Holly Ringland, Emmanuelle Mattana (Narrator)

Published: September 30, 2022

Genres: Mystery, Literary Fiction, Young Adult, Australian literature, Romance

Pages: 560

Female Main Character - Esther

During my time of reading Seven Skins of Esther Wilding, my opinion on Esther switched drastically. At first, I believed she wasn’t a Mary Sue. After all, how could she be a Mary Sue if her life is far from perfect? Her career pathway is complicated and so is her family, I related to her during the beginning. I liked how she wasn’t a fully agreeable character and people called her out for distancing herself. However, if I were to ignore her personality before she flew off to another country, she does have the characteristics of a Mary Sue.

From the moment she stepped off the plane, everything went her way and everyone adored her. It was as if her background was created to balance out her Mary Sue characteristics. Sophus’ family treated her like their own child the moment she stepped into the door. Nothing is a coincidence, yet everything also is too much of a coincidence. It flows naturally, yet almost too perfectly.

Despite this, I like how the novel didn’t solely focus on Esther’s grief. Yes, Esther was Aura’s little sister, but that doesn’t change the fact her death caused great impact on other people too. Everyone was hurt in their own way.

Esther's Family

After learning about everything, I understand aura now. Why she died, why she hid the truth from Esther. While I can empathise with Aura’s pain, I still dislike the fact she hid her fiancé from her family. It doesn’t feel realistic in my opinion. The father isn’t as manipulative as he originally appeared, but it is amusing how it was actually him, not the mother who planned the memorial to bring her back. After knowing what happened with the mother, I can see why she acts differently with Esther, but I don’t like it when parents make excuses for their past behaviour since it did affect Esther.

With each new piece of information I learn about her family, I dislike her parents more. I understand a story needs conflict, but I honestly disliked how secretive they were. Both her mother and father seemed manipulative, I can’t say which one I disliked the most. Another review mentioned the disconnection between Esther and her family and I agree. It’s awful how her family could see her as a way to gain the truth. And yet, I found it amusing how they believed Esther could find clues about Aura, even though her family knew more about Aura than Esther did… It gets exhausting when there is a reoccurrence of families being portrayed as villains in the media, but it’s even weirder when they’re suddenly happy in the end.

Sadly, I was disappointed at the loss potential with Apollo. While I loved the plot twist that he never loved Evangeline, instead himself, I wish there was more moments of his love for her to make the plot twist even more heart breaking. I am aware that Jacks is the love interest, but it shouldn’t diminish the ability for Apollo to show his love to Evangeline while she had memory loss. I think it’ll be a lot more angst to see them truly fight for her, even though only one was hers.

Male Main Character - Sophus

With the way he was set up in the beginning of the story, you wouldn’t expect him to have an emotional connection to Sophus. In fact, you would think he was the villain behind it all. Yet he’s just a plain average Joe. He has no chemistry with Esther, he has more of a chemistry with avoidance than anything. Their bond was founded on Aura. If it wasn’t for their shared loss, they would’ve never known each other. I thought that Esther and Sophus mistaken their crush for related grief, but it turned me off that they actually did it together. Really Esther? Your sister had a stillborn baby with him. I get that people like forbidden love, but this ain’t it chief.

Overall

At the beginning, both the story and its characters felt authentic, you could imagine it as a real story. I loved the characters from the very start and everyone was introduced smoothly. While many complained about the length of the novel, I thought it was wonderfully written from beginning to end. The dialogue was relatively natural, although at times I notice a pattern with the character’s speech. I liked the feminist themes about women stories, it was magical.

I tried my best to love it, but I can only give it a 4 star rating. If there was minor changes, I would certainly see this book as a favourite. One of the main problems is the fact the author seems to try too hard to make an impacting scene. There are so many emotional scenes, yet very few that are memorable. As more as more emotional scenes are added, the significance of them lowers. I do love the emotional novels, but it gets harder to get emotionally invested when there’s always an emotional scene. However, I still believe the novel would be perfect as a movie or series.