By Isabelle King (Y12)
These are all books that you would commonly get recommended on BookTok (trust me, I am a BookTok connoisseur and half of it is just recycled material), so what about them has people in an absolute headlock? That’s what I’m here to explore! As someone who has absolutely no qualifications in pyschology, please don’t take this too seriously.
Vicious
(Cred: Goodreads)
Vicious is my most recent read and one that was supposed to pull me out of my reading slump, but only resulted in me realising why I was in said reading slump in the first place. It follows two college roomates Victor and Eli, who find out that when going through a near-death scenario, you can develop powers that make you an ExtraOrdinary (EO). After a disaster, they turn arch-nemesis and spend the rest of the book hunting eachother down. It’s not a bad book; it’s actually objectively well written with interesting plot developments and a real trajectory. However, I can’t help but feel that all of these books just fall back on similar themes and tropes to help them sell better to the fawning crowds. Whenever I find myself reading these types of books, it just feels similar to something I’ve read before, even though the plot is completely different. So I can recommend it, but only if you’re not expecting anything with real substance. If you’re just looking for a fun read, this definitely ticks the boxes.
Six of Crows
(Cred: Kobo)
Six of Crows is by far my favourite in this list of three. I read it maybe 3 to 4 years ago, but it still sticks in my head as a book that I loved. When I read it, I sped through the duology in a day. Maybe that has something to do with my broken leg at the time…but I digress. It follows an unlikely outcast group of teenagers who eventually see each other as a sort of family. They are on a mission to rescue a scientist from the most secure prison in their world. This book mixes realism with magic, creating a fun but still grounded world that is truly immersive. I think what separates this book from the ones above is that it has a real sense of originality and doesn’t follow the same tropeification that the other books tend ot rely on, aside from the entire misunderstood main character trope, but that’s kinda hard to avoid. Overall, I can confidently recommend this book to any reader.
One Dark Window
(Cred: Goodreads)
One Dark Window is the book in this list that I remember the least, so take everything with a grain of salt. It follows a young woman named Elspeth (I get the originality of names, but come on now). In anycase she was possessed by this thing called a nightmare as a child, and it now lives in her head; it protects her from harm, but it slowly gains more and more control over her. She later teams up with a highwayman to collect cards to cure the realm. It’s a plot we’ve all seen before: special main character is tasked with saving the world, but has issues and has to overcome them through the journey. I might not be doing the book justice, but to me, it was a throwaway story that lacked originality. I think if you’re just looking for a fun read, any of these books works for that, but this is definitely the least promising of the three, in my opinion.
Overall, I think you should be allowed to read whatever you want to read, and you should go ahead and read all of these…with the fair warning that you won’t get much from the experience. I personally like to have a mix in my literature where sometimes I’ll read a silly book like One Dark Window, and other days I’ll feel more in the mood for something that will make me think. At the end of the day, you should read whatever it is that makes you happy and willing to read more, because the fact that you’re reading at all is already great.