Hello, bookworms!
Happy Thursday, thank God it’s almost the weekend, because I am extremely tired due to Sanremo ending late and working in the morning, and I want to sleep for 20 hours straight.
Also due to Sanremo sucking my time and energies, I am not reading much this week, but I do plan on finishing a couple things nonetheless, so you can expect some exciting reviews coming your way later this month. So many potentially good reads, pray for me.
Anyways, today I am here to talk about Tell Me How It Ends by Quinton Li, a cozy fantasy with a lot of queer and neurodivergent rep which I was lucky enough to read an e-ARC of, as I am part of the Street Team (which means more TMHIE content coming your way in the upcoming weeks, stay tuned to find out more about it!).
Disclaimer
I received a digital ARC of this book, as I am part of the Street Team. However, since I received it in exchange for an honest review, every opinion expressed in my review is my own, and hasn’t been influenced in any way, shape or form. Thank you so much to the author for the amazing opportunity, I wish them a beautiful launch and a brilliant career.
About the book
Title: Tell Me How It Ends
Series: Tell Me How It Ends #1
Author: Quinton Li
Publisher: Self Published
Publication date: April 9, 2023
Pages: 313
Pre-order Paperback TELL ME HOW IT ENDS on Quinn’s website (personally distributed by the author, signed and personalised if you want).
Pre-order eBook TELL ME HOW IT ENDS on Amazon (the paperback will be available on Amazon upon release)
Plot, as stated on the author’s website and Goodreads
A coming-of-age cozy fantasy with a queer cast, witches, and tarot. Perfect for fans of Legends & Lattes and Our Flag Means Death. Iris Galacia’s tarot cards do more than entertain gamblers. With the flip of her fingers she can predict the future and uncover a person’s secrets. Under the watchful eye of her mother, she is already on thin ice for pursuing a passion in the family business, but then cracks start to form, and eventually she falls through. She is given an ultimatum: earn a thousand coins or leave the business, and the family. Enter Marin Boudreau, a charming young person who can scale buildings and break off doorknobs, who comes for her help to rescue a witch who’s been falsely imprisoned in Excava Kingdom. And Marin is willing to pay a high sum for her talents. But saving a prisoner from royal hands isn’t easy, nor is leaving home for the first time in eighteen years. Now Iris must learn to trust in herself, Marin, and this new magical world, while racing the clock before the royals decide the fate of the witch, and before any secrets catch up to her. Tell Me How It Ends features LGBTQ+, disabled, neurodivergent, cultural, and mental health representation. The main character, Iris Galacia, is a lesbian tarot reader with anxiety and autism. The second main character, Marin Boudreau, is an aromantic asexual non-binary person with ADHD.
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Review
What first caught my attention while I was aimlessly scrolling Instagram and I stumbled upon the announcement post was definitely the fact that the main characters were both queer and neurodivergent, and that this book was pitched as a cozy fantasy.
As I have stated times and times before, I am not the biggest fantasy reader anymore, as I have become saturated with the genre and found it increasingly hard to discover stories I was actually interested in. However, I believe diverse cozy fantasy books could be the answer for me, and Tell Me How It Ends just goes to show exactly that, as it was a big win!
I don’t know where to start, because I want this review to be somewhat coherent, but my mind at the moment is just so full of my love for these characters. I am a huge fan of the found family trope, it might even be my absolute favourite trope, and this book has a found family that makes me want to curl up in my bed and cry for hours. In a positive way.
So let’s start by talking about Iris and Marin, shall we? I loved them, their development both as individuals and as friends, and I would gladly sell my soul for them. I have officially adopted them into my big bookish family, alongside Myst, Kalaya, Spirit and Yori. Oh, and the pirate crew as well, I hope we get to see more of them in future novellas and books!
But, back to Iris and Marin, as I was saying I loved them, and I loved that their queerness — and queerness in general in the book — was portrayed as the norm, I want to live in this world. I also particularly enjoyed that none of the traits of their sexualities and neurodivergences was stereotyped, and that they felt like genuine people, not just archetypes.
The plot was very simple, but I like these kinds of fantasy plots, and it kept me reading. It only dragged a little bit in the middle, and I would have liked a bit more pages during the final “heist”, but other than that it was thouroughly entertaining and I loved it.
My favourite thing has to be the inclusion of tarot cards in the book and the way the helped the plot move forward; I know next to nothing about tarot cards, but they are something that has always fascinated me, and I thin the author did a great job at making their presence and the readings smooth. I was afraid it would be to difficult for me to follow, or that I would become very bored if there were too many readings and stuff, but it was actually really nice.
As far as the writing style is concerned, it took me a while to get used to it, mainly because I had a hard time following some sentences, but after a few chapters it became very easy and I liked the banter between the various characters and the descriptions of scenes and places.
Overall, it was an amazing read and I would highly recommend it to cozy fantasy fans, people who like me don’t enjoy high fantasy, people looking for casual but well done rep, found family stans and to anyone who wants to read an entertaining book and support an indie author. There’s a misconception that indie means bad, but this book alone is the proof that there are some beautiful gems in the indie market, and you should definitely run and preorder your paperback or ebook copy of Tell Me How It Ends.
I can’t wait for the sequel and prequel novellas + the sequel novel. I was so happy when Quinn announced this was going to be a series, because I need more of this cast in my life!
This is going to be all for today, I’ll talk to you soon with a new review!
La Petite Pritt 