Book Review: Scarred

I’m saying you could drive a man insane. Make him raze the world just to see you smile

With ‘Hooked’ we dove into an alternate reality of Peter Pan; this time we’re looking at The Lion King. The villains are our anti-heroes. There is nothing truly redeemable about them, but damn it, if it isn’t true, all villains get the best lines. Scar, in the animated version of ‘The Lion King’ got the line “I’m surrounded by idiots” which I think we all relate to on some level. Tristan, our Scarred Prince, in Emily McIntire’s version gets the line “But power only lies in the hands of those who we let have it” which is pretty darn decent. And I meant that in many senses of the word ‘decent’ because not only has Tristan blasted the moral compass to the other side of the known universe, but this book is also filthy – like shower-yourself-in-holy-water filthy. Emily McIntire doesn’t disappoint on the spiciness levels – but more on that later.

The trick which I feel McIntire has mastered is the act of getting the reader to root for the villain. Because you do. Sure, does he kill people? Yes. Is he the leader of a nasty rebellion? Again, yes. Does he covet the woman, and our leading lady, who is engaged to his brother which is an act of treason which could see them both killed and ruin his plans to seize the throne? Also, yes. It’s a complex issue. Does he hate his brother, sure. Is his brother and ‘oh-so-rightful-king’ an idiot? Abso-bloody-lutely. The hubris is rather damming in this book. It was rather delicious to watch it all unfold.

But what of our leading lady? This is a book where the villains take all so, we know Lady Sara Beatreaux isn’t exactly the patron saint of all that is pure and good. Nah, she is a trained assassin who is determined to kill the royal family and avenge her father. Etc, etc. ^insert your favourite Hamlet references here^. So of course, these two villains have a similar agenda and are drawn together like moths to a supernova. Except they collide with the force of a nuclear bomb – when I said this book was spicy, I meant it.

But here’s the thing, from a literary standpoint, this book wants to read like a juicy Greek Tragedy, à la Antigone. But it doesn’t because it’s a quasi-Shakespearean fairy tale. As we know ‘The Lion King’ was based on Hamlet, which is a whole other conversation to be had for another day. Although I do wonder what Sophocles would say. If Greek mythology is anything to go by, we know they weren’t prudes, so a giant tick next to ‘spicy’. But in terms of plot? I suppose you could argue that Sara is the Helen of Troy who actually has the gal and the gumption to be smart, and feisty – we like her a lot, her character is good for feminism and a reminder of why we need it. And Tristian is the Paris who is smart and doesn’t bring an entire war to his home and has his people slaughtered… oh wait. That does happen, but Tristan wins whilst burning Troy to the ground? I never said the villain had a heart.