Emily Sarah Art

Let me start by saying I’ve followed the author as she wrote this on TT and really had high hopes. On the surface it’s everything I wanted from a sapphic YA book. The quotes shared seemed well written as did the general tone of the story. I really hate to say that I wanted to DNF this by page 10, and only finished it so that I could share my thoughts. I’ll start with grammar and wording then move on to problematic content (racism & kink content) and likenesses to existing works. Grammar & Language Everything else felt entirely haphazard. It read like a rough first rushed draft and I’m surprised this is a finished copy. This was not minor issues: there was repetition on almost every page. Things were constantly phrased in threes eg ‘A reminder. A statement. A promise.’ ‘Run. Run. Run.’ It got to the point where I physically threw the book (and I never so much as break a spine on a book.) It reads like a rough draft of a wattpad fanfic. On top of that there was so many examples of paragraphs where every last sentence started with the same word. (To the point I had 10 She’s in a row on numerous pages.) Entire scenes were repeated (such as her bicep being grabbed and her saying ‘you’re hurting me’ happened at least 2 times within the first maybe 40 pages. Then more later on.) The language used was more suited to middle grade then YA - everything was big or small, red, blue, green etc you get the idea. I’m not joking when I say it is unreadable for many because it is so poorly written. Problematic Content However, perhaps the biggest issue I had was the black character rep through the book. I was tired by page 100. The second half did get somewhat better (but saying that in that half we have a scene where the white character is worriedly joking the black MC is going to take her to be whipped by her royal guards. The Black MC is part of the monarchy (who from as far as I can tell were only described as Black, not White.) are shown to be hoarding wealth and land and leaving the witches on the outside who for the most part are only described as White/silver skinned with red hair. The witches are only allowed on castle grounds when brought in to serve and are treated poorly by the monarchy. I’m also not comfortable about so much obvious kink content in a lower YA book (14+). Whilst there’s no overly explicit scenes there’s constant uses of ‘good girl’ etc. This includes scenes with throat pinning etc. Theres scenes with knife play, begging, and brat like scenes. There’s also innuendos which were fine but only added to it (like sapphire liking her wet.) And a clear sub/dom vibe. This is also FREQUENT. I know this was originally written to be spicy and for adults (going by Brenna’s prior TikToks) and was edited for a younger audience so this content should have been removed. Likeness to Existing Works The plot is also very similar to Shadow & Bone season one Alina’s whole story, to the point that I was considerably shocked. This was not one plot point, it was so many to the point that I knew how the book would end and I didn’t realise why until I realised it’s literally Alina season 1.