Wednesday, November 2, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: This Wicked Fate by Kalynn Bayron

 





This Wicked Fate is the second book in Kalynn Bayron's young adult modern fantasy duology which began with This Poison Heart (reviewed here).  That book and this one were hyped up quite a lot by people I respect, and I enjoyed This Poison Heart for what it was: a YA modern fantasy featuring a Black (Queer) Teen Girl and some of the usually more reviled parts of Greek mythology (most notably Medea, Jason's wife).  At the same time, the book never really hit super high moments for me, with it relying on some very ordinary YA tropes and genre blindness that worked but prevented it from really impressing this reader who is out of the book's expected audience.*

*It should be noted I am very much not this book's best audience.  As much as I enjoy YA works, I am not a young adult reader, nor do I teach such readers.  I am also a White Cis Man, who tries to read works from people of color as often as possible to expand my horizons and to read more interesting and different things, but at the same time, that means that I won't feel the impact of books directed at POC or Black Readers like this book which are seemingly directed at similar White audiences all the time.  So take all this review for what it is.*

This Wicked Fate is kind of more of that same.  The story is very enjoyable for what it is, with it being a Black YA Fantasy dealing with Greek Mythology, featuring basically only women as major characters, with the story dealing with struggles and traumas over generations as its heroine Bri tries to save her family in a race against time.  At the same time, the book again relies on what for older readers may be an appalling amount of blindness to the obvious from Bri at times, and takes about half the book for the main plot to get going, which can be really frustrating.  The result is enjoyable and a solid YA work, and one that may be especially resonant to Black readers, but one which doesn't rank as high for me as it apparently does for others. 

Spoilers for Book 1 are inevitable below: -------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------
To save her mom, Briseis will have to fulfill an impossible quest: reunite all the fragments of the legendary Absyrtus Heart to restore the long lost son of the Goddess Hecate, her family's ancestor, who will then bring back Bri's mom.  But since Jason betrayed Medea thousands of years ago the six pieces of the Heart have been separated and cast throughout the world, so what chance does Bri have in reuniting them all these years later?  Especially as the powers of the Heart have been sought after throughout the ages, being the keys to immortality among other things.  

Bri's only hope relies upon a biological family she never knew - previously thought dead Circe, mysterious Persephone - as well as other allies connected to her family, like the immortal girl she crushes on Marie.  Together, they've tracked down all but one of the pieces of the Heart already, leaving just one left to find.  

But that one final piece was left behind on an Island long thought to be Myth, hidden behind monsters, gods, and tragedies of the past.  And with other searchers looking for the Heart as well, time may be running out for Bri to save her mom and somehow come out of it all with the happy ending that has eluded her family for generations.....
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This Poison Heart was in some ways kind of a Gothic novel, with large parts of the novel dedicated to Briseis exploring the mansion that was her ancestral home, discovering its magical secrets and the secrets of her bloodline, and figuring out not before it was too late what was really going on....both with her own family's history and with what others sought from her as a result.  Greek mythology wound up being intertwined throughout, particularly a twist on the story of Medea, but the story was largely the story of a Black queer teen coming to this strange new town with her two moms, discovering her heritage and her power (and possible romance) while dealing with mysterious threats and mysteries.  

By contrast This Wicked Fate is pretty much from the start of the book set to be a Greek Mythology inspired adventure novel, with the characters setup from the beginning for a quest through parts of Greek Myth spun in slightly different and more feminist ways by Bayron.  So this isn't quite a Rick Riordan novel (not there's anything wrong with those), but at the same time, you can expect gods, monsters, and beings of Greek Mythology to appear as Bri and her group make their way closer and closer to their goal.  Irritatingly, the book takes about 50% of its page-length to get to actually getting on this quest, despite the fact that every reader knows it's coming after last book's cliffhanger.  

That irritation aside, This Wicked Fate generally works pretty well as it incorporates the mythology into a tale of generational trauma and tragedy, as Bri confronts the sad parts of her family's history through Circe and Persephone, each of whom have long pasts at this point of sadness and despair that they really wish Bri had never gotten involved in.  The combination of Bri, Circe, Persephone, and Marie works really well as a questing group in that way, especially as they deal with those items of mythology that come up....and then later when they finally come up against their human foes near the end.  It's an enjoyable story in the end and it concludes well.

At the same time, it doesn't really ever get beyond that base level of enjoyableness, with it often feeling just kind of barebones and perfunctory on plot points.  For example, the romance between Marie and Bri is just....there - there really isn't super chemistry between them (and the age difference between them is just glossed over) but it's a thing the book just treats as well, it has to be a thing.  Similarly, the book relies on some plot tropes that will be super obvious to even most YA readers...and are basically almost spelled out in the text, particularly in regards to certain characters' eventual fates.....and yet Bri somehow seems to completely miss these moments until they come into play much later.  These tropes work and are fine for the genre, but just also feel like they're there just because you expect them to be which doesn't make this book stand out anymore.  

Again, for a black teen Audience, I suspect This Poison Heart and This Wicked Fate will be a highlight - a YA fantasy duology based on an alternate take on Greek Myth that more fits in their stories, which is something those audiences have often been underserved.  But for anyone else, this isn't really doing much else, and so it just rates as Solid and unremarkable.  

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