Reviews with content warning for Animal death - The Gracekeepers

The world is so intriguing and feels so much bigger than what we get to see in this book. This and the writing style kept me going. I would have given it 3 stars but I do think the writing style gives it that slight edge to push it to 3.25.

The characters fell a bit flat for me, particularly the main characters of North and Callanish. I didn't feel much of their personalities. I also didn't buy into the romance. It's very much a love at first sight thing. The only thing that kind of justified it was that these are two very lonely people who don't feel understood until they meet. Some of the side characters were interesting and most of the characters (including the main characters) are flawed.

The plot was so-so. I didn't expect it to be the best anyway as this kind of book feels more about the aesthetics and the world than the story. But to give it credit, I still wanted to know what happened and enjoyed the journey. I never felt bored or angry with it.

I liked the themes of isolation and loneliness and of family and found family.

I think this should have been a much longer book. There is so much to the world and I wanted it to go deeper. There are the landlockers and their pagan religions, the damplings and their world view, the revivalists, the military... I don't normally want a longer book, but that way the plot would have had more room to grow and allow for more development of the characters.

It all felt very surface level, but I was happy to float along with it.

Content Warnings