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booksthatburn's review
I like the narrator for Gul's portion. This isn't the first audiobook performance I've listened to by her and I like her style. What kills it for me is the male narrator. The performer for Cavas has a voice which sounds like he came straight from working on a Trump impression to do this audiobook. It's annoying during the main narration when he's portraying Cavas's thoughts and speech. Then, it becomes even worse when any female characters speak, as he gives them grating falsettos which are only barely differentiated. Luckily, Gul narrates much more of the book than Cavas does, and if I had access to a printed edition of the book I would have switched to that as soon as he first spoke.
Setting aside the audio for a moment, I can't stand Gul. She was fine but a bit annoying, then midway through she shamed a girl for what she thought was a history of sex work but turned to actually have been rape and other abuses while a small child. Gul ended up apologizing and the only thing I liked about it is that the other person didn't accept the apology. Even if she'd been correct that it was sex work and consensual, that still would have been awful to try and shame her for it. In terms of the writing for the other girl, she was wielding that history of sexual abuse to try and say Gul wasn't ready or tough enough because she hadn't suffered enough as someone who'd "only" had her parents murdered in front of her.
The oppression olympics are noxious, I have zero emotional investment in Cavas (supposedly the love interest but at over halfway through I'm not seeing that yet, he's just a boy who's there), and I don't like Gul.
Setting aside the audio for a moment, I can't stand Gul. She was fine but a bit annoying, then midway through she shamed a girl for what she thought was a history of sex work but turned to actually have been rape and other abuses while a small child. Gul ended up apologizing and the only thing I liked about it is that the other person didn't accept the apology. Even if she'd been correct that it was sex work and consensual, that still would have been awful to try and shame her for it. In terms of the writing for the other girl, she was wielding that history of sexual abuse to try and say Gul wasn't ready or tough enough because she hadn't suffered enough as someone who'd "only" had her parents murdered in front of her.
The oppression olympics are noxious, I have zero emotional investment in Cavas (supposedly the love interest but at over halfway through I'm not seeing that yet, he's just a boy who's there), and I don't like Gul.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Grief, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Trafficking, Blood, Violence, Xenophobia, Bullying, Gore, Death of parent, and Death
Minor: Sexual content, Child abuse, Cursing, Sexual assault, Excrement, War, Slavery, Terminal illness, Torture, and Child death
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