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Two Essays on The Count of Monte Cristo

I love The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. I have read the unabridged version more than once, and my most recent reread was in 2023. At that time, I wrote a couple of brief essays which I posted on Tumblr, one of which was about a canonically queer character and the other discussed a character who is often left out of the various adaptations. I present for you these essays with expansion and alteration, because I keep returning to them as pieces of writing and because I don't want them to be limited to those original posts. I'd like to thank longtime Patron Case Aiken, who receives a monthly shoutout, as well as new patrons DivineJasper and Sasha Khan. (Quotes are from Robin Buss’ English translation of Alexandre Dumas’ work.) Link to Audio Version. ----- Canonical Queerness in The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas You’d need to change surprisingly little of The Count of Monte Cristo to confirm Eugénie Danglars as a trans man (or a masc-leaning nonbinary person...
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Ruthless Gods by Emily A. Duncan (Something Dark and Holy, #2)

Darkness never works alone...

Nadya doesn’t trust her magic anymore. Serefin is fighting off a voice in his head that doesn’t belong to him. Malachiasz is at war with who--and what--he’s become.

As their group is continually torn apart, the girl, the prince, and the monster find their fates irrevocably intertwined. They’re pieces on a board, being orchestrated by someone… or something. The voices that Serefin hears in the darkness, the ones that Nadya believes are her gods, the ones that Malachiasz is desperate to meet—those voices want a stake in the world, and they refuse to stay quiet any longer.

TITLE: Ruthless Gods
AUTHOR: Emily A. Duncan
PUBLISHER: Wednesday Books
YEAR: 2020
LENGTH: 544 pages
AGE: Young Adult
GENRE: Fantasy
RECOMMENDED: N/A

After attempting to read this originally I found out that the premise of the series relies on a bunch of antisemitic tropes. Due to this and the fact that this book was confusing and I did not enjoy it at all, I do not recommend this book/series. I’ve left my original review intact below.

Queer Rep Summary: N/A. The first book had Lesbian/Sapphic Secondary Character(s) but I don't know if they make an appearance here.

DNF 30% in (beginning of interlude iii).

I started reading this a week after reading the first book, WICKED SAINTS, and I don't know what's happening or why I should care. I mention the timeframe to make it clear that my confusion is not a result of waiting a long time between reading the first book and picking up the sequel. I'm perfectly fine being confused by a book, there are some I've praised for being fascinating while also spending a long time being largely incomprehensible. But I just can't get into the central motivation of "girl must save demon nightmare boy from something (???) by doing something (???)". I can handle a book being boring for a little while, and I'm fine with confusion, but this combination of unclear stakes, revelations without enough tension, general lack of context, and a plot I just can't get into means I'm going ahead and stopping now. 

CW for alcoholism, self harm, blood, gore, body horror, murder, death.

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A city on a hill with a leafless forest rising up behind it, the city is drenched in red, dripping like blood from the floating text of "RUTHLESS GODS" above.


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