Wildalone by Krassi Zourkova
My rating: 3/5 cats
i was drawn to this book because 1) pretty cover and 2) The Secret History comp. which gets me every time.
and i understand that this book was described as a BLEND of Twilight, The Secret History, Jane Eyre, and A Discovery of Witches, but people have got to stop using The Secret History as a readalike; it generally does more harm than good unless the match is spot on (and it never is). yes, it’ll attract readers to the book, but they won’t be the right readers if the book is, say, a supernatural romance, and they probably won’t like it, even if it’s a very literary supernatural romance. are there common factors? yes. both of these books take place on the campus of a college in new england, where many people are wealthy and the POV character is not. also, classical mythology and ancient rituals/ceremonies come into play. but the way these things are treated is completely different and maintaining that the two books are similar because they share locale is like saying an omelet is the same thing as a chocolate chip cookie because both have eggs in them. they don’t serve the same purpose, or scratch the same itch. sometimes you crave an omelet and sometimes you crave a cookie.
that is a blanket complaint for all books being compared to The Secret History, because it is one of those oft-invoked books that is trotted out anytime someone writes a college novel, and it doesn’t always work. the same way that every psychological suspense book is now marketed as the new Gone Girl. Gone Girl is a very specific kind of psych suspense novel, and its frequent misapplication as a readalike is maddening to anyone with a passion for readers’ advisory. like me.
that rant aside, i definitely feel that this book has a huge readership; it’s just not the same one as The Secret History. this is an easy sell to fans of Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey, or the new adult genre. the writing is better than Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey, and it has supernatural and mystery elements that Fifty Shades of Grey and new adult do not, but the romantic entanglements mirror the kinds found in those books, and are the driving force behind their success.
the writing is very lush, and there is a feeling of the fairytale to this story, but it’s a very modern and erotic version of a traditional fairytale, and the “happily ever after” is not guaranteed.
thea is a first-year student at princeton, an accomplished pianist coming all the way from bulgaria to study at the same university her older sister elza attended fifteen years ago. elza was an enigmatic, ethereal, and dynamic young woman, who had a profound effect on all who knew her until she died under mysterious circumstances and her body disappeared from the morgue in even more mysterious circumstances. thea plans to solve these mysteries to give her parents closure, and to try to understand the legacy of the sister she never knew.
but then she meets a boy. or two.
after a mistaken-identity secret admirer fiasco, thea finds herself involved with two brothers, also pianists: jake and rhys. they are both older, immeasurably wealthy, and equally attractive/attracted to thea. rhys is the older and more dominant of the two, and he claims her immediately, while jake stands down and pines on the sidelines, occasionally given encouragingly romantic scenes with the confused thea. rhys immediately insinuates himself into all aspects of thea’s life, arranging her time, wardrobe, and living arrangements – telling her who she can and cannot spend time with while retaining his own autonomy, declaring that he can never be a one-woman man. he is as mysterious as elza, with a haunted past and a tragic family story, which thea attempts to unravel, while all the while trying to discover what happened to her sister.
so, despite the supernatural elements that will eventually reveal themselves, this seems to be a relationship completely in line with those found in the new adult genre – a damaged male lead with violent possessive tendencies and the only woman who can save him from his worst impulses. ditto this for the Fifty Shades of Grey comp, and add to it the financial angle, and the fact that thea is a virgin seduced by a man with an unusual and prolific sexual history.
i think people who are fans of romance will definitely like this book. for me, it didn’t appeal to me because this just doesn’t speak to my own personal fantasies. wealth isn’t a panty-dropper for me, especially when it’s inherited money and not earned. i can understand and appreciate the way money makes life easier in certain aspects, and it opens doors to experiences and opportunities foreign to someone who has not come from that background, but unless the suitor has other qualities that are attractive, it’s not enough to make me say “yes, this appears to be a good match.” and rhys is a nightmare character. i know that this is the new trend of male characters, from the limited experience i have with new adult, but i would have punched both jake and rhys in the face within moments of our meeting. do not approach me, stranger, in the dark deserted room of a museum and stand close enough that i can feel the heat from your chest on my chest. do not tell me that the elegant gown i have put on is “too prim for (your) taste.” and do NOT do this, when i am hesitant about consummating our relationship in a fairly public place, when i am a cautious virgin.
“Because… you don’t even know me.”
“I don’t need to know you.” His stunning eyes were ruthless. “I need to have you.”
He pressed me back against the tree with an insistence that he was unable – or unwilling – to control.
yeah, that doesn’t work for me. that’s how you get maced, frankly. i am not personally into this kind of fantasy that has so much violence simmering under the surface. i don’t want to be “had.” i want to be “known.”
but i get it, for other readers. it’s a romance painted in broad strokes, and the fantasy of being swept off of one’s feet by a man unaccustomed to hearing the word “no” is a common trope in the genre. plus, in this world which is porous enough to let in all different kinds of monsters, this isn’t even the worst thing that can happen to someone, romantically speaking.
the writing is at its best when it is focused on music. which is impressive enough, considering how difficult it is to pin down the transcendent effects of music in mere words. it is also fantastic when it discusses bulgarian vs. u.s. values, and in one of those passages, it managed to dismiss one of my criticisms as simply a product of my own cultural perspective:
…she loved worrying about me. Still, there were worse things than being “stalked” or “claimed” by a guy like Rhys. And what was this American obsession with stalking anyway? We had no such word in Bulgarian – people expressed their emotions in all kinds of ways, and to pursue a woman was expected of men; it didn’t automatically mean crossing criminal lines.
which i found illuminating. my ideas of courtship do not include statements like
“I’m guessing there are many things you think you don’t want. But we’ll have to change that.”
and i cannot relate to this sentiment:
There was something intoxicating in his jealousy, even in his rage. It left him vulnerable and gave me a strange sense of power.
“Rhys, you are crushing me. I can’t even breathe…”
He pulled back just enough to let me catch my breath, but his grip around my wrists tightened. “I said that I’m not going to share you. Which part didn’t you understand?”
but maybe that’s just my americanness poking through.
thea’s no prize either as far as heroines go. there’s a selfishness to her, a cruelty, as she keeps rhys and jake on strings, vacillating between them indecisively, while keeping a third man on the side for those times when the estlin brothers are both off sulking somewhere. she’s presented as an ingénue, so it’s meant to be forgivable instead of heartless, but no one is that naïve. she consistently brings jake up to a certain point and then scurries away, and he just retreats and waits and yearns for her with unwavering devotion even though they barely know each other. there’s a lot more patience and forgiveness in this book than is realistic. but again – this is a romance, this is a fantasy.
and just because i don’t like being pushed and pulled and pressed up against walls and told where to go and whom i cannot see, and just because i have no applause for a thirty-year-old man treating a teenaged girl like a kept woman with expensive gifts whose response to her telling him she will be going home to bulgaria for christmas to see her parents is “They don’t own you” and “It’s your life. Nobody should tell you how to live it” even though that is what she WANTS to do and pot/kettle and all that, doesn’t mean this isn’t an enjoyable romance novel for people who actually enjoy romance novels and aren’t stupid finger-wagging killjoys like me who have to examine and dissect the fantasy like people don’t understand that what’s acceptable in fantasy isn’t always acceptable in real life.
so, yeah – while i find the romantic elements of this book irritating, that’s just me and my pretty standard reaction to the kind of dangerous relationships idealized in popular romance novels these days. because i am an old curmudgeon with personal space/freedom issues. but i did like the music, the mythology, the parts where people weren’t saying things like
“You make me come just with your breath, Thea…I can come just from feeling your breath on my mouth.”
so, while i think the suggested readalikes are iffy (i still don’t understand the Jane Eyre comp at all View Spoiler » but otherwise, thea is the exact opposite of jane, who is way into romantic self-denial and not taking shit from rich guys) this book is definitely going to please folks who like bad boys and literary paranormal romances with a new and interesting spin on the typical supernatural elements.
