Date of Completion: 09/03/2021
‘Serpent & Dove‘ captured my interest right from the start! There is no gradual introduction to the characters and world as the book quickly launches into some action. While this could be disorienting for some readers, I was fully enthralled by the amazing writing and fast pace within a few pages. Additionally, I swiftly became infatuated with the awesome character that is Louise le Blanc.
Louise, aka Lou, aka Louey, is the highlight of this book! Manipulative, mischievous, and smart, I quickly fell in love with her character. What’s more, her interactions with others are filled with so much banter and teasing, I was constantly laughing and smiling. I especially love her infamous “Big Titty Liddy” song. Being the person that I am, I soon added a beat and a few ‘ayyy’ for hype. As the storyline progresses, it is easy to see that Lou is actually a warm-hearted character who uses her wit as a way of keeping others at a distance. This made her even more relatable and engaging to me.
There was no sense in the poking fate. Sometimes she poked back
On the other hand, Reid’s character is the complete opposite of Lou’s: stern, resolute and aloof. Unfortunately, this made his point of view rather dull and I found myself impatiently waiting for the return to Lou’s point of view. Despite this, I still liked having his side of things and I think Shelby handled this brilliantly without constantly repeating whole scenes or events.
Even though it can be said that this book features a slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers trope, I was not completely sold on the romance between the two main characters. Yes, they had moments of understanding and some chemistry, but I still felt that the ‘budding’ romance was forced and contrived. In fact, Shelby’s writing seems almost as awkward as the characters when it comes to the romance aspect of the book.
Perhaps my unease with the romance comes from the fact that I did not like how Reid’s possessiveness and anger issues are romanticised. Sadly, this is not something unique to this book as it can be seen in a lot of fantasy and/or romance books. I guess my immense love for Lou’s character made it hard for me to ignore this blazing red flag.
Everything about you is offensive to me
Besides Lou and Reid, there are also a bunch of secondary characters incorporated into the storyline. However, these characters are not given much depth or presence so they are not particularly memorable. I even forgot a few of these characters whilst reading and had to scan previous pages to remind myself of who they were when they popped up at a later time.
Much to my dismay, I found the story rather rushed and tedious towards the end of the book for two main reasons. Firstly, huge information dumps are heaped into the storyline and these made it hard to remain engaged. Reveals are made and the past explained with a whole load of drama and flare. However, these only serve to drag out the storyline and rightly earned a few eye-rolls. Secondly, due to how things play out, Reid’s point of view dominates the last third of this book. As I mentioned previously, I found his narrative rather dull so I simply scanned chunks of the story to see how things progressed.
Overall, my rating for this book is greatly skewed by my love for Lou’s character. Everything else – the plot, writing and additional characters – seemed great at the start of the book but sadly, fall short. In spite of this, I would still recommend this book to all fantasy lovers, if only for Lou’s character.
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