• 08 Nov, 2025 *

I will spoil some of the setup of this book, but not much more than the front flap on the book cover already spoils. I read, maybe, 60 pages of the 270 page book.

I checked out this book book from the library because it LOOKS REALLY COOL. It has a dark cover with flowers for art on it, and the edges of the pages are BLUE. I’m like hell yeah, cool as fantasy book with cool as vibes.

This review is very negative. And I recognize that this may have a lot to do with personal taste. I do not wish to bash the author, and I hope they continue to write more books. My review also is unfair because I did not finish the book, and I recognize that. It’s also a short book (270 pages or so), so perhaps you should find out for yourself. I think writing is good, and I would never want to discourage any author from writing. But I do want to bitch. And just because I’m a hater doesn’t mean there won’t be lovers. The premise for the book is somewhat interesting, but I don’t like the execution.

The premise of the book is that Hellebore, a school for magical people, traps victims (students) there and the staff eat them.

Very quickly, we’re presented with an unconstrained and quite intense magic system - one girl exploded somebody, another girl - while angry - was like covered in teeth or something. And then the Headmistress wants them to all come to the conference hall (or cafeteria? idr), but they’re resisting. The students know what is coming. Oh and nobody really cares all that much about the exploded girl. One fellow student is upset, but it just sounds like normal shit for this school.

And so the headmistress teleports them to the conference hall (and magically they’re all dressed in their best). One girl tries to get up but is stuck in some sort of time-loop. So she gives up and just sits there while things progress.

One student is called up, and the staff go to town, just eating at their raw flesh, if i remember correctly. Then the students (I don’t remember how) end up in the school’s library with the door shut, barricaded.

The staff is trying to get in but they can’t. Apparently the school building itself is magical. So even though the headmistress can magically teleport and dress people and create time loops ... she can’t get through a fucking door. Whatever, okay.

So the headmistress tells the students that if only one of them lives and opens the door, they will be allowed to leave the school. So I suspect the entire rest of the book will involve them sitting in the fucking library talking about who should die and maybe killing each other. Maybe it’s more interesting than that, but I really dislike the dialogue in this book so I can’t be bothered to find out.

I genuinely read about 20-30 pages, then I started skimming because I just had no interest in any of the actual writing of the book. I found the overall plot vaguely interesting and wanted to know what happened, but the actual play-by-play was not to my liking.

There’s no clear magic system at play. I think this can be okay, an unconstrained somewhat chaotic magic system ... but I don’t like it. It just feels poorly done. But that’s not my issue with this book.

There are two major complaints I have and one minor complaint.

The minor complaint first - the book is annoyingly political. I agree with the book’s politics, but it is just very preachy and poorly integrated if you ask me. I prefer my fictional media to communicate politics through stories than through direct commentary. But the politics it commentates about are good, so at least there’s that. This is a minor preference of mine, and definitely not a big deal.

The things that make this book unreadable for me.

The dialogue - the dialogue is very unnatural. It does not feel like the characters are awkward people or anything, just the dialogue feels off. It’s hard to describe what I mean, but it’s bad dialogue, people don’t speak like that. I stopped reading when the students got trapped in the library.

I’m reading another book right now - A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett (which I will review later) - that has some awkward dialogue too. But Drop of Corruption has different speaking styles for different characters, and it gives the sense that some of the characters are just kinda fuckin weird. It works. It’s not the writer who’s bad at dialogue. It’s (some of) the characters who are bad at dialogue. I do have critiques about this book as far as writing unlikeable characters, and I will be critical of this book too (though a bit more positive). That’s for another day.

So yeah, I think the dialogue is bad.

My other major complaint.

Unnecessary vocabulary and drawn-out flowery descriptions of things - Look, some people will love this shit, but I am not one of them. I just do not like how scenery and other details are described in this book. Metaphors and analogies are used to excess. The writers’ vocabulary is obviously excellent (or they’re really good at using a thesaurus) and it makes it unreadable for me. I’m a pretty good reader, and I have a decent vocabulary, but I have to constantly look words up or just “Eh, I don’t need to know exactly what they mean”. I choose the latter.

I like some flowery descriptions, when it elevates a particular scene or feature. But I don’t want flowery descriptions all the time of every little thing. I’m not a fan of the constant metaphor, like just tell me what the thing looks like. And I get the sense that none of these things being described in excess have any real baring on the book, and they don’t really help me see the scene better in my mind.

And I like some vocabulary that I don’t know. I’m happy to look up a few words here and there. I like expanding my vocabulary that way. And in the other fiction I’ve read the last few months, if I choose not to look up a word, I still typically know what’s going on, and can picture things well enough. Other times, I’m really clueless. Like I didn’t know what a “dais” or a “motif” was. I had to look those up, and in doing so I actually had more visual information about the scene. In this book, my looking-up-of-words does not seem to expand my ability to understand the book, but only raise my vocabulary to unnecessary levels.

Sidenote - 3 of the fiction series I’ve read lately (not this book) have used the term “preternatural” and I’m tired of it lol. Somebody’s fingers have a “preternatural sensitivity”. You could just say “unnatural” or “uncanny” or something like that. Also, I’ve seen the term “environs” a lot instead of “environment” or “surroundings” or whatever. I think this is honestly fine, but it just seems a little silly. Sometimes such vocab does help with setting, but other times its feeling like the authors just wanna sound fancy. Either way, these vocab uses are minor things compared to what I’m experiencing in Hellebore.

So yeah. That was quite the bitch session.

If I may recommend books:

• Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin - all time favorite book series
• Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse - An absolutely excellent book series, one of my favorites
• Dreamcatcher by Stephen King - yeah, yeah, everybody knows stephen king. I really enjoyed this book though. It is my bestie’s favorite.
• Inheritance Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin - uhhh i apparently forgot to write my book reviews about these!!!! These were also excellent, but I liked the Broken Earth series better (Fifth Season, etc)

#book