Reviews - The Sapling Cage

810 reviews for:

The Sapling Cage

Margaret Killjoy

4.02 AVERAGE

yoderlj's review

2.5

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I love a trans witch as much as the next queer but the writing was incredibly basic and the characters very one-dimensional.

ninareadsthese's review

3.5

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A fun read-- I enjoyed the main character but wished the other characters had more depth/ growth in their relationships. I could've done without some of the action, but that's probably just me.

thewitchinghour's review

2.5

adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Definitely giving Manon and Elide but only in theory. Involved a lot of telling and not showing, and felt as though it would have benefitted being read over by an editor a few more times before publication. It just really irks me when the same word is in multiple sentences too close together. The writing felt messy and didn’t really describe anything, just told us what was happening and how everyone felt about it. As someone who reads a whole lot of high fantasy this one definitely has the bones and at least a spark of what could be a good witchy story. This one took me a long time to get into it and I never felt as though I was actually in the story, however I always enjoy a group of women in all black at least a little.

megs_an_egg's review against another edition

0.5

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

girlcatdad's review

1.0

i did not like this at all

hazel_alexandra's review

3.0

I would like to clarify that I really really wanted to like this book, and that despite how much it disappointed me, I don't hate it. It had a strong premise, an interesting cast of characters, an inkling of unique world building with how the Order of the Vine operated.
But what it DIDN'T have was what brought it down:
- A coherent, well-paced plot - you get the sense the author wanted this to be a high fantasy but rather it is fantasy-lite, and battles or moments of action occur without build up and finish just as quickly. The entire stakes around the duchess felt anti-climactic.
- Character depth - there are attempts at making characters less flat and two dimensional but it isn't helped by the nearly identical, juvenile way that every character has of speaking. No character voice feels distinct and especially with the whelps, I got confused who was supposed to be who.
- overall, relatively simplistic. this might be unfair to say but this one's just a personal opinion, I guess.