Reviews - The Sapling Cage

821 reviews for:

The Sapling Cage

Margaret Killjoy

4.01 AVERAGE

eldritchpunk's review

5.0

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: N/A

ekivett's review

3.0

adventurous inspiring mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

sorenevre's review

4.5

medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

jn0el's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I loved this delightful witchy story. I can't wait to read the next installment.

velvetyaverage's review

2.75

adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Some really interesting ideas but this is a book that tells its story in the least number of words possible. Every scene is short and quick with minimal detail. We’re able to cover a lot of ground in just over 300 pages and the book certainly doesn’t suffer for a lack of things happening. But it also means that the character development suffers and the emotional beats just didn’t hit for me. If you’re a strictly plot kind of reader, though, you might have a better time with this.

Characters, even Lorel, feel two dimensional. They have charm to them but you could count their combined personality traits on one hand. I want to like them but we aren’t given the opportunity to know them beyond a few traits that are told to the reader, rather than showing on their own. It gets better by the end but even then the character development is just so sparse.

The emotional beats are also pretty sparse. There’s no time to sink into the world and become immersed so any twist in the plot or emotional moment doesn’t have much of an impact.

For example, the death of Dam Ghin and the betrayal of Dam Willow just felt empty. We had such little time to get to know either of them that the impact of what happens to them just isn’t there. With Dam Ghin I could tell I was meant to feel sad but no development in the story prior had earned that. And with Dam Willow there’s such little on page reaction and exploration of just how deep of a betrayal this is.

I know this is the beginning of a trilogy and we will be—hopefully—getting future books but I wish this book had been more than one. I have no idea where the series is going to go from here since there’s not really any setup for a future plot so I just don’t see why we couldn’t have taken things a little more slowly. Still, the series has potential. I’ve been burned several times before by stubbornly sticking with a series I was not in love with to the point of irate frustration but that’s not gonna stop me from trying again! Maybe this will be the one that I end up liking more as the books progress 🤞🏻

wordly_and_toggs's review against another edition

2.0

adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

addiegberg's review

2.0

ok after reading sarah's review i needed to go back and edit this. i loved the main character so much and was very into the world it's set in but i wanted to like this more than i actually did. kinda felt like this was just the perimeter of a story and i want so much more information!