A review by freckled_frog_boi
Dark Rise by C.S. Pacat

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

2.5

I had really high hopes for this one because it was set in old London, with a magical world hidden from the eyes of humans, and an ancient war the main characters are thrust into. Plus, we have some queer and poc rep! 
 
However, it felt lacking on quite a few levels. Maybe because it's a YA novel, and I just didn’t check the genre beforehand? Idk. But I believe YA could be good if it were written well; this book was… not. 
 
First of all, do you know the miscommunication trope? It felt like the author was miscommunicating to the readers the whole time. Yes, there was foreshadowing, but it was to lead us all in a different direction, only for the author to “plot twist” us all in the last 50 pages. While some foreshadowing worked for both storylines, the original wrong one and the plot-twist right one, there was no way we could have seen the twist coming, which is the opposite of the whole point of foreshadowing, I feel. 
 
The author also had the mc spout monologues to explain what was going on, as if the mc just ~Knew~ what was going on the whole time. And even though we were in his POV most of the time, there were no hints as to what he actually knew. 
 
AND THERE WAS NO HUMOR??? Literally, the only two funny parts were unintentional. It was not meant to be funny, but it was too absurdist not to chuckle. PSA! WE NEED MORE HUMOR IN FANTASY! PLEASE! 
 
Also, it tried to follow the trope of having all MC parents be dead/abusive so they wouldn’t hold the heroes back from their adventure. It felt overdone and didn’t help me get into the novel. I felt like rolling my eyes. 
 
For example, the author made a POC character, only to
have her adopted parents be racist and abusive in order to force her into a hero’s journey. And then it was never discussed again.
Being Indian isn’t a plot device; it's part of her character, and I wished there was more fleshed out for her. She was also described as boyish/manly, which I didn’t appreciate. Not simply because she was the only POC character as far as I could tell, but because
she trains to become a strong fighter, and her “manliness” is given as one of the reasons she’s interested in swords and learning to fight. You can be feminine and like swords, goddammit. She doesn’t need to be masculine to like sword fighting!
 
Second of all, the queer rep was disappointing. We don’t really get a hint that Will, our MC, is bi until he
kisses a girl who I’m pretty sure is his cousin. Gross. And it’s not explained away. Later, when we realize he somehow knew the truth the whole time, none of the characters even blink once about it. It’s just not addressed.
Prior to him
kissing his cousin,
we are lead to think he’s gay; given what we are told, he appreciates other people’s “boyish” looks. To me, it felt like his attraction to women was just a plot point to build a single point of unidentifiable foreshadowing. It was not written to be a part of his character. Which sucks. 
 
Another weird thing for me was reading the POVs of the women in the book. They all had an underlying tone that they had crushes on Will. There was no reason that needed to be in there. Like the author could have just written it, so that wasn’t the case. Idk why they chose to do that; there was no point in us reading about a bunch of women crushing on, who we thought, was a gay man. It’s just uncomfortable. 
 
And finally! The gay romance. Firstly, the only queer romance in here was between MLM, white, pretty boys. Which is OK to have in a book, those types of characters can be wonderful. But this story wrote all of them as being extremely powerful but extremely submissive, which is just another form of harmful representation. And all of the gay romances are highly sexualized, down to stabbing scenes containing crazy sexual subtext. It made me extremely uncomfortable to read, and that’s REALLY saying something bc I like a good horny romance. This is just not a good horny. Rip. 
 
I don’t know. With how this book was explained, I was hoping to see more of a variety of queer rep, at least healthy queer rep!
 
It just didn’t feel well done. Sorry guys!

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