House of Marionne: Bridgerton meets Fourth Wing in this Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller

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The writing was... well, something. At times, it was actually pretty good. At others, it was cringy and tear-inducing. Observe: When I see those phrases in the synopsis of a book, I expect the moral ambiguity of the characters to be explored in depth, and for the novel to be a critique of academia. Simply being set at a boarding school does not make a book a "dark academia" novel, and having characters with ambiguous morals requires more than just labeling them as such. Now, if you're thinking "This is a YA book, it doesn't need to be like that", you are wrong because many YA books do dark academia (Legendborn, Ace of Spades) and morally grey characters (Six of Crows, These Violent Delights, The Cruel Prince) well. House of Marionne glitters with magic, deception, and betrayal. Readers will be swept away by Elle's glamorous world in this enchanting series opener. Rachel Griffin, New York Times bestselling author of The Nature of Witches I will say, I really did like the twist at the end of the book and I for sure didn’t see it coming! I don’t know if reading the rest of the book was fully worth getting to the twist though because, like I said, I spent so much of this book confused that it wasn’t even really a reward to get a good twist when all was said and done.

The way mature magic manifests in this world is through either a diadem or a mask growing from the person's head. I have a lot of questions about how this works practically, but it's one of those things that the author clearly thought was a cool idea without wanting to give a lot of explanation. We mostly hear about the diadems, very little detail on the masks and it feels like she probably just likes the idea of individualized tiaras but for gendered reasons only wanted women to have them? Honestly it would have made more sense to me if everyone had a diadem or crown, that would come off less gender essentialist. We do have a throwaway appearance of a non-binary character probably in an attempt to offset this, but I still think it's a weird choice. The other thing is, how do they sleep? Does their hair get caught in it? I have a lot of questions, but it's never mentioned. Tonta’lise got here before me, yeah. Had to set up my whole show ova here. She know damn well I use dat spot eva day. But here she come, tryin’ to get my customers.” Her hand rests on her hip. “You come for ya money?” The relationship that was set up as the love connection felt extremely forced, and really didn't have any depth to it either. I felt like a lot of the characters were just created to fill roles that are common and expected in YA fantasy. I think it's supposed to enemies to lovers, or some sort of tension along those lines, but I never bought into it, and I never experienced that tension. Basically it was just Quell being afraid of Jordan because of his role in the society as one who goes after toushana users. In the beginning, Quell takes on the form of Clary from the Shadowhunter books and has a few dangerous run ins with some strange men with carvings (*cough* runes) and weird tattoos and magic and stuff. We then learn that Clary- I mean Quell's- mom kind of has a history with these things I guess which is why the two of them (mother-daughter family, not explained) are always on the run.Personally, I am eagerly anticipating the release of the second book in the near future, as I am captivated by the world the author has crafted. I really wanted to like this more than I did. I really did. But I was so confused and then bored and then confused again. The book is stunning and the description is everything I go for in a book.

Obvisouly, Quell meets this hottie named Jordan and they have this whole thing that I'm not even going to expain. It's supposed to be enemies to lovers except sike it's actually not. All you need to know is that Jordan is basically just like any other shadow-summoning beast of a love-interest we meet in every single YA fantasy (Xaden, Rhysand, Darkling) but he actually has NO PERSONALITY. Like, AT ALL. Thank you to Penguin Young Readers Group & Razorbill for the arc through netgalley, a physical arc, and a finished copy in exchange for an honest review! I think we needed more information on the magic system and how it relates to the world we are in as I'm still unsure how it all works - do people without magic just not see it? is it maybe a hogwarts situation? but honestly I couldn't tell you and maybe I misunderstood.

House of Marionne

Fratis fortuna.” The voice comes from behind me. I turn and there is a man in a dark suit, same as the ones the men I just saw were wearing. But unlike the others, a gleaming dark mask slopes across this man’s brows, over his nose, its ornate carvings tapering off into his high cheekbones. His expression hardens at my silence. I ended up reading the end of the book and skimming some of the scenes in-between, so I feel very confident in this DNF. I don't think it's a bad book, it's just not what I was looking for. With House of Marionne, J.Elle lures you through a portal and into an elaborate, enthralling world of magic and monsters and mayhem, where the twists and turns take you—and her characters—places you never expected to go.” —Sabaa Tahir, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the An Ember in the Ashes series I thought that this world was incredible. I loved all the details and the different teases we got of all that the magic could do. The school itself seems fascinating, and it is something that I was really enjoying at first. I loved that the students grow their own diadems or masks based on their magic, and it just felt like a very lush world. It's dark and it's decadent, so that part was 100% correct.

As a reader, I was constantly pulled out of the story by wondering why something was happening or by writing that was trying hard to be dramatic without artful prose. The sentence “I searched his eyes for knowing” is seared into my brain. A chandelier is called a candelabra (it’s said to be hanging from the ceiling). “A hushed gasp sweeps” through a room during a ceremony that has happened many times, but we aren’t told what’s different about this time. A hallway “halts” instead of ends.The world isn’t always described clearly, perhaps because the story is told in present tense by the main character. She’s simultaneously observant of certain things while completely clueless about others. For example, she can see someone who is using magic to be invisible, but then she can’t figure out how to hold a teacup while having tea with her grandmother. We also really need to talk about the world-building which was just a disaster. I was so confused by literally every single thing so don't even ask me to explain. I had absolutely no idea what was even going on the entire time and I've never felt so disconnected from a world before. Scratch that. I've never felt so disconnected from a world, characters, or a general story like that before. The setting? No idea. The magic system? Not a clue. After a heated five-house auction, Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers, has acquired House of Marionne, a new YA trilogy by J. Elle, author of the bestselling YA fantasy Wings of Ebony. Billed by the publisher as a “modern-day, magic-filled Bridgerton with clashing class dynamics and dark academia flair,” the first book in the trilogy is slated for fall 2023. Jodi Reamer at Writers House sold world English rights to Ruta Rimas, executive editor at Razorbill.