Phantasma by Kaylie Smith: Book Review
| Pub Date | September 3, 2024 |
| Publisher | Forever |
| Page Count | 512 pages |
| Genre | Romance, Fantasy, Adult |
| Goodreads Star Rating | 4.12 |
| My star rating | 3.5 |
Phantasma Book Summary
Phantasma by Kaylie Smith is a dark fantasy romance following Ophelia, a young woman from New Orleans whose mother just died. As the eldest daughter, she inherits the Necromancy magic, as well as their home. Unfortunately, her mother was in a lot of debt and the home will be taken by a bank within the month. To stop this from happening (and take some burden off Ophelia), her sister Genevieve enters a deadly competition hosted by the Devils, and Ophelia has no choice but to follow her in.
Phantasma Book Review
If you ever read Caraval and wanted it to be a lot spicier and a bit darker, Phantasma is definitely the book for you. The plot is almost exactly the same.
There are two sisters, one of whom is responsible and feels pressured into continuing the family legacy, and the other who is a wild child and wants to help the other let go of that pressure. The younger sister (the wild one), enters a deadly competition, and the older sister has to follow her in. Of course, they can’t find each other immediately for one reason or another, so the older sister has to compete for real, and it doesn’t hurt that she has a handsome, mysterious stranger helping her along.
I’d say even the plot twists and the ending are kind of similar, but I won’t spoil it for you.
Either way, I didn’t mind. I liked Phantasma far better than Caraval, if anything then because it was written better and made more sense overall.
Would I call it a dark fantasy romance? Well, no, not exactly. The romance itself is actually quite sweet, if a little spicy. And sure, the world this book is set in is dark, the competition gets gory at times, but not more so than in most YA books these days. Perhaps I’m just too desensitized to these things.
I went into Phantasma blindly. It was all over my social media, but I didn’t know anything about it, and when it appeared on my Kindle recommendations, I got a sample to try it out. And those first twenty or so pages are what drew me in. It’s really well-written, as I mentioned, with a cinematic quality to the prose and excellent vibes.
And I did end up enjoying it quite a bit, even though I’m not a fan of games and trials in my books. Maybe it’s because of the fact that I didn’t read the Hunger Games when I was younger, so it doesn’t have the same sense of nostalgia for me that it does for most people, but I just don’t like books that focus on competitions. I tend to avoid them overall.
Especially romance books set within these trials. It’s just not enough time to properly fall in love — the stakes are high, the emotions are running all over the place, and the trials are usually short.
I wish I could say this book proved me wrong but it didn’t. The two main characters fall in love easily, despite the trials lasting only a week or so. And I get liking someone, or being attracted to them — I definitely don’t get committing your entire life to this one person you met only a few days ago.
But it almost had me, the romance — it really almost did.
There’s a scene at the beginning, before Phantasma (the event) begins, where Ophelia and Blackwell meet, though they don’t know each other yet. She can’t see him either. And it was such a sensual scene, such a delight to read — he’s teasing but solemn, somehow sad, he brushes his fingers against her cheeks and ugh, for a moment I thought I would actually enjoy spicy scenes in a book.
It would have been so unique and wonderful if she couldn’t see him at all, throughout the book. I would have believed the romance, in fact, if this happened. Alas, here we are.
He appears the moment she enters Phantasma and the magic is broken. His personality is different. He starts speaking in innuendos and just reads like one of those gross guys that make you uncomfortable.
So yes, I skimmed through the spice. If nothing else, it helped me read this faster. It really is unnecessarily long for a book that doesn’t have that much plot.
However, it’s surprisingly well-paced until the ending, which is pretty rushed. But you won’t get bored throughout because there’s enough happening. I will say that it gets repetitive at a certain point.
It goes something like this — Ophelia goes through a trial, then sleeps with Blackwell, then they spend a little time researching how to free them, and then back to another trial she goes. Sometimes they’ll sleep together again before the trial, or have a timely argument, or one of the many Devils will stir something up. But overall, that’s pretty much it.
The twists are very predictable too — and this is coming from the girl who didn’t figure out the love riddle in ACOTAR (I was distracted at the time, but still). I found the predictability almost comforting, though. It’s one of those books you read for the nostalgia, the vibes, the romance, more than you do for thrills because you know it will end well.
All in all, this is a fun, worthwhile read, especially if you’re looking for a good standalone romantasy. It’s very easy to read, has tons of spice for people who like it, and the romance itself is not that bad. I hope you enjoy it!
