Book Review: The Beholder by Anna Bright *Spoiler Alert*

Hey guys!

Strap in because today you are in for a rant of a review! I recently finished The Beholder by Anna Bright for my O.W.L.s Readathon and it was a wild ride. I have so many mixed feelings about this book. On one hand there were just so many things I found wrong with it but on the other hand I still want to buy the second book just so I know how it ends.

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Selah has waited her whole life for a happily ever after. As the only daughter of the leader of Potomac, she knows her duty is to find the perfect match, a partner who will help secure the future of her people. Now that day has finally come.
But after an excruciatingly public rejection from her closest childhood friend, Selah’s stepmother suggests an unthinkable solution: Selah must set sail across the Atlantic, where a series of potential suitors awaits—and if she doesn’t come home engaged, she shouldn’t come home at all.
From English castle gardens to the fjords of Norge, and under the eye of the dreaded Imperiya Yotne, Selah’s quest will be the journey of a lifetime. But her stepmother’s schemes aren’t the only secrets hiding belowdecks…and the stakes of her voyage may be higher than any happy ending.

Review *Spoilers*:

Okay so I was super excited to read this book but once I started it, I had so many problems with it. My main issues were with the main character, Selah, and the world-building. Oh and you could also call all the plot twists a mile away. Selah was so childish and annoying and just so dense. In the beginning of the book she wants to propose to Peter her childhood friend and is super confident that he’ll say yes. First of all, she’s too cowardly to ask him herself so she gets her father to do it in public. Secondly, it seems like they really have no relationship let alone a close friendship. They can barely even have a proper conversation and it seems like Selah just has a really intense one-sided crush and expects this boy to marry her? She basically has 2 emotional moments with him in her entire life and that’s just the basis of their ‘relationship’. She acts super shocked when he ends up rejecting her proposal and is so butthurt when he doesn’t give her an explanation.

Further into the novel, Selah gets the schedule for the 2 weeks she’ll be spending getting to know potential betrothed #1, Bertilak. She reads the schedule, which isn’t even that bad it’s mostly just dinners and maybe a couple outings but she says she cant’t commit to 2 activities a day? Girl wtf. She’s supposed to be there getting to know her betrothed but she doesn’t even want to spend time with him? She also barely ever speaks to Bertilak and spends more time with her bodyguard, Bear even when she and Bertilak are in the same room.

Anyhoo, everybody thinks that Selah is so brave and even she occasionally thinks she is courageous but anytime she’s faced with conflict she like “oh I’m so weak and cowardly”… In the beginning of the book when she’s about to leave, her godmother tells her to looks for bags of soil on the ship because Selah enjoys gardening. So when she’s on the ship she goes hunting for the soil in the FORBIDDEN hold/bilge and comes across SUSPICIOUS BARRELS and takes one second to contemplate what they are before she spots the bag of soil behind them, grabs it, leaves, and never thinks of those barrels again which you later discover hold gunpowder for the resistance. 99% sure her godmother put the soil there to lead her to the gunpowder but it just goes completely over Selah’s head. Her actions in general are just so dumb and she expects she’ll be a great leader of her Potomac people? This girl needs a serious reality check.

Moving on to the world-building. I have no idea what the heck Bright was trying to do when she came up with the world for this book. It is all over the place and seriously confusing and I legit would really appreciate a map. This world has countries from the present mixed with fictional countries and historical names of countries. I was so confused with the time period because it’s like Bright just picked certain elements to help her plot even if they made no sense. I wasn’t sure if this story was happening in the 1920’s onward, a fantasy world, or the past during the Age of Discovery. They had radios, tennis, track and field, and basketball but travelled by ship. Characters were also named after storytellers such as Homer, Andrew Lang, Charles Perrault, etc. There was also the inclusion of mythological places such as Yggdrasil.

Overall this book was just really all over the place. Really confusing world-building and a terrible main character. The plot about Selah finding a husband abroad would have been great but the inclusion of spies and a rebellion and the focus on this books version of the Soviet Union kind of ruined it. I don’t know why but I still want to read the next book in the series to see if it maybe gets a little bit better? The one thing about this book that I undoubtedly loved was the cover because it’s so beautiful. But that’s about it 😆

Happy reading!

Rating:

2.5 🌟 / 5🌟