Graceless Heart follows Ravenna, a young sculptress who helps her family run an inn. When her brother ends up imprisoned, Ravenna decides to enter a contest hosted by an immortal family. Her prize would be to have her brother released and all his charges dropped. Except, in order to win the contest, Ravenna decides to reveal her magical ability, something she has only told her family about and has kept a secret for years. Her reveal makes her a target and she is kidnapped by the Luni family, taken to their home in Florence, and told they expect her perform a miracle for them, using her ability as a sculptress and her magic.
It all sounds so good, honestly. I was hooked on the cover art, the synopsis, the info at the beginning of the book about the "Pietra Magiche." I thought, definitely, absolutely going to like this book. But then Ravenna starts making some foolish decisions. The book opens with Ravenna sneaking through her hometown, carrying a ladder, so she can try to break her brother out of his cage. There's a curfew and she's not supposed to be outside at all. She also decides to enter the contest, which is frowned upon because she's a woman. At the contest, she gets ready to blurt out to the people around her about something she saw the night before and I just thought, WAIT, you are actually going to admit in front of everyone snarling at you for your audacity of entering the contest that you were out past the curfew?
But it was early pages, no bother, right? Except this continued with Ravenna. She was impulsive in a way that made her seem childish. I double-checked the synopsis and I'm not sure I would call this an "adult" book. The more I read, the more I felt that Ravenna came off as a teenager. Maybe this would have been better marketed as a "New Adult" story but I don't think that distinction really exists in Fantasy Romance. In the end, this felt more like a young adult release, which is not meant as a slight to the book. It just doesn't seem to fit with the characterization given to the main female lead and I had certain expectations for the character that did not fit with what I thought this book was going to be.
To make matters more frustrating, once Ravenna starts to interact with Saturnino, the eldest son and heir of the Luni family, most of her thought process becomes "he's so handsome, he's a killer, he's seducing me to get what he wants, but he has to care for me, even just a little, I'm such an idiot for believing his lies," etc., ad nauseum. Which again, made me think she's just a kid. Besides that, Saturnino is given barely any characterization outside of he's a knight, he's ruthless, he's in charge of keeping Ravenna in line. It takes too long to see anything more than that facade for the character and it left me feeling unimpressed by him and his connection to Ravenna. Their "love story" felt like it needed more development, more actual interactions that didn't feel like a game of cat and mouse. For a large part of the book, I truly believed that Saturnino was just stringing Ravenna along so when everything started rolling and their love story ended up being true, I was left feeling like it didn't work for me.
Then add to that Ravenna's driving motivations for everything she does, the salvation of her immortal soul and the love of her family. Seems reasonable enough for motivation except that nothing given in the book made me like her family. Ravenna has spent YEARS making herself indispensable to her family, doing absolutely anything and everything she can with running the inn and taking care of her siblings so that her parents will love her in spite of her magic. Which right away raised so many red flags for me. But then, on the morning of the contest, Ravenna goes to give her mother a kiss goodbye because it is highly likely she won't see her again any time soon and the woman flinches before Ravenna touches her. NO, just no, I don't see family devotion, in any way shape or form. Later in the book, Ravenna claims that she and her brother Antonio are "best friends" and I thought, since when? You have literally never spoken of him like that. There have been no reminiscences about childhood antics, about how he spent time with you, helped you with chores, encouraged your sculpting. Nothing at all and yet, when Antonio enters the story again, we're supposed to feel Ravenna's anguish at trying to reason with her brother and I thought, nah, I don't buy it. There is just not enough to convince me that this girl should be so motivated by the love she has for her family.
I also had an issue with the pacing of the book. The story felt like it had nothing happening except for the same scenes over and over again. Ravenna tries to do her task, the Luni family threatens her family back home, Saturnino watches her work, and Ravenna struggles with her attraction to him. Wash, rinse, repeat. I had to put the book down and do something else because I was getting tired of the same scenes again and again. Ravenna has a deadline to complete her task, she has multiple people demanding that she work for them OR ELSE and yet I felt no urgency to her dilemma. I didn't care about her family or where she came from, I didn't believe her growing connection to Saturnino, I didn't care for the side plots involving the villains motivations. In the end I was left feeling a bit, I guess underwhelmed, is the word I'm looking for.
I wanted more from the world building, about the magic system but because Ravenna was raised to believe her magic is a sin, readers aren't shown anything more than what we are given at the start of the book. We're told other magical creatures exist, vampires, witches, the fae, but they have no real bearing on the story. Again, I was expecting more than what was given based on the book description. The world is so wonderfully detailed, from the descriptions of the colors to the architecture but it's just background. The characters and their troubles just fell flat on their face. I wanted to like them more than I did and that is not a good feeling to end a book with when all is said and done.
Rating on my scale: 4.5 Stars. This book has so many ingredients that should have worked and for me but it just left too much of a sour taste and a feeling of just being disgruntled overall. So many people were against Ravenna and it left me feeling frustrated and in the end, I'm left analyzing everything I had issues with as opposed to remembering everything I enjoyed about the book. I'm glad Ravenna got everything she wanted, it was the least that could come about for her in the book. I might try another book by Ibañez in the future, maybe, hopefully. Fingers crossed, and all that jazz.
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