Reviews

In the Wake of Gods by Christopher Monteagle

2ndchance_chad's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

Officially 4.5 out of 5 Stars

I received an eARC copy of In the Wake of Gods

I'll go ahead and say that I didn't have any true expectations going into this book but was pleasantly surprised on how well I enjoyed it. I thought the character development was very well done. It was a good balance with so many introduced throughout the story. I think the overall story was different enough within the Fantasy genre to be unique and not feel like the same old story being told. I really enjoyed some of the twists, turns and reveals along the way. The ending was spot on and I would officially give this 4.5 out of 5 if that was capable. I don't give very many 5 star ratings. I'd probably say the only thing that really held that half star back for me was I still got a little confused on the timeline a bit here and there. I know the second book is already completed and I hope to get my hands on it as I am willing to bet there will still be much more to learn about this world and it's characters, perhaps even more of the past that I'm a little fuzzy on.


****Spoilers*****

Without just straight giving the story away in total spoiler fashion, I will say I loved the way the relationships between so many characters developed and evolved throughout this book. I had some true surprised at some key revealing moments and even more speculations coming out of this book.

I am looking forward to continuing this trilogy in the future!

moirin's review against another edition

Go to review page

3.0

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-arc of this book! My opinions are my own.

This is the story of Elyn and Vale: two young women with a totally different life. Elyn lives a quiet life alone with her father in a small town, Vale is the daughter of a God and commander in his army. When she attacks the town where Elyn lives, both of them are in for a big surprise: they look exactly alike.

I was intrigued by this and couldn't wait to find out why!
While I liked the eventual outcome of the story, the story itself lacked a lot of background and character development. I was left with a lot of questions of why things happened as they did and why people acted the way they did. Besides that, the timeline of when things happen is just off. It's like different parts of the story were written independently of each other and had to be linked together later, which unfortunately didn't go very well.

Still I wouldn't say this is a bad story. I thought the idea was original and I've enjoyed reading it, curious to find out what was going to happen. I loved the connection between Elyn and Vale.
But unfortunately the writing style just wasn't for me.

eleanorefiore's review

Go to review page

slow-paced

1.0

This book wasn't my cup of tea, but what brought the rating down was the intolerable amount of misogyny and bias in the text. I left this book throughly disgusted and angry. I'm going to go into a couple of examples. This might be a little disjointed, but I will show excerpts from the novel if anyone is interested.

"Slut", "bitch", and "whore"  are used freely when talking about women. Almost every man used one of these words to talk about a women or women as a whole. And no one pushes back against it – not even the two women who were the main characters.

— At one point a barkeep is flirty with Elyn while bringing her more drinks and then she goes over to the bar and flirts back. That's completely fine! But then he has the audacity to point to a group of women and say:

"Good," he whispered in a conspiring tone. "I'd hate to see you grow up like them." He jerked his head toward a group of three middle-aged women behind him, all of them laughing a little too loud and acting a little too friendly with another group of men sitting at the same table. The women were dressed in a vulgar attempt to reveal certain body parts, as if this would compensate for their lost youth. and the similarly aging men were looking at them with an undisguised, selfish lust.
In the Wake of Gods, page 154

Notice how this paragraph treats men and women differently. The women are demonized for wanting to sleep with men and flirting with them (the same thing the MC is doing right now?).

And the sentence "The women were dressed in a vulgar attempt to reveal certain body parts, as if this would compensate for their lost youth" makes me want to throw up. It's so goddamn ugly.

Another quote:

"You just want to get back to some whores," Walt said with a smile. Edward offered a dignified shrug.

"A man has his needs, and they certainly ain't filled by sleeping on frozen rock every night!"

"Well, it's been so long for me that a frozen rock is starting to look pretty good."

Both men laughed at the collegial sharing of desire that was a hallmark of male friendship.
In the Wake of Gods, page 183/184

A man wants to sleep with a woman and uses degrading descriptors? He's showing a collegial hallmark of male friendship.

A woman wants to sleep with a man who's also interested? She's a whore and trying to compensate for her youth.

The same text that condones this kind of dehumanizing talk also condemns women for agreeing to have sex with the men who...want...to have sex? If the men are interested and so are the women, then why are the women being treated like shit?

I don't mind reading about sexism in my books, but I DO mind when it's just a natural part of the text that isn't challenged (even by the WOMEN who lead the story).

Additional Notes:
Uses "Strange, almond-shaped eyes" to describe an East Asian-coded female character.

Elyn has no personality, drive, or interests. She's just there to react, and be told what to do by men and various side characters. In one scene, she'll said something akin to "I'm done keeping secrets. I don't want to anymore and I won't." and then she won't do a damn thing about it until prompted. Her best friend is exactly the same.

Elyn's "best friend" has no purpose. In our first introduction, Elyn introduces her as being soooo pretty...much prettier than me :( and she wishes she got the same attention. And nothing else. And then she's written out of the novel and appears at the end and does absolutely nothing.

Elyn acts like they're so close . . . but she hasn't been there the whole novel? And when she was there, Elyn did nothing but push her away, dismiss her, or ignore her. So I don't buy it.

Elyn gets SA-ed multiple times and it's pushed aside for no reason. The encounters border on mild and graphic depending on your line in the sand. Personally, it made me physically uncomfortable and ill to read. The first time it happens, her "friend" sees it and when Jason wants to step up to defend Elyn, she gives Elyn a "knowing look" and says not to worry about it.

What the actual hell was this supposed to convey? Because what I saw was that her friend doesn't give a fuck about her wellbeing, and that SA should be brushed under the rug? The book doesn't ever give an explanation as to why Elyn doesn't do anything about it, or why she doesn't defend herself, or why her friend dismissed it and then acted like they agreed on it.

For all the above reasons, I'm not finishing the series and I've banned this author and this publishing house form my reading list.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
More...