Reviews with content warning for Confinement - The Betrayals

TLDR: the writing style is slower paced with 3 character perspectives that navigate Monteverre with flashbacks from 10 years previous. There are points in the book that are interesting and will keep your attention but there are other points where you're confused as to why the event makes sense in the storyline.

To start off, I was excited to read this book just by the description it seemed like the book was going to be about adventure, love, and mystery. However, as I was reading, it was slow-paced with no world building or character building.

The entire book is based around the grand jeu but it was never explained how it was played or what is involved with making a grand jeu. I felt that I was left confused half the time trying to figure out who the characters were and how they fit into the story. With that, there were 3 different perspectives which "The Rat" would not have been missed if their perspective wasn't written.

It seemed like there wasn't enough thought put into writing the storyline and how the book would have ultimately ended.

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glammster's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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5aru's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I have hardly ever felt this conflicted about a book. I loved it, sometimes; I hated it, sometimes — and so I’ve averaged it out to three, because I truly don’t know what to think.

I remember loving The Binding. Sure, it was very slow-paced at times, and I found it hard to keep going; but the characters had me invested, I cared about the story and where it would go, and I wasn’t disappointed. The Betrayals has been a mixed bag. I certainly wasn’t expecting the twist; I wasn’t expecting it, and I didn’t love it.

The fact that Claire and Aimé were separate characters for so much of the book meant that I learned to dislike Claire for her shortcomings (though not as much as I disliked adult Léo, to be fair) and to love Aimé, or at least who I thought Aimé was, from Léo’s descriptions. I also couldn’t help but feel a little cheated, since the homosexual romance turned out to be no such thing at all. I keep thinking of that meme, name something that’s gay and homophobic at the same time…

Beyond that, the fact that Christians are the oppressed collective in an intensely vague worldbuilding that shared objectionable resemblances to deeply traumatizing historical events that affected other religious communities was also very iffy to me; perhaps if we ever learned what the Party was actually doing, or what Purity Laws truly stand for — but like I said, the worldbuilding is intensely vague. Perhaps focusing on Montverre and its inner, closed-off world — since that’s clearly what Collins wanted to write about, anyway — would’ve been more successful.

The whole time I felt like the book was building up to something, only to never really take me anywhere. I guess it betrayed me, too.

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dandelionseeds's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

4.75

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