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tostita's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
emmalthompson85's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Beautiful complex world building. Worrying quality that varied between rich with symbolism and maybe calm down now (skin ripping, breasts hardening). Could have used a lot more depth (I have no idea what the mc's everyday life in the palace was like, I'm still not sure how old the twins were meant to be, and yes I know human idea of age might not apply directly but...). The romance didn't work. It was never particularly developed to show any kind of intimacy other than sexual. Like, I get that she very much wanted to fuck, I'm not convinced they'd ever manage even mildly satisfying pillow talk.
jiminlightyear's review against another edition
romance was a little silly. insta love :/ which felt embarrassing to hear about
citrus_seasalt's review against another edition
3.25
It took a bit for me to get invested in the story, but this was my first time reading a sapphic monster romance, and this was interesting. It borrows a couple elements from Beauty And The Beast, which is how I found out about it(I love queer retellings), but it seems to be only inspired by that story: The world of magical, ravaging diseases, architecture so impossible it’s like illusions to a human’s eyes and mind, and villages ruled by the fear of being “disposable”(ableism connotation) is something specific to Aliette De Bodard’s writing.
While the story is written in English, Vietnamese language is often important to both the plot itself, and how the characters are gendered. I don’t know if I’d consider this to be a “queernorm” world, but there was casual non-binary representation in not one but two of the characters, and I liked how that was represented with both how they were described as referring to themselves, and the cultural clothing they’d wear. (Also, while this is a slightly different topic, honorifics are used to show the progression of Vu Côn and Yên’s relationship, and I liked that.)
Unfortunately, one of the reasons it took a while for me to start liking this was because I felt detached from the main character—although Vu Côn’s POV was alright, I don’t think a third-person POV worked for Yên. Some of this could also be attributed to the writing style, which while there are some beautiful passages, a lot of it was confusingly dreamlike. The story is already surreal because of its impossible setting(I mean this in a matter-of-fact way), but some of that seeped into the character writing and worldbuilding. My experience reading was notably strange, as a result. (Also, none of the village characters stuck with me except for her mother, Kim Ngoc?)
I definitely feel like the twins had the strongest characterization of all the cast, which isn’t exactly a hot take among the reviewers(they seem to be a crowd favorite). Their motivations were the easiest to grasp, and I liked them as characters, too. Their mother-child relationships with Vu Côn were a little complex but also sweet.
Can’t think of anything else to say except for that while I liked how the different ethics and implications of Yên and Vu Côn’s romance were addressed, Yên running away whenever there was tension(the bad kind, not the other kind) got repetitive. Some of the explanation on the Vanishers was also confusing to me, but I don’t know if that’s because I zoned out in the first third or so?
Not sure if I’d read any other books by this author. There were elements of “In The Vanisher’s Palace” that I liked, but not enough to recommend it?
While the story is written in English, Vietnamese language is often important to both the plot itself, and how the characters are gendered. I don’t know if I’d consider this to be a “queernorm” world, but there was casual non-binary representation in not one but two of the characters, and I liked how that was represented with both how they were described as referring to themselves, and the cultural clothing they’d wear. (Also, while this is a slightly different topic, honorifics are used to show the progression of Vu Côn and Yên’s relationship, and I liked that.)
Unfortunately, one of the reasons it took a while for me to start liking this was because I felt detached from the main character—although Vu Côn’s POV was alright, I don’t think a third-person POV worked for Yên. Some of this could also be attributed to the writing style, which while there are some beautiful passages, a lot of it was confusingly dreamlike. The story is already surreal because of its impossible setting(I mean this in a matter-of-fact way), but some of that seeped into the character writing and worldbuilding. My experience reading was notably strange, as a result. (Also, none of the village characters stuck with me except for her mother, Kim Ngoc?)
I definitely feel like the twins had the strongest characterization of all the cast, which isn’t exactly a hot take among the reviewers(they seem to be a crowd favorite). Their motivations were the easiest to grasp, and I liked them as characters, too. Their mother-child relationships with Vu Côn were a little complex but also sweet.
Can’t think of anything else to say except for that while I liked how the different ethics and implications of Yên and Vu Côn’s romance were addressed, Yên running away whenever there was tension(the bad kind, not the other kind) got repetitive. Some of the explanation on the Vanishers was also confusing to me, but I don’t know if that’s because I zoned out in the first third or so?
Not sure if I’d read any other books by this author. There were elements of “In The Vanisher’s Palace” that I liked, but not enough to recommend it?
ratgrrrl's review against another edition
3.0
I feel so powerful ambivalent about this story and seeing other's strong reactions either way have only left me even more confused and rather sure that my brain is just as responsible as de Bodard for my utter discombobulation.
First of all, I came across this book by seeing it on a Queer book list and saw that it was in the Audible Included library. I had heard good things about de Bodard, so that was all the context I had going in. I wasn't aware it was a retelling of Beauty and the Beast and discovering the post apocalyptic sci-fi fantasy with Vietnamese mythology and folklore was an absolute delight. Quite frankly, you had me at sapphic romance with a dragon, so these elements were a wonderful bonus. There's also various diseases and bargains and magic based on word combinations. There's a lot. A lot of good stuff, but a lot. Possibly too much for a novella, which, it think, actually worked against the story and relatively low page count.
The worldbuilding is great. The eponymous Vanishers having toyed with earth and left it a post apocalyptic mess, leaving destruction, disease, and division as their legacy. An interesting situation with enigmatic and absent figures is a great place to start. I do think having it be a separate people to humans, rather than a more accurate previous generation/ culture gives humanity a bit of an unearned pass on the whole causing the Apocalypse thing, but we're doing sci-fi and remnant stuff, which is cool. There are also human villages seemingly based on traditional Vietnamese culture and dragons who apparently barter life for life for direly needed medical assistance.
The story opens with the most opaque chapter of a story that is tricky to parse, but gets easier as the narrative carries you along. Our protagonist offers themself to be taken by the dragon in place of their mother, after the dragon had been called for emergency care of a sick child. Instead of being killed or made into a concubine, something very oddly joked about by the dragon, the MC acts as school teacher for the dragons kids. A will they won't they romance ensues with complications around agency, withholding of important information, illness, and being sequestered away from the MC's people. It really isn't presented anywhere near as straight forward as that and at times I found myself confused and my focus drifting from the audiobook, leaving me even more lost and re-listening to a number of chunks along the way.
A lot of the prose is beautiful. De Bodard is clearly a skilled writer and I am keen to try other examples of their work. As a number of other reviews have pointed out, unfortunately, there is a real tendency to tell rather than show the relationships between the characters and the emotions and romance between the MC and the dragon. This includes the classic instalove problem and eschewing the slowburn romance, which is particularly strange as that is what Beauty and the Beast is all about, right? I like the characters, but they are all archetypes and adjectives rather than demonstrating their personalities and growth over the story. There is so much potential in them, and so much in this story to be honest, but they aren't given the space to breathe.
Something I really appreciated was the handling of gender with a few non binary characters and some interesting and respectful discussion of pronouns, including correcting assumptions and picking up on the pronouns a person uses for themself. There does seem to be a singular distillation of non binary as being a third gender and some contradictory descriptions of a character whose gender is assumed incorrectly and then is later described as something along the lines of being very obviously agender. Being non binary or agender or any other gender beyond men and women are not one thing, but an infinite spectrum, experience, understanding, and presentation of gender that doesn't have a look or aesthetic (although a young dragon in dungarees with a side shave would look sick). Androgyneity is a thing, but not all non binary folx are androgynous. I greatly appreciate the effort and inclusion though. The description and use of pronouns with how they relate to the way people refer to each other signifying their relationship and dynamic is also a really interesting thing to see, especially alongside the previous discussion.
With not seeing a lot of the romance and relationship development, despite us being told and aspects being discussed, there is a very weird power dynamic at play that I found uncomfortable. I totally get that there can be kinks around this and fully support people writing about that of that's their passion, bur that doesn’t seem to be the vibe of this story. They actually go so far as to discuss consent and agency a couple of times, which is great, but beyond declaring someone not your slave anymore, while still keeping seriously important information about this somone from them, doesn't really change anything about the dynamics or how things started. It might just be me, as I saw someone saying the opposite of my feelings on the matter in another review. But, yeah, I got weird vibes and was kinda uncomfortable.
I really wanted to love this and there are elements I do, but the level of confusion and just how much I didn't feel that I got to know the characters well enough and absolutely didn't see or understand the romance really hampered my enjoyment. Judging by a lot of the reviews, this might be a me thing and I am rather autistic with ADHD, which could well be a factor here.
Ultimately, I think it's a case of too many ideas in not enough space combined with beautiful lyrical prose arranged unconventionally that made this confusing, and then the lack of on page development kept me from really hooking into the characters. I'm still glad I read it and I am intrigued to read some more de Bodard.
The audiobook narration by Nancy Wu is wonderful and really adds to the mystical fairytale fantasy of it all.
First of all, I came across this book by seeing it on a Queer book list and saw that it was in the Audible Included library. I had heard good things about de Bodard, so that was all the context I had going in. I wasn't aware it was a retelling of Beauty and the Beast and discovering the post apocalyptic sci-fi fantasy with Vietnamese mythology and folklore was an absolute delight. Quite frankly, you had me at sapphic romance with a dragon, so these elements were a wonderful bonus. There's also various diseases and bargains and magic based on word combinations. There's a lot. A lot of good stuff, but a lot. Possibly too much for a novella, which, it think, actually worked against the story and relatively low page count.
The worldbuilding is great. The eponymous Vanishers having toyed with earth and left it a post apocalyptic mess, leaving destruction, disease, and division as their legacy. An interesting situation with enigmatic and absent figures is a great place to start. I do think having it be a separate people to humans, rather than a more accurate previous generation/ culture gives humanity a bit of an unearned pass on the whole causing the Apocalypse thing, but we're doing sci-fi and remnant stuff, which is cool. There are also human villages seemingly based on traditional Vietnamese culture and dragons who apparently barter life for life for direly needed medical assistance.
The story opens with the most opaque chapter of a story that is tricky to parse, but gets easier as the narrative carries you along. Our protagonist offers themself to be taken by the dragon in place of their mother, after the dragon had been called for emergency care of a sick child. Instead of being killed or made into a concubine, something very oddly joked about by the dragon, the MC acts as school teacher for the dragons kids. A will they won't they romance ensues with complications around agency, withholding of important information, illness, and being sequestered away from the MC's people. It really isn't presented anywhere near as straight forward as that and at times I found myself confused and my focus drifting from the audiobook, leaving me even more lost and re-listening to a number of chunks along the way.
A lot of the prose is beautiful. De Bodard is clearly a skilled writer and I am keen to try other examples of their work. As a number of other reviews have pointed out, unfortunately, there is a real tendency to tell rather than show the relationships between the characters and the emotions and romance between the MC and the dragon. This includes the classic instalove problem and eschewing the slowburn romance, which is particularly strange as that is what Beauty and the Beast is all about, right? I like the characters, but they are all archetypes and adjectives rather than demonstrating their personalities and growth over the story. There is so much potential in them, and so much in this story to be honest, but they aren't given the space to breathe.
Something I really appreciated was the handling of gender with a few non binary characters and some interesting and respectful discussion of pronouns, including correcting assumptions and picking up on the pronouns a person uses for themself. There does seem to be a singular distillation of non binary as being a third gender and some contradictory descriptions of a character whose gender is assumed incorrectly and then is later described as something along the lines of being very obviously agender. Being non binary or agender or any other gender beyond men and women are not one thing, but an infinite spectrum, experience, understanding, and presentation of gender that doesn't have a look or aesthetic (although a young dragon in dungarees with a side shave would look sick). Androgyneity is a thing, but not all non binary folx are androgynous. I greatly appreciate the effort and inclusion though. The description and use of pronouns with how they relate to the way people refer to each other signifying their relationship and dynamic is also a really interesting thing to see, especially alongside the previous discussion.
With not seeing a lot of the romance and relationship development, despite us being told and aspects being discussed, there is a very weird power dynamic at play that I found uncomfortable. I totally get that there can be kinks around this and fully support people writing about that of that's their passion, bur that doesn’t seem to be the vibe of this story. They actually go so far as to discuss consent and agency a couple of times, which is great, but beyond declaring someone not your slave anymore, while still keeping seriously important information about this somone from them, doesn't really change anything about the dynamics or how things started. It might just be me, as I saw someone saying the opposite of my feelings on the matter in another review. But, yeah, I got weird vibes and was kinda uncomfortable.
I really wanted to love this and there are elements I do, but the level of confusion and just how much I didn't feel that I got to know the characters well enough and absolutely didn't see or understand the romance really hampered my enjoyment. Judging by a lot of the reviews, this might be a me thing and I am rather autistic with ADHD, which could well be a factor here.
Ultimately, I think it's a case of too many ideas in not enough space combined with beautiful lyrical prose arranged unconventionally that made this confusing, and then the lack of on page development kept me from really hooking into the characters. I'm still glad I read it and I am intrigued to read some more de Bodard.
The audiobook narration by Nancy Wu is wonderful and really adds to the mystical fairytale fantasy of it all.
arachan's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I was late to this book but it was on sale in hard copy during the 2024 Worldcon in Glasgow and I snapped it up gratefully.
This is blurbed as a take on 'Beauty and the Beast' and while I can see where that description comes from, it's a very fluid take. Set in a post-apocalyptical world where the long-gone Vanishers have ravaged the world with magic and science, this sapphic romance covers a lot of ground in astonishingly few pages.
Indeed, that's my only real complaint. This book feels like an entry in an ongoing series or an abridged version of the story. I would read a version with three times the length and I'd still be looking for more.
This is blurbed as a take on 'Beauty and the Beast' and while I can see where that description comes from, it's a very fluid take. Set in a post-apocalyptical world where the long-gone Vanishers have ravaged the world with magic and science, this sapphic romance covers a lot of ground in astonishingly few pages.
Indeed, that's my only real complaint. This book feels like an entry in an ongoing series or an abridged version of the story. I would read a version with three times the length and I'd still be looking for more.
darcyhendershott's review
2.0
This story almost read as though ChatGPT had written it. It was very unremarkable writing and had a lack of feeling.
kristinconnolly's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
When your the town healers daughter what happens when your mother makes a deal with a dragon. Yên is sold to Vu Côn by her village and is tasked with teaching two children. Vu Côn and Yên relationship deepens and turns spicy. I really enjoyed the incorporation of Chinese medicine and the magic system. I found the story to be really entertaining. The idea of the vanishes was really interesting and brought new elements that I haven't seen in other stories. I also didn't realize this was a beauty and the beast retelling.
capybara5's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0