This post contains spoilers and should only be read if you have read through all of the Keeper of the Lost Cities books up through #9 Stellarlune.
The Forgotten Secrets are my favorite part of Stellarlune. I find them fascinating and have read through each one multiple times in order to look for clues. By now, I've read every Forgotten Secret at least five times, maybe more. I've read the one with Oralie and Kenric in Kenric's readying room at least 10 times.
In my previous post, I recounted how I looked for Goodreads reviews that mention the Forgotten Secrets. Of the comments that I found, two-thirds of them are negative. This post contains the positive comments. I have included links to the reviews from which these comments were taken.
From five-star reviews:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5066025120
"STOPPP KENRIC AND ORALIE WERE EACH OTHERS #1 MATCH OH MY GOD. MY HEART IS BROKEN. WHY DID HE HAVE TO DIE
These memories are curing my soul. THIS IS THE ROMANCE I NEEDED BRO. FIRST I FIND OUT KENRIC IS EVEN MORE IN LOVE WITH ORALIE THAN HE SAYS HE IS, AND NOW I FIND OUT THEY WERE ORIGINALLY ENEMIES? IM IN TEARS BRO. EVEN AS ENEMIES HE TEASED HER IN A LOVING WAY AND THEY WERE IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER ALL ALONG. I will never forgive Shannon for killing him."
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5087093743
"- Oralie’s EXQUISITE character development *chef’s kiss* (I’ll never get over that moment when they walked into her office and she just did a personality switch along with her outfit switch)
(She was already one of my favorites but I just love her even more now)
- The fact that Kenralie was enemies to lovers… they were both so snarky to each other in those memories and I loved every word of it… and now I need an entire book about their relationship please and thank you
- Not to mention, Kenric is (or was, I guess 😢) so sassy and I love him so much"
Yes! I love it when Oralie tosses her dress aside and coils her hair into a messy bun. This is not at all what one would expect Oralie to do. She's not what she leads others to believe she is.
I also need an entire book about Kenric and Oralie.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4679827019
"Another thing to talk about is Kenric and Oralie. The fact that they were both each others number one match makes me so sad. That whole situation makes me so sad and I wanna cry every time I think about it."
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5065901734
"The scene in oralies castle was amazing and I love her. Also oralie and Sophie both pulling eyelashes is just so cute! And I love how much kenric knew about her that that was how his cache opened was with her and that hers opened with his last name as the password! I could totally see her being that girl who has the notebooks with Mrs. Kenric fathdon written all over them 😂
Opening kenrics cache was interesting and we learned lots of cool things. And I’m still not over his death! He and oralie deserved to be together and I’m still not ok because it will never happen 😡😭😫"
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4409653191
"Ok, new thing. The caches. I’m so freaking confused. Aren’t Forgotten Secrets supposed to be super crazy and sanity-shattering and destroy-the-world type of secrets? Well all we got was some Kenric + Oralie moments and some flowers. Like…what? For all the hype, the Forgotten Secrets pretty much just revealed NOTHING or if they did it was only one word…remind me why did they need to be erased? I’m so confused. I will admit…Kenric and Oralie still break me through. Enemies-to-lovers and they were #1 on each other’s match…AHHHHHH."
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4364279150
"I think that Dex is catching on to the fact that Oralie is Sophie's bio mom."
If Dex isn't catching on now, then he will do so during the next book. Shannon had a reason for having Dex in on the Forgotten Secrets. He may help Sophie figure out that Kenric is Forkle.
From four-star reviews:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5065875219
"I feel like some significant headway was made in certain ways. We get into Kenric's cache and get one memory from Fintan's that lead to some interesting discoveries. We find Kenric's retreat and find out that he had approached Prentice about Prentice being the Keeper of Kenric's Forgotten Secrets. From what they have already discovered and the revelations in the cache, Sophie is focused on finding Elysian."
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5114793707
"the only times i was interested in the story was when we were learning about the adult's personal histories (oralie and kenric have a more compelling romance in like, 40 pages of content, than anyone else in these books), or when the kids were back at foxfire."
The Kenric and Oralie content is quite compelling.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5232602936
"The insights we got through the caches were a real ride because we saw everything from Kenric and Oralies romance to shady fintan scenes."
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4425539117
"That scene where Oralie realized that Kenric was her first match, and she was Kenric's? GOLD😞"
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4525326460
"and the backstory with kenric & oralie... made me feel things. kenric and oralie are certainly very interesting characters, both because of their relationship, and their own arcs. they're much greyer characters than one might think, which intrigues me."
They are gray characters. It's interesting that Oralie donated to Project Moonlark and that she wears pants. In several scenes in the series, Oralie's voice is described as "fragile," which I think is an act to throw everyone off. Wearing frilly pink dresses and having pink all over her castle is also apparently just an act. Oralie wants everyone to think that she is just a helpless beauty when she is anything but.
And of course Kenric is awash in schemes of his own. I believe that Kenric colluded with Fintan somehow in order to fake his own death in the Everblaze. If so, then Kenric was an accessory to Fintan's escape. That makes Kenric a very gray character and very fascinating.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3253265709
"These books are at their best when the characters are allowed to be a little bit messy -- that scene where Kenric and Oralie have not known each other very long and absolutely hate each other was probably the most compelling scene in the book because of that."
That scene is my favorite as well.
From three-star reviews:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5107649489
"- The side of Oralie that we are introduced to in this book is honestly SO COOL. I LOVED IT. I know I should be mad at Oralie for hiding that she was Sophie's biological mom, and in fact I am mad at her for choosing her ambitions over Kenric, but I enjoyed seeing the side of Oralie that is not all about pink and actually wears pants."
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5106323431
"Sophie also needs to get over her feelings about Oralie.Oralie wasn’t trying to hurt her and given her position, really didn’t have many options. Sophie should be grateful Oralie was essential in giving Sophie her life"
I agree with this, although I do understand why Sophie is so resentful. Oralie didn't react well when her secret was outed and didn't give Sophie an appropriate response. However, she's also not this terrible person like Sophie thinks. Oralie is a very conflicted character who is deeply grieving the loss of Kenric while balancing her obligations to both the Council and the Black Swan.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4715001187
"we also got some amazing Kenric and Oralie content for a solid 100 pages which made me smile so much."
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