Reviews

The Scottish Boy, by Alex de Campi, Trungles

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menomica's review against another edition

adventurous emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

He knows now the word for the soaring feeling he gets in his chest every time he looks at his squire. He knows now the name of the song his body sings when he touches his friend. It is love. And it is impossible.

Maybe my brain is rotted because everyone’s saying they hated this book meanwhile I was getting my life with this.

Once you know and understand that this book was originally a stucky fanfic everything clicks. Like once you see and accept that it’s a repackaged ~~and repolished~~ fanfic

Spoiler

I know they had to chang the names for legal reasons but I need to know the original character roster. Who the fuck was Montegue in the original fic??? Every time there was a new character introduced I was like was that originally and MCU character or an OC? Someone send me the characterlist I’m dying to know!!!

off ao3 it makes a lot more sense. Like with this book, I really felt like I was reading a fic, just kind of turning my brain off and enjoying the ride. Like of course they’re just gonna have random sex with no fear of painting, painting doesn’t exist in ao3land!

That being said, I would argue this book does manage to stand on its own. Like for me at least I enjoyed watching ~~Steve~~ Harry and ~~Bucky~~ Ian’s relationship grow. And like I said, since it follows more of the fanfic structure, you shouldn’t be suprised to see hot gay sex first, plot intrigue later. But this book really doesn’t get hot and horny till the 25% mark, and there is actually a lot of plot in this book.

Idk I liked it. Wouldn’t be mad if there was a sequel 🤷🏾‍♀️.

Spoiler

Uncle Iain is definitely the kids favorite. Plus I’d love to see Aly, Harry and Iain’s relationship after the books.

Content Warnings

loulou87's review

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5.0

4.5 stars.

What a magnificent book.

Let me start with: For me, this was not similar to Captive Prince as some would say. Totally different feel imo.

As for the book:
Great MCs: lovable, nuanced, sweet. They have a great development as the plot goes along. I appreciated that they didn't stay the same and they let the situations in the book shape them.

Very interesting and well thought out plot.

Great world building, with attention to details and historical inspirations.

Very sexy steam. These two are DIRTY in bed. Their dirty talk is

moux's review

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5.0

Hands down one of my favourite books I've read this year.

Potential spoiler, but if you are worried, like I was that this book might have a tragic ending (because I make a habit of only reading books with happy endings) it does not.

kweziferguson's review against another edition

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4.0

I devoured this book.

I couldn’t put it down! Word of warning: it is VERY SPICY (by my standards anyway and I am no prude.) But at the same time SO we’ll written.

Knights, swords, horses, jousting, heroics, war, politics and romance. This book has it all. Oh and also LOTS of very graphic gay sex. *Chef’s Kiss.

I didn’t really know what I was getting into when I first picked the book up but the characters, plot and writing hooked me from the word go.

If you likes The Song of Achilles and The Binding then The Scottish Boy is a great (MUCH spicer) read to follow the others up with.

If you don’t like your books dirty then rather stay away because The Scottish Boy is FILTHY but in all the best ways.

garbutch's review

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I'm really disappointed to not see a single reviewer mentioning that this includes a lot of smut where two of them are teenagers, one 17 and one 19 at the beginning of the story. There's also a somno scene where they didn't talk about it beforehand. So there's dubcon with youngins and I think people should be made aware of it going in. I don't really feel comfortable rating it right now with this in mind. I understand that it's Of An Era and they were of the age of expected marriages and all that. It still feels weird to read this as someone in the modern day reading a work made in the modern day.

The story itself was interesting to me but I think a lot of it is just... Well, very lovelorn depressed teenagers who keep getting separated for whatever reason. There's some political intrigue and I like the arrangement they came to with chosen family in the end.

violetfoxtales's review

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2.0

too much trash

I wanted to love this book but it was ruined by all the trashy sex scenes. It was like someone cut them from a contemporary story and dropped them in and it just ruined the historical detail of the rest of the narrative. There were a lot of modern turns of phrase that would pull me out of the story (usually during the sex scenes