![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Half a Soul by Victoria Atwater
Jul. 4th, 2021 08:11 pmHalf a Soul
4/5. Hey, it's drunk reviewing!* This is a "regency" fantasy romance about a girl who lost half her soul to faerie such that she feels emotions and sensations only very distantly, and how she banters her way into the affections of a prominent sorcerer who has a lot of social justice rage.
This is actually really good, which I was not expecting from the shoddy worldbuilding (regency doesn't mean "anytime in Britain before electricity, people) and the anachronisms (she describes emotions as having long tails and short tails, the origins of which I did not dig into, but even if it is somehow historically accurate usage, it sure as hell sounds wrong)). But yeah, actually, this has all sorts of stuff about how the horror of the faerie courts is only outclassed by the horror of British high society and its treatment of the poor and, around the edges, the disabled. And it has one of those great proposals where he spends half the time listing her good qualities in such a way that you know he sees her clearly, like where he says that she is kind but not nice. Correct. Also good banter. Also, it has a version of that thing where the man is famously unpleasant and difficult except this one woman can change him, but here she doesn't really change him, and also his anger is justified and so is hers.
*For values of "drunk" meaning one bourbon since I am just that much of a lightweight now.
4/5. Hey, it's drunk reviewing!* This is a "regency" fantasy romance about a girl who lost half her soul to faerie such that she feels emotions and sensations only very distantly, and how she banters her way into the affections of a prominent sorcerer who has a lot of social justice rage.
This is actually really good, which I was not expecting from the shoddy worldbuilding (regency doesn't mean "anytime in Britain before electricity, people) and the anachronisms (she describes emotions as having long tails and short tails, the origins of which I did not dig into, but even if it is somehow historically accurate usage, it sure as hell sounds wrong)). But yeah, actually, this has all sorts of stuff about how the horror of the faerie courts is only outclassed by the horror of British high society and its treatment of the poor and, around the edges, the disabled. And it has one of those great proposals where he spends half the time listing her good qualities in such a way that you know he sees her clearly, like where he says that she is kind but not nice. Correct. Also good banter. Also, it has a version of that thing where the man is famously unpleasant and difficult except this one woman can change him, but here she doesn't really change him, and also his anger is justified and so is hers.
*For values of "drunk" meaning one bourbon since I am just that much of a lightweight now.
