A review by robotnik
Pestilence by Laura Thalassa

medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

I am bewildered. BEWILDERED, I tell you, that people read this and thought it was good. It pretty much failed at everything it promised. I was expecting some sort of enemy-to-lovers sort of scenario, but what I got instead was a disgustingly abusive romance with such illogical development.

The world building overall is absolute crap. The plotline is non-existent. This is pretty much a road trip. Let's get that straight. Sara and Pestilence travel from place to place, taking over someone's home whether they're there or not, having either an argument or heart to heart, and then lots of nearby people die. And then they go to the next place. Occasionally, they fight with someone who tries killing Pestilence but fails cause he's fucking immortal. There is not a single event in this book - not even the climax - that stands out in any way. It's all just one big pile of bleh.

BUT LET'S TALK ABOUT THE ROMANCE BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT EVERYONE WAS REALLY HERE FOR.

So, introducing the list of things that occur during Pestilence and Sara's time together (it's super romantic, guys):

- he makes her run behind his horse regardless of how tired she is
- ties her to a railing so she can't escape overnight
- his attempts at giving her sustenance, which is pretty much shoving stuff that you don't typically just eat by itself at her
- watching her piss and bath because he refuses to leave her alone (it's okay though because her biggest concern is whether or not he finds her as sexy as she finds him)
- forces her to watch people suffer over and over again through his plague, refusing to listen to her when she tells him to stop even after he decides he's in love with her and can stop it
- shoots her in the back with an arrow when she tries escaping
- decides they're going to get married immediately after having sex for the first time
- is offended that she doesn't understand that sleeping with him ""means"" she belongs to him now
- kind of slut shames her when he learns he's not her first
- just overall insults and belittles her for the majority of the book until he's in love and now she's his property and isn't allowed any agency because he wants to keep her with him forever, thanks

So love, much romance. Definitely not just abusive in any way.

I want to say this book ends on some sort of good note, but it ends with the plague getting reversed because of Pestilence loving Sara, and that's the biggest bunch of bullshit cop-out ending I've read all year. I'd be embarrassed to have written it myself.

Oh, one final note before I forget about this travesty: this book has more than one conversation about how religion works. Pestilence explains that all the religions are right, organized religion by humankind is wrong. And tries to act like faith is all just the same faith. Which gets REALLY FUCKING RICH when it follows Christianity and the Christian God, regardless of how much Pestilence says he's not Christian and "God is God". I don't know if the author wasn't quick enough to realize how offensive that is to all the other religions, but it's offensive to all the other religions when you say that all religion is the same and God is everyone's God when you specifically follow exactly ONE religion in your narrative (and, no offense to any Christians out there, but one that has had a history of forcing itself onto other cultures to eradicate their native religion). This isn't you being smart. This is you being Christian-normative and acting like it's the default and above all other religions and saying the beliefs of other religions are fake and the Christians just happen to have it right. That's what you did.

Anyways, off to bleach my brain to erase this mess from it.
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