Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - The Betrayals

Could've been a 5* book if it had fewer twists, strands, characters. I liked the voice, it was kind of Arthur Koestler x Dan Brown. as a bridge player, I'm obsessed with the idea of grand jeu now. wish it had been queerer tbh.

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rowanrelph's review against another edition

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challenging hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Content Warnings

torturedreadersdept's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional slow-paced

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

3.0

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angry_tortoise's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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madameblathers's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

Content Warnings

jessiereads98's review against another edition

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mysterious slow-paced

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

TL;DR: The Betrayals is a poorly crafted, offensive Christian persecution fantasy featuring multiple other discriminatory stances that wants to be taken seriously as a literary work, but has nothing to say.

The Betrayals’ merits begin and end with a gorgeous cover. There is somehow both a lot and nothing going on here. Crucial elements are vague for the sake of vagueness, so much of the book both in major and minor elements is offensive, and the craft itself isn’t even particularly well done.

According to the blurb, The Betrayals centres around the grand jeu. The national game (or not a game, or a performance, or a religion, take your pick honestly) of some European nation (that is not France or Britain or Switzerland but deliberately not disclosed for some reason). The grand jeu is clearly made intentionally vague so the reader can never actually get a handle on what it is, how it is played, or what elements really make it up. This vagueness truly serves no purpose in the story or for the themes of the book. The author is also intentionally vague about what country this is taking place in, what time period it takes place in, and the details of the ruling political party. I believe this was an attempt to demonstrate that fascism can happen anywhere at anytime, but ultimately it is not effective and just leaves things feeling confused and hollow.

This book is also wildly offensive with absolutely no hint to what the reader is in for in the back cover description. This book is actually less about the grand jeu and more about the ruling political party’s oppression of Christians. The Christian oppression complex is weird and disgusting in and of itself, but Bridget Collins succeeds in making it worse. Collins has essentially recreated pre-Holocaust/World War II Nazi Germany and substituted Christians for Jewish people in her ahistorical fantasy world. Collins goes out of her way to inform us that the ruling party in the book came to power by gaining the support of the working class through blaming the country’s struggles on communists and Christians. In this reimagining of history Christians are marked with a cross on their clothing, put on a registry which requires special papers, and secretly rounded up by police then left in a hostile area. There was no creativity here, just a disgustingly antisemitic warping of history to satisfy the bizarre Christian desire to be oppressed. As if this wasn’t enough, Christians are lumped in with Muslims and Jewish people, who are actually oppressed (pages 51 and 78). The author also uses the slur g*psy (derogatory term for Romani people) and maligns their beliefs (page 183) for no real reason with nothing else done to combat that behaviour in the text.

The misogyny in this book both of the time period (which isn’t even specified but implied to be historical) and the characters goes completely unchallenged. Women are repeatedly maligned as less than the men, stupider, more frivolous, overly sensitive, petty. The two main female characters (Magister Ludi Claire Dryden, and The Rat) are almost never referred to by their names but rather their titles. Their supposed differences from other women are also repeatedly pointed out. The result is two dehumanized “not like other girls” caricatures who exist solely to further the development of male characters’ stories (Léo and Claire, Simon and The Rat).

The twist of Claire being the Carfax that Léo knew was predictable and boring. It diminished Léo’s previous relationship with Carfax, his current relationship with Claire, and the significance of Carfax’s death. In conjunction with the rest of the book it also came off as both transphobic and homophobic, whether that was the intention or not. Earlier in the book there is a seemingly throwaway line about an irrelevant side character who dresses in typically male clothing. It is said that, “she’d rather be an honorary man than speak up for women” (page 203). This is the exact attitude that TERFs hold towards trans men and trans masculine people. TERFs believe, that just as is portrayed in this book through Claire/Carfax, that trans men are really women pretending to be men due to not wanting to be disadvantaged under patriarchy. This story seems to play into that belief, and taken in conjunction with the Christian persecution fantasy it entertains, I’m not inclined to give the author the benefit of the doubt. In addition, the story gains little to nothing by retconning the queer relationship between Carfax and Léo other than getting to bury its gays. While there is less explicitly homophobic in this story, eliminating the only queer relationship retroactively once again does not look good in combination with everything else going on in this book.

The least of Bridget Collins’ sins in The Betrayals is the craft, however it also does not hold up under scrutiny. Bridget Collins clearly intended to write a Very Serious Literary Work with Something To Say. Ultimately what she created is something that can’t be taken seriously and has nothing to say. She is vague just for the sake of vagueness, it doesn’t accomplish anything. The character of The Rat seems to serve little purpose to the story. The character’s main function seems to be an attempt to shock readers through grossness and light body horror to enhance the impression of this as a serious literary work. The Rat’s secondary function is to further the Christian persecution narrative through her interactions with Simon, but that is irrelevant to the main plot of Claire/Léo/Carfax. We are also repeatedly told things instead of shown them. Collins just can’t seem to deal in subtleties that would be so much more compelling in this book. She can’t just show us that Léo is is romantically interested in Carfax (although it is obvious), she has to spend two pages telling us that Léo has a crush on Carfax. We are told, seemingly out of nowhere, that Léo loves Claire separately from his memory of Carfax. What led to that? Why are we suddenly being told this when up to that point Claire has been a sort of stand in or surrogate for Carfax in Léo’s mind? It might be shocking for Bridget Collins to find out that readers can, in fact, figure things out on their own and through subtext, and don’t need to be bashed over the head with them. Perhaps, instead of explicitly stating the obvious, she could spend those pages criticizing the disgusting attitudes displayed in this book.

Content Warnings

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

Content Warnings

mallorypen's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I went into this book with my mind full of Bridget Collins’ first book for adults, “The Binding;” that book had a similar, indescribable magic-like act that was well-known but misunderstood or feared. However, this book wasn’t quite what I expected and in some ways, that was disappointing … but it also says a lot about starting a story with expectations, and not meeting it where it is.

I won’t go as far to say that the relationships between these characters is queer-baiting, but there are definite shades of it.

When Leo started to have feelings for Carfax, I thought that his queerness may play into his desire to succeed and be the best, but he’s unable to do so because he wears a mask of what he thinks is right versus being authentic. I really liked that reading, and felt that Leo’s growing feelings for Claire was the true betrayal; not only did it feel disingenuous to his relationship to Carfax and Leo’s queer identity, but it felt wildly unfair to Claire to be a stand-in for her brother.

The tone of the book overall was wholly melancholy; successes, love, relationships, and triumphs were all tinged with this overarching sadness. The government cracking down and distorting all the good and beautiful in the world and the game of grand jeu felt inevitable; the lies and self-loathing of the main characters felt insurmountable; and no matter how they wanted something else, the rift between Leo and Carfax and Claire was so intense.

I didn’t guess the twist before it happened.

There were hints to it, enough that I thought perhaps Carfax disguised himself as a woman to come back to Montverre, but the opposite never occurred to me because, again, I was so bought in to the queer subplot.

It was an interesting feeling as a reader to feel betrayed by the story and in that way, I felt how masterful Collins is with her storytelling.

There was enough here that I can’t deny the book was GOOD, but I rated it three stars because I didn’t feel good or satisfied after finishing it. Not all books need to make me feel those things to be enjoyable reads, and I appreciate the novel for everything it did. I might enjoy it more on a re-read in the future.

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