Title: A Fragile Enchantment
Author: Allison Saft
Series: n/a
Thank you to Allison Saft, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for allowing me to listen to a free eaudio ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This was so meh. Retitle to: Everyone Wants What They Can’t (Or Think They Can’t) Have. That was the main theme. Neeve (that’s how the narrator pronounced it) wanted a better life for pretty much everyone, then wanted Kit. Kit wanted freedom, then Neeve. Sinclair wanted acceptance and equality. The king wanted a healthy peaceful kingdom and brother. Sophia wanted happiness in her marriage. Rosa wanted freedom and Miriam. Miriam wanted Rosa.
For some it came across as longing, for some as entitlement, for some as just plain being whiny. For all it got old.
Characters need to want things. It motivates them, drives their actions, produces conflict, gives them an arc one way or the other. I get it. But that doesn’t mean they have to be so . . . needy about it.
And because it was a romance, all that pretty much happened was characters finding reasons to hang out and whine about what they wanted, aka character development. I wish more had attitudes like Rosa—not liking her circumstances but maturely taking them in stride. Everyone had unhealthy coping mechanisms: Neeve forewent sleep and food and worked herself ill; Kit drank and brooded and snarled; Sinclair flaunted his self-hatred and became a saboteur; Jack kept secrets and overburdened himself with stress; Sophia suffered in meek, miserable silence; Miriam in dutiful silence. That was most of the book, until they were all forced to confront their unhealthy coping mechanisms at the end, when it was either change or, you know, war and devastation. Of course they all decided that war and devastation didn’t sound like much fun, and like dominoes they each made changes and got what they wanted, more or less.
To some that premise could sound reasonable, and if approached differently it might have been. But the execution here wasn’t to my taste. It wasn’t so bad that I wanted to DNF, but disagreeable enough that listening became a chore.
Neeve was guileless and selfless enough to be likeable, but there wasn’t much else to her character. Kit was a shit from moment one; Saft tried to paint him as the stereotypical broody and rude on the outside, soft and vulnerable on the inside, but to me he was simply a child throwing tantrums. Jack reeked of ulterior motives and put me off. Sinclair was both the gay best friend and the royal bastard who oozed charm, personality, and inadequacy.
The magic was . . . I could say miscast, because all the abilities were unsuitable for the plot’s needs—by which I mean they were underutilized or more powerful than the situation called for—but the magic was really just unnecessary. Off the top of my head I can’t think of any reason the magic was vital to the plot. Neeve could have been hired because she was simply very skilled. Kit could have known how to pick locks. Jack—I actually don’t remember what Jack could do. Or Sophia. The other king could just have been a better fighter than Kit, summoning a thunderstorm is pretty extra. Rosa could summon fire, for heaven’s sake, and used it, what, once? twice? for piddly reasons.
The use of Neeve’s magic baffled me. To my understanding, she could sew memories and emotions into items of clothing, and those memories and emotions would transfer to the wearer. Seems straightforward, right? Not really. Saft didn’t set very clear rules for the power. First of all, Neeve had a hard time controlling her thoughts and emotions while she was working, so she often had no idea what effect the items would actually have. Aside from that, her magic sometimes affected only the wearer. Sometimes it affected everyone in the vicinity. Also, Saft took more of a . . . therapeutic approach to Neeve’s magic, but all I could wonder was why Neeve wasn’t weaponized. If you think about it, she was more or less telepathic. Want someone to love you? Give them a handkerchief laced with adoration, obsession, and lust. Want someone to kill themselves? Plant a pair of hopeless and self-loathing socks in their drawer. Instead Saft had Neeve wear dresses that inspired tranquility or nostalgia. Which could have their uses, but . . . boring.
And Kit could make plants grow. Out of thin air, apparently. He used them to pick locks, to hide things, to isolate himself . . . that’s pretty much it. Oh, and to catch Neeve, who developed a clumsy habit that was supposed to be endearing but was just annoying. Why wasn’t he protecting the estate with thorny vines? Maintaining a thriving orchard to help feed the hungry? I know he puttered in the greenhouse, but I got the sense it was more, again, therapeutic than useful. In his fight against the king he could have hog-tied him with vines—suffocated him, for that matter—or filled the air with allergens and made the king have an asthma attack. Made a tree sprout where the king was standing to knock him sideways.
Well, anyway, I’ve exhausted my point. Underutilized, unimaginative, unnecessary, take your pick.
Overall, while this book contained some interesting ideas and the protagonist was likeable, I didn’t much enjoy it.
