Book Review: A Treason of Thorns by Laura E. Weymouth

I honestly never would have thought that I would be interested and invested in a story about a magical, personified house. But somehow, this story about a girl and her magical house did capture my attention, at least enough for me to finish the book.

I think the idea is pretty original so I have to give the author props for that. But I also think it's original for a reason. It's kind of a weird, silly topic in my opinion. I didn't read the blurb, I just picked it up from my library and went in blind so maybe that's my fault that I didn't mesh well with the concept. So I would recommend for people to read the description, and if it interests you, then go ahead and read on. If you don't think a talking house with feelings will interest you, you probably shouldn't pick this book up.

I don't think the magic and rules of this world were very well established. The rules seemed to flip flop as the story went, changing to however the author wanted it to end. This was pretty frustrating for me as a reader.

I also wish that the characters and character relationships were explored more. By the end, the only person I feel like I got to know was Burleigh (the house). I didn't even feel like I knew the main character very well.

Overall, this book wasn't too hard to get through and was enjoyable in some parts. But the odd, not fully realized concept and unexplored characters and relationships prevented me from getting too attached and invested in the story. I don't regret the time I spent on this book, but I wouldn't recommend it to others to read.

***SPOILERS BELOW***

I feel like I didn't get to know any of the characters. Not even Violet. I don't know how that was possible in a 300+ page book to not even really understand the main character. Violet had one defining characteristic- that Burleigh was her priority. It started off strong. I really liked her dedication and loyalty to Burleigh and her defiance to the King, but by the middle I just got kind of frustrated that we still didn't really know anything about her. Or there wasn't much to get to know, since her only defining characteristic was that she loved Burleigh. I also instantly liked Wyn, and liked his protectiveness over Violet, but again by the end we didn't really get to know him very well either. We also didn't get to know much about all the secondary characters (Jed, Mira, Espie, Alfred, Frey).

Parts of the book were really hard to follow. With the ghosts, memories and confusing magic system it was hard to follow if things happening were a dream or a flashback. For example, the whole ending scene where she's trying to unbind the house and she's having dreams of her parents and she was feeling sick and couldn't remember why she was in the house. I couldn't follow what was going on at all.

The whole concept was just weird to me. The idea of a house with feelings. A lot of the stuff was cringey to me. Like how literal mortar gets into your body? I was getting really frustrated with the magic system. It didn't make much sense to me and it wasn't consistent. According to the binding, Burleigh was supposed to kill anyone that tries to unbind it. I don't understand how Violet got away with unbinding the house. Burleigh could easily kill Violet. And Burleigh wanted to kill Violet. Several times. When Burleigh was speaking through Wyn, Burleigh was calling Violet "the Sterling kid." The house literally doesn't even care enough about her to know her name. It was really frustrating seeing her go back to Burleigh over and over again when the house was obvious just using her to fulfill its own needs. I can't even begin to put into words my frustration with the magic system, because it was just so all over the place. I just had way too many problems with it I wouldn't even know where to begin.

Things they would do just wouldn't make sense to me. For example, at the end Wyn tells Violet where the heart of the house is. He says for her to go down to the creek or something. She goes down there and then the Lord Falmouth showdown happens and she goes back to the house and then she's sitting there thinking, "I wonder where the heart of the house is." But... didn't Wyn just tell you where it was? But then she follows the ghost trail and it ends up being in the Dad's room, but then it ends up being her in the end?? It makes no sense.

I wasn't surprised with anything that happened in this book. I wasn't surprised that Wyn was bound to the house, I wasn't surprised that she ended up releasing the house in the end, I wasn't surprised that Wyn didn't die in the end. It was all pretty predictable. The way they went about it was all over the place though. It's like the author knew all these bullet points they wanted to hit, and then created a magic system that would allow this path to go forward. It was really weird.

That's about all I have to say about that for now. Please join me in the discussion down below! I'd like to know what you all thought of this book. Was I the only one that got this frustrated while reading? Let me know!