FOREIGN TO YOU had such a promising premise, but ultimately failed in it's execution for me. The writing was too full of purple prose that became laborious and at times exhausting to read. I love a poignant, beautifully written sentence or two... but Martin's "style" was sadly overwhelming, and made it next to impossible for me to become invested in the characters and the overarching plot. Both just seemed to get lost in a sea of words.

I also felt the LGBTQ+ representation was a tad misleading, and I can't bring myself to support any author or book that chooses to bury their gays.

I couldn't get into this book. It's the kind of book where I just wouldn't leave a review if it wasn't required of me. It was neither good nor bad. It just wasn't for me and because of that I didn't finish it.

I decided to give it three stars because I couldn't not leave a review

I just could not get into this book. The plot was disconnected. This was marked at LGBT but that is misleading. The main female character is really bland and passive. I probably will not read this author again. The idea was interesting with hunters and shape-shifting deer but the execution was a failure.

The story wasn’t that interesting. It didn’t pull me into the story enough for me to continue reading.

This was very enjoyable! Great characters and story telling. I'll definitely keep an eye on the new to me author.
Do you like fantasy? Then this might just what you were looking for.

Foreign To You
Actual rating 2.5 stars

Foreign To You could have been an amazing book. The premise of the book was rather fascinating and I loved the idea of the Fianna (the species of shapeshifting deer). The book seemed to draw a lot of the racial issues from real life issues that we as a nation face today. There were a couple of things about this book that bothered me. The first was the use of excessive prose. I love a book with great descriptions but in this book it seemed to be a bit overboard and at times I found that it detracted from the overall story. My other main issue with this book was the fact that a lot of the plot points didn't seem to flow together, rather it felt like they were thrown together with plenty of bloody battles and events.
I think that this book could have been amazing but unfortunately it fell flat for me. There was nothing about it that truly set it apart from any other mediocre book that I have read.

Around 30% into the story and i lost interest, unfortunately.

While this story ultimately wasn't suited for me, it does have it's good points. There are some good descriptions, you can really imagine what p[aces and people look like.
The antagonists so far aren't too bad either, you really feel yourself turned against them which i also liked.

I will say that if you're into enchanted settings and shape-shifting characters, you may like this book more.

Foreign to You left me in a confused state, because I don't know how I feel about the story. First third of the book was quite enjoyable and I liked the story; world-building was intriguing and Jay and Finn quickly became my favourite characters, Jay just being so darn precious. I did think that Adelaine, the female lead, was naive and bland character; she's the legendary Maiden, who's supposed to save her people, but in reality she's clueless, passive and naive. From the beginning, I was more excited about Finn's chapters; he's more complex and he's more active character than Adelaine.

Then came a defining moment, where everything started to fall apart. Oh, don't get me wrong, there's one so emotional scene that I'm not sure I've still recovered from. But the story stagnated after it and became almost aimless journey in search of the Stag, the god of the forest. Plot started to go in different directions, but nothing made sense. The writing style's very flowery, there's a lot of purple prose and it just, well, it became a bit too extra when the plot stagnated. For me, it all felt pointless and there was moments when I just hated the story. To be honest here, I was ready to give Foreign to You one star at that point - for being marketed as LGBT+ fantasy, but never acknowledging anyone's sexuality or feelings (Finn and Jay were referred as friends, and nothing's confirmed on page) and then becoming the worst case of Bury Your Gays that I've ever read, and having absolutely bland Adelaine as second main character.

Then the last few chapters happened. Now, I'm still angry about the whole Bury Your Gays and the purple prose was a bit too excessive, but the explanations behind the myth of the god of forest and fianna redeemed the story a little bit in my eyes. I still think the characters, especially Adelaine, needed more development and the plot more direction, and certain aspects should have been handled better. I'm still a bit bitter; I expected LGBT+ fantasy and was so for it, to have two main characters, boy and girl, who weren't romantically involved with each other. Instead, there's don't-acknowledge-the-feelings-and-bury-your-gays trope, which just makes my blood boil.

The premise of Foreign to You is interesting and absolutely unique, but sadly the execution didn't meet the expectations. And Jay's such a precious cinnamon roll, I loved him so much. I'm so torn apart how to rate this, that I'm just going to give it two stars and they're for Jay alone.

Loved it! Original story and I've always loved books with different characters narrating the chapters. Looking forward to the next book!

Let me start by saying, this was one of the most unique plots I’ve ever come across. This story was like nothing I’d ever read. That being said, it was also a bit rough and needed some more editing and proofreading, but for all I know those little things could be fixed in the official published version.
The twists and turns and surprises throughout the plot happened in very quick succession. While I enjoyed the action packed aspect, it was also a little much, without a whole lot of time to breathe in between all the excitement. The major plot twists throughout the story were pretty incredible. Especially the twist toward the very end.
I’m very much looking forward to the next book.

THIS. WAS. COMPLETELTY. AMAZING.

It was beyond any expectations I had and I completely, totally, utterly, fell in love with this book.

I don't even know where to start. I'm truely convinced Foreign to you is an UFO. I rarely read something that unique, rich and complex. Everything I thought before starting this book was wrong and all my expectation has been crashed by all the unexpected magic and attraction the story had on me.

As I started reading this, I felt it. I knew it. Deeply, there was a strong conviction that I would love this to bits.

The characters are built in a way that feels authentic. Adelaïde and Finn are two opposed main characters that find something worth it in one another. It takes time and lot ot angst, but here is it. Trust. We gravitate around them and their stories; the one they share, and the one they live without the other.

The magic is in every word of the book. The world is full of it, even if the humans of the story are completely blind to it. Myths, divinities, prophecy; There's more about Norsewood than just Finn, just Adelaïde, just Hunters, or just Fiannas.

They tell you not to judge a book by its cover and they’re right. It’s just that they probably don’t mean “don’t assume a book with a pretty cover is good”... Which is exactly what I did and exactly why I’m disappointed right now. Honestly, this one’s on me.

So we got that out the way, now we all know Foreign to You isn’t a good book and we can focus on details. Why isn’t it a good book? Well, let’s start with the most obvious contributor:

THE WRITING STYLE OR JUST PURPLE PROSE

Frankly, I find it hard to call the purple prose a writing style since “style” has positive connotations for me. I know that’s not technically true but here we are anyway. I just kind of feel like people who write badly don’t have a style. And (almost!) anyone who uses purple prose, writes badly. Hence my conclusion.

The purple prose in this particular book is overwhelming, even more so than this thing is by definition. It’s not just sprinkled here and there, no. It’s in literally every sentence. I got tired after one chapter. And it’s not even enjoyable, either. I didn’t find any inspiring metaphors that shifted the way I see the world; any pretty quotes I might want to put on a wall of my new flat. Nothing. Nothing apart from overly long paragraphs that should have been trimmed in the editing process.

THE LABYRINTH OF THE PLOT

This has a lot to do with my previous point, unfortunately. Because it’s kind of hard to take control over your plot, when instead you put all your attention into producing the most convoluted descriptions of everything known to men. It’s hard for the author, but it’s also hard for the reader, when they have to look for the plot under all those useless words. So in the end, what is Foreign to You about? I have no idea.

I can list some events, very bloody ones since this book seems to thrive on that. But can I connect the dots? Do I have enough information to do that? Sorry, no. It’s just one big mess of forest descriptions and too long sentences about mundane stuff, disrupted here and there by murder.

THE TREES AND THE TREES AND THE SPACE BETWEEN THE TREES

(Quoting Siken in a vain hope of putting myself in the mood to talk about this book more? Why not.)

It would help if the characters were interesting. It always does. You can usually overlook most shortcomings of a book, if the characters are amazing and you love them, right? It’s not the case here… The characters kind of feel like all the part of this novel: pretty & shiny on the outside, with absolutely nothing to offer on the inside. They are being described as great, interesting figures, but it all falls flat in the course of the actual story. The reader feels no connection to any of them, can’t understand (or even name) the things that are supposed to drive them, can’t root for any of them.
And I quoted Siken also because he’s a gay poet and I was promised gay rep in this book. But? I would need a microscope to find it. There are hints of a developing Feeling between the main character and his best friend, and because I’m a gay reader myself, I got excited. Only those hints don’t amount to anything. We not only never get an actual confirmation that either of the guys has a romantic inclination towards men, we also never get to see a relationship or even a star of one.

I’m hesitant to say that this book has the Bury Your Gays trope, not because a gay (I assume) character doesn’t die, but because there’s so little representation it doesn’t even register. And okay, to be perfectly candid, a lot of characters die. I told you, it’s a bloody book. It’s just that, you’re not affected by any of those deaths.

THE DISAPPOINTMENT

All in all, Foreign to You is just that: a disappointment. It’s a highly forgettable book that doesn’t grab your attention even in the middle of what’s supposed to be a thrilling event. There’s some worldbuilding that looks cool as bullet point but can’t hold its own once the actual story is wrapped around it. There’s the purple prose that makes you wish you could be finished with the book the moment you start it. There’s just so much to complain about… The best part of this book is its cover.

This is categorized as a fantasy, however, I would describe it more as a whimsical fairy tale. The idea of rebirth, the cycle of life and the creation of life are reoccurring themes throughout this story. Fianna, the deer like creatures in this story, shed their fur during the warmer months similar to how trees shed their leaves as it starts to get cold; creating this notion of the cycle of nature. This story is very descriptive, becoming a bit gory at times as we read about the transformation of this shedding of bodies. There are also ferals, Fianna who can’t correctly make the transition, becoming beast like and killing anything in their path. The fabled Maiden, a pure white Fianna, is foretold to lead these ferals to the God of the forest in order to cure them.

Overall the world building, character development and plot fell flat for me. I didn't feel any connection to the characters unfortunately and I didn't really care what happened to them. The "plot twist" at the end somewhat confused me and ended with a cliffhanger. I don't think that I will continue with this story.

I've always liked the Chosen One trope, there is something cathartic in screaming at some Superior Power directly responsible for someone's suffering. That's not something I can do in real life, and those poor Chosen Ones? They don't really have a choice, do they? Mx. Superior Power puts the literal weight of the world on their shoulders, gently taps their cheeks and says “Well, go on then!”. So I will be angry at every prophecies, ancient divinities and gosh-darned crystals in their stead, that's my way to show love.

But why am I talking about this?
Because Foreign to You got angry with me.

“I wonder what it would be like to look in a mirror and find someone foreign to you.”

The fragile harmony between Humans and Fiannas (shape-shifting deers) is broken with the beginning of a new cycle of violence brought by the resurgence of Ferals, incomplete shifters turned blood-thirsty. According to the prophecy, only the Maiden of the lily and the Hunter can bring back peace by seeking the God of the Forest... until the next cycle. But the price is worth a generation or two of peace, right?
… right?

All Adelaide wants is to save her friends and her people, all Finn wants is to bring back the boy he cares most for. Each sees the other as the enemy, but as the prophesied Maiden and Hunter they will have to put their differences aside in their quest for the God of the Forest. As they uncover the truth behind the cycle, they come to the realization that this world is much bigger than them, even though they are at the center of it. And maybe it's time to do something about it and tell some Superior Power to, politely put, get stuffed.

“Why does it have to be you who suffers? Simply because your god deems it fit? You suffer so that others can smile and dance and laugh?”

Foreign to You is a story of unlikely friendship, love and heartbreak, toeing the line between classic folktale and post-apocalyptic novel. It gets its inspiration from European tales, but Jeremy Martin makes them his own with his beautiful prose and trope-defying themes.

Maybe I expected a bit more of adventuring, Adelaide and Finn stay mostly in the town of Norsewood and venture in the forest, but it always seemed like they never get very far? Maybe the motives of some villains were also not completely clear to me, and there is one hell of a Deus Ex Machina character in this novel that I still wonder about.
Despite that, this book was constantly making me feel on the edge, Jeremy Martin is absolutely not scared to use his prose to write beautiful, awful things happening to his characters; and the Big Villain of this book? Well, let's say that the Fiannas were not the only ones turning Ferals when he was around.

There are so many things going on, so many underlying messages important to me in Foreign to You, this whole novel is important to me, period, in ways I can't really describe. Jeremy Martin broke me a little, gently put me back together and then threw me in the forest to fend for myself.
It was nice (I cried).

Now I am eagerly waiting for the sequel (no pressure or anything), because after this ending? I have a lot of questions.

I sadly did not enjoy this book. The characters were unlikable and the setting just didn’t seem really interesting. However, i did like the base premise of the ferals and the shape shifting. Overall, I’d give it 2 stars.

I received a copy of Foreign to You from NineStar Press in exchange for an honest review.

I was really excited to read Foreign to You when I read the description and immediately downloaded it when I saw that I had been approved for it. It had all the makings of my personal literary heaven - high fantasy, lgbtq themes and enemies being forced to work together. Unfortunately I think I set my expectations a bit too high as ultimately I was left disappointed.

Whilst the premise is fairly juicy, it fell a bit flat in its implementation. Although the world-building is ambitious with the fianna and the religious aspects, I feel like it's impact was limited by the small scope of the physical world we are presented with, i.e. Norsewood, the Fianna village and the Forest. As such, I found it difficult to invest myself in understanding the impact and connotations of the Stag, the Fianna and the Maiden.

In terms of the characters, the major players on the board read as being fairly two dimensional and borderline cliche. Adelaide was wispy and pretty aaaand that's probably about it. Between her chapters and Finn's, I definitely struggled more with her's. Between, all the human antagonists; Garth, Niall and Hazel, I was probably the most disappointed in Hazel - there are so many allusions to her being in on some other scheme and knowing something that Finn doesn't, but it ends up as nothing and she turns out to be a bit psychotic.

Probably my favourite aspect of this book was Finn's relationship with Jay. Although this ultimately ends in tragedy, I really enjoyed the contrast of their personalities and how Jay was atypical of the hunters. In a story where there is so much focus on masculinity vs nature, it was interesting to have a character that stuck out a bit. For me, another major point of Foreign to You is the way Finn copes with Jay's death compared to the way his father drives himself mad trying to bring his wife back from the dead and how that influences Finn's decisions towards the latter end of the book.

In my ecopy, I have numerous sentences and passages highlighted. Some of these are because the writing and imagery is pretty damn good, sometimes it's because it is overwhelming in the amount that the author is trying to convey, and sometimes it's because something just doesn't work or fit in, becoming almost comical in places. That said, I really have to commend the author, because where it works, it works. In particular the shifting scenes and those with the ferals were rather memorable.

In the end, this is a solid 3 stars from me. I didn't actively dislike Foreign to You and I did enjoy some memorable scenes and pieces of writing. However, I couldn't fully immerse myself in the world or become invested enough in characters. Whilst I did read this in a decent amount of time, I also put it down often enough to read other novels....

This story wrecked me in the best way.

Martin created a rich and magical world where the humans of Norsewood and fianna, deer shapeshifters, are on the verges of war. Where a prophecy is all that is holding them together.
His writing style is right up my alley - whimsy, beautiful and full of emotions.
I loved the mythology and legends on which the entire story is built. It added this mystical air whether everything that happened is true or not or is just another legend on its own.

The main two characters, Adelaide and Finn, are in juxtaposition to one another. You have Adelaide, who is trusting and naive, frightening of this new world of humans and unsure of her place. And Finn who is bitter and pessimistic, a non-believer and already weary of this world. Their actions lead the story and give insights to both Norsewood and the fianna.
The side characters were just as memorable. Caleb and Anna, who are probably the kindest of them all; Jay who deserved a better life; Hazel and Noah who show us a different type of hunter. Niall and his obsession in finding the Stag.

Despite the absolutely gorgeous cover, this story is overall quite dark. Set at the precipice of a war, a time where fianna turn into delirious ferals and shapeshifting is a gruesome and bloody affair, not the mention the hunters bent on killing ferals and fianna alike, this story does not shy away from the ugly side of nature.

Overall, I truly enjoyed being transported into this fantastic world. I was felt for Finn and Adelaide and for the decisions they had to make. It was captivating to watch them create and navigate their own story.

Thank you NetGalley and NineStar Press for providing me with a copy for review.

In Foreign to You there are humans, like Finn, and Fianna, like Adelaide, who can shape-shift into deer. The two characters are from entirely different worlds with Finn being a hunter to the Fianna and Adelaide being a respected member of the Fianna, but they must work together if they hope to bring about peace.

The writing of this novel was beautiful and, though this could make it difficult to follow at points, also allowed you to easily get lost within its pages and feel as though you were part of the world. It's an incredibly unique story and I always love fantasy novels that feature queer characters and storylines, especially when it is simply allowed to be part of the world without it being a big deal as it is in this one.

Interesting premise but let me down, wanted to like this a lot more than I did. I couldn’t connect with the main character of Adelaide and things didn’t seem to be explained clearly, it was easy to get lost. I just couldn’t care too much about the characters, so sorry not for me.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

The digital arc of this book was kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley website in exchange for an honest review.

This book had the kind of plot I'd always want to read, and that cover is gorgeous, let's be honest.

Humans live not-so-in-peace with creatures of the Forest, Fianna, does who can take a times human form. Despite their differences, Finn the boy hunter and Adelaide the Fianna savior, will have to work together and confront the prejudices from both races to avoid open war. Even when there is so much going against them.

First of all, the book is told alternatively from Adelaide and Finn point of view, using the first person. It gives us insight on their thoughts and emotions, and a better understanding at their own purpose and evolution.

After the first chapters, presenting the characters, the start was a bit slow. Like, really slow. For about 40 pages I was not really involved in what would happened to the characters. The death of a character important to the hero actually made a turn in the story, picking again my interest.
But once the "quest" and thus the relationship between Adelaide and Finn starts to build, I really enjoyed the book. Even though it might be for younger people than I am, the topics of love, family and differences that makes the characters evolve do not depend on how old the reader is. The bonds that ties Adelaide and Finn to others make sense, the notion of Nature as an entity speaks volume, especially nowadays with most people disconnected of wildlife and nature. Warning : there is a lot of mentions of deaths, violence and blood, so this is not a story for children. Yet they are not gratuitous : pain is part of the process of life, and characters are not above regrets and remorse.

The idea of a Nature God made me think to many stories from my youth, but none with such an end, which was truly a great surprise. I didn't know the tale of the Stag, the Hunter and the Maiden, which might have play in my vision of Foreign to You.
Even though there's plenty of stories with a selfish God bent to turn the world to its desire, the story of the Stag and its daughter through the creation of the world and how, as he was supposed to be impartial and loving, betrayed both humans and fianna, made a twist on how one perceives the notion of selfishness, love and faith.

A few details were bothering me though : a bit too much dialogues for my taste, but that one is just personal. No, my main problem with this book is that most of the secondary characters are not fully pinned down : they exist to create obstacles or motivation to the heroes, but in themselves, do not really have their own existence.
Why was Marshall always helping, at the right place at the right time, almost like a Deus Ex Machina with an arrow ? Why is Hazel so hell bent on being an ass ? And most of all, why was Jay so not in tune with the town if he was some golden son ?

But those little faults are easily forgiven and did not tarnish how enjoyable the read was.