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dharmaavocado's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.0
A frustratingly uneven book. Erik's sections are full of exposition and telling where big things happen with no buildup and no consequences. Erik himself is underdeveloped with a collection of traits that never coheres into a consistent characterization, and despite Tilahun's insistence Erik is a leader I saw very little evidence for that.
Lil's sections are much more interesting and so obviously better written than I'm tempted to put on a tinfoil hat and claim they were written by a different author. Zebub is wonderfully surreal and weird enough that I was able to look past the uneven worldbuilding. Lil is more developed than Erik, and her plot has real, escalating stakes. If this book just focused on her I would be giving it at least one more star.
The book as a whole suffers from uneven pacing and having way, way too many point of views, the majority of which offer no new insight or information and seem to exist to just add to the page count. Tilahun needed a much stronger editor to tighten up the plot and cut extraneous content.
Also Tilahun's descriptions can be outright bananas. "He smiled like the devil getting a handjob." WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN
Lil's sections are much more interesting and so obviously better written than I'm tempted to put on a tinfoil hat and claim they were written by a different author. Zebub is wonderfully surreal and weird enough that I was able to look past the uneven worldbuilding. Lil is more developed than Erik, and her plot has real, escalating stakes. If this book just focused on her I would be giving it at least one more star.
The book as a whole suffers from uneven pacing and having way, way too many point of views, the majority of which offer no new insight or information and seem to exist to just add to the page count. Tilahun needed a much stronger editor to tighten up the plot and cut extraneous content.
Also Tilahun's descriptions can be outright bananas. "He smiled like the devil getting a handjob." WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN
lanid's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Blood, Torture, and Violence
itsneilcochrane's review against another edition
Made it to page 80 and could go no farther. Unfortunately didn't gel with the writing style and no character stood out enough to draw me in. Some excellent hints of world-building.
infinitefreetime's review against another edition
2.0
DNF after 100 pages or so. Promising story but comma splices and other errors on literally every page. Very poorly edited; the mistakes in this book should have been fixable.
mxsunny's review against another edition
5.0
LOVED this book! Find me in person and I'll tell you all about why.
readalert's review against another edition
5.0
I loved this book so much! The world is so unique and exciting, it draws you in so much. So many wonderful characters, with a great amount of diversity! Definitely one of my favorite books I've ever read!
indalauryn's review against another edition
5.0
As usual, I'll put a more detailed review on my blog but for now I'll say this: I can't wait until we get the film trilogy, mini-series, or TV show we deserve out of this.
coolcurrybooks's review against another edition
4.0
The Root is an intriguing blend of urban and portal fantasy with a wonderfully diverse cast.
Erik’s a former teen star living in San Francisco. He thought his life was complicated enough, but now he’s finding out that he’s Blooded – descended from gods and gifted with powers he doesn’t understand. He also finds himself in the middle of a secret battle, between Blooded and a government organization kidnapping them and trading them off to an alternate dimension.
Lil’s an apprentice archivist in said alternate dimension, where humans are subservient to demonic beings. Yet a strange and powerful darkness is taking over her city, and the rulers are turning to the human archivists to look for answers. Lil’s life will soon become a tightrope walk between her demonic rulers and her power hungry fellow archivists.
The Root has some of the usual urban fantasy tropes, but the portal fantasy aspect and the alternate world really helped it feel fresh. I loved the inventiveness of the demonic world! Organic buildings and insect-like transportation… It actually reminded me a bit of the work of Max Gladstone, which is high praise indeed.
Erik is eighteen years old, and I think Lil is around the same age. While reading it, I didn’t think of The Root as being YA, but it might make for a good cross over. It just didn’t fit into the structure or tropes I typically expect from YA literature. I did like that Erik’s parents were actually alive, present, and played a role in the narrative. It’s a more interesting decision than having them be mysteriously dead or vanished. Plus, those are already over used in fantasy fiction.
Most of the cast are people of color and queer characters. Erik’s gay and his career dissolved due to a scandal involving his ex-boyfriend. We don’t learn the details until later into the book, and it made for a nice personal mystery. I think Lil may be bisexual? She hasn’t had any confirmed romantic interest of yet. The supporting cast includes plenty of other queer characters, including a trans boy and a f/f couple. If you’re looking for inclusive urban fantasy, The Root would be a good bet.
However, I do think The Root would have benefited from narrowing its use of POVs. Practically every significant character has at least one POV section. It’s a bit overwhelming at times. Off the top of my head, I can remember at least fourteen, but there’s probably some I’m missing. I felt like so many POV sections cluttered the narrative.
The only other criticism I have regarding structure is that I expected more out of the climax. I guess I assumed that Lil and Erik’s sections would intertwine by then? It looks like that’s not going to happen until the next book. Other than those two criticisms, I found The Root to be generally well executed, especially for a debut novel. It’s a strong start, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.
Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
Erik’s a former teen star living in San Francisco. He thought his life was complicated enough, but now he’s finding out that he’s Blooded – descended from gods and gifted with powers he doesn’t understand. He also finds himself in the middle of a secret battle, between Blooded and a government organization kidnapping them and trading them off to an alternate dimension.
Lil’s an apprentice archivist in said alternate dimension, where humans are subservient to demonic beings. Yet a strange and powerful darkness is taking over her city, and the rulers are turning to the human archivists to look for answers. Lil’s life will soon become a tightrope walk between her demonic rulers and her power hungry fellow archivists.
The Root has some of the usual urban fantasy tropes, but the portal fantasy aspect and the alternate world really helped it feel fresh. I loved the inventiveness of the demonic world! Organic buildings and insect-like transportation… It actually reminded me a bit of the work of Max Gladstone, which is high praise indeed.
Erik is eighteen years old, and I think Lil is around the same age. While reading it, I didn’t think of The Root as being YA, but it might make for a good cross over. It just didn’t fit into the structure or tropes I typically expect from YA literature. I did like that Erik’s parents were actually alive, present, and played a role in the narrative. It’s a more interesting decision than having them be mysteriously dead or vanished. Plus, those are already over used in fantasy fiction.
Most of the cast are people of color and queer characters. Erik’s gay and his career dissolved due to a scandal involving his ex-boyfriend. We don’t learn the details until later into the book, and it made for a nice personal mystery. I think Lil may be bisexual? She hasn’t had any confirmed romantic interest of yet. The supporting cast includes plenty of other queer characters, including a trans boy and a f/f couple. If you’re looking for inclusive urban fantasy, The Root would be a good bet.
However, I do think The Root would have benefited from narrowing its use of POVs. Practically every significant character has at least one POV section. It’s a bit overwhelming at times. Off the top of my head, I can remember at least fourteen, but there’s probably some I’m missing. I felt like so many POV sections cluttered the narrative.
The only other criticism I have regarding structure is that I expected more out of the climax. I guess I assumed that Lil and Erik’s sections would intertwine by then? It looks like that’s not going to happen until the next book. Other than those two criticisms, I found The Root to be generally well executed, especially for a debut novel. It’s a strong start, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.
Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
leutheuser's review against another edition
2.0
DNF at 20%
Too many POV characters and the story moved forward at a crawl. You barely get a feel for a character before the POV switches to a new one. The writing is okay, functional though clumsy at times. The world building confused me rather than enthralled me, which is too bad because it has some creative ideas. Maybe because the reader is thrown into a new world before we even get a strong grounding in the first one.
I want to like this book. There's a lot going on. I love the diverse set of characters (YES!) and basic world building concepts. The actual story telling just didn't grab me. Before giving up, I thumbed through the rest of the book and skimmed here and there to see if I wanted to hang in there, and I saw more and more new POV characters. TOO MANY!
Too many POV characters and the story moved forward at a crawl. You barely get a feel for a character before the POV switches to a new one. The writing is okay, functional though clumsy at times. The world building confused me rather than enthralled me, which is too bad because it has some creative ideas. Maybe because the reader is thrown into a new world before we even get a strong grounding in the first one.
I want to like this book. There's a lot going on. I love the diverse set of characters (YES!) and basic world building concepts. The actual story telling just didn't grab me. Before giving up, I thumbed through the rest of the book and skimmed here and there to see if I wanted to hang in there, and I saw more and more new POV characters. TOO MANY!
cyanide_latte's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
I gotta say, I wasn't sure what to expect going into this, and it didn't hook me right away, but once it did, it was totally worth it! I think for once I'm glad that I took longer to read through a book. In addition to switching between two different dimensional settings, we have multiple perspective switches within each dimension, and I think the fact it took me close to two months to read through this benefited that. It might have been a bit too much to really absorb all at once if I'd tried reading through it faster than I did.
Presently, I'm not going to add any more to this review, because I feel like anything I might cover in here is going to be spoilers. The summary given for the book is a very excellent groundwork to have going into it, and I think you should be flying blind past that point. Otherwise it might overwhelm most readers before they even get started. But I do promise you, this book is 100% worth it!
Presently, I'm not going to add any more to this review, because I feel like anything I might cover in here is going to be spoilers. The summary given for the book is a very excellent groundwork to have going into it, and I think you should be flying blind past that point. Otherwise it might overwhelm most readers before they even get started. But I do promise you, this book is 100% worth it!