Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - The Traitor Baru Cormorant

This book ripped my heart out and shredded it and set it on fire. I loved the first third of the book and was totally captivated, found that the middle section dragged a bit at times

(I struggled a bit to keep track of all the battle-moves the different parts of the rebellion were making)

but the last hour and a half literally had me riveted and praying that what I thought was going to happen wouldn't happen.

I have never felt so sad for a character who mercilessly drowns their lover for their own personal gain!!!!!! Even though she loved her! Like... I wanted u guys to be happy :(

I saw someone say that the twist of this book is

that there is no twist, that you think Baru will find a way to make things right with the rebellion and all the other people who pledged loyalty to her and then to Tain Hu, even after her betrayal, and it just never happens! She set things in motion in the beginning and she'll be damned if she doesn't play the part she wrote for herself. I have chills just thinking about it. I loved the machinery motif throughout the story, with the 'gears of Empire' and Baru herself being full of polished gears-- I think it really helped me see how once she was going there was nothing even she could do to stop herself.

I need a physical copy to scribble all over.

Also I didn't think I'd ever read a book where

scurvy was such a recurring issue. I'm going to eat an entire lime.

I don't think I'm gonna recover from this one tbh

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hexillith's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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sersi's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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honeypunk's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

For the first 15% of the book I found it a difficult read to get through due to the authors writing style. I am not a fan of extremely long sentences strung together with commas and this appears to be something that the author used quite a lot in the beginning. In addition there were often times where I had to reread a sentence multiple times because there weren't commas in places I would expect. For example:
'Since a time before Baru could remember how to remember the market had filled the Iriad docks, the most noisy and joyous thing in the world.'
It made the experience much more difficult, and this combined with learning new fantasy terms and jargon spun me out.

However, I was really intrigued by the premise of the story, watching a character go through her country being colonised and her grapple for power. I began to enjoy the book, but halfway through this fell flat again.

I found my interest lost with the intracacies of war. The war felt like the protagonist, and Baru the side character who is watching it all come together. I am told about battles or political alliances falling apart , lists of Duke names I have no personality to match to, so I don't feel like I'm experiencing it.

Of course this is in part due to the fact Baru is hidden away, a tactical adviser as all these events happen and she hears about them via letters of via her meetings.

Unfortunately even when

the final war breaks out

I still found myself searching for more. I wanted to care about the characters, about Baru and those she surrounded herself with. This book just fell so flat for me, and the only reason I dragged through to the end was in hopes I would finally feel connected to the consequences of her actions, or the pain characters went through. But I didn't.

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hailstorm3812's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I liked it but not as much as I thought I would. It's a very interesting story and I want to see where it goes but it is also a ceaseless bummer. I almost wish they hadn't told us about

the conversation with the council and just saw Baru's actions because I had trouble buying into the relationships knowing what she will do. I did love Tain Hu though, even know what was likely to come. I was sad but I knew it would happen. Maybe that's a good thing since Baru is so vividly painted that I felt like I knew her so well.

I need to know what happens next but I know I will feel bad. Wish me luck!

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andrew_corduroy's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

This was a challenging listen, as many fantasy books are with all of their names and places. But damn if I wasn’t just hooked and felt like I needed to know what happened next.

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abbyschalupa's review

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challenging dark slow-paced

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

2.5

I struggled with this book far more than I thought. There were such great reviews, and it’s grouped with books and genres that I love. I was really hoping to have found a new favorite. I’m so disappointed that this was quite the opposite. It dragged on for an exceptionally long time. This book did not need to be as long as it is. The action truly only began happening by the last 1/4 of the book.

The first set of chapters hooked me. Baru’s childhood is raw, detailed in rich prose and the wounds are eminent there on the page. Immediately, I was rooting for her. So what happened?
Unfortunately, the writing. Everything from there on fell. While the beginning brought the lens to focus on Baru, showing her experiences and all she endured, it felt like the writing style switched. Maybe that was the intention.

However, the writing no longer gave a lens into Baru’s world. It wrote from an outsider’s view, in black and white tone, as though a script were documenting all that occurred. There became an extreme lack of detail, we are no longer shown Baru’s world but instead told about it. The color went away and all became black and white. The rest of the book read like text for socioeconomic studies, detailing who said what, and what that meant, and what Baru must now do. All told, never shown.

Everything here is detached. I no longer cared for any of the characters, or Baru herself. She skyrocketed through the ranks, in ways that felt incredibly unrealistic, becoming arrogant, ruthless, and coldhearted. Although repeatedly called a savant, she ended up putting herself into multiple bad situations that were entirely avoidable. There were several situations I saw solutions to, but this savant never saw coming, and gave stern replies to people she supposedly cared about, only to never see them again before they died. It became incredibly frustrating.

I debated quitting halfway. Instead I skipped through chunks of chapters, glad to not have tried reading through them. It felt more like dragging through socioeconomic dense text compared to reading. Far more detached telling then showing. I ended the book disappointed that with such a great start, I never could get hooked back into the story or the character again. Unfortunately, the writing took such a detached and reporter like stance that I found no possibility of drawing further into the story, caring about the characters, or getting further invested. A huge bummer for me.

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thegracefulpal's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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