#Now I Rise

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

JOMP BPC - Dec 8th - Best Character Development

I loved Radu's character arc in the And I Darken series by Kiersten White

[ya-world-challenge]

Book Review: The Conqueror's Saga by Kiersten White (🇷🇴  Romania)

[image 1: book trilogy covers: And I Darken, Now I Rise, Bright We Burn. On each cover a spear slashes through an object: a flower, a necklace, a pomegranate; image 2: map showing modern Romania; image 3: the view from Poenari castle in Romania - the walls of a stone fortress drop away to a steep mountainous landscape covered in green; source: wikimedia]

And I Darken; Now I Rise; Bright We Burn

Author: Kiersten White

YA World Challenge for 🇷🇴 Romania

I've seen some criticism of this series by Romanian reviewers, one of which is Lada's name (which I agree is odd), and others that are to be expected when you take a national hero (Vlad the Impaler), gender-flip him, and write him in love with the leader of an empire that oppressed your nation for centuries. So it's important to acknowledge this series as pure fiction. It did have me flipping through Wikipedias of the the real historical characters mentioned, many of whom I had never learned about before.

While much of the series (1 and 2 especially) take place in the Ottoman Empire (modern Turkey), the series follows the point of view of two siblings from Wallachia, a historical region of the modern state of Romania.

Review

Lada and her brother Radu are left as hostages of the Ottoman Empire as children to keep their father "loyal" as a vassal. I loved Lada's character from the beginning: strong-willed, possessive, brutal even as a child, and "ugly". The character-building was expert and the way the author weaves relationships and motivations in a complex tapestry, against a backdrop of a rich world.

And I Darken builds the siblings' relationship with the future sultan Mehmed, setting up that messy love triangle, and a scheme to get Mehmed on the throne. While Radu falls for Islam, Lada is never not wholly dedicated to Wallachia.

With Now I Rise, oh lord, the gay angst!... dear Radu. With Lada gone off to find support for her kingdom, Radu is left with his angst. We see the battle of Constantinople, and interconnected politics around Eastern Europe as Lada raises her army and searches for allies.

Bright We Burn, and Lada is ready to go full-on Impaler. The action was great, until... the entire climax and ending. I felt the finale really cheated Lada and did not serve her character. I didn't feel that book 3 lived up to its title. (And god, what a cringe epilogue!)

I have such mixed feelings about this series because it is incredibly well-written and engaging throughout, with an epic world and depth of character. But I dislike the ending the more I think about it. Without spoilers, I can just say that I think the whole feminist theme built up through the book fell apart in the end.

Books 1-2 I would have rated 4.5 stars, but Book 3 ultimately pulled the rating down.

Other reps: #muslim #gay #m/f #lesbian side characters #orthodox christian

Genres: #alternate history #drama #romance #adventure #war

★  ★  ★    3 stars

SPOILER rant under the cut:

In Book 2, the gunpowder lady said something to Radu - that Lada would be the type to go out with fire. With a title called Bright We Burn, I fully expected to see Lada going down as brightly and destructively as a meteorite, taking herself out with everything. What a disappointment.

The ending and Lada's forced 'submission' to Radu, by him taking away every last thing she had, under the guise of *compassion*, quite rankled me. It took away all the independence of her character that the series had built up from the beginning, and replaced it with nothing.

And. The. Kid. That epilogue. No, just no. I hate that such a promising series had to end with the cisheteronormative notion that "you must bear progeny to have a legacy". Fuck that. It completely threw away everything that Lada was just to have this "oh cute she acts like her mother" moment. ��� That and Radu vandalizing the church floor with his weak, misogynist scratchings.

It could have been so much better.

[kingocats]

“Do not lose that hunger. You will always have to fight for everything. Even when you already have it, you will have to keep fighting to maintain it. You will have to be more ruthless, more brutal, more everything.”

-Now I rise, kiersten white

[caffeinated-bibliophile]

Yeah, no, I think Bright We Burn is going to be a DNF at 88% 😒 I'm equally furious and so disappointed.

I approached this series with baggage and hesitation anyway because Vlad Dracula was basically a special interest for most of my childhood.

I had And I Darken on my shelf for I think more than 5 years before I convinced myself to just go for it. And then I flew through it, Now I Rise, and this much of Bright We Burn in 4 or 5 days.

But, early on, I had a sinking feeling about how this final book was going to end. So, I looked up spoilers when I hit a point that threatened to be the last straw, and my suspicions were correct.

I was already not enjoying this one, but hoped it was going to pull through after the halfway point. It has not. I think it's gotten worse, actually.

I think I should have just stopped after book 2 😩

Spoilers below

Also, starting either near the end of book 2 or early in this one, I've wanted to down Radu (and a few other characters) in a chamber pot that's been in alternating baking sun and rain drizzles and steaming humidity for 3 days.

[feymaid]

⚡️DEATH IS ONLY TEMPORARY I’LL LOVE YOU FOREVER!!!⚡️

[sixela0221]

I just want Radu to be happy 🥺

[ruubesz-draws]

Showing off the babies

(I watched Ultraman Rising! It was good!)

Bonus:

From this

[zipper-vhs]

this was a redraw of a redraw so i’ve been drawing this guy for three years now dang

[tizeline]

Oh? What's that? Ya'll want the next part of TSAU's story? Well fuck you you're getting this fucking thing instead.

[passion-rising]

Get adopted a few more times for a free nicecream.

Okay so I miiight have to draw Undertale Yellow art for a while lol. Thanks for all the recommendations and love on my last post. I just can't stop gushing about this game. And I forgot to mention they used the falling leaf metaphor??? My heart. Need more Clover revivals.

[kathaynesart]

The @tmntaucompetition is no place for a tiny tot to be left alone, especially with all these rowdy teens running amok. My heart just broke when I saw little Kid Leo crying, @angelpuns and @red-rover-au, and I knew Replica Leo's would too. Problem is they're probably going to be searching for a while cuz Replica Leo is looking for other unsupervised children. Oops.

This is in response to these couple of threads I've seen going around: COMIC 1 - COMIC 2 - COMIC 3 - COMIC 4 - COMIC 5

You kids need to all calm down!

[grey-viridian]

Rottmnt Possessed AU

So… It all started with this art of Ghost Leo that I drew quite some time ago.

And then I had an idea.

Do you remember how Gram-Gram died, did the Hamato glowy thing, turned into light and possessed April at the end of season 2?

Well-

What if?

I present to you The Disaster Twins who refused to be separated by such dumdum thing as death.

[thatkoiboi]

//WARNING: meltdown, dissociation, spiraling//

I'm proud of you and all your accomplishments! Everything will be okay <3

[noxcheshire]

Back again with Danny being adopted by other batfam members.

But this time I thought of the absolute comedy of Damian, tiny squirt and five apples tall, deciding that he is now a father to a grown ass teenage Danny.

It was an accident and had never been his intention to adopt another being.

But it had been placed into Damian’s head that in order to be a potential Batman he had to have his own Robin. And the only way to have his own Robin was to have a child, similar to the way that Father would pick up the various children and teenagers amongst them.

Damain had a very specific list of requirements for his potential child-Robin. Danny did not meet any of those requirements, and yet here Damian was having forged papers for the now Daniel Al Ghul-Wayne, and beginning the treacherous affair of introducing his son to the family.

Danny twisted his new shirt sleeve with a frown. It was a nice green silk that complimented the little green that resided in his son’s eyes. Damian wished to bring out the many carefully crafted features of Danny that could match to Damian. Having his eyes pop, wild hair brushed and losing the battle to nervous hands, would have to do.

At least until Damian taught Danny his mother tongue and began the care of his culture and soon to be heritage.

[elijah-loyal]

Taking a moment to honor all the fallen journalists who gave their lives in order to document the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank; wishing all of those who have evacuated a safe journey onwards, and thanking those who are currently still working in the field.

[pinetreevillain]