Reviews

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

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rants_n_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

4.0

rheagoveas's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective tense 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? Yes

4.0

teklalind's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

I did enjoy this book but it seems that this series was meant to be rushed. I felt like many plot points were introduced at the beginning of the novel but solved in a neat bow by the end. For the majority of the book, I felt like the main character was middling around and waiting for the ending because Novik had to set up all of the problems in the first 300 pages. It didn't feel like the ending of a trilogy, it felt like an entirely different book with characters we had sort of been introduced to before. The minor characters were easily replaced by a revolving door based on the MC's geographical location so we barely spent time with them. I think that Novik did solve her problems rather well by giving the MC a decent arc of growth but after that, many characters were simply there to support the MC whenever she needed them and then they disappeared, they were dispensable even by the third book which felt rather frustrating as the story developed but most of the characters didn't even by the end.

Again, I think Novik would benefit from an index to explain various spells or mals. She throws a lot of information into her books and assumes the reader will be able to pick apart all the information given to them which personally, I struggled with because of the high level of new information constantly introduced to us. I did enjoy the book even though it sounds like I didn't, I enjoyed the conclusion to the prophecy hanging over the MC's shoulders and the background into the historic worldbuilding. I even enjoyed the MC traveling around the world, I just wish that there was more information than the glimpses we got before moving to another location. Everything felt half-baked and rushed, I felt like there should've been another book to even out all the things Novik crammed into the third novel. Two books in the Scholomance and two in the outside world instead of this third book trying to cram the outside world into one book.