The Familiar

Storyline: 2 Stars

This one wasn’t for me…

This was advertised as partly historical fiction, but really it was Spanish culture fantasy with a few random historical events mentioned in the background. I wondered how fantasy and historical fiction would mix, and I found out it doesn’t.

Also, I just can’t get behind the trope of creepy, disgusting, immoral, and immortal man falls in love with super young and innocent woman that he’s mentoring. 1) it’s creepy and disgusting 2) how does the young woman keep falling for this crap 3) “sadness” doesn’t negate all the horrific and immoral things that the immortal guy does. Yuck! 🤢

Plus, this was pretty boring. I was pretty disappointed because I’ve loved other books by Leigh Bardugo.

Parental Guidance: 45% Recommend

I was surprised with the content considering I have read Bardugo’s other works before. Most of her books have magic and some romance, but the romance is not inappropriate and the language is mild. Unfortunately, I would only recommend this book 45% of the time for parental guidance.

The romance did have some scenes that I skipped. They were not detailed or long, but I think I was especially grossed out because the boy in the relationship was extremely old. Intimacy is also talked about throughout the book, and many of the characters describe their past intimate life. It is not in detail, but it was not needed.

There was not much swearing, but when there was, it was the “f” word. I was honestly surprised with how much it was used, and it was completely unnecessary. It was always used in the context of describing a character having slept with someone, and it was disturbing and annoying. It seemed very out of place since there was hardly any other swearing in the whole book.

There were rainbow characters, but it was very brief. Honestly, it was really surprising and out of the blue. It seemed that the author just wanted a star for the rainbow characters.

There were dark themes because of the magic and some weird stuff that definitely is not historical.

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Spoilers Ahead

Yuck. I hate the trope of super old immortal guy falls in love with super young and innocent girl. The immortal guy was gross and committed murder and had slept with every girl that he laid eyes on. I don’t understand how readers can be okay with everything that the immortal guys do considering how awful they usually are. I don’t care if he regrets his decision and is “sad” . . . he murders and uses women. Being wronged does not excuse the wrongs. Sorry. also, how do these young women keep falling for it? There is absolutely no way when I was a young woman that I would have every thought about being interested in a disgusting guy like that.

As mentioned above, the book is also really boring. It is really slow moving and I could describe the book in about three sentences. I was pretty disappointed, but I know others like some of the tropes that I dislike.