 Hey guys, it's Liana. I'm here today to give you a double rant. Today I'll be ranting about the one of your deception by Kristen White and Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rodgerson. I'm doing this together because, one, I write these pretty close together, not back to back, but in fairly quick succession, and they... I disliked them for very similar reasons, so I decided I didn't feel like either of them was bad enough or interesting enough to warrant a full rant review by itself, but together I think is enough for a full video. So that's what we're doing today. If you liked either of these books, I'm really happy for you. I didn't, so I'm not going to be nice about it, and if that's what you want, then I'm not the person for you. So bye! I read Sorcery of Thorns first, I read this last year, so weird to say last year, that's like a week ago, and this is a standalone. It's not the sequel to Enchantment of Ravens, but it's the second book by Margaret Rodgerson. I really liked Enchantment of Ravens, a lot of people didn't, and a lot of people really liked Sorcery of Thorns, and have been saying how, oh, this is improving and fixing all the things I didn't like about Enchantment of Ravens, and I feel the opposite, which I think stands for a reason. I mean, if you didn't like the first one, you'd like this one, because you have the complete opposite taste of me. This book is about a girl who works as a warden for these magical libraries, for these grimoires that contain evil forces and can turn into malifacts, I think, whatever. There's magical libraries with like sentient books and evil dark sorcerers, and she's got a sword and stuff. Sounds like it should be madame, but it wasn't. And the other one is The Gwendovere Deception by Kirsten White, which I didn't really intend to pick up ever, but then this amazing edition came in Owlcrate. The cover just looks so much better than the original cover, and then the read-a-thon that we're doing, the get-you-done read-a-thon, is one of the challenges is to read a sub box book, so I was like, why not do this one? Because it's actually really short, and I liked Kirsten White's other books, so I shouldn't judge this by its cover, but apparently I should, because it's exactly as bad as the cover, original cover, led me to believe, and you don't know from the name or from reputation. This is a Arthurian type inspired YA fantasy. It's not a retelling because it's not really picking any particular Arthur story to retell. It's just kind of generally Arthur stuff in a fantasy. Yeah. Anyway, yep. Kind of don't want to hold them up because, you know, they're heavy and shiny. Both these editions are super shiny, like holy moly. Oh, they're also both Owlcrate editions, so if you were looking at them going, I have that book, it doesn't look like that. They're both Owlcrate editions, so beautiful editions. Good job, Owlcrate. Just bad job picking books because I didn't like either one. Okie dokie. So a lot of people really, really seem to like Sorcery of Thorns, and a lot of people generally seem to be fine with going to be her deception. I don't, maybe I'm just too old for YA now and or too mature for YA. I don't know what it is, but lately I've had almost zero patients for YA, but whenever I consider making a statement like that, like I just did, that I guess I've aged out of YA, there's also a lot of YA that I really, really like. And I still like Six of Crows by Lee Bardugo, that's duology. I adore it. My car's license plate says Brecker. I love The Winner's Trilogy by Mary Rutkowski. I'm trash for the Shatter Me series. I don't know if it's good, but I enjoy reading it, which is more than I can say for these books. A book doesn't have to be good. It doesn't have to be quality. I just want to enjoy it, at the very least. And these two are just generally recent for YA releases have not been enjoyable. So yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't think it's me, because again, there's a lot of YA that I still like, just not the new stuff. Anyway, so yeah, back to the books we're talking about today. Sorcery of Thorns and Guinevere Deception. I don't know how I'm gonna do this. I guess I'll describe each one separately first and then talk about why they're same. So Sorcery of Thorns, like I said, is these magical libraries that house these dangerous grimoires, which are basically, you know, that Harry Potter book that's like, can bite you? I don't know what it's called, it's like, Caravagical Creasers or something like that. And it's like a beastie book that like, you have to be, it's like chained up. It's like libraries filled with books like that. But there's like different levels. So there's like a class A, class B, class C. And as she's an orphan that was raised in the library and sort of grew up among the books. And then the lady who's like in charge of, her name's Elizabeth, I don't think I said, Nalini's in charge of her library. It's killed. And then there's like this attack on the library. And then Elizabeth is suspected of being involved in the attack, even though she's not. So she's falsely accused and then like swept away. And there's all kinds of other like magical stuff going on. And she's trying to piece together what is actually going on, even though everyone is blaming her. She's trying to figure out what's really going on. And then there's this sorcerer who like Elizabeth and all the other librarians have been told and led to believe and raised to believe that sorcerers are bad and evil and not good. So there's a sorcerer that comes to her library for like a meet cute. And then she's like later at his house because of reasons. And he and his demon believe Elizabeth that she's not the person responsible for like the attack on the library or for the other stuff that's going on. So she and homeboy are kind of trying to figure out what's really going on. Meanwhile, also like falling in love, I guess. And then magic stuff, whatever. That's basically the plot and the premise and the vibe and whatever. Now Elizabeth is 16 years old, I believe. I might be wrong when I'm pretty sure she's around 16 or 17. And she's lived a pretty sheltered life. She's like been raised in the library with only librarians and other wardens to school her in the ways of the world and of the libraries and of magic. So yeah, she's pretty sheltered. But she comes across in this book like a fucking child. I could not deal with it. And it wasn't cute. It wasn't I've read books like that where the hero or heroine are coming from the countryside into the city or from being really sheltered by their parents. And now they have their freedom or whatever, you know, some reason why they would wouldn't know as much wouldn't be as savvy. And that can be really charming. But Elizabeth came across as an idiot. There's a difference between being surprised by things and just like not being able to figure anything out based on context clues or having any kind of common sense whatsoever. So the fact that she would have this prejudice against sorcerers, which she quickly drops because Nathaniel's hot. I mean, that would be fine. And you could have interesting scenes based on it. But she's just like, sorcerers are evil. They're evil. They're in he wants to kill me and they're evil and they're awful. And he's going to kill me. And then he like makes goo goo eyes at her. And she's like, I mean, no, he's going to kill me. But like, and then everything about the magical mysterious darkness plot, it's a it's really basic stuff. And she's not really using any available means to actually piece this together. She keeps trusting every single person she comes across and just like spills out everything she knows tells them exactly who she is and what she thinks is going on. There's like zero filter. And again, that's not really sheltered so much as it is idiotic. Because if you're that sheltered, I feel like you would have trust issues. I mean, I guess it could go one of two ways. You could either trust everyone or trust no one when you're finally breaking free of your familiar surroundings. But I mean, she's just so freaking trusting. And it comes across as so stupid. And for the most of the story, she's honestly not actually doing much. It's mostly things happening to her like the attack on the library. And she's like, but I didn't do this. And then she's accused of being the person responsible for it. She's like, but I didn't do this. And she's taken away from the library by Nathaniel and Silas, who is Nathaniel's demon. And Silas is the only interesting character in this whole book, like 100%. And even then, I heard a lot of people going on and on about Silas. Like, I wish there was more of Silas in the book. So I was really excited about that. Silas is the best part of the book, but it's not saying a whole lot because the book is pretty garbage. So yeah, Silas is the only character that actually seems to have a character and has motivations and has sort of an interesting possible mysterious backstory that you kind of want to know more about and some unclear allegiance or gray area morals kind of thing like he's actually, there's something there rather than nothing. But anyway, so then she's with Nathaniel and Silas. And then there's like the big, the evil baddies who have Elizabeth at their place. And then they're saying things near her. And she's like a super special chosen one, Mary Sue. So she's got more power than she should have. And he's immune to powers that she shouldn't be. And so she just happens to be around when people are spilling secrets that they shouldn't. And she happens to be around and sees things going on that she shouldn't have seen. And then she's once again swept off somewhere else and then kidnapped and then saved. And she's just kind of going along being, oh my God, who's the next person I can just tell everything to? I couldn't root for her. She's an idiot. She's such an idiot. Oh my God. It's cannot even. And then it was really unclear to me. I shouldn't say unclear. It's the plot's really simple, but the villain's motivations were kind of cartoonishly villainous, just sort of, I want all the power and to be the most powerful and to unleash unstoppable power. Just vaguely, you know, because power, conquer the world, that kind of thing. And for a book about magical libraries, honestly, they were hardly in magical libraries at all throughout the course of the book. Like, she starts out there and she constantly pays flip service to the fact that, you know, that's what's her dream her whole life is to be a librarian. And, and maybe source source aren't as bad as she was always led to believe. What else does she not know? Can she trust her dear libraries where she grew up? The books that raised her? The libraries like feature in it almost not at all. The libraries are one giant MacGuffin. That's literally what they are. And, you know, it's really not that interesting. And then Nathaniel and Elizabeth love story. It's not insta love because, you know, she spends half the book going, he's evil source, oh no. But they fall in love. And it takes, there's like hate to love type of banter between them, except it's extremely juvenile. And TBQH, if I was Nathaniel, I don't, I don't know what he sees in Elizabeth, because she's done more than a box of rocks. He keeps having to explain shit to her and save her. And she's just a pain in the ass. And maybe she's super cute. I don't know. On the flip side of that also, other than being like the only young boy that, or young man that Elizabeth's ever come across, I don't know what's so great about Nathaniel either. He's there. And he sees, he's all right, I guess, once he get over the fact that he's evil source where there's no chemistry between them. There's no actual reason for them to be in love. But all of a sudden, once they start trusting each other, and they get over the whole you're evil thing, it's all of a sudden just, I can't live without you and you're the only person I trust and I need you here. And I'm like, why? I don't, I don't get it. I'm not rooting for it. I don't ship it. I don't think you guys are very interesting. I guess you deserve each other because you're both boring and dumb. And it's so, so juvenile. Honestly, if this book hadn't been written as middle grade and if the characters in it were aged down, so if Elizabeth was like 12 instead of 16, and she had just broken free of the library and was kind of like, what's happening? Like honestly, Lyra from His Dark Materials is more sensible and has, is more like worldly and has more sense than 16 year old Elizabeth. And anyway, yeah, if they were, if Nathaniel wasn't a love interest, but someone she befriends and Elizabeth was a kid and that would help a lot. I mean, the plot is still pretty weak and it would still need to be fixed a lot. But that would help a lot because I just could not take seriously that Elizabeth was an adult and that she'd be in love. I was like, are you sure you're old enough for these kind of feelings? Yeah. So I was honestly so bored. I felt like I was just like slamming my head against the book, just trying to finish it. And so what's so tragic to me as well is that one of the, one of the things that I hoped that at the very least I could get out of this book, which was present in Enchantment of Ravens. In Enchantment of Ravens, Margaret Rodgersen had a really lovely, flowing, flowery, poetic writing style. And I was like, great, a flowing, poetic, lovely writing style about magical libraries. That's going to be great. I already had visions of Laszlo in the library in the beginning of Strange the Dreamer. But nope, it was a dumb story with a dumb heroine and an unbelievable romance. Just weird plotting. And the writing was really basic. I don't know what happened to her poetic lyrical style, but it's not in this book at all. And that was huge letdown. What happened? So that's Sorcery of Thorns. And then the Guinevere deception reminder is very similar in terms of the fact that the main character is an idiot and I couldn't root for her. And then the love between her and Arthur was also kind of like, it wasn't hate to love because there's they don't ever hate each other, but kind of like with Elizabeth and Nathaniel, where it's kind of all of a sudden, I need you and I love you and I need you by my side. You're the only person I trust. Like why? And I don't buy it and there's no chemistry. I don't see it. But a little more about the plot in Guinevere deception. Guinevere isn't Guinevere. She is a changeling that was sent to Camelot by Merlin to protect Arthur. So and that could be interesting except every opportunity for it to be interesting was immediately sabotaged by the book explaining it right away. And I was like, okay, so don't want it to be mysterious. Got it. I mean, she shows up at Camelot and Arthur knows about this plan already. So she doesn't have to keep her secret from Arthur. She doesn't have to trick him. He's like, Oh yeah, you know, as we agree, just Merlin's plan per Merlin's plan, you're not Guinevere, but thanks for doing this. And thanks for protecting me. And you know, get to work. It's just so like, okay, guess it's not, I mean, it's a secret from everyone else. But the person who would be the hardest to keep a secret from and where it would be the most interesting to have this kind of, it would have been honestly such a good story if she wasn't the real Guinevere and Arthur was falling in love with her. And she kept pulling back because she was like, but I'm not the real Guinevere. But instead, he's like, Yeah, no, you're not the real Guinevere. All right, cool. She goes around all of Camelot being bewildered by life in the world, which was just so weird, because she goes around being confused by everything where again, it comes across really childish because she's sort of a 16, 17 year old-ish female. And she's got this knot magic that she's really good with it. She keeps like laying magical barriers and traps and things to like protect Arthur, which is kind of cool as a concept. But then some kid is missing their teeth. And she's like really upset that this kid is missing teeth at such a young age. And her handmade in or whoever's with her is like, yeah, but I mean, they lost their baby teeth. So the adult teeth will grow in. And Guinevere is like, what? And they're like, you know, baby teeth. Don't you remember when you had baby teeth and you lost them? And she's like, I don't. What what is this that you speak of? People have two sets of teeth. That's weird and gross. And they're like, um, okay, there's multiple things like that where Guinevere is just like, what is life? I don't understand. When she gets her first period, she doesn't know what a period is. So she thinks she's dying. She thinks she's like overdone it on the magic. And she's like, I am dying. Her handmade is like, um, that's kind of late, but have you never menstruated before? She's like, what? It's like, yeah, you know, women bleed once a month. This never happened to you. You've never heard of it. And she's like, what? Um, okay, why? And there's multiple instances in the story where we're in the like in her internal monologue where Guinevere is like, why don't I remember anything? Why don't I remember my childhood? Why don't I have these memories? Why is it all a fog? Which could be interesting and mysterious, but when it plays out as what the fuck are baby teeth? What is a period? Like, why those things? You know what I mean? Like, she knows how to talk. She knows what a child is. She's not like, why are there tiny humans? You know, like it's weird, like which things she seems to totally fine with and aware of and which things she's like, what? It's just, I don't know. Like I couldn't, it wasn't just like, cool mysterious magical Camelot. It was like, is this a comedy? Like, is it meant to be a comedy? Because it's not funny enough for it to be one. It would still be bad if it was trying to be a comedy, but it's definitely not serious. And then there are some twists, you know, to her sort of piecing together who she is and why she doesn't remember stuff and what Merlin's really been up to and why she was really sent here. And so many things where I was like, I don't really feel suspense or mystery about this. And why is that? I feel like it's because Guinevere just kept going along being like, I don't remember anything. I don't really know why I'm here. I was just told to me and I don't understand life at all, but I'm just going to do my job. And then whenever like a single thing comes along to make her question or doubt it, she's like, oh man, like there's just so much I don't know. I mean, I wish Merlin had told me more, but I trust Merlin, but I just keep doing what I'm doing. And then there's like these weird empowering moments where she's like, I want to love and I want to have power and I want to be respected. But who even are you? Like, you don't even know who you are. It's really hard for me to root for you when you don't know who you are. So, you know, and then Arthur at first is, hey, yo, not Guinevere, thanks for coming in and protecting me. And then as it progresses, he's like more and more like, I need you by my side and I was afraid I would lose you. And I was like, are you in love? Since when? When did this happen? And also why? Because all she does is go around the castle doing not magic and being bewildered by life, but apparently Arthur is super into that. So yes, they're in love. And Arthur, because he's likable, but mainly Guinevere is just like, he's just so self-sacrificing and so heroic and so noble. And I will never be good enough for that. Like, how can I compete with his love for his country and his people? He'll never selfishly cherish me, who I don't even know who I am, but he'll never cherish me, this mystery girl, the way he cherishes his people. And she's like jealous about it. But also it's like, he's so noble and good. And then this entire character is just like being noble and good and sacrificing all of his own personal happiness for Camelot. Except for those moments when he's like, I need you. And she's like, I like to be needed. It's just, it's such a weird book, honestly. Anyway, so yeah, the reason I'm doing these reviews together is because both of them have this heroine that is just so childish. And I mean, YA, this is why part of me was like, am I aging out of YA? Is that why I can't relate to this? But I don't think so. I don't think because 16 year olds don't act like this. Even the ones with magical sheltered reasons. So one has been sheltered her whole life and the other one is a changeling. So and it has like a wizard who's messed with her mind. So there are reasons for them to be a little bit clueless, but it really doesn't excuse the way that they are. It doesn't. I'm sorry, but it doesn't. So I feel like both stories had so much potential to have a mysterious and magical and and truly when I say mysterious, not just mysterious in terms of just like magic is mysterious, but I mean like a mystery at the center of the plot because there's, you know, who is attacking the magical libraries and like what's really going on and the idea of a mysterious magical story with creeping through libraries and like books that are sending that sounds so cool. But it was just not. It was just like a dumb childish person who is having stuff happen to her. And it's almost nothing to do with the libraries of libraries could be exchanged for almost any other magical thing. It could be a warehouse for magical globes. Like it doesn't really need to be libraries. It just happens to be libraries. So it doesn't really affect the story very much that they are libraries. And similarly, the one of your deception, it claims to be an Arthurian story and it uses the names like he's Arthur. Her name is Guinevere. There's a Mordred. There's a Lancelot. There's a yeah, there's like Merlin. There's names and characters that are in Camelot. But the story it's telling has almost nothing to do with the Knights of the Round Table. It has almost nothing to do with any actual Arthurian myths or legend or anything. It's just kind of like this random girl who's not who she says she is and trying to figure out where is the magical threat and kind of following people around. And also, oh my god, okay, I just want to be here is equally just as like stupid as Elizabeth in terms of jumping to conclusions with no evidence. There's a moment that I specifically remember where I was just like, are you seeking against where Guinevere she's discovered there's like there's somebody that she finds suspicious. And then this person has rocks that she thinks are magical. So she gets her hands on one of these rocks, and she's carrying the rock around. And then the rock gets really warm when she's passing this one building. And someone tells her this building used to be the home of a witch. Now, a good writer or if I was a writer, I would have written into the scene with her wondering what that could mean. Her going, oh, okay, there's clearly a connection between this place and this rock. But what is it? Is there something in the house that's connected to this rock? Or is there a person in there that no one knows about that's connected to this rock? Or is the rock connected to the building itself? Or is it a coincidence that the rock is getting warm here? And there's actually something else nearby? And it's not this building? Like what is this connection? But there's clearly something going on here? No, as soon as the rock gets warm in front of this house, she's like, oh, these rocks are beacons to help magic using people find each other fact. I was like, that's an option. It could possibly be that. But I don't know why you've decided that 100% that's what it is. And then also later, the rocks almost like don't come into it at all. When she's decides that that's the answer to what the rock is, it doesn't really play a part in the story at all anymore. Bye-bye mystery. It's just, it's not mysterious when she goes around being an idiot, not knowing even who she is. And every time there's like a clue she's following up on, she's like, oh, this means this. And I'm like, God, I hope the narrative punishes you for these bold conclusions that you're drawing, which it doesn't, to leap to such a certainty with almost no evidence. Like, are you serious? So again, like, it's not that they're naive. I don't think any naive 16 year old would make such bold assumptions. You know, they would be like, oh, I wonder what it means. Like, you know, like a normal person. Yeah. So obviously, I did not like either of these books. I think I gave both of them two out of five stars because there were elements to them where like, it's not the worst thing I've ever read, but they were just so boring and so flat. And the characters were so two dimensional and childish. And the love wasn't insta, but there just was nothing to it. And there's so many missed opportunities because both stories had the potential to be so magical and mysterious and intriguing and just failed utterly. Both of these are incredible examples of great concepts executed so poorly. And it's a tragedy because I really liked Enchanted Ravens. So having the author of that write about magical library sounded like a fantastic book. And I've never been that fond of the Arthur legend, but Kirsten White, I've loved her Vlad the Impaler trilogy. And I love Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein. And from those examples of her work, she's done quite dark and mysterious and stabby and she's written in a way that I feel like would lend itself to a really dark and mysterious and intriguing and an earthy and a pagan kind of Arthur story. This was, I don't even know what this was. It felt like she didn't even really know any Arthur story. She just kind of heard of it once in some like kids TV show and was like, alright, something inspired by that. It's like zero effort. And I don't get it because there's just, it's such a rich premise for each of these books that I'm like, how could you mess that up? She did. Yeah, so let me know in the comments down below if you've read either of these books, how you felt about them, if you did. A lot of people seem to like them. So probably in the minority again. But I certainly did not like them. I really wish I did. So let me know your thoughts and feelings in the comments down below. I post videos on Saturdays, sometimes Wednesdays. So like and subscribe, and I'll see you when I see you. Bye.