Shoestring Theory

This is probably one of the maddest and rant-filled reviews I’ve written. Shoestring Theory had such potential to be a book I loved, and was headed in that direction. Having just finished the book, however, I can’t help but feel that a great book was sabotaged in the name of big reveals and a desire to capitalize on the cozy trend (to be clear, I love a cozy book, but I would not consider this a successful one). If you’re someone whom big fucking plot holes aren’t an issue, then I can heartily recommend this as a great read. I’m oftentimes that person myself, and I frequently read other people’s reviews for books I love thinking ‘that’s a great critique, but it worked for me’. I will highlight some of the things I liked about this book, but it’s going to be a lot of me venting about the direction it went.

Elevator Pitch:
Cyril is the Grand Mage of his country, and husband to King Eufrates. He’s also hiding in exile from his tyrannical husband, the land cloaked in a plague. After his dear familiar, a cat named Shoestring, dies, Cyril rewinds time to try and save the life of Princess Tigris, kill his husband before he can destroy the world, and generally fix everything that went wrong with his life. When he discovers that his Eufrates was brought back as well, through the magical bond Cyril formed on their wedding day, things get much more complicated.

What Worked for Me:
I was so excited to write a review of this book at the halfway point. It was awesome. Gay men making stupid love-drunk decisions in their 20s and trying to fix their fuckups is right up my alley. I also love to see gay relationships that aren’t saccharine, so the whole ‘I have to stop the love of my life from being a monster, and how was I ever in love with him?’ vibe was right up my alley. It helped that the writing was good. The book is paced rather quickly, with a cast of tropey but fun characters in rather fun situations. I was invested in the characters, their relationships, and eager to see how this journey was going to play out.

It was shaping up to be an easy 4 star book, or possibly a 5 star book (though probably not the type of book to make my all time favorites). I said it in the intro, but if you can overlook a ton of big plot holes that pop up in the last third of the story and like cozy endings, I truly think that this book will be an excellent fit for you. I personally don’t consider myself the type of reader who usually gets worked up about these types of things, and in another world I think I would have been able to give this glowing praise. It’s also got above an average rating of a 4 on goodreads, so my issues are definitely in the minority on this one.

What Didn’t Work For Me:
Because so many of the problems I had center around the events near the end of the book, it is impossible for me to talk about them with any level of specificity without spoilers. The next few paragraphs will be vague, but some readers will be able to read between the lines, potentially spoiling some major moments in the book. I’ll note when I enter explicit spoiler mode, and then I won’t hold back.

I also want to acknowledge that this book has the ‘monarchies are okay as long as the ruler is a good person’ philosophy. Fantasy is full of these books, and you’ll know whether this will be an issue for you or not. It isn’t addressed or deconstructed in any meaningful way here. I generally don’t mind this stance as long as the book isn’t trying to make any sort or large scale societal commentary, which this book wasn’t.

Alright, so one easy issue is Cyril himself. Speaking generally, I enjoy him a lot as a character, and was interested to see where his story went. He’s also infuriatingly in the habit of missing obvious solutions to problems for the sake of plot. The man is an old, experienced, and very powerful mage (albiet in the body of his younger self). He is routinely shown to have massive amounts of power at his disposal, and spent his entire childhood training to be the mage that royalty relied on above all else. He’s described by another mage as a jack of all trades, came in top of his class at academy, and yet seems unable to use these skills in a wide variety of very easy ways to solve problems in the book. After everything is revealed, I fail to see why the response wasn’t just ‘oh, let me rewind time again to fix the problem easily now that I understand everything properly and save a bunch more lives’. It isn’t even floated as an option. Beyond that, you really expect me to believe that the King’s Mage wasn’t ever trained in combat? Wasn’t forced to do so despite disliking fighting, as a way to protect the royal family? There’s even a comment that kings would never be untrained in the sword so they could defend themselves, but their single most powerful servant wouldn’t get equivalent magical training? Why does Cyril try to kill Eufrates with a knife? A KNIFE? The man is shown to have the ability to turn people into cockroaches on a whim, yet knifing his athletic tyrannical husband is the best option? Cyril is incompetent for the sake of plot, and it makes absolutely no sense, especially with how no-nonsense his aunt, mentor, and previous Grand Mage was (more on why that’s a problem later).

Beyond Cyril, after all the big reveals, I found the entire premise of the story fell to pieces. I can’t say much more without spoilers, but there was no attempt to make the situation make any sort of sense in hindsight. It had more plot holes than a chunk of swiss cheese. Twists and reveals existed or the sake of dramatic story beats, at the expense of a plot that actually functions at its most basic level as a believable narrative. I get this is vague. Keep reading if you want more details, but after this, there is no attempt to avoid spoiling major plot points.

EXPLICIT SPOILERS AHEAD
Alright, so the big reveal is that Tigris’s fiance Atticus (and eventually husband in the original timeline) is an Enchanter Mage who specializes in enslaving other people (often mages) to do his bidding. He collects them as toys. He’s got an absolutely massive amount of power, and in the original timeline he killed Tigris (and the old King and Queen) with the help of his enslaved Alchemists and Weather Mages. His powers are visible when looking at the ‘pattern’ (this book uses the whole magic as threads trope. Also like most fantasy stories that use this trope, it doesn’t engage with the traits of fabric or string in any meaningful way. This is my own weirdly personal gripe as the son of a handweaver, and not particularly relevant as a specific critique to a book, but rather me griping about the trope in general). Eufrates is actually just as much a victim as everyone else, and the whole plague/doom of the kingdom was Atticus’s alchemist slave’s work too. Let’s break down the issues with this:

1. Why did the Atticus, with all of his enchantment powers, allow his kingdom to get invaded in the first place? Why did he turn the enemy king into a tyrant instead of enslaving him to get a vassal nation (or hell, keep Tigris as a magically controlled wife to get a perfect union between nations he’s in control of). Instead he corrupts Eufrates to invade his own country, then puts a plague over perfectly good land he could rule for … reasons? It doesn’t square at all with the character who is revealed to gain power by collecting individuals. The entire premise of the book just makes no fucking sense, and exists for some contrived tension to make Eufrates seem like a villain and have a grand reveal.
   
2. How did nobody ever realize that this guy was so evil? As soon as anyone looks at the magical fabric of the world, he’s got a ballroom size knot of influence and threads linking him to everyone he controls. Cyril never looking into this is explained by the fact that he’s a rule-follower, and university taught him it was rude to look at other people’s magic without permission. Despite a husband doing a total 180 in personality, and a plague going on for decades. He didn’t think to see if magic was part of this at all? This is flimsy as fuck, but at least his Aunt (the former Grand Mage) calls him out on it. However, this doesn’t solve the issue (which was already strained beyond belief) because …
   
3. The Aunt also never looked at the magical pattern around the Atticus, who was set to marry the Princess of the kingdom. Canonically she dies pretty soon after Tigris dies in the original storyline, but she was part of the investigation into Tigris’s death (and it was established that Atticus was a suspect in that). While the poison that killed Tigris wasn’t itself visible to magic sight, Atticus’s control magic sure as hell would be, and would have been easily caught. However, even before Tigris dies, you’re telling me that nobody checked the future husband of the princess for evil magic? It seems like a basic precaution to make sure that there isn’t a curse or something on the man, or he isn’t being controlled or something. As written, Atticus making it as far as he did is yet another plot device that made for a great setup for a cool reveal, but doesn’t stand any level of scrutiny

This brings me to my final issue, which is of the pivot back to romance between Cyril and Eufrates. They end the book dutifully in love and where everything is good and perfect again. It is an extremely quick pivot from ‘he’s a tyrant I can’t trust and who is doing horrible things to me and the world’ to ‘it was just him dealing with latent evil tendencies from the corruption of past-timeline Atticus over several decades’. Apparently that corruption vanishes as soon as they realize what’s happening, and there isn’t any lingering trauma from the experience. It’s another example of a plot device used to create the setup for the big twist (Eufrates is evil and doing demonstrably evil things, enough that even his sister turns against her beloved brother) but it doesn’t matter anymore when no longer convenient for the plot. There’s a little bit of saltiness here, just because the original dynamic wasn’t one I’d seen used in a gay story before. Even with the disappointment of that storyline being taken away though, I couldn’t buy into the happily ever after they got, because it didn’t feel like it acknowledged the literal decades of baggage they seemingly don’t need to work through.

End of rant. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

In Conclusion: An engaging book that is sabotaged by plot twists that don’t make any fucking sense

I don’t even know how to do ratings for this book. I’ll put my enjoyment at a 3 out of 5 because of the strength of the writing for 2/3 of the book, but that really feels generous.