The rules for hearts Book

I can't say I'm surprised that I didn't like this. It was an unnecessary sequel to Empress of the World, a book that I was a little shaky about already. I had enjoyed it enough to give it a four-star rating, don't get me wrong, but as an LGBT novel published in 2001, it broke a lot of ground just by being honest, and I predicted that this book, unable to break ground in the same way, would end up being pretty boring.

Turns out, I was basically right. Man, was this book dull. Empress of the World wasn't exactly a dramatic story, but it never felt this boring. Its themes felt almost exactly the same as Empress of the World - self-discovery, breaking away from your family - only they weren't explored as thoroughly or as meaningfully. Ryan just rehashes them, with nothing new to say. She does try to do something new, with Nick - Battle's brother - engaging in a lot of risky behavior that could harm Battle, but she never brings the theme to a close, she never makes it clear what exactly she's trying to say. It just ends up feeling too open and incomplete.

Actually, the entire book feels that way. I get that this was supposed to be a slice-of-life story, but the entire plot ends up feeling just like the themes: not deep enough, incomplete, and altogether boring. For most of the book, I wasn't really sure what the overarching plot was supposed to be - I guess it was supposed to be about putting on a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, but the production wasn't at all thematically relevant - the stuff that happened outside the production was the stuff that seemed to matter. It also wasn't a particularly engaging plot. Again, Empress wasn't exactly a dramatic plot, but at least it mostly kept my attention. This failed. There was no dramatic structure, no buildup to any sort of climax, just a bunch of stuff that happened. Needless to say, it didn't feel complete at all - it didn't tie together at all in the way I wanted it to.

I think the problem is that the characters - combined with the theme - just wasn't that engaging. Battle was a well-developed character, but she was the only one. Ryan tries to flesh out far too many characters in a ridiculously short amount of time, and this led to all of the secondary cast feeling the same. Even the ones that were central to the plot, like Meryn and Nick, had the same framework: snarky, kind of a liar, and kind of a cynic. Battle was the only one that broke the mold. This meant that few of the character interactions felt organic enough to carry their scenes, and the snooze-fest of a plot didn't feel worth reading.

The writing was okay, I guess. There were definitely a few awkward sentences and paragraphs, in a way that wasn't present in Empress of the World, but for the most part, Ryan captured Battle's voice well, and she did a good job of avoiding repetition.

Overall, this was just a very dull, forgettable book. If you liked Empress of the World, you might as well give this one a shot, but if you're looking to read this as a standalone (which you could, if you wanted)... read Empress instead. It handles the themes in a far more interesting way than this does, and its storyline is far less boring.