Reviews with content warning for Violence - 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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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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swordrager's review

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
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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aileron's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging 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

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kingcrookback's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

This is a compliment: The last twenty percent of this book made me want to scream. The way Dickinson seeded the reveal, just enough to barely rouse suspicion at first, and the way it all started adding up, terrible but unstoppable. I sometimes felt like I was watching someone start building a cage, only to suddenly understand that they're building it around themselves. God, it was almost unbearable, so effectively constructed.

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bloodbrooxv's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

As a revenge trope truther, i LOVED this book.
The worldbuilding was thrilling and I adored all of the political intrigues, even tho i felt a bit lost with all of the names and plot threads (probably because I'm not a native speaker).
Baru was such a compelling and complex character to follow, especially towards the end. Her conflict is realistic and speaks volumes when we consider how colonialism is the main theme in this novel. The other characters were a bit flat, but I particularly liked both Tain Hu and Murie Lo.
The thing that bugs me the most about this book is probably the fact that it prefers telling you things rather than showing you, which isn't always necessarily bad. For example, even tho the other characters' motivations are clearly stated in the story, we don't really see how the consequential events play out, but rather we get to know about them through Baru.
Overall i really loved this book, the ending BROKE ME and i can't wait to read the second one.

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