Annoying Men Who Do Not Exist
I recently finished What Lies Beyond the Veil by Harper L. Woods. I really enjoyed the Coven duology, and as such, I picked up her other series. While I love fantasy in general, I had some reservations about it initially. My issue is that fae worldbuilding can be tedious to read. I dislike lore info dumping in the first few chapters, and I've noticed that is a persistent issue in this new wave of gothic fae dark romantasy novels. I love Woods' writing style though, so I set my reservations aside. It took me awhile to warm up to the book as the first 50 to 100 pages are slow paced and painful. It's almost too much information about the FMC's shitty life subjected to lore appropriate misogyny and abuse. Like, I get it. She's suffering. She's really going through it. Her life sucks. As readers, we know she's going to have some sexy fairy guy come save her, and I think about half of the first act could have been cut.
I swear on my love, I enjoyed this book. It just took a while to get going. I'm also a glass-half-full kind of reader. I'm able to look past narrative and character decisions that I wouldn't have made, or that I find obnoxious and weak. Woods' prose is vivid and dramatic, drawing a picture of a viscerally beautiful and disgusting world. I loved being an outside observer of the mess that is Caelum and Estrella's relationship. I couldn't relate to Estrella. She's weak though well-rounded. I still felt the emotional impact of each chapter through her eyes. It was a healthy mix of existential horror and love (... or lust? I can't tell with her).
Now to the point of this post... Caelum is a witty, crass (anti)hero typical to the genre. Without spoilers, I could tell what his 'deal' was from the very first page he appeared. The predictable nature of the narrative enhanced my enjoyment in this case. Each new detail putting the picture of what exact kind of fucked-up this guy is. Woods' has an aptitude for writing relationships built on rotten wood. Estrella is screwed up, and she's drawn to Caelum's evil and power in service of her own weakness. What I disliked for the majority of the book is that Caelum—while clearly not who he says he is—is posed as the 'good guy.' Or at the least, better than all the other pig-headed men.
This is the part where I disagree with the narrative. Caelum is just as bad as all the other men. He makes the same vile remarks, enjoys violence, and has the emotional intelligence of a grapefruit. The difference between him and the others is that FMC is into it. The truth is simple: jealous and possessive men kill women. Period. He's just as bad as anyone else. It's easy to get twisted into the world of someone like that, especially for a weak woman like Estrella. I've been there too, which is partly why I enjoyed the story. I hope that I've grown up enough to tell someone like that to hit the road. Hopefully I'm never in the vulnerable position that Estrella is in the story again.
My favorite part of the book is the end. With as few spoilers as possible, Caelum unmasks himself as worse than Estrella could have imagined. He took advantage of her in every way possible, betraying her on every level. I hope she kills him in the next book. That's exactly how I felt with Woods' other series, but the FMC in the Coven is stronger than Estrella. For the first book before MMC's power spike, they were at about equal power levels making the dynamic somehow less toxic despite Grey being objectively more depraved than Caelum. I just love the tension of characters falling in love with people they know aren't good for them. One of these days, I want to see a femc escape, though.
Hopefully I wasn't too harsh on this book as I had a lot of fun reading it. I'm definitely going to pick up the next one to see what happens next!
