fantasy world that's just not bothered to invent its own world, which is worse, you know what I mean? So, yeah, I'm really not loving it. Okay, in the span of two pages, there are banter, cocoa, main character. What do you want to turn in blue? And there are friend Bass, who's a dude and a flirt and not a witch cause he's a dude and only women can be witches. They've told him to shut up twice. That's been the comeback. Excellent banter. Lou seems to be using, like, trading her feelings for Bass and her memories of fucking Bass for like magical results. And it's not really like a one-to-one that makes sense. It's not like she's creating a memory for someone else by sacrificing one of her own kind of thing, which would kind of make sense. It's just sacrifice of any kind is required for magic to work. So to like open a lock, she like sacrificed her relationship with Bass, I guess. And like there's a guard that she wants to put off. And so she like summons the memory of Bass and their like night of passion. The memory is gone as a sacrifice. And then the guard is unconscious. So she achieved making him unconscious by sacrificing a memory. That doesn't make any sense. Just bash him over the head. This is so unnecessary. It doesn't make sense. It's stupid. It's not explained. It's just like, and I did a thing where the memory and now it's gone and now he's unconscious. Cause magic. And it's like, it's trying to say, oh, there's rules, but not really. Cause it's dull. Okay. I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. The witch hunter dude has come to the house cause they got an anonymous tip that there'd be a witch breaking into the house, which of course is our main other female or our female main character broken. And so he's on the case now. And his beloved, whose sister has been killed by witchcraft and who refused to marry him after the fact cause of reasons, cause she's too sad about it or something. I don't know, but it's her house and she's all like in black and she's all sad to see him. And he's like, I wish I could comfort her. That's whatever. I'm just catching you up. And the family's like, no, there's no witches here. Like don't worry. It's just a thief. Like I'm guessing it's like a, a reputation thing across the lawn towards the townhouse, there's an upstairs window and a curtain moves and they look over two faces peered out. So this is like quite a distance. One of them was familiar despite the wig, blue, green eyes vivid even at a distance widened in panic. So he's recognizing our main character who he ran into when she was dressed as a boy on the streets. From that distance, you can tell presumably at night, cause this is like a party that she's got blue, green eyes. She's considerably farther away from him than I am from this camera right now. Can you tell what color my eyes are? I seriously doubt it. Oh my God. I just, I can't deal. Like let me guess when they meet, he's going to remember her scent and it's going to be like cinnamon and lilacs or some bullshit. Like I cannot deal. I just cannot deal. Oh my God. I only needed to read on like two, not even a paragraph later. He drew his ballasarda with a flourish. I'll dispatch the woman quickly. I frowned remembering the woman's mustache cause she was dressed as a boy when he met her. Her baggy trousers and rolled shirts, leaves and freckles. The way she'd smelled when she'd crashed into me at the parade, like vanilla and cinnamon, not magic. I can't deal. Oh my God. Toilets are the bane of my white reading experience. I, one of my most frequent complaints about Sarah J. Mass's aqatar series was flushing toilets into medieval fairy world. And in this historic France-like atmosphere, our main character who I think is in a theater slash possibly brothel, but I think it's a theater is where she lives. And the next morning she needs to pee after her like escapade of thievery. And for this she doesn't use a chamber pot. She ducks into the toilet before anyone else could notice her and then stands in front of a mirror, which is also in the toilet where she's like looking at, you know, her bruises and whatever. And then she decides that she's gonna stay in the locked bathroom to hide until like the crowd dissipates. Excuse me, I don't think this era of France had a public restroom with a toilet and a mirror. Man, I know this as an actual France. So I guess who gives a fuck, but really, really this is the most modern sounding thing I've ever heard of. No, nope, nope, nope, nope. You don't have powdered wigs and witch hunters and then a bathroom with a toilet and a mirror. Mirrors or luxury items. Okay, everything's fine. Everything's fine. Okay, I'm about halfway through. Yeah, a little more than halfway through. And it's gotten more plot and relationship centric and kind of forgotten about the world and the magic, which it didn't really bother to build in the first place, which is probably better. There's been a few more instances of magic being used and it's just like, it doesn't make sense. There isn't even enough toll to you for you to pick it apart because it's clearly not the focus of this author. So I kind of wish she'd gone for like an entirely soft magic system or gone for like witches or women who know medicine, you know, like the historical and non-magical kind of thing. Cause I think this could be historical, loosey-goosey with the details, France, with women who are just medicine women who are witches, you know, like you could do that. And I think you'll be better. Cause the parts in it that are magical aren't really fleshed out. And anytime the story did that, it like segwayed into like doing magic stuff. And it is building, I think towards the climax, cause like you find, she's clearly afraid of someone and then you find out who that someone is. I mean, I know who it is now and a why. And it's like magic reasons. And you could have a similar like threat without magic. And I think it'd be better. I think the weakest points of the story are the magic cause the magic doesn't work. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't, there's no structure to it. There's no rules to it. And it's clearly not the focus of the author. Cause the magic really doesn't make sense. And then the France, not France thing, the way they talk to each other is too modern and too not French to really work with historical France. But that'd be more like, I'm trying to forgive the weird anachronism and France, not France and the magic. And if it did, if it got rid of the magic, then I would just have to forgive the weird France, not being really historically accurate part of it. And then it'd be less annoying. I flew through the first half. I picked this up today after filming a bunch of videos. So I might read a little bit more tonight, but I won't film anymore. So I'm ending it for today here. Okay, it's been about a week, almost a week since I was last reading and I'm about to read more. So yeah, I didn't read anymore after the last time I updated you, which I said I probably wouldn't. And I didn't. I'm a woman of my word. So, where did I leave off? Uh, I think they just burned a witch. I don't know if I told you guys that, but that's where I left off. So I'm gonna finish it today. Shall see how this goes. Okay, I'm really getting annoyed because this is a marriage of convenience type plot. They were forced, I don't know if I ever explained any plot on or what I told y'all. The witches and whatever, he's a witch hunter and she's a witch and he doesn't know she's a witch and they've been forced to get married because of marriage of convenience reasons. But they like hate each other or are forced into this, neither of them wanted it. And she's since discovered that he was in love with this girl, but I think, I think I mentioned that that this girl who he was in love with said that her sister cause her sister was killed by witches and she was too aggrieved to marry him because of sadness, I don't fucking know. But so she rejected him, but in like, I still love you but can't marry you kind of way. So he was sad about it. But he's still totally in love with this other girl and then he married, it was forced to marry our witch girl Lou and they snipe at each other but they're kind of growing used to each other which you expect in a hate to love story. And now there's this big ball which is in his honor for being so good at killing witches and she has to attend cause and the king is there and it's like a big old thing. And she spotted Reed with like a rave and haired beautiful young woman and because she read his diary, which by the way she read his diary and like his love letters she knows about this girl. And so when she sees him with that girl she's talking to her friend Coco. Coco is like, that better not be who I think it is. She's like, I'm pretty sure it is. And she's like super jealous about him being with this girl that he's loved for a long time and would be with if he could be but he was forced to marry this witch that didn't want him. Fuck off. I have no sympathy for you. You do not get to be pissy because he's having a pleasant conversation. He's not even like making out with her. He's just like chatting and she's laughing at something that he just said which is nice. Like I cannot really root for a character like Lou. When she was forced to marry this guy she's made his life a living hell on purpose. She has nothing good to say about men and witch hunters. Like all of them across the board hates them all. Fine, you hate him. So let him talk to the girl he likes. You don't like him. You claim not to like him. Like get the fuck over yourself. Like I know they're supposed to be falling in love but that attitude, I'm sorry, but no. I, if I was read I would hate Lou and I can't root for someone like Lou because she's such a selfish asshole. Everyone that she meets with she just is high and mighty and prejudiced against and I just, I mean he's not, he's pretty dull but he's, you know, was indoctrinated into being a witch hunter. So he's like witches are evil demons. We have to kill them for the good of the people. Like it's pretty narrow-minded but like I understand where he's coming from. He was raised by an organization that taught him they are the devil. I mean, he thinks he's protecting people. That's, while prejudiced, fairly noble. She's just being an ass. So yeah, really enjoying it. Okay, we have instance number two of being able to see eye color when you really, really shouldn't be able to. They have returned from the ball after discussing their feelings and like they're totally into each other now and it's like a thing. And she's like moving around in bed next to him and being wakeful, I guess. Finally, she leaned over the side of the bed. Blue, green eyes meeting mine in the darkness. I'm about you, but in the darkness I don't think you can make out someone's eye color. You know, in a pitch black room in a historic time period when you wouldn't have had even like an alarm clock by which to see, she described his room as being almost like a prison light because there's like a tiny little window at the top that you can't even see out of because it's so high. It's the middle of the night, they don't have a candle lit. He can see her eye color. I think not. And now he has unrealistic sense. So far, she's been missing a minute with the blue, green eyes. But they're in like a filthy city that's not Paris because remember this is not France, but they speak some French words sometimes and they have some French names, but it's not France. But so it's like, she described how like mucky and dirty the city is they live in like a tower in like a stone room where he trains and that's his life. So presumably he'd smell like that. But instead, oh yeah, they kissed by the way after she stabbed some people for being too stupid to live. She got herself in the situation but then she killed these guys and then he found her and then they started making out until like realized they were like in the dude's blood. And we're like, okay, that's kind of a mood killer but she's now back on the, he touched me though. Something about the calluses, being nice to touch and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Even the bite of the wind on my cheeks wasn't unbearable with him near. It swirled around us and filled me with his scent. Vaguely woodsy, like fresh air and mountain pines with a hint of something richer, deeper, that was entirely greed. Why the fuck would he smell like woods and pines? He lives in a filthy city in a stone tower room. I don't think he wears cologne. After all, he's like a sell, well not sell a bit because he's married, but you know, he's a witch hunter with like vows of being practical and shit. I don't, I feel like he doesn't wear cologne. I just can't, I just cannot root for these people. Oh my God. Okay, I think the sentence is wrong because she's meant to be really short and I've said this, I've read the sentence like five times now and I think it's wrong. I narrowed my eyes and straightened my shoulders drawing myself up to my full, if not inconsiderable, height. It should be if not considerable, right? Not inconsiderable would be considerable, right? And she doesn't have considerable height because she's short, right? It's wrong, right? Okay, he's kind of being a dick too because she showed him her like old house where she lived and she said it's the only place she ever felt safe before and she's like getting kind of, you know, sad. He like said that she came there two years ago and he said, what happened two years ago? And she said, I don't wanna talk about it. And instead of respecting her, he sat down next to her and said, I do. Is that supposed to be hot? Cause it's not boundaries, bro. Okay, he keeps pushing it now. She keeps saying she doesn't wanna talk about it and she keeps saying, or she keeps saying she doesn't wanna talk about it. He keeps saying he wants to talk about it because he wants to get to know her. Is that so bad? I don't wanna talk about it. I just wanna get to know you. Is that so bad? And this is going on like kind of on repeat that he's getting pretty aggro about it. And then she's being just as aggro about it back and saying that shit is in my past for a reason I don't wanna talk about it. Okay, I was with her at first when he was like, I wanna talk about it and she was like, I don't. But he didn't ask to see her old place. She randomly decided to take him there. What did she expect? Of course he would say, oh, how did you come to live here? Where did you live before that? Like if you didn't wanna have that conversation, what the fuck did you bring him there? That's literally the only point of bringing somebody there. It's certainly not to show up how beautiful it was because it's a shit hole. Like if you did not want to talk about your past or who you were before him, why the fuck did you bring him there? No, you don't get to bring him there. And then when he asks natural questions like, why did you live here? Yeah, but like, I don't wanna talk about it. Like, um, you brought me here. Clearly you do. Okay, these books always praise their readers. Praise dudes for being understanding and patient with girls who will have a fear of something or a phobia of something. That's the same thing. You know, like when they have issues with something and he's being patient with it, but now when it's flipped, if a dude has an issue with something, the girl just gets to make fun of him for it, which is not cool. So she's taken him to the roof of the building and she made fun of him early. She said, you're not afraid of heights, are you? And he didn't answer. And now they're at the top of the building and he is clearly afraid of heights. He clenched his jaw and swallowed as if he was about to be sick and said, give me a minute. And she makes fun of him for being like the tallest guy in the city and isn't it ironic that the tallest guy in the city is afraid of heights. And then she makes him look at the view and he's like not wanting to. And she's like, trust me, it'll be worth it because it's a beautiful view. But like, fuck you. He has a legitimate phobia. It doesn't matter how beautiful the view is. And of course he opens his eyes and he's like, oh, well, it is a beautiful view. That's not how being afraid of things works. It's just not. So yeah, so Serpent and Dove. I finished it and was glad it was over, TVQH. I kind of, I mean, I was thinking, considering possibly debating, giving it three stars because at least there were moments where it kept my interest and attention and I didn't feel especially invested but it kept me turning the page. Which other recent reads of mine like Sorcery of Thorns and One of Your Deception did not. Those books were boring and badly written. So this I enjoyed more than Sorcery of Thorns or One of Your Deception. But I think it was not as well written as those and I didn't think those were well written. But it had this sort of bingey trashy quality to it where I could see what it was doing, how it was manipulating the audience into wondering things. But then again, that's what a good book is supposed to do. It's not cheating to make it a page turner but that's what it was. It was creating questions and suspense to make me turn the page. I didn't like the characters. The world made zero sense. The magic made even less sense. The characters were insufferable and I couldn't stand them and I wasn't actually rooting for them. They were just the people that I was following so I wanna see where this is going but I couldn't sympathize with either side. So honestly, I guess they deserve each other because she was, see the thing is there's pieces of it here that I think could have been good. But instead of actually bothering to build a world the author was like, French stuff. So okay, like I mean I've seen that before where you kind of lean heavily on a historical time period or place or whatever and use that as your inspiration. Obviously, Ravka in the Grisha trilogy is Russia-ish, Russia-esque or whatever. In Grace Draven's Intreat Me, it is French-ish with witches and I was actually toward the end of Serpent and Deaf thinking I was like, this reminds me of something and I realized what it was and it was Intreat Me but Intreat Me is good. Intreat Me, it has built its own magic and it has built its own world enough but it's also telling a really condensed story. It's telling a people story. So the world at large doesn't need to really be explained because the stakes in Intreat Me are not world stakes. They are personal stakes. So you get a kind of a vague sense of French-ish kind of thing. They refer to places as chateaus. The names in it are kind of French-ish sounding but again, in Intreat Me, it's Beauty and the Beast retelling. So in the way that you're like, he's not a prince but in the way that in a Beauty and the Beast story he's the prince of vaguely a kingdom that's, and he's in a castle that was vaguely cursed because it's fairy tale-esque. And then also I believe I would imagine the French choice in Intreat Me was because Beauty and the Beast was originally a French fairy tale. So it fits, it makes sense. And there's not a lot like, you're not asking a ton of questions about the world in Intreat Me because that's really not the point here. The things that it is about the characters and some very specific magic that affects these circumstances is the curse and the magic of the sort of witchy magic that the main character, the female has, those are explained. Those are fleshed out enough. And so you don't, those are the pieces that you need to know they have been done. Serpent and Dove is trying to tell a bigger story where the city or the country or the monarchy itself is at stake here and then didn't actually build that or explain it all in any way. So I appreciated it was kind of trying to tell a story where you have two kinds of prejudice at odds with each other and they're both wrong. And that's something I would love. I would love a story that's examining how both sides are wrong because I love gray areas and I love anti-heroes and I love moral ambiguity. And one of the reasons I love Abercrombie is that there are no good guys. It's not like you have the nation that's fighting for goodness and then the invaders who are necessarily the bad guys. Every side is selfish and every side has its own political motivations, needs for resources, desire for power, desire for expanded territory. It's all shades of gray, like history really is. When you read history, the only time there's a good guys if you're reading it from a very particular perspective. So if you read an English textbook, England paints England in a heroic light. But if you look at it from a macro lens as an observer, everyone's fighting everybody for their own personal selfish reasons. And sometimes one comes off a little more evil, Germany, World War II, but the good guys in World War II, they also had selfish reasons for getting involved. It's not like they were Frodo in the ring being like, for the goodness of good, that's not how it works. So I love that, all of that to say, I love the idea of saying, witches hating witch hunters, you know, maybe just as prejudiced as witch hunters hating witches. I'm all for that. That would be an interesting story. But it doesn't actually flesh things out enough for you to really be able to feel or see that. The magic is not explained in any, I mean, the magic does not make sense. It's stupid. It's the most convenient plot device, just poorly constructed magic I've ever seen outside of wicked saints. It was just bad. And then because the, if magic was already in the periphery and it wasn't really central to the plot, if you get away with that, if it's just like there's kind of vague, like in a Cinderella story, where all of a sudden a fairy godmother pops in and can do some magic stuff and leaves again, they're like, all right, that's fine. Then the whole story isn't revolved around how the magic system works. You just accept that there's a fairy godmother. But this story is very much about magic and whether or not it's good or bad. So you really do need to flesh it out if your story hinges on whether or not magic is good. And there's moments where it's trying to give a backstory or some history to this stuff, but because it hasn't decided if it's France or if it's a made-up place, then the history is also just a shallow because you can't really go into it too much because where the fuck are we? And the characters themselves are really doing what the plot needs them to do. And that is the most frustrating thing to me in the world when I can't really say these events played out the way they did because this is how these people are. These people are this way because these events needed to pan out this way. So it's the plot leading the character, not the character leading the plot, if that makes sense, which is just the putting the cart before the horse. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't work that way. Events transpire the way they do because the personalities involved take things there. And the personalities involved wouldn't necessarily have done those things, but the plot needs them to, and then it falls apart and it doesn't make sense. It doesn't feel true. It doesn't make you feel what's going on. It doesn't further help to develop the character. If the character is doing something that doesn't really seem like something they would do because the plot needs them to, it doesn't help develop that character because part of what develops a character is multiple pieces. It's what they're thinking and feeling, but it's also what they choose to do. And what they're choosing to do flies in the face of what it's not consistent with or doesn't really feel explained or justified by what you do know about them. Then it's undoing the character building work that you did. And that's how the entire book felt. The characters, when they needed to have a romantic sweet touching moment, suddenly they'd put some prejudices aside, but then when they need to remember their prejudices, that we could have a moment of soap boxing about prejudice, then they'd remember their prejudices. I mean, there was towards the end moments where Reed was willing to have magic done near or on him because it was necessary. And then the next page, someone would wanna do magic again and he'd be like, no, I'm not letting someone do something magical to or around or near me. Why? You just let them do it a page ago. And a page ago, it wasn't a fight with you. A page ago, you were like, just do it. And now you're like, no, no fucking way, never. Why? To create tension, to create suspense. It doesn't make sense. So if you wanted him to, like a much better execution of this is Matthias in the Six of Crows duology because Matthias is against Grisha magic. And I didn't think of this until this moment, but Serpent and Dove was like Nina and Matthias, except shitty. Because Nina and Matthias, that is actually a really good example of having, it's not, I mean, it's Grisha magic, but Grisha magic in those books is a stand in for witchcraft, at least as far as Furida is concerned. Matthias has been raised to be basically a witch hunter because he's been hunting Grisha because he thinks that it's on holy this magic that the Grisha wheel. And Nina is Grisha and she hates these Furidas because she knows that they're the enemy and they've been trying to kill her people and they have killed her people. So this, that's Serpent and Dove, it's trying to be, but Nina and Matthias, they maintain their loyalties, which are at odds with their passions. And those, you can see those things fighting internally in their own heads and in their relationship with each other. It makes sense why in certain moments they're willing to let things slide and others it's a bridge too far. It's not random. It's not like here I'm fine with it and here I'm not. It's things like little things that'll get by them or because they're in the right mood or because something else is going on and makes them willing to put it aside. But in other circumstances it makes sense for their prejudices to rear their heads again and it fits because you know them as characters and they're fully fleshed out and the world is fleshed out and it all fits and it makes sense and you see it and you get it. Here there is the magic doesn't make sense. The world doesn't make sense. These characters don't make sense. It's all just like stuff happening and then a lot of it is just convenient. So like she'd make some dumb decisions just so that it'll get her in trouble. So that we get a moment where he has to see her in dire straits and rescue her and have to tell her how much he needs her and can't live without her. It's literally a situation constructed to get that out of it. It doesn't really move the plot forward. It happened so that we get a moment where he has an excuse to say, oh no, I don't know what I would have done if I'd lost you. And it's contrived and it's stupid and I can't root for it because these people are stupid and penny and shallow and two dimensional and not fully fleshed out and don't make any sense. Oh my God, I hated it so much. A lot of people like this book and I don't understand the more I think about it, the more pissed off I am about it. I just, I can't even, if it was one of these situations where I'd say I tend to prefer books that focus more on world building and magic building at less on romance. But I do like character driven books like Joe Abercrombie. But if I was reading this and going, okay, I see. But people are getting out of this is just that the romance is really solid. The romance is really good. And so then the world building and the magic building kind of fall by the wayside because what we are focusing on here is the romance. But the romance, I don't, I can't ship it either because these characters didn't make sense or two-dimensional and I couldn't root for them because they were petty and selfish and not in a way that was super believable or endearing or sympathetic. Again, with Nina and Matthias in the Six of Crows duology they have prejudices. They can be petty, they can be selfish but they're fully fleshed out people where you begin to root for them and feel for them and you see where they're coming from and you see where their negative characteristics get the better of them and how they have to try to fight that and you feel for them and you get it and you see this conflict. It breaks your heart to see it and you root for them to overcome it. In Serpent and Dove, there's just, I don't even know who they are. They are just a witch and a witch hunter who are married but they're more their roles than actual people. So yeah, that's Serpent and Dove. This is probably a monstrously long video because I know I filmed a lot of clips of me reading it and now I know I've been rambling on and on about how much I hate it. So yep, you're still here. Thanks for watching the whole thing. Let me know in the comments down below how you felt about Serpent and Dove if you read it or if you haven't read it if you plan to still, then you can always read it and then come back and then let me know that you totally disagree or that you totally agree. I think most people I've seen who've read this book really, really liked it. Obviously I'm not among them but that tends to be what I've seen the consensus. So once again, I'm in the minority. Once again, I just don't get it. But let me know in the comments down below how you felt about it and I post videos on Saturdays and sometimes Wednesdays. So like and subscribe and then I'll see you when I see you. Bye.