TL;DR: Very arrogant boy and a perfume loving girl finding out how to listen to the leaves?
Source: NetGalley, so many thanks to the publisher!
Plot: I’m not going to lie, the plot here was messy and because I was connected I genuinely can’t tell you much about what I remember.
Characters: Nilish is possibly the worst? Might be one of the most arrogant characters I’ve read in a hot minute.
Setting: Very pretty, I liked the idea even if I didn’t expect it to be a modern world.
Fantasy: I love Indian mythology and what we were promised, I do wish we’d seen more of it.
Summary:
Plant-loving Ridhi Kapadia and popular Nilesh Batra were friends once.
Now, seventeen and alone, Ridhi blends natural perfumes, wears flower crowns, and wanders her local woods, listening for the leafy whispers of her beloved trees. Pleading for the yakshas to admit her into their enchanted forest kingdom, where she knows she truly belongs.
After learning his parents’ perfect marriage is a sham and getting suspended from school, a heartsick Nilesh lands at Ridhi’s doorstep—the last thing either of them wants. So when a pretty yakshini offers him the distraction of magic, the same magic he mocked Ridhi for believing in, he jumps at it.
Furious, Ridhi strikes a bargain with a noblewoman of the yaksha court. In exchange for helping restore her reputation, Lady Sulochana will turn Ridhi into the yakshini she yearns to be—and teach her to divine the trees’ murmurs.
But when Nilesh ends up trapped in the yakshas’ realm, Ridhi realizes the leaves might be telling a disturbing story about the forest her heart is rooted in—one that, even if the two of them band together, threatens to shred the future like so many thorns.
Thoughts:
This is one of those vibes/settings only books that come around and make you go ‘Huh, that was pretty, but what actually happened?’. Our characters are either incredibly arrogant or were just fine, while the sentences felt so overwritten. I found myself either slightly confused, tuned out, or angry the whole time at our male MC.
There was a lot here that I should have liked. While I did really enjoy the setting, the mental images that the written sometimes invoked, everything else that lived there was flat. I found myself uninterested (if not angry) at the main characters. The plot was confused, I think on everyone’s part. And it was perhaps a bit too long. Shave some of the over the top language down and this one could have dropped the page count and been much clearer and concise.
For me the language and characters got in the way of this and I can’t say it is one I’d recommend. Is it bad necessarily? Probably not. Is it questionably written? Maybe? I also feel like we had some Representation for representation’s sake here. Our disabled character felt as if that was her whole point, and the throwaway reference to someone’s sexuality on what was possibly the last page? Questionable.
So go in forewarned. I can’t say don’t read it but it didn’t work for me.
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