nerd teacher [books] reviewed A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal
Disappointing in more ways than it interested me.
2 stars
Content warning I just have to spoil some things in order to actually talk about the few interesting elements in an otherwise obnoxious book.
I find this book... frustrating. The ending it has just feels like it comes out of nowhere, like the story just... stopped because the author was over it, like it was the last chapter in a fanfiction that someone wanted to stop because they were tired but kept persisting because someone else bothered them to do so.
And I find the use of the characters' secrets a bit... boring. Many are predictable in ways that kind of make me want to roll my eyes, while others are predictable in a manner of it not being telegraphed well in advance but the expected response is still, "Oh, of course that's what happens."
If anything was less frustrating it was the fact that liberal-coded values weren't upheld as being inherently positive. The final plan that the main cast enacts fails completely because they are... too beholden to doing justice that is just so toothless. "We'll call for a press conference and drag every media outlet into one place!" They even invite someone who claimed she was 'used' by the villain, telling her exactly what the plan was! Just so she could "also face some justice" that would never come, and that person works with the villain to help slaughter every person in the room so they could never report on it. The plan is an entire failure, and I kind of wish there was some kind of conversation around that point...
... but you can't have a conversation when it feels like you just threw the book at the publisher because you didn't want to write it anymore. I don't even want an explicit conversation, but having at least one scene where there is even a glimmer of recognition for the failure that could happen... Sometimes you need that, especially when that failure might be the point.
It's so annoying. I love the concept for what this story is, but I also just... kept feeling like I didn't know why I should care about anything. I wasn't invested in the relationships I was told to be invested in; I wasn't invested in the characters that I probably should've been (especially when they're going to be outed as being the most terrifying of vampires and the person who was made into the reason for a huge part of the plot)... I could barely care about Jin and Flick's little blossoming romance because I just... couldn't really see why I should care about them? And part of it is just that everyone felt so flat and boring and tedious.
Edit: Oh, I see. It has a sequel, which explains its poor ending. But even for a sequel, this did not make me have a desire to read the next one.
