I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
A Winter's Promise by Christelle Dabos Series: The Mirror Visitor #1
Published by Europa Editions on September 27 2018
Genres: Young adult, Fantasy
Pages: 491
Format: Finished hardcover
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: Lots of potential, but unfortunately, this story was too problematic for my taste.
Well, I think you can tell by my rating that A Winter’s Promise just didn’t work for me. I had high hopes for this book, which is apparently a huge success in the author’s native country of France, and has just been translated into English and published by Europa Editions. I suppose my lack of enjoyment, and in fact my horror at some of the content of the story, could boil down to the translation, or perhaps the French worldview is just radically different from my American upbringing. But whatever the reason, I had a very hard time finishing this book. At about the 200 page mark I was starting to get worried that I might never finish it, and seeing that I still had 300 pages to go, I finally decided to skim the remainder, something I don’t think I’ve ever done before. I’m afraid this review is going to be skewed towards the negative, because there wasn’t much I enjoyed about the story. I also think this might be a good time for a “list” review, as I feel it might be an easier way to cover all the things I want to talk about.
But first, a quick recap of the story, just to set the stage. A Winter’s Promise takes place after a world altering event called the Rupture, when Earth shattered into pieces, leaving clumps of isolated floating islands called arks. Ophelia is a young girl who lives on an ark called Anima, where she is able to communicate with objects when she touches them. For political reasons, she is being forced to marry a stranger from another ark called the Pole, a cold and desolate land completely different from the one she has lived in all her life. Ophelia will have to leave her huge family in order to travel to the Pole, and she will probably never see them again.
When her husband-to-be comes to Anima to escort her back to the Pole, Ophelia is shocked by his lack of warmth, his intimidating height, and his refusal to talk to her. She reluctantly leaves her home, accompanied by an aunt who will serve as chaperone, and on the journey she attempts to connect with her fiance, Thorn, with little success. When they arrive, things become worse, as Thorn makes it clear that Ophelia’s arrival on the Pole is to be kept a secret for the time being. He also issues a stern warning to stay put inside and never leave the manor house, as the outside world would be too dangerous. As Ophelia gradually begins to realize that her impending marriage has far greater consequences than she was led to believe, she must search for the real reason she was chosen to marry Thorn.
Sounds cool, right? The world-building has some great potential, and I do realize that this is only the first book in a series, but let’s go over some of the problems I had with this book:
1. I cannot figure out what this book is trying to be. The writing style feels like a middle grade book, lots of exaggeration, exclamation points, and overly dramatic writing. Even the cover art feels middle grade to me, for some reason. However, this is certainly not MG, and I don’t think it’s even what we would consider YA here in America. The subject matter, which I’ll get to in a bit, is not something I’d ever recommend to anyone under the age of eighteen. I also want to point out that there is a big red sticker on my copy that says “Top 10 Fall ‘18 Kids Next List Pick,” so someone out there feels this should comfortably sit on a “Best of” list for kids.
2. I did not like a single character in this book, except for one. Ophelia is a mousey, timid girl who hides behind her unruly hair and a thick pair of glasses, barely speaks above a whisper, and doesn’t show much backbone when faced with important decisions. For some strange reason, she is constantly blowing her nose, and the author makes sure to mention that each and every time. And although she seems shocked at some of the things the other characters say and do to her, she never puts up much of a fight. I get it. She’s an introvert, she works in a museum, and she doesn’t want to call attention to herself. In a way, this was a refreshing change from all the strong, independent female characters in most YA fiction, which is starting to feel like the norm. But I just wanted to scream at her to fight back, already!
**Note: the one thing I did like about Ophelia is that I believe she is asexual, as she mentions more than once that she’s never felt sexual attraction before. And for that, I commend the author.
Thorn, who one might see as the “romantic interest,” was the most unappealing “hero” I’ve ever met. He’s rude, secretive and treats Ophelia like a speck of dirt. Throughout the course of the book, the two never really warm up to each other, and I was frustrated by their “relationship.”
3. Lots of troublesome content, especially for a “kids” book, including implied rape, physical and mental abuse, forced marriage and torture. Now, I’ve read a lot of books, and a lot of what I read is on the darker side, so abuse and rape are nothing new to me when it comes to fiction. But one character in particular was so loathsome and dangerous, he confesses to Ophelia (and at this point he doesn’t know who she is) that he can hardly wait to “deflower Thorn’s betrothed.” Keep in mind that this entire time I am picturing Ophelia as a twelve-year-old, because that’s how she acted. (She is, in fact, seventeen or eighteen, but I just couldn’t picture her that age.)
One of Ophelia’s uncles has some great advice for her, after she confesses that she has no intention of having sex with Thorn:
“No, dear girl, no, forget that. Look at yourself. You’re the height of a stool and the weight of a bolster…However he makes you feel, I advise you never to set your will against that of your husband. You’ll end up with broken bones.”
“Never set your will against that of your husband” is code for “let him do whatever the fuck he wants.” I mean, this whole story feels very old-fashioned and I supposed that used to be the advice given to young women who are about to be married, but jeez!
4. The world-building is full of great ideas, but it’s sort of all over the place. There are airships, floating islands, and each ark has a different magical ability. Ophelia can not only sense the history of an object when she touches it, but she can travel through mirrors. When she lands at the Pole, a sled with flying dogs takes them to the top of the city. In short, there is a lot of cool stuff packed into this story, but it never really felt cohesive, as if the author were simply throwing all her good ideas into the pot.
5. The story grabbed me for about the first fifty pages or so, but once Ophelia reaches the Pole, the pacing slowed down tremendously. I really struggled to keep going, for some reason. And the fact that I didn’t like any of the characters made it doubly hard to finish.
And the one character I did like? It was Ophelia’s scarf. Yes, you read that right. I loved her scarf, which is alive and has a mind of it’s own. I wanted to read that story, about Ophelia and her scarf!
At the end of the day, this book just wasn’t for me. The constant barrage of physical and mental abuse thrown at Ophelia made me so sad and uncomfortable, and I ended up hating her because she never did anything about it! You’ll see plenty of five-star reviews on Goodreads (and oddly, most of them are written in French, so I’m not sure what that means…), so clearly there is an audience for this book. I’m sure Ophelia has many more adventures in store for her, but unfortunately, I won’t be there to see them.
This one is getting so much hype and I’m so glad you reviewed it. I don’t know that I want to read it now – Hoopla has it so I never planned on buying it at least. It makes me wonder if the people putting it on a kid’s list have even read it. Doesn’t sound kid friendly to me either. Sorry it didn’t work for you but take comfort in all the people you might be saving!
Ha ha, yes hopefully I did save some readers from a bunch of wasted hours. There are definitely better things out there to read.
I´m at 80% mark with this one (I´m going to write review for the magazine) and unfortunaly I agree with you so very much…
I agree with Barb in the comment above. I’ve seen a lot of hype, but at the same time mixed reviews. Sometimes that goes hand-in-hand.
Right, hype definitely doesn’t always equate to an amazing book.
Interesting. It’s a shame because it does sound like it had a ton of potential.
The world building was pretty interesting, and if the characters had just been more to my taste I’m sure I would have enjoyed it a lot more.
I’m very glad to see your review! I’d been really excited for this one an even debating whether or not to just buy it (new hardcover releases are usually something I skip haha), but I’ve been starting to see a lot of mixed reviews. A lot of the issues you had with it are ones I think would bother me also and I trust your reviews a lot, especially since we have a lot of overlapping taste in books. I definitely think I’ll hold off and just pick it up from the library sometime instead to see how I feel. Thanks for the great review!
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Thanks Jordan! I’d love to hear what you think if you do read it:-)
I can understand perfectly your frustration and even horror with this story: the description of characters and situations would be enough to make me run as far away from this book as possible. And probably to throw the book at a wall once I reached that horrifying “advice” given to Ophelia…
Thanks for the waring, it’s much appreciated 🙂
Maddalena@spaceandsorcery recently posted…Review: WAR CRY, by Brian McClellan
Ha ha, yes I did think about throwing the book at the wall, but it’s so big and heavy it probably would have punched a hole in it!
And here is where e-readers look like the… guardians of our temper: there is no throwing them at a wall! 😀 😀
Maddalena@spaceandsorcery recently posted…Review: WAR CRY, by Brian McClellan
Ha ha, you are right! My Kindle is my precious…
Such a shame. The concept sounds really promising as well. Oh well. Thanks for reviewing this so honestly – it’s really hard doing the negative reviews isn’t it.
Lynn 😀
It is hard, I always feel bad telling the publicist, but she was actually really nice about it.
Oh wow! So far, I’ve seen only high ratings for this and positive reviews. I’m glad for yours though. I plan to read it, but it’s good to know of these things before I jump in. I think I’ll borrow it from the library instead.
I know, I was surprised! I expected to love it. I guess you never can tell what is going to work for you, until you read it. If you do get it from the library, I’d love hear your thoughts:-)
Yeah, you can’t help but wonder how much might have been lost in translation. That’s always the issue for me when I read translated works. Sorry this wasn’t better!
I’m sure some of it was translation, but I feel like most of it was just “not my thing.”
I always appreciate reviews that fully explains why a book didn’t work. Glad you shared yours as I’d been curious about this one. Too bad a good idea didn’t come together.
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Thanks Laura, yep I’m sorry it didn’t work out for me.
Huh, that’s interesting to think about whether the fact that it was written in a different language by someone of a different culture might’ve been part of the reason it didn’t work for you but is so popular in France. It sounds like an interesting premise, sorry it didn’t work for you. It does seem odd this would be considered a kid’s book :-/
I’d love to hear some thoughts from other bloggers to see if they feel similar. I just don’t know anyone else who has read this yet:-)
Sorry to hear this didn’t work well. I’ve read something before with that disparity of feeling like it was written for a young audience but the content was anything but young. It was so strange
Lisa @TenaciousReader recently posted…Top 5 Tuesday – Cozy Fall Reads
Yeah, I almost wonder if it’s a cultural thing, maybe the French are more open minded than I am, lol!
I am so glad that you reviewed this book – I haven’t seen anything negative about it yet and I would have been sorely disappointed if I were to pick it up myself. Thank you, great & honest review!
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I’ve seen some other negative reviews on Goodreads, but overall people seem to love it. Oh well!
Yikes… It sure does sound really messy, and your description of its writing does not make me want to even discover it for myself. But when a book actually makes you want to skim through it, I think we’re in the clear to say it has problems… Great honest review, Tammy!
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Yeah, at least for me, it just didn’t work that well. Hey, live and learn, right?
I read the book (absolutely loved it) and honestly the uncle’s comment didn’t bother me at all. It is just one character point of view (an old male one) and definitely not the message of the book. Ophelia comes from a very old traditional family where girls don’t really get to choose who they marry, just like in middle age. So of course having sex with her husband will be expected of her and people will think that she should have no say in the matter. She does not live in our modern society. However, she makes it clear that she will have none of it very early on. She also refused all the previous suitors her family presented her despite the conservative context she has been raised in. She is actually a lot more complex than she lets on and so is Thorn. Also you forgot to say that later on, Ophelia’s uncle apologies to her for what he said. He tells her that she is the strongest person of the family and also predicts that her husband’s will will break under hers. (This last part is actually the extract that appears on the cover of the book in the French version).
In France, this book is classified as a children book and it doesn’t seem to bother anybody. Maybe we are less sensitive about these subjects or maybe we don’t have the same understanding of what is shocking and what is not. I totally respect that you didn’t like it though. I just wanted to clarify what you said about the uncle’s comment 😉 Sorry if my english is broken by the way.
I’m so happy you left a comment! I’m thrilled to hear an opinion from a French reader. I suspected my reaction might be too “American” and this book wasn’t originally written for an American audience. Thank you for your thoughts
I´ve come to certain realization. I´ve read only two other French Fantasy books besides this one. And they all shared the same issue. They put emphasis on the setting with characters and the plot seeming almost like an afterthought and were essentially reading like a text-only animated movies. Seems to be the local tradition.
Interesting take on it, I definitely felt like the setting was given more attention than the plot. I’d love to read your review if it’s online, leave me a link!
Unfortunaly, my review is going to be print-only and in Czech, but this is my opinion in a nutshell. In theory it grabs so much of your attention if you are Fantasy fan and especially Miyazaki fan, I guess. Unfortunaly, it is not very typical, preferable reading experience. My best guess would be that French people are very proud of various forms of their visual art and this is hugely affecting even their niché literature, but I am trying to avoid idle spculations.
That’s too bad – this sounded so cool.
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I loved this book ! I got it at a Little Library, read about 20 pages and immediately went to Amazon to order the second book so I would have it as soon as I was done with the first ! Normally I pass my books on to another Little Library but I am keeping these two to share with friends. Everyone has different tastes in books but I loved these books as much as I loved Harry Potter !!
I’m so glad you loved it, Shirley! And so cool you found it at a LFL
I recieved book 1 and 2 for Christmas.
Started reading book 1 a few days ago and today managed to read to halfway, not yet sure if I will continue reading it as I’ve got other fantasy books I want to start reading. Brilliant world building, interesting and intriguing talents but really slow to start and does drag in some places.
(Might end reading book 2 anyway to see if that one starts quicker. Also despite it being a duology/trilogy/series(?) it definitely seems like either book can be read as a standalone~to me anyway.
Having grudgingly finished it, I am with you 100 % on every point you made. I was hoping to see more of the quiet, steely power I know Olivia has in this first book and think it’ll come out more in the second. But I’m a little too disappointed in the general writing style and characterization of the book as a whole, so most likely won’t continue with the trilogy. I need characters to feel deeply real.
Anyways, spot on review!
I’ve just come to this review a bit late in the day – and I’m delighted that I have, because I’ve had the good fortune to read the comments above. As ever, I’m so impressed with the polite respect each and every visitor to your blog has to both your review and your response. And it’s been fascinating to read their reactions to your critique. I’m with you, by the way – despite being a Brit and so, presumably, a bit closer in viewpoint to the French worldview. But I’m also aware that in French law, women don’t have anything like the freedom men do when it comes to issues like divorce, for example. So perhaps that attitude pervades the treatment of young women. And while I respect the views of your French visitor, I don’t think that the ‘put up and shut up’ behaviour our mothers were coerced into following in relationships is good enough, anymore.
I read it and I only want to say It’s lovely !. It’s totally opposite to the french comment. That’s was only an old male character.
I enjoyed your review but will be skipping the book. I’ve seen some not-so-favorable reviews in the past and never had a desire.
What an interesting review. I do understand a character giving such bad pre-marital advice in a book aimed at adults who can better process the setting, the horrid characters’ actions, and stuff like that, but not for a book aimed at a younger audience.
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Yeah, this just didn’t fit the YA mold. Although it’s a European author/publisher so maybe they have a different view of what YA should be.
This review caught me a little off guard, not gonna lie :p
Winter’s Promisse was the book that remind me why I love fantasy so much. The world builing is amazing, the premisse is really interesting and unique and the characters… not going to lie, I loved them as well. They’re complex, have layers and motifs.
I read the book in two days (in my mother tongue) and rushed to the online store to buy the second one in english, as it is not translated in my idiom yet: so I would say, for me, the pacing worked very well.
About Ophélie (she’s 19, as mentioned in the book), she’s introvert and shy, yes, but she’s not weak. She’s strong, stoic and independent in her own way and that’s more highlighted in book two.
Regarding the YA label I do agree with you. The books doesn’t feel YA. It’s romance and fantasy. And because it’s fantasy (moreover not placed in a modern setting) we can’t make a 50/50 comparation to the real world.
Now, the commentary about the uncle, I don’t think it’s fair: what he says to Ophélie is outdated, obviously. The readers feels uncomfortable and outraged and that’s the point. We now also know what type of world she lives in. It’s a clever dialoge. (If it matters, later on he tells her he’s wrong and apologies).
I respect your opinion and I do agree with you: this book (just like any other) is not for everyone, but I couldn’t leave without saying anything.
I see a lot of people in the comments saying they won’t read the book because of this review (which is valid), but I advice for anyone who’s reading this to try for themselves.
(I hope I didn’t sound rude, in the end of the day people have different ways of thinking and I did find your review interesting!)
Hi Monica, thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. I really appreciate your thoughts! And no, you don’t sound rude at all. Everyone has different opinions. To be honest, I feel like most readers love this book, so I doubt my negative review will turn anyone away, hopefully. I often read books after reading a negative review because the review has made me curious:-)
It’s refreshing to see such an honest review about a book, especially one we get to review because we don’t want to hurt the author’s feelings. It’s hard for myself to write a negative review on a book an author sends me I really hate to hurt anyone’s feelings especially when “everyone” else seems to love a book. I give you a lot of credit. I think I’d want to read about her scarf as well. Sounds like there is more of a story there than in the story itself.
I usually try to emphasize the positive aspects of a book, but in this case it was SO problematic, I really had nothing good to say.