A review by yuna
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

dark emotional reflective slow-paced
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I'm torn on this one. Yes, the writing is lyrical and Thisby is an intriguing setting. But there's more style and little substance for me until about halfway through when we finally get some solid stakes and emotion to go with them. I'm also bothered by how romanticized Sean's relationship to Corr is because it reads as very dominance/subduing Corr's innate nature rather than partnership. Which makes Puck and Dove's relationship a great foil (had a lot of great reminiscent feels as a girl who grew up riding ponies), except that it's never addressed that Sean constantly has to use his horse whispering and fae stuff to subdue Corr's nature as a capall uisce. It read very master/servant to me.

Side-eyeing the lack of any other girl Puck's age in the book and that Puck has zero friends. And the blind rep in this book is awful. Gender is written in a very binary way, with the notion of masculinity having a toxic lean to me. And a narrow take on what "love" is.
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