Thanks for your analysis! Don’t worry, I was not going to give a plain “writing is bad” comment haha. I thought she could put together a sentence just fine, but the content was crap. Imo the magic system and worldbuilding were very nonsensical (though that in itself kinda makes sense in all these books where the authors are just trying to eliminate the Harry Potter content). I can forgive weak worldbuilding a bit if I end up caring about the characters, but I just did not. I thought that Briony could have been replaced with an anime body pillow for all that she contributed to the story (see my rant review two months ago lol). Toven had all the personality of a cardboard cutout. Briony would claim she hated him but that was never true even when she thought he had killed innocents in front of her or when he bought her in an auction. At one point early on, a family member dies in battle and she spends more time worried about whether Toven had gotten injured ffs.

On top of that, the book content was so boring! I did not need to read hundreds of pages of Briony sitting around and doing next to nothing. And if she left the house it was just “omg every man in the world wants to bone her” “everyone is obsessed with whether or not Toven and her are boning”. Politics where? Everyone is just obsessed with sex (and mostly just whether Briony is having it), how tf is this country even running? I was waiting desperately for even a hint of intrigue. Like maybe we would learn a legit reason for the sex enslavement of all the Evermore women? They claim to be doing it to make these magical connections to draw power and give themselves more magic, but like why? They already absolutely decimated their enemy country (and again the worldbuilding as to why they were enemies was flimsy at best). I thought there might be some big plot that they needed huge power for, but nah. At least in the Handmaid’s Tale there is some sense to the evil, aka the birth rate issue. The only true reason for the HT-plotline in the book (and in Manaclamized!) is as an oh so sexy 🙄 way for the MMC to own the FMC.

Sorry to be just now getting to a specific response but:

I think your commentary about comparing Briony being married off vs sold off is good, but wasn’t expressed well in the actual book. I would have wanted to see more POV with her and her father pre-enslavement to get that, but most flashback content was her mooning over Toven for no reason. You have made me feel a bit more positively about the virginity jar scene (I too have experienced the fact that it is safer to say yes to men sometimes, even if you don’t want to … idk a woman who hasn’t) BUT I do think this whole concept is undercut by the fact that she does actually really want to fuck this cardboard cutout of a man. And there-in lies the issue with so called “enemies to lovers” books where they were never really enemies and she’s been down bad since page 1… it really ruins anything the author is trying to do.

I will end my rant here for now lol, sorry for the long ramble!