A review by vermithraxrose
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi

dark emotional slow-paced

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

3.0

The book is more atmospheric, there's not a lot of "action", no battles or heavy things like that. The writing style feeds into this, building the atmosphere and vibes of the story. That's ok for the first two thirds of the book but by the last fourth or so it began to feel very flowery to me. There were a lot of things I did not understand, spoilers ahead:

Part of the story is told by a character known simply as the "bridegroom" and one of the key parts of his story is a brother that supposedly went missing. He later remembers that the brother died and his family simply pretended he did not exist. I did not understand why they did that, what was the point of pretending the boy did not exist? And are we expected to believe that no family friends, teachers, or other children asked about this missing boy? The big twist at the end of the book is that Azure (who was supposedly missing) is actually alive and has been living as Indigo. I do not know why she hid what happened to Indigo, it was presumably an accident, right? And why would she embody such a toxic person after seeing how much hurt she caused? That's another part of the story, Indigo turns out to be an extremely terrible person, and her relationship with Azure and her aunt is destructive and toxic and it honestly made me feel sick. :(