...may your desires align with the will of the cards, for only one will reign.
The Cloisters
by Katy Hays
Genre: Dark Academia
About: Ann Stilwell moves to New York to pursue her academic dreams, having fought for her place at the table all her life. But when she arrives, she's told the job promised is no longer available. Instead of being forced to abandon her dreams though, fate aligns to offer her one more chance: to work in the Cloisters. As she's introduced to the small team, with their strange intimacies and secrets, she begins to wonder if it was fate, or if there's something darker guiding them all...
Thoughts
I really liked the concept of this. It's Dark Academia involving a niche time period to obsess over with interesting character dynamics, secrets from the past, and tarot cards blurring that line of magical realism.
And yet the story fell flat for me.
I think I would have been more engaged if we'd had a dual timeline. There isn't really much happening with Ann's storyline - the death doesn't happen until two thirds into the story and I didn't find the tarot readings as atmospheric as I was expecting to. There is, however, a lot of description about their work that reads like a textbook. I think if, instead of being told the historical figures surround the tarot cards origins, we'd been introduced to these people in a past timeline, it would have really pulled me in. The author clearly did a lot of research and dipping between modern day to an early Renaissance period would have been a great way to give the reader information about the tarot cards and the Cloister's work on them in an engaging way. Make me care about the cards and believe in their magic. Bring it to life.
I do think the relationship dynamics were interesting and messy and exactly what you want in dark academia. Although it is predictable. This is one of those books that relies on you getting lost in the characters and the setting and hoping you won't notice that nothing much is actually happening, or if it is, then you can see it coming as easily as if you were reading it in the cards.
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