Via Justine De fant

Alchemized

by SenLinYu

3 / 5 Stars

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

I was really enjoying this book… until I realized there was no real substance to it beyond the extremely flawed and problematic relationship between the main characters.

Synopsis: Once a promising alchemist, Helena Marino is now a prisoner—of war and of her own mind. Her Resistance friends and allies have been brutally murdered, her abilities suppressed, and the world she knew destroyed.

In the aftermath of a long war, Paladia’s new ruling class of corrupt guild families and depraved necromancers, whose vile undead creatures helped bring about their victory, holds Helena captive.

According to Resistance records, she was a healer of little importance within their ranks. But Helena has inexplicable memory loss of the months leading up to her capture, making her enemies wonder: Is she truly as insignificant as she appears, or are her lost memories hiding some vital piece of the Resistance’s final gambit?

To uncover the memories buried deep within her mind, Helena is sent to the High Reeve, one of the most powerful and ruthless necromancers in this new world. Trapped on his crumbling estate, Helena’s fight—to protect her lost history and to preserve the last remaining shreds of her former self—is just beginning. For her prison and captor have secrets of their own . . . secrets Helena must unearth, whatever the cost.

This 1030 page tome started as a Draco/Hermione fan fiction titled Manacled. While I have no issues with fanfiction, it is nearly impossible to separate the main characters from the the world of Harry Potter. Due to copyright issues, Yu rewrote the initial manuscript setting it in a whole new world and dark fantasy system, which is why the world building was so cumbersome to get through.

We are introduced to so many terms at once, none of which are readily explained. And while I understand why, it impacted my ability to just fall into the world she was building.

My main gripe with the novel is that so much time is spent building this relationship between Hermione and Draco—sorry, I mean Helena and Ferron—that all other relationships, platonic and familial, fall flat. It’s over a thousand pages and a majority of them are about the constant push and pull between the main characters.

An endless loop of this type of feeling: I hate you, but I don’t actually. I want to be with you…but I can’t actually show you that… I can’t display any affection because Morrough (Voldemort) might catch us, but oh! this part of the house is safe… here! take a crumb of my affection.

Had Yu been more intentional about developing the other bonds in the novel, perhaps the love between Helena and Ferron wouldn’t have felt as cheap. And I think this is a symptom of the original manuscript being based on a world and a host of characters already fleshed out and well-developed. In a fanfiction, writers can lean on that foundation. Not so with a “whole new” world.

Helena is an almost pathetic character. She actively fights for the right cause and suffers from a severe case of martyrdom. I was mentally telling her to stand up. The way in which he throws all self-preservation out the door for her cause and then for Ferron were less heroic and more tragic. And because we don’t really see a true bond between her and Luc (Harry Potter), it doesn’t make sense why she’s doing so much in the name of one person. Much of their relationship, the impetus and driving force for her fighting alongside the rebellion, is told to us, not shown to us.

Ferron is just whatever. He’s brutal and bloodthirsty and does it all in the name of his love for Helena. It’s glossed over in the novel, so we don’t feel the full impact of his problematic behavior and it’s passed off as romantic. But this dude is literally killing people. Men, women, and children… for ONE person.

Lila (Ginny Weasley) is the only real character with any sense, but she’s only present in maybe 10% of the book.

I didn’t have any issues getting into the novel, despite the challenges I faced familiarizing myself with the magic system, and I this the idea of alchemy (and all its various forms) was intriguing. I also understand that a lot of the senselessness of the novel mimics the senselessness of war and the trauma that arises as a product of it. This is definitely not a romance, as some have suggested. It’s very much a tragedy.

I came in with a lot of expectation and left disappointed.