Yeah, death in tarot doesn't mean literal death. I'm not an expert in tarot, but my mom reads them. Death in tarot rather means that things are turned upside down, life is changed in an extreme way. People who read tarot knows for real know this.
yep, death usually means change, rebirth, or transition, definitely not a bad or scary card per se. The bad cards are the devil (addiction, violence, greed) and the tower (upheaval, drastic change, catastrophe)
@@aw7145 Yup! Three of Swords (betrayal, hurt, infliction of pain by words and actions) and Ten of Swords (defeat, painful endings) tend to have negative meanings as well. Moon (deception, fear, insecurity) is also a bit of a weary card.
The main character and other students are written like a teenagers, not college students, which made the whole thing feel gross to me And I'm so tired of things beings labeled dark academia when it’s really just fantasy/supernatural set in a school. A massive part of the dark academia subgenre is a critique of the elitism, classism and toxic nature of academia and warnings of the dangers of obsession. It's not Harry Potter but edgy
Fun fact that I learned from TheBookLeo’s Gothikana video: “Corvina” is actually a type of fish. If you google the main character’s name you’re just gonna get a bunch of pictures of fish
Vod gives me such a major ick, and every time he says how much he's a big tough guy, I just picture a little 6 year old kid stomping his foot and being like "I AM a big boy! I am!!" 😂
@@breenaj1095 to be fair she does pull minor arcana multiple times. Her "dropping" 3 major arcana is obviously meant to be an eerie potentially supernatural event in that one scene but I'd say her major and minor pulls are about equal really.
“I don’t know if the camera caught my closing thought… but no I didn’t like it.” 😂😂😂 love your videos D, thanks for taking one for the team and reading this to review
Thank you so much! I love your videos so much! Please keep it up. Also my two cents on dark romance: I remember reading a phrase “shame does when stories are told” and dark romance and work if done right or else it’s torture p*rn or r*pe p*rn. I also believe certain people can and should write it but if you have never experienced it you are telling an experienced to other others. It’s a gratification story for those that hurt us.
The moment you said tarot I started saying to myself "not death" over and over again. And sure enough it was death. ON GOD IT TAKES LESS THAT 5 SECONDS TO GOOGLE THE TOWER OS THE BAD CARD IN THE MAJOR ARCANA. THE TOWER. THE. TOWER. If you want your character to read tarot and be spooked drop The Tower. Stop using death! Everytime I see Death used improperly in a story its an instant DNF. Even the SIMPSONS got this right.
Character pulls the death card and then immediately some of the biggest changes imaginable happen in their life not sure why everyone is so heated over this one 😂
I own a physical copy of this book. The only thing I like about the book are the pages, they feel nice to the touch and I like the feel of the whole book. Other than that, this book is shite.
I was screaming “don’t you effing say it!” 😂 Glad I was wrong. I think characterization is a good term “ham fisted stereotype” also works. As for the detective/police thing I think some authors get so hung up on reinventing the wheel to make some elements in their book different/their own they frequently don’t realize that they don’t have to. They also don’t realize it’s actually bad writing to do it for little things. The tarot card thing throughout the book is incredibly lazy and poor writing. It’s also overdone, but the author couldn’t think of another way to foreshadow. Beautiful like pain makes her a masochist. I think people trying to leave YA don’t know how to and they try to make an edgy BDSM book for adults, but their level skill makes it come off as juvenile, so a lot of things are shoved into the new catchall genre “new adult.” The infantilizing name thing is a thing in BDSM, you see it in dynamics like Daddy Doms and little subs. There is A LOT of wannabe BDSM in this book. I feel like if kink was talked about openly between adults we would see fewer books like this. Like consensual non-consent is a thing, but it’s hashed out ahead of time and there are agreed upon rules. Cold and emotionally distant Doms are a thing too, but there’s more that goes with it, it’s not surface level like in this book. I think in this case of “and then” is more of an underdeveloped “pantsing” writing style, some writing workshops might do the author some good. An ink moon is just dumb and extra, call it a new moon, people know what that is and accept it universally. The blood is strong thing reminds me of GRRM’s “the seed is strong line,” so maybe that’s what the author was trying to do?
TW...as an amateur writer I'd been concerned whether I should provide them. I asked and basically everyone said it'd be unprofessional if we did. I do anyhow because I personally need it, but more readers need to voice the acceptance of TW's for authors to understand.
Only three minutes in, but if you want an actual good dark academia/historical fantasy book, check out A Deadly Education by S.T. Gibson! I just finished it last week and it was really good.
This is interesting. I read another book where the main character was a person with a scarring childhood and she basically drifted along the plot like she was being pulled on a leash as well. The reason I read that other book was because it was my friend's favorite series, but I couldn't give them my full thoughts because I just hated the main character. I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't like that.
Agree! I made it 50% through, and then I read that it had no real resolution, so I stopped torturing myself 😂 So, so poorly written. Even worse than Fourth Wing for me.
Schizophrenic here. I'm not a fan of Corvina's representation. It just seems so ham-fisted and lazily tacked on, like the author didn't give two shits and was coasting through the entire writing process. I guess that'd be a good way to describe the entire book, but you wanted to know if it was good schizophrenia representation and it's not. I don't speak for all schizophrenics, but it is my own assessment. Speaking of schizophrenia, sorry I haven't commented in a while. I got off Risperidone in favor of another medicine and the adjustment process has been hell. It's good to be back, though! I hope you're doing well.
17:37 i wanna talk about this for a second There is legit a market for this, I don't know why but personally I think it's kind of odd. You want the immature nature of YA but the language and sexual nature of adult books? Thats a very weird combination and I don't really get how people like that type of thing I guess its kinda like those kids shows who tackle advanced topics, but its a very unfair comparison because it's handling it in a way where a wider audience can understand, while here you basically have Percy Jackson if Percy and Annabelle drank, cussed and smashed on page every now and again.
Your first mistake was to read a book by a person that calls themselves "RuNyx" and with a title like Gothikana lol... That sounds as edgy as a razor in the hands of a depressed teen.
Just because you Gothikan, that doesn't mean you Gothishould.
I choked. I f*cking choked on my water reading that comment lol
😂
Yeah, death in tarot doesn't mean literal death. I'm not an expert in tarot, but my mom reads them. Death in tarot rather means that things are turned upside down, life is changed in an extreme way. People who read tarot knows for real know this.
yep, death usually means change, rebirth, or transition, definitely not a bad or scary card per se. The bad cards are the devil (addiction, violence, greed) and the tower (upheaval, drastic change, catastrophe)
@@aw7145 Yup! Three of Swords (betrayal, hurt, infliction of pain by words and actions) and Ten of Swords (defeat, painful endings) tend to have negative meanings as well. Moon (deception, fear, insecurity) is also a bit of a weary card.
"Corvina"?
Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, is that you?
Every time someone cites this deep magic I get beamed into another dimension 🥲🤣
I came here to say this but I hoped I wasn't the only one.
Raven haired and violet eyed… my enemy Rhysand’s influence is everywhere
I do my best not to think about Acotar so I didn’t even THINK of that 🥲
@@dontfretreadbooks I also do my best, but every time I open any app, I’m reminded that the “not interested” button is just for decoration 🥲
I thought about Yennefer of the Witcher books.
see i thought it was alexandria’s genesis LMAO
The main character and other students are written like a teenagers, not college students, which made the whole thing feel gross to me
And I'm so tired of things beings labeled dark academia when it’s really just fantasy/supernatural set in a school. A massive part of the dark academia subgenre is a critique of the elitism, classism and toxic nature of academia and warnings of the dangers of obsession. It's not Harry Potter but edgy
this wasn't even fantasy or supernatural... it was just garbage
I love listening to rants about books I'm never gonna read lol.
Fun fact that I learned from TheBookLeo’s Gothikana video: “Corvina” is actually a type of fish. If you google the main character’s name you’re just gonna get a bunch of pictures of fish
TheBookLeo makes great stuff! That’s really funny tho 🐠
Also, Corvids are a family of birds that includes crows, ravens and rooks :-)
I also got Italian wine grapes when I searched.
Vod gives me such a major ick, and every time he says how much he's a big tough guy, I just picture a little 6 year old kid stomping his foot and being like "I AM a big boy! I am!!" 😂
Nobody seems to ever use the minor arcana for tarot stuff. The chances of pulling a major arcana is much lower if the deck is a proper full one.
@@breenaj1095 to be fair she does pull minor arcana multiple times. Her "dropping" 3 major arcana is obviously meant to be an eerie potentially supernatural event in that one scene but I'd say her major and minor pulls are about equal really.
The fact that the cover is so blatantly AI generated pisses me off to no end. Once you notice you can’t unsee it
“I don’t know if the camera caught my closing thought… but no I didn’t like it.” 😂😂😂 love your videos D, thanks for taking one for the team and reading this to review
I’m glad you can laugh at my pain 🥲
@@dontfretreadbooks I would never 😂😂😈
"There's only one mf'er who knows what pianos are" I literally HA'd at my cubicle lmaoooo
Tarot is done so dirty in fiction, if the Death card is used I'm immediately giving side-eye.
Smokers not having a lighter is true representation.
this handles serious mental illness with all the gentleness of a battle axe
Incredible comment 🏆
I just got to the end, and OMG WHAT A STUPID VILLAIN AND PLOT
Right!?!? It hurt to read 🥲
I will never forgive SJM for the destruction she’s brought onto the book community. Abusive male characters and purple eyes???? I’m SICK OF IT
Sharp side eye to the people who have been raving about this book and how good they think it is.
Razor sharp
Thank you so much! I love your videos so much! Please keep it up.
Also my two cents on dark romance: I remember reading a phrase “shame does when stories are told” and dark romance and work if done right or else it’s torture p*rn or r*pe p*rn.
I also believe certain people can and should write it but if you have never experienced it you are telling an experienced to other others. It’s a gratification story for those that hurt us.
Thanks for sharing your two cents!! I’m not super familiar with the genre so I appreciate it.
Thanks for your sacrifice - idk how you were able to get through this book
Sheer willpower and the hopes that my video makes somebody laugh
The moment you said tarot I started saying to myself "not death" over and over again. And sure enough it was death. ON GOD IT TAKES LESS THAT 5 SECONDS TO GOOGLE THE TOWER OS THE BAD CARD IN THE MAJOR ARCANA. THE TOWER. THE. TOWER. If you want your character to read tarot and be spooked drop The Tower.
Stop using death! Everytime I see Death used improperly in a story its an instant DNF.
Even the SIMPSONS got this right.
Character pulls the death card and then immediately some of the biggest changes imaginable happen in their life not sure why everyone is so heated over this one 😂
I own a physical copy of this book. The only thing I like about the book are the pages, they feel nice to the touch and I like the feel of the whole book. Other than that, this book is shite.
Wild, I own books I love but the pages feel awful 😅
Haha, good point. The only book series I’ve enjoyed tarot references in is “The Raven Boys”
"There's only one MFer who knows what pianos are". ...The way I cackled.
Corvus is Latin for crow and the "ina" suffix tends to be a diminutive...so the nick name "little crow" is just so creative...not 😂
Gothikans? More like GOTHIKANT haaaaaaaaaa
I was screaming “don’t you effing say it!” 😂 Glad I was wrong. I think characterization is a good term “ham fisted stereotype” also works. As for the detective/police thing I think some authors get so hung up on reinventing the wheel to make some elements in their book different/their own they frequently don’t realize that they don’t have to. They also don’t realize it’s actually bad writing to do it for little things. The tarot card thing throughout the book is incredibly lazy and poor writing. It’s also overdone, but the author couldn’t think of another way to foreshadow. Beautiful like pain makes her a masochist. I think people trying to leave YA don’t know how to and they try to make an edgy BDSM book for adults, but their level skill makes it come off as juvenile, so a lot of things are shoved into the new catchall genre “new adult.” The infantilizing name thing is a thing in BDSM, you see it in dynamics like Daddy Doms and little subs. There is A LOT of wannabe BDSM in this book. I feel like if kink was talked about openly between adults we would see fewer books like this. Like consensual non-consent is a thing, but it’s hashed out ahead of time and there are agreed upon rules. Cold and emotionally distant Doms are a thing too, but there’s more that goes with it, it’s not surface level like in this book. I think in this case of “and then” is more of an underdeveloped “pantsing” writing style, some writing workshops might do the author some good. An ink moon is just dumb and extra, call it a new moon, people know what that is and accept it universally. The blood is strong thing reminds me of GRRM’s “the seed is strong line,” so maybe that’s what the author was trying to do?
the vibes on this channel are IMMACULATE i smashed subscribe so fast
Thank you 🙏🏽🫶🏽
I'm so here for you reviewing this book. Avoiding your Avatar reviews until I see the show. BTW I read Dracula... Hot take it was boring
I looked at the thumbnail and I can tell D Fretter is a fan of this book. I just know it. 🙃
Gonna get the cover tattooed on me
TW...as an amateur writer I'd been concerned whether I should provide them. I asked and basically everyone said it'd be unprofessional if we did. I do anyhow because I personally need it, but more readers need to voice the acceptance of TW's for authors to understand.
Eye and hair color are not a personality!
Only three minutes in, but if you want an actual good dark academia/historical fantasy book, check out A Deadly Education by S.T. Gibson! I just finished it last week and it was really good.
I have another S.T Gibson book to read before May but I’ll check it out :)
Raven haired and violet eyed is giving Alexandria’s Genesis
The phrase “heavy breasts” just reminds me of Friends, when Rachel writes erotica and the typo says “heaving beasts”
This is interesting. I read another book where the main character was a person with a scarring childhood and she basically drifted along the plot like she was being pulled on a leash as well. The reason I read that other book was because it was my friend's favorite series, but I couldn't give them my full thoughts because I just hated the main character. I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't like that.
Loved this review. Summed up everything wrong with Gothikana, really. Great stuff!
Hi, D! I'm not sure if you're aware, but your Kofi link isn't working :(
Thank you for letting me know!
This was a DNF for me. Poor characters and writing was a no from me
AO3 (Archive of Our Own) is a fan fiction site. And yes, I contributed a piece or two 😅
thanks for the video, im subbing and excited for more. glad to find more black people in the youtube reading community 👍🏽
Saw this book in target and coiled back in fear
I really like Corvina as a name, too bad it's used so poorly
Agree! I made it 50% through, and then I read that it had no real resolution, so I stopped torturing myself 😂 So, so poorly written. Even worse than Fourth Wing for me.
I think if I put it on a tier list it would be next to Iron Flame
Schizophrenic here. I'm not a fan of Corvina's representation. It just seems so ham-fisted and lazily tacked on, like the author didn't give two shits and was coasting through the entire writing process. I guess that'd be a good way to describe the entire book, but you wanted to know if it was good schizophrenia representation and it's not. I don't speak for all schizophrenics, but it is my own assessment.
Speaking of schizophrenia, sorry I haven't commented in a while. I got off Risperidone in favor of another medicine and the adjustment process has been hell. It's good to be back, though! I hope you're doing well.
I trust your assessment. Welcome back! I’m sorry to hear it’s been a tough process for you. I’m doing okay thank you hope you’re good!
This whole book can be fully described as "tacky"
17:37 i wanna talk about this for a second
There is legit a market for this, I don't know why but personally I think it's kind of odd.
You want the immature nature of YA but the language and sexual nature of adult books? Thats a very weird combination and I don't really get how people like that type of thing
I guess its kinda like those kids shows who tackle advanced topics, but its a very unfair comparison because it's handling it in a way where a wider audience can understand, while here you basically have Percy Jackson if Percy and Annabelle drank, cussed and smashed on page every now and again.
Or is it Annabeth? Imma be real I haven't seen Percy Jackson since reading the Lightning Theif novel, I barely remember it
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
👋🏽👋🏽
Your first mistake was to read a book by a person that calls themselves "RuNyx" and with a title like Gothikana lol... That sounds as edgy as a razor in the hands of a depressed teen.