The Dread Descendant by Lauren Cate
Just my personal opinion, the first chapter draaaaags. Though, I like the world building. I like the interspersed dialogue throughout so it’s not just droning facts about the universe as a whole. Maybe I’m having a hard time because it’s 3rd person bordering on omniscient (my least favorite writing style). Hopefully I’ll start to connect with the characters more once the story picks up. I think I just wish there was a bit more plot building interspersed in the initial chapters. With all the world building, it’s like “great, that’s neat, but why do I care?” There’s not much plot to grab onto to fuel me through the initial stages of the magic system/political system.
I can’t help but feel the writing is a bit stunted. Almost like a first draft before you really get the flow of the narrative down.
Why was Maeve so chill? For the most part we’ve seen her be a relatively moral person. Yet he goes on a lil mini rampage and we’re supposed to read her shock and horror and pretend like, what? That wouldn’t have some semblance of an impact on her mentally? She’s practically on the verge of hyperventilating and then they’re making out? Just like that? Moved past it? Maybe it’s a disregard for human life we haven’t seen because we haven’t seen her really interact with humans, but I just… I don’t know. It felt so out of character for her, in my opinion. There was no moral struggle, no coming to grips with what he did. Just horror and then acceptance. That’s not really how the mind works.
Can I adopt Jude? I hope we get more of this side of Mal.
For someone so vehement about his daughter’s safety and protection, he sure is cool with selling her off to the highest bidder.
Are we not worried about pregnancy? She was a virgin, so, doubtful she was concerned with contraception. Now, we’ve gone bareback no pull out TWICE? And we’re just chill? No thoughts of consequences?
Nah, fuck compassion for those who would rather torture you than show you an ounce of kindness. Maeve is NOT the benefactor of the promise he made to Arianna. Maeve made that happen for herself. Maeve stood on business and stood up for herself. Maeve fought for her power and in kind, fought for her future. Just because Arianna doesn’t want to stand up and do the hard part doesn’t mean Maeve unfairly benefited where Arianna didn’t.
The end revelation with her mom kind of fell flat for me, I’m not entirely sure why, it just wasn’t really surprising enough or done in a compelling enough way that I was okay with not being surprised.
All in all, I really and truly adored the concept as a whole. I thought it was a great premise. This book is a fantastic second to last draft, but really, it needed some final walk-throughs and cleaning up.