Another work by Melissa Meyer, and compared to her other work, this one was just okay for me. I picked it up from the “Date with a Book” monthly pick shelf in the library and decided to give it a shot since I enjoyed another series by her (see my analysis of Renegades). I enjoyed her writing style and nuanced take on Alice in Wonderland. I loved the plot and character development, but it simply didn’t deliver in the way I wanted it to.
Heartless follows Catherine Pinkerton, the heiress of Rock Turtle Cove as she is courted by the King of Hearts while she falls in love with the new court joker, Jest. She has dreams of opening her own bakery and exploring her independence, but is denied every opportunity by her parents and expectations to marry the king and become the Queen of Hearts.
The characters are an even mix between human and animals, but there are certainly enough human characters to create a notable cast. Yet not a single character is POC! I’m not entirely sure what I expected from a stand-alone book like this that had little room to expand on race in addition to plot and character development, but I was certainly hoping for more from Meyer who’s had a solid track record of POC inclusion in her other works.
But even if she did include a POC character, it wouldn’t have made sense with the plot to delve into the minority experience POC representation deserves. If she made just one supporting character POC, it would have brought up other issues such as tokenism or inclusion just to be able to claim that POC exists in this book universe.
In my opinion though, even the bare minimum is better than nothing.
I understand that this book had a lot going on at any given moment. With Meyer’s writing style and obvious extensive planning, every plot detail and character decision was deliberate. Unlike many other works where there are hundreds of unnecessary pages, Heartless didn’t drag on and instead hit every mark in succession to have an engaging story. But would it have been too much to ask to have at least one non-white character in the mix? The fact that there were important animal characters like the White Rabbit, Turtle, and Hare yet no racial minorities is baffling to say the least.
Am I disappointed with Meyer considering her other works? Yes. Do I understand her hesitation to include POC as a white author? Also yes. Given that Heartless was written before Renegades, I do believe this goes to show Meyer’s progression as an author and the kind of message she aims to impart on her readers. Since I know she is an amazing writer with potential to include POC characters in an impactful way, I was hoping for more from this book as well.
Heartless: 3 stars
POC representation: 0 stars
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