Fully Booked — Episode 17
Reading is something that used to be great, until life got in the way. But it doesn’t have to be like that — you can have a life and love reading, and we’re here to help. Welcome back to Fully Booked, the series for people who don’t know what to read or where to start.
Remember how I said I was still here and still reading last time? I lied — but only a little bit! I’m definitely still here! But recently I’ve been in a reading slump that I just couldn’t bring myself to get out of. It wasn’t just reading either, but writing also — so these reviews have been down for the count for much longer than I’d anticipated. Fortunately, they’ve invented handy bits of technology to help people like me who struggle to keep to their consistency goals without assistance. Basically, I’ve discovered the queue function.
For my first review back in a while, I’m going to stick to what I know and am good at, and do some complaining. I read The Court of Miracles because the title sounded cool, the synopsis sounded really cool, and the cover was absolutely gorgeous. A triple threat! But it was all a ploy for the book to actually be about Les Misérables.
The Court of Miracles — Kester Grant
STATS
Borrowed from — my library’s E-resources
Pages — 464
Trigger warnings — Mentions of addiction; drugging; poisoning; corporal punishment; prostitution (mention); self-harm; starvation
Rating — 2.75/5 stars
“In the violent urban jungle of an alternate 1828 Paris, the French Revolution has failed and the city is divided between merciless royalty and nine underworld criminal guilds, known as the Court of Miracles. Nina Thénardier is a talented cat burglar and member of the Thieves Guild. Nina’s life is midnight robberies, avoiding her father’s fists, and watching over her naïve adopted sister, Ettie.”
A bootleg Les Misérables, which I wish someone had told me before I started it or I honestly mightn’t have read this. Was it bad? I mean, no, not really. But it definitely was supremely annoying to suddenly have the reveal that Nina is actually meant to be Éponine, and then realise that this is essentially a Les Misérables crime/mafia secret underworld AU. The reason for my disinterest in this doesn’t lie with the storytelling itself, it’s just that to be honest I didn’t (and still don’t) give a shit about Les Mis. I found the musical interesting, but not particularly riveting, and therefore having to often twist and rejig my knowledge of Les Mis characters to fit in with the plot of the The Court of Miracles required some rather exhausting mental acrobatics.
I also have beef with the plot for having some gaping holes in it regarding medical treatments. You mean to tell me that this entire piece is set in an era where everyone is starving, and yet Nina basically gets her back flayed off, breaks her arm, gets shot, stabbed, breaks her leg and several ribs, all within the space of like two years and LIVES? She’s practically begging to die of tetanus, if not from just a simple bacterial infection. This is also in a world where there are beggars and cases of leprosy, and she just gets away completely unharmed from any of these injuries????? If there’s one thing I just cannot forgive, it’s hurling injuries upon a character which should have killed them and having them still have total disregard for their body and well-being.
In all honesty I would have enjoyed this much more if it hadn’t been related to Les Misérables and had actually had a coherent plot.
2.75/5 stars for being misleading, committing crimes against modern medicine, and having everyone except one character be astonishingly boring.
