Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.28 AVERAGE
4.28 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
sad
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Misogyny, Sexism, Slavery, Terminal illness, Violence, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War
Moderate: Torture
Minor: Pregnancy
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This has got to be one of my favorite endings of all time. As I was reading the final pages I was just smiling and couldn't think of a more perfect ending. I mean I actually cried in one scene, which I never do. The chapters that are told like a story from this world are probably the most powerful and beautiful part of this book because they are used to cement a characters' ending, convey stronger emotion, and make what happens to that character all the more tragic.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
It is hard for me to criticize another person’s trash. Everyone likes certain stories, even if they acknowledge the weak prose and cheesy storylines, because they speak to something inside of them. It touches on something that they simply can’t find in other stories. This has happened to me many times, even in books that critics or other readers have panned as being ridiculous or overly saccharine. It is my personal trash and it speaks to something in me, so I can overlook its weaknesses.
That said, I simply do not understand the hype for this novel. People have been writing rave reviews of this series since it came out and so many people have written that they were devastated that the story is over now. Normally this wouldn’t surprise me (nearly every series has die-hard fans) but there are virtually no negative reviews for this novel! No one is saying any of the myriad things that bothered me throughout the second and third novels and that made it so hard for me to finish. Where is the discussion? Did no one feel that this novel was only mediocre? Perhaps I stumbled on a niche genre that only die-hard fans read, but I’m not sure.
Could someone please explain to me your love for this novel, and how you are able to ignore its problems like terrible prose, weak storylines, and unlikeable characters? What are lines or scenes or story elements that endear you to this novel? If anyone would like to read a spoiler-ific critique of this novel and then help me to understand this, please read on:
Here are just a few of my problems:
2. Many of the plans don’t make any sense. Hamilton apparently likes to keep the reader in suspense by starting the plans in the middle without telling the reader exactly how the plan is supposed to work. This is a fine technique, and I have seen this work well in other novels, because in those novels it is used to showcase the protagonists’ extreme cleverness. In this novel, however, it just creates false suspense, as the rebels don’t act at all cleverly, surprise no one, and often end up forgetting about something that should have been taken into consideration 30 seconds after the plan was proposed. For example, at one point, while debating how to get past an enemy camp and into a city in the mountains, Amani suggests that she carries the boat with all of the rebels on a wave of sand with her power. This a cool idea, and it is fun to watch Amani use her power in a bigger way than she ever has before, but then suddenly she looks forward and sees the mountain in front of them, with no sand. She is shocked and alarmed, as she shouts that she can’t move them past there. What? How did she not plan for running into the mountains? The mountains were her goal. Did no one ask about this during the planning stage? Instead, everyone is surprised, she shouts to Jin, and there is a lot of manufactured tension as he and Shazad try to warn everyone and Shazad becomes briefly untethered only to be rescued again. This is also a theme in a lot of Hamilton’s set pieces: she attempts to set up tension in which various characters act bravely or make tough decisions, but the situations that get them to those choices are so ludicrous that it completely ruins my suspension of disbelief. Can anyone point me to a plan that was genuinely clever and well-executed? I honestly can only remember one compelling set piece in the entire novel.
3. Jin is a terrible person. I honestly don’t understand why we are supposed to like him. He does practically nothing throughout the novel and rarely agrees with or supports Amani (which I can’t really blame him for) but then, once again, he abandons her when she is about to die. He did this in the second novel as well, and it bothered me then, but I shrugged it off considering it sort of happened in a flashback. Now, Amani tells him that she is going to sacrifice herself for the good of the entire rebellion, and he is mad at her, and then avoids speaking to her or talking to her throughout the week before she is going to supposedly die. What? How is that the action of a good person? The night before she is going to sacrifice herself, she runs into him and he just marches past her without saying anything. And Amani doesn’t chase after him because she thinks that would be selfish!
Amani is the worst main character. She has no idea of what is going around her, has no convictions, and appears to support Ahmed because she met him first and because she likes Jin and Shazad. Multiple times Hamilton brings up very cogent arguments defending the Sultan’s actions and questioning the rebels’ purpose in destabilizing the country when they are under threat of annihilation from a much bigger threat. Amani has no answer for any of these things and even once asks herself if she can think of any reason that Ahmed would make a better ruler. Her answer? “Faith is a foreign language to logic.” She just believes in him and that is it. She wanders from one point to another, changing like a weather vane from chapter to chapter, constantly making spur-of-the-moment decisions on whether to use magic, make foreign alliances, trust Djinni, work with or abandon her friends, sacrifice or protect the public, and overthrow the Sultan or fight the foreigners. It is ridiculous. I can honestly think of at least one moment in the novel where she supports both sides of each of these issues, and every time she acts like she has discovered the final and morally correct solution. She admits several times that both Ahmed and Shazad are better planners and leaders than she is. However, once she has them back, she constantly criticizes their plans and is in general just a firebrand. in this last novel, I feel more and more that Amani should not be the main character. She has impressive skills and a lot of bravery, but no brains, no trust, and no idea of the bigger picture. She works very well as a foot soldier following orders, she works ok as a lone ranger improvising, but as a member of a team she is awful. And yet, because the camera is following behind her shoulder, everyone is listening to her and deferring to her. Amani admits (several times, of course) and everyone around her knows that she has no leadership qualities, that she is too impulsive, and that her decisions always land them in trouble. Yet she is still the leader! What is with that? Jin is relegated to simply Amani shadowing. He does nothing and says nothing except when it relates to her. He doesn’t appear to have any opinions or plans involving the rebellion at all.
You know who should be the main characters? Shazad and Sam. The general’s daughter, rising above her circumstances and making the entire rebellion possible. She is always coming up with plans, always trying to do two or three things at once, is able to control her most volatile allies and use their skills effectively, and she defies the societal standards placed on her. Sam is a care-for-nothing foreign rogue who thinks he is above all of these plans and petty local squabbles, but falls for Shazad anyway and is reluctantly drawn in. Why aren’t we focused on these two? I would totally read that and have a loud, bombastic, and kind of brainless Amani as a colorful side character. That would make this novel readable. Or maybe not. Maybe Alwyn would drown us in Shazad’s inner monologue as well and give the Sultan her manuscript ahead of time so he would always know how to perfectly counter Shazad’s plans. Maybe it’s better this way. I’ll just write Shazad and Sam’s story in my head.
4. The ending is incredibly stupid. It is the most egregious example of contrived tension. The djinni, ungrateful to Amani for freeing them, accuse of her of assassination because of a broken god-killer weapon she brings in. Fine, whatever. Amani pleads ignorance, and the djinni immediately say, “That’s alright,” but then follow it up with, “We are nothing if not just,” and say that someone must die for this. They snatch up the two male leads, who had nothing to do with Amani or the Djinn at all, and ask her to choose who should die. Whaaat? Why on earth would they grab those two except to make Amani uncomfortable? Are the Djinni just the author insert? This is Diablo Ex Machina at its finest. None of this confrontation makes sense, and the absolute idiocy of it took all tension out of the scene. It was just laughable instead. This is the worst moment in the entire novel in my opinion and showcases the author’s inability to write believably tense moments. There were so many other ways that confrontation could have gone that it is clear the author just wanted to have a reason for Amani to choose who would die.
I hesitate to ask for justifications, because often discussions about the merits of genre fiction don’t touch on the important points i.e. the story works for you because it is related to your personal fantasies and personal goals. Instead, people get bogged down in nitpicky details and the same scenes that fans point to as particularly powerful are pointed at by the critics as particularly problematic. However, this novel is so messy to me that I have to ask, does anyone else see this? Can someone please explain to me your love for the novel and how this makes you able to overlook its flaws?
Almost everything that I liked about the first novel is old hat by now, with very few new developments or interesting new mechanics. Now, the somewhat stilted prose, clumsy dialogue, and ludicrous planning that made the pace of the first novel a bit choppy is face-palmingly awful now. There are so very few instances of good writing in the novel.
Alwyn does continue to write good fairy-tale style backstory, told in the third person as a legend of sorts. It is well done and totally achieves the effect it is going for. She does it several times in this novel. Each one is incredibly out of place. Just write a whole novel in that style, Alwyn. Don’t keep trying to put it in between Amani’s totally different style of narration.
If this is your personal trash, I don’t want to say that you can’t like it, and if you read my spoiler-ific diatribe, you know that I sort of loathed this novel. But that’s life; people disagree on the value of books, and I hope you can still enjoy this bit of weird fantasy if it is your thing. However, I would like to see some more balance in people’s reviews of this novel. Even for YA, this was pretty terrible. Let’s put some perspective into our reviews, people.
That said, I simply do not understand the hype for this novel. People have been writing rave reviews of this series since it came out and so many people have written that they were devastated that the story is over now. Normally this wouldn’t surprise me (nearly every series has die-hard fans) but there are virtually no negative reviews for this novel! No one is saying any of the myriad things that bothered me throughout the second and third novels and that made it so hard for me to finish. Where is the discussion? Did no one feel that this novel was only mediocre? Perhaps I stumbled on a niche genre that only die-hard fans read, but I’m not sure.
Could someone please explain to me your love for this novel, and how you are able to ignore its problems like terrible prose, weak storylines, and unlikeable characters? What are lines or scenes or story elements that endear you to this novel? If anyone would like to read a spoiler-ific critique of this novel and then help me to understand this, please read on:
Here are just a few of my problems:
Spoiler
1. The prose is terrible. Hamilton has few if any poetic statements and generally says everything in the most straightforward basic way possible. Several times she has used the wrong word or said something awkwardly. The most egregious problem, though, is the short sentences. Hamilton appears to be doing a Shatner impression throughout the entire book. (e.g. Chapter 14: Jin’s mouth pressed into an angry line. He hated being reminded that the Sultan was his father. I knew that. Because I knew him. I’d done it deliberately.”) Her sentences are ridiculously short, which in intense moments can speed up the action or reflect a character’s disjointed thoughts, but most of the time it doesn’t do much other than slow down the pace of the novel. Hamilton also frequently uses exaggerated statements that don’t make sense or are simply not true. For example, at one point, Amani states that she is alone for the first time in her life, when there were several times in the series that she was both literally and figuratively alone, and at the time she said it, there was a Djinni walking right next her, so she wasn’t even alone at the time. Statements like this just exaggerate without any poetry or point behind them. If you can’t get a character’s feelings across more elegantly than this, then just don’t try.2. Many of the plans don’t make any sense. Hamilton apparently likes to keep the reader in suspense by starting the plans in the middle without telling the reader exactly how the plan is supposed to work. This is a fine technique, and I have seen this work well in other novels, because in those novels it is used to showcase the protagonists’ extreme cleverness. In this novel, however, it just creates false suspense, as the rebels don’t act at all cleverly, surprise no one, and often end up forgetting about something that should have been taken into consideration 30 seconds after the plan was proposed. For example, at one point, while debating how to get past an enemy camp and into a city in the mountains, Amani suggests that she carries the boat with all of the rebels on a wave of sand with her power. This a cool idea, and it is fun to watch Amani use her power in a bigger way than she ever has before, but then suddenly she looks forward and sees the mountain in front of them, with no sand. She is shocked and alarmed, as she shouts that she can’t move them past there. What? How did she not plan for running into the mountains? The mountains were her goal. Did no one ask about this during the planning stage? Instead, everyone is surprised, she shouts to Jin, and there is a lot of manufactured tension as he and Shazad try to warn everyone and Shazad becomes briefly untethered only to be rescued again. This is also a theme in a lot of Hamilton’s set pieces: she attempts to set up tension in which various characters act bravely or make tough decisions, but the situations that get them to those choices are so ludicrous that it completely ruins my suspension of disbelief. Can anyone point me to a plan that was genuinely clever and well-executed? I honestly can only remember one compelling set piece in the entire novel.
3. Jin is a terrible person. I honestly don’t understand why we are supposed to like him. He does practically nothing throughout the novel and rarely agrees with or supports Amani (which I can’t really blame him for) but then, once again, he abandons her when she is about to die. He did this in the second novel as well, and it bothered me then, but I shrugged it off considering it sort of happened in a flashback. Now, Amani tells him that she is going to sacrifice herself for the good of the entire rebellion, and he is mad at her, and then avoids speaking to her or talking to her throughout the week before she is going to supposedly die. What? How is that the action of a good person? The night before she is going to sacrifice herself, she runs into him and he just marches past her without saying anything. And Amani doesn’t chase after him because she thinks that would be selfish!
Amani is the worst main character. She has no idea of what is going around her, has no convictions, and appears to support Ahmed because she met him first and because she likes Jin and Shazad. Multiple times Hamilton brings up very cogent arguments defending the Sultan’s actions and questioning the rebels’ purpose in destabilizing the country when they are under threat of annihilation from a much bigger threat. Amani has no answer for any of these things and even once asks herself if she can think of any reason that Ahmed would make a better ruler. Her answer? “Faith is a foreign language to logic.” She just believes in him and that is it. She wanders from one point to another, changing like a weather vane from chapter to chapter, constantly making spur-of-the-moment decisions on whether to use magic, make foreign alliances, trust Djinni, work with or abandon her friends, sacrifice or protect the public, and overthrow the Sultan or fight the foreigners. It is ridiculous. I can honestly think of at least one moment in the novel where she supports both sides of each of these issues, and every time she acts like she has discovered the final and morally correct solution. She admits several times that both Ahmed and Shazad are better planners and leaders than she is. However, once she has them back, she constantly criticizes their plans and is in general just a firebrand. in this last novel, I feel more and more that Amani should not be the main character. She has impressive skills and a lot of bravery, but no brains, no trust, and no idea of the bigger picture. She works very well as a foot soldier following orders, she works ok as a lone ranger improvising, but as a member of a team she is awful. And yet, because the camera is following behind her shoulder, everyone is listening to her and deferring to her. Amani admits (several times, of course) and everyone around her knows that she has no leadership qualities, that she is too impulsive, and that her decisions always land them in trouble. Yet she is still the leader! What is with that? Jin is relegated to simply Amani shadowing. He does nothing and says nothing except when it relates to her. He doesn’t appear to have any opinions or plans involving the rebellion at all.
You know who should be the main characters? Shazad and Sam. The general’s daughter, rising above her circumstances and making the entire rebellion possible. She is always coming up with plans, always trying to do two or three things at once, is able to control her most volatile allies and use their skills effectively, and she defies the societal standards placed on her. Sam is a care-for-nothing foreign rogue who thinks he is above all of these plans and petty local squabbles, but falls for Shazad anyway and is reluctantly drawn in. Why aren’t we focused on these two? I would totally read that and have a loud, bombastic, and kind of brainless Amani as a colorful side character. That would make this novel readable. Or maybe not. Maybe Alwyn would drown us in Shazad’s inner monologue as well and give the Sultan her manuscript ahead of time so he would always know how to perfectly counter Shazad’s plans. Maybe it’s better this way. I’ll just write Shazad and Sam’s story in my head.
4. The ending is incredibly stupid. It is the most egregious example of contrived tension. The djinni, ungrateful to Amani for freeing them, accuse of her of assassination because of a broken god-killer weapon she brings in. Fine, whatever. Amani pleads ignorance, and the djinni immediately say, “That’s alright,” but then follow it up with, “We are nothing if not just,” and say that someone must die for this. They snatch up the two male leads, who had nothing to do with Amani or the Djinn at all, and ask her to choose who should die. Whaaat? Why on earth would they grab those two except to make Amani uncomfortable? Are the Djinni just the author insert? This is Diablo Ex Machina at its finest. None of this confrontation makes sense, and the absolute idiocy of it took all tension out of the scene. It was just laughable instead. This is the worst moment in the entire novel in my opinion and showcases the author’s inability to write believably tense moments. There were so many other ways that confrontation could have gone that it is clear the author just wanted to have a reason for Amani to choose who would die.
I hesitate to ask for justifications, because often discussions about the merits of genre fiction don’t touch on the important points i.e. the story works for you because it is related to your personal fantasies and personal goals. Instead, people get bogged down in nitpicky details and the same scenes that fans point to as particularly powerful are pointed at by the critics as particularly problematic. However, this novel is so messy to me that I have to ask, does anyone else see this? Can someone please explain to me your love for the novel and how this makes you able to overlook its flaws?
Almost everything that I liked about the first novel is old hat by now, with very few new developments or interesting new mechanics. Now, the somewhat stilted prose, clumsy dialogue, and ludicrous planning that made the pace of the first novel a bit choppy is face-palmingly awful now. There are so very few instances of good writing in the novel.
Alwyn does continue to write good fairy-tale style backstory, told in the third person as a legend of sorts. It is well done and totally achieves the effect it is going for. She does it several times in this novel. Each one is incredibly out of place. Just write a whole novel in that style, Alwyn. Don’t keep trying to put it in between Amani’s totally different style of narration.
If this is your personal trash, I don’t want to say that you can’t like it, and if you read my spoiler-ific diatribe, you know that I sort of loathed this novel. But that’s life; people disagree on the value of books, and I hope you can still enjoy this bit of weird fantasy if it is your thing. However, I would like to see some more balance in people’s reviews of this novel. Even for YA, this was pretty terrible. Let’s put some perspective into our reviews, people.
This was a page-turner finale for this awesome series!
This book... This book... It broke my heart in a million pieces. It destroyed me. But it also healed me and made me new. It was heartbreaking but also beautiful... in soooo many ways. I adored every word, every chapter, everything!
adventurous
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Four and a half stars. It was definitely a satisfying end to the trilogy!
I will say that I was impressed that the story put forward so many “easy fixes” for Amani, like the opportunity to use a magic knife to make sure that the Rebel Prince took the throne (at a cost, of course). Even at the very end when we thought she FINALLY had a way to get what she wanted, it didn’t quite work out as planned. When it came down to the nitty gritty point of life or death, I will say that I had an inkling of one part of the conclusion but was still surprised/pleased how it was wrapped up in general.
I get that this is a long book, but there were some things editing-wise that drew me out of the story a couple of times. For the record, I am a business major that edits writing on a very small scale, and not in publishing, but when I read now some things stand out. Like each time the twins turned into Roc birds it was always preceded by an adjective for large (usually giant?). We know, we’re on book number three and it’s the twin’s favorite shape! :)
To make everyone feel better, this happens every time I read now. The Essex Serpent was one of my favorite books from last year and I had an editing issue early on that still breaks my brain when I think about it now.
Overall, this is the fastest I have read a book in a long time, and I loved every minute of it.
I will say that I was impressed that the story put forward so many “easy fixes” for Amani, like the opportunity to use a magic knife to make sure that the Rebel Prince took the throne (at a cost, of course). Even at the very end when we thought she FINALLY had a way to get what she wanted, it didn’t quite work out as planned. When it came down to the nitty gritty point of life or death, I will say that I had an inkling of one part of the conclusion but was still surprised/pleased how it was wrapped up in general.
I get that this is a long book, but there were some things editing-wise that drew me out of the story a couple of times. For the record, I am a business major that edits writing on a very small scale, and not in publishing, but when I read now some things stand out. Like each time the twins turned into Roc birds it was always preceded by an adjective for large (usually giant?). We know, we’re on book number three and it’s the twin’s favorite shape! :)
To make everyone feel better, this happens every time I read now. The Essex Serpent was one of my favorite books from last year and I had an editing issue early on that still breaks my brain when I think about it now.
Overall, this is the fastest I have read a book in a long time, and I loved every minute of it.