Hello, bookworms!

Today I am here to introduce a new series of articles, that will be titled Reading the Rainbow. Last year, I had a series called "Lunedì LGBT", which means "LGBT Monday", but having to post only on Mondays had become very stressful for me. This is why, I am switching to Reading the Rainbow; I am still not sure if this is going to be a monthly thing, or if I'll just use it whenever I'll have to review LGBT+ books, but my plan is to include as many different voices and experiences as possible. If you have any recommendations, or books you'd want me to read and review, feel free to leave them in the comments and I'll try my best. The first book I am going to talk about is Sweet & Bitter Magic by Adrienne Tooley, which I buddy read with Juls, and sadly didn't enjoy. I didn't want to start with a negative review, but I wanted to post the first article in January, so we will have to make do with what we have. This is not the only LGBT book I've read this month, but it's the only one I don't have to review for any other series, so let's go.

About the book
Title: Sweet & Bitter Magic
Author: Adrienne Tooley
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry
Publication date: 9 March 2021
Pages: 368

Plot, as stated on Goodreads
Tamsin is the most powerful witch of her generation. But after committing the worst magical sin, she's exiled by the ruling Coven and cursed with the inability to love. The only way she can get those feelings back—even for just a little while—is to steal love from others. Wren is a source—a rare kind of person who is made of magic, despite being unable to use it herself. Sources are required to train with the Coven as soon as they discover their abilities, but Wren—the only caretaker to her ailing father—has spent her life hiding her secret. When a magical plague ravages the queendom, Wren's father falls victim. To save him, Wren proposes a bargain: if Tamsin will help her catch the dark witch responsible for creating the plague, then Wren will give Tamsin her love for her father. Of course, love bargains are a tricky thing, and these two have a long, perilous journey ahead of them—that is, if they don't kill each other first…

My rating: 1 out of 5 stars

Review
I want to start by saying that I had no intention of reading this book and I aknowledge I am not the intended audience for it, so make of this review what you will. So you may be wondering why did I end up reading it. Well, let me explain. Juls is a long time subscriber of Owlcrate and this book was included in one of their boxes; in 2022, Juls is trying to read as many Owlcrate books as possible and since I did not want to abandon them, we decided to buddy read this one. Did we like it? Absolutely not, but at least it was a buddy, which is always nice, when reading something you want to throw out of the window, at least for me. Every time I buddy read a book I hate, my first thought is "at least I didn't read it alone".

As I have already mentioned before, I have been enjoying fantasy less and less, so it's no surprise I didn't like the plot of this one. By now, I have read my fair share of YA fantasy and I need more complex plots, if I have to care about what I am reading. However, I expected this one to be basic, but I was not reading it for the plot. I was — for once — reading this book for the romance. It's literally the only reason why I agreed to read it in the first place. I wanted to fall in love with the two main characters and their relationship, so that I could overlook the basicness of the plot.

Unfortunately, both the main characters were dull and annoying, I could not stand either of them — especially Wren. I did not like the choice of having two alternating POVs, because the distinction between the two voices was not strong enough, in my opinion. Sometimes I forgot whose POV I was reading from and that's never a good sign. The only difference between the two was that Tamsin supposedly cannot feel love (or positive emotions in general, I guess), but this aspect was handled very poorly. I though we were gonna have a slow character development from unfeeling girl to girl in love, but the change was not done well. I think the idea, while not the most original one, was an interesting one, but the execution ruined it for me.

As I've said before, the plot and world building were just so basic. Literally the most basic plot ever. Not only had I guessed everything from page one, but the ending was so bad I actually paused and laughed out loud. I'm sorry, but there's no way I can find such a resolution a believable and satisfying one. That's just not my cup of tea.

I feel like publisher tend to believe that since a book has some kind of rep, one should overlook the plot, the world building and character development or lack thereof. There are a lot of good YA fantasy with sapphic rep, so I can't, in good conscience give this book a high rating, since I didn't even like the characters. If you aree looking for a good YA fantasy series (this book is a standalone, thanks the Gods) with sapphic rep, I would highly recommend the Girls of Paper and Fire trilogy; that is what I call a well crafted novel. Be sure to check the trigger warnings beforehand, though, because it deals with heavier topics than Sweet & Bitter Magic.

Since this is not a problematic book, like I did with Reverie I am going to say: if you think this could be something you enjoy, give it a shot. However, if like me you have read a lot of YA fantasy and are looking for an interesting and engaging story, maybe skip this one. If you've read the book, let me know what you thought, and if you speak Italian, I highly recommend you check Juls' review out. They also did not like the book, but reading more than one point of view may help you decide whether to read this book or not.

That's all for today, I'll see you soon with a new review!

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