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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
yvonne_cl's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Murder, Physical abuse, Slavery, Terminal illness, Trafficking, and Violence
Moderate: Death of parent, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, and Animal cruelty
Minor: Suicide
decklededgess's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
trigger warnings: death of parents, torture, bigotry, abuse, sexual assault, slavery, sex work, misogyny, violent animal attack
I really enjoyed this book. I loved the cross of mythology and fictionalized fantasy throughout and the use of multiple South Asian languages to create the worldbuilding. I was a bit underwhelmed by the chosen one plot but not so much that it was boring. I have yet to read enough brown chosen one tropes before they get tiresome. I think this book would have been far more enjoyable had the narrator been able to pronounce literally ANY of the non English words INCLUDING the names. She could do only the basic ones and even then they sounded a little off. Publishers if you could be so kind as to find narrators who KNOW PRONUNCIATIONS that would be great. Especially when these books are SET abroad. South Asian American stories are different. American accents are part of diaspora. They are not part of indigenous South Asian stories.
I really enjoyed this book. I loved the cross of mythology and fictionalized fantasy throughout and the use of multiple South Asian languages to create the worldbuilding. I was a bit underwhelmed by the chosen one plot but not so much that it was boring. I have yet to read enough brown chosen one tropes before they get tiresome. I think this book would have been far more enjoyable had the narrator been able to pronounce literally ANY of the non English words INCLUDING the names. She could do only the basic ones and even then they sounded a little off. Publishers if you could be so kind as to find narrators who KNOW PRONUNCIATIONS that would be great. Especially when these books are SET abroad. South Asian American stories are different. American accents are part of diaspora. They are not part of indigenous South Asian stories.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Hate crime, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Slavery, Torture, Trafficking, Vomit, and Violence
readswithcocktails's review
adventurous
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I would 100% recommend this book to a seventh/eighth grader who is into fantasy novels! It is a little slow in the beginning because of all of the world building (basically, it suffers from what the first book in many fantasy trilogies suffer from). I don't know if I loved the two POV structure.
For me, this book is somewhere in the 3-4 range , but I'm rounding it up to 4 because most of the things I didn't enjoy about it were because I'm an adult reading a YA novel and <sigh> teens are exhausting. But this book isn't for me, and I can think of a number of 6-9th graders in my life who would enjoy it.
For me, this book is somewhere in the 3-4 range , but I'm rounding it up to 4 because most of the things I didn't enjoy about it were because I'm an adult reading a YA novel and <sigh> teens are exhausting. But this book isn't for me, and I can think of a number of 6-9th graders in my life who would enjoy it.
Content Warnings
Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, and Trafficking
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