Book #18 of 2023: Foxheart
Mar. 16th, 2023 04:29 pm
Foxheart, by Claire Legrand.
I've been reading and reviewing books long enough that you'd think I'd get over the whole "This seems like a really good book, I think the issue is just me" thing.
This book was really well written (technically-wise). The plot was interesting. I liked the worldbuilding a lot.
But I hated every single character in it.
That made it feel like it took forever to read, I had zero drive to keep reading. (Yet I didn't DNF it since it seemed like a good book otherwise...)
Plot: Set in a fantasy world, only a few witches live. The hero of the land, the Wolf King, was killing them off.
Self-named Quicksilver (about 12 years old) wanted only to be a master thief. Even when an old witch time traveled (something only two people in the history of their world had ever done) to teach her how to save all of witch-kind, Quicksilver blew her off.
Quicksilver had all the very worst traits of a kid. Worse yet, through the whole long book, she never grew or changed.
She was completely awful to the other main character, a boy named Sly Boots (great name!).
I spent the whole book hating Quicksilver. (Who of course saves the day and becomes the big hero of witch-kind through the generations.)
Once I was done reading, I checked Goodreads to see what other people thought. I was quite surprised to see so much agreement.
"The characters are all kind of horrible, including the dog."
"And the Wolf King?
I expected an AWESOME, HUGE, AND MENACING HUMANOID WOLF WHO COMMANDED AN EQUALLY MENACING WOLF ARMY AND...
...slightly angsty teenager in a fur coat. Sigh..."
"Quicksilver is insufferable a majority of the time."
"The level of vitriol that Quicksilver threw at Sly Boots initially cannot be glossed over like it was."
"Anastasia [the time traveling older witch] is intended to fill the wise, mentor archetype. She slaps Sly Boots once for doing something she doesn’t like. Enough said."
"But the synopsis doesn't entirely prepare you for the "heroine" of this novel, who I can most succinctly describe as thoroughly unlikable. In fact, everyone is unlikable. And for those who aren't unlikable from their first appearance, they eventually do or say something abhorrent which renders them, like everyone else... unlikable."
(I've never gotten such enjoyment about quoting from other reviews before.)
I really wish I had DNFed this book. Or I wish the author had taken the world and plot idea and had created better characters for it.
How does an author write an entire long book full of such utterly unlikeable characters?