Book Club October Review: Alchemised by SenLinYu

I thought my fan fiction days were over, but when I saw the huge hype around a Dramione fan fiction called Manacled being traditionally published, I was obviously curious. Seems like nothing, not even time and leaving fan spaces, could deter me from going back to my roots. My initial curiosity, mixed with people's opinion on TikTok insisting that Manacled destroyed them as well as the beautiful, gothic cover art, made me choose Alchemised by SenLinYu for October's book club pick.

(If you prefer to watch us yap about the book, check out our 2-part TikTok review!)

Alchemised is a dark fantasy about a world ruled by necromancers after a brutal war, and follows Helena, an alchemist with missing memories of the months leading up to her capture, as she is sent to the High Reeve, Kaine Ferron, to extract the secrets buried deep within her mind. Imprisoned in a desolate estate, with all of her friends dead, Helena needs to uncover the truth behind her lost memories.

Our Rating

⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

This has become our favourite book of the year (a position shared with The Final Empire, in CY's case), and we don't say these things lightly. If you have been following our blog for a while, you would know that we don't sugarcoat our words and will always tell you our honest opinion on books. Whilst Alchemised has its flaws like any debut novel, its strengths definitely outweigh them.

***Spoiler Alert*** - We are unable to do the book justice without revealing spoilers, so please read on with caution!

Our Comments

• The Genre: The angst. The enemies-to-lovers trope. The dark elements. The kissing-his-wife-but-looking-at-our-protagonist scene. Just kidding about the last part! Alchemised really did have all the elements that we like about a dark romantasy and delivered on the promise of a heart-wrenching romance filled with pain and longing. A slow burn that tugged at my heartstrings. There were some clichés and cheesy dialogues, but we can overlook them when Kaine was just so, so perfect.

• The Characters: Oh, Kaine. Oh, Helena. It was impossible not to fall for their tragic love story. The author successfully portrayed the male interest as this tortured character that the reader couldn't help but root for. After a particular scene of Kaine opening up to Helena about his inability to care for someone just to lose them again, we just wanted him to find happiness and peace. Imagine our anxiety when they reunited with Lila, and there were still 100 or so pages left to read. Helena, on the other hand, was a bit more difficult to love unconditionally. Her motivations and her undying loyalty towards the Eternal Flame and Luke just didn't make sense to us. Not after the way they treated her! We also didn't care for the side characters, and many of the deaths were met with indifference.

• The Plot: SenLinYu managed to hold our attention for all of 1000 pages, and that's not an easy feat. Could things have been cut down? Probably. Were there plot holes that should have been picked up by an editor? For sure. But we cannot dispute that fact that SenLinYu has crafted a story worth all the hype. The mystery and secrets introduced in Part One successfully retained our attention all the way until Part Two, when the real story began. We did not see the plot twist coming, and witnessing the romance between Helena and Kaine developing despite their different world views and traumas made the scenes in Part One all the more devastating. The plot in Alchemised had me in a chokehold that I was happy to linger in. Although, we should also mention here that the ending was a bit anticlimactic and seemed incongruent with the initial dark atmosphere of the book. But I guess we can forgive that after such a thrilling ride for 90% of the story.

• The World: We loved the world that SenLinYu has built in Alchemised, and big kudos to them for retaining the best aspects of Manacled and still managing to establish a whole new world that mostly made sense and felt exciting. I particularly love a magic system that involves alchemy and necromancy, but I felt as though SenLinYu tried to include too many things at once without devling into sufficient detail. For the most part, we were both confused about the difference between vivimancy, alchemy, and animancy, and couldn't really tell why everyone feared Mouldy Morrough when he was literally decomposing. However, in the scenes where the magic was explained clearly, it was engaging and refreshing to read.

Would We Recommend It:

CY - I would recommend this even to my worst enemies because SenLinYu deserves the recognition, and I could never gatekeep this gorgeous book that ripped my heart out, tore it into pieces, and beautifully mended it, leaving a lasting impact.

Kay - This was my top read of the year, I would 1000% recommend it.

If you've read Alchemised, do you agree with our review of the book? Did it break you as much as it broke us? Did particular scenes make you cry and feel for the characters? Or were you one of the people that zeroed in on the novel's flaws?